then?"

"I do not regard that as possible."

"I don't mean living there," said Trevelyan, "but coming backwards
and forwards;--going on in habits of intimacy with,--with--?" His
voice trembled so as he asked these questions, that he could not
pronounce the word which was to complete them.

"With Mrs. Trevelyan, you mean."

"Yes; with my wife. I don't say that it is so; but it may be so. You
will be bound to tell me the truth."

"I will certainly tell you the truth."

"And the whole truth."

"Yes; the whole truth."

"Should it be so I will never see her again,--never. And as for
him;--but never mind." Then there was another short period of
silence, during which Stanbury smoked his pipe and sipped his whisky
toddy. "You must see," continued Trevelyan, "that it is absolutely
necessary that I should do something. It is all very well for you to
say that you do not like detectives. Neither do I like them. But what
was I to do? When you condemn me you hardly realise the difficulties
of my position."

"It is the deuce of a nuisance certainly," said Stanbury, through the
cloud of smoke,--thinking now not at all of Mrs. Trevelyan, but of
Mrs. Trevelyan's sister.

"It makes a man almost feel that he had better not marry at all,"
said Trevelyan.

"I don't see that. Of course there may come troubles. The tiles may
fall on your head, you know, as you walk through the streets. As far
as I can see, women go straight enough nineteen times out of twenty.
But they don't like being,--what I call looked after."

"And did I look after my wife more than I ought?"

"I don't mean that; but if I were married,--which I never shall be,
for I shall never attain to the respectability of a fixed income,--I
fancy I shouldn't look after my wife at all. It seems to me that
women hate to be told about their duties."

"But if you saw your wife, quite innocently, falling into an improper
intimacy,--taking up with people she ought not to know,--doing that
in ignorance, which could not but compromise yourself;--wouldn't you
speak a word then?"

"Oh! I might just say, in an off-hand way, that Jones was a rascal,
or a liar, or a fool, or anything of that sort. But I would never
caution her against Jones. By George, I believe a woman can stand
anything better than that."

"You have never tried it, my friend."

"And I don't suppose I ever shall. As for me, I believe Aunt Stanbury
was right when she said that I was a radical vagabond. I d