nly
declared that she would continue to do so. He had sent her away into
the most remote retirement he could find for her; but the post was
open to her. He had heard much of Mrs. Stanbury, and of Priscilla,
from his friend Hugh, and thoroughly believed that his wife was in
respectable hands. But what was to prevent Colonel Osborne from
going after her, if he chose to do so? And if he did so choose,
Mrs. Stanbury could not prevent their meeting. He was racked with
jealousy, and yet he did not cease to declare to himself that he knew
his wife too well to believe that she would sin. He could not rid
himself of his jealousy, but he tried with all his might to make the
man whom he hated the object of it, rather than the woman whom he
loved.

He hated Colonel Osborne with all his heart. It was a regret to him
that the days of duelling were over, so that he could not shoot the
man. And yet, had duelling been possible to him, Colonel Osborne had
done nothing that would have justified him in calling his enemy out,
or would even have enabled him to do so with any chance of inducing
his enemy to fight. Circumstances, he thought, were cruel to him
beyond compare, in that he should have been made to suffer so great
torment without having any of the satisfaction of revenge. Even Lady
Milborough, with all her horror as to the Colonel, could not tell
him that the Colonel was amenable to any punishment. He was advised
that he must take his wife away and live at Naples because of this
man,--that he must banish himself entirely if he chose to repossess
himself of his wife and child;--and yet nothing could be done to
the unprincipled rascal by whom all his wrongs and sufferings were
occasioned! Thinking it very possible that Colonel Osborne would
follow his wife, he had a watch set upon the Colonel. He had found a
retired policeman,--a most discreet man, as he was assured,--who, for
a consideration, undertook the management of interesting jobs of this
kind. The man was one Bozzle, who had not lived without a certain
reputation in the police courts. In these days of his madness,
therefore, he took Mr. Bozzle into his pay; and after a while he got
a letter from Bozzle with the Exeter post-mark. Colonel Osborne had
left London with a ticket for Lessboro'. Bozzle also had taken a
place by the same train for that small town. The letter was written
in the railway carriage, and, as Bozzle explained, would be posted by
him as he passed through E