And then there was that terrible question about the child. Mrs. Trevelyan had said a dozen times to her sister that her husband could not take the boy away from her. Nora, however, had never assented to this, partly from a conviction of her own ignorance, not knowing what might be the power of a husband in such a matter, and partly thinking that any argument would be good and fair by which she could induce her sister to avoid a catastrophe so terrible as that which was now threatened.
“I suppose he could take him, if he chose,” she said at last.
“I don’t believe he is wicked like that,” said Mrs. Trevelyan. “He would not wish to kill me.”
“But he will say that he loves baby as well as you do.”
“He will never take my child from me. He could never be so bad as that.”
“And you will never be so bad as to leave him,” said Nora after a pause. “I will not believe that it can come to that. You know that he is good at heart—that nobody on earth loves you as he does.”
So they went on for two days, and on the evening of the second day there came a letter from Trevelyan to his wife. They had neither of them seen him, although he had been in and out of the house. And on the afternoon of the Sunday a new grievance, a very terrible grievance, was added to those which Mrs. Trevelyan was made to bear. Her husband had told one of the servants in the house that Colonel Osborne was not to be admitted. And the servant to whom he had given this order was the—cook. There is no reason why a cook should be less trustworthy in such a matter than any other servant; and in Mr. Trevelyan’s household there was a reason why she should be more so—as she, and she alone, was what we generally call an old family domestic. She had lived with her master’s mother, and had known her master when he was a boy. Looking about him, therefore, for someone in his house to whom he could speak—feeling that he was bound to convey the order through some medium—he called to him the ancient cook, and imparted to her so much of his trouble as was necessary to make the order intelligible. This he did with various ill-worded assurances to Mrs. Prodgers that there really was nothing amiss. But when Mrs. Trevelyan heard what had been done—which she did from Mrs. Prodgers herself, Mrs. Prodgers having been desired by her master to make the communication—she declared to her sister that everything was now over. She could never again live with a husband who had disgraced his wife by desiring her own cook to keep a guard upon her. Had the footman been instructed not to admit Colonel Osborne, there would have been in such instruction some apparent adherence to the recognised usages of society. If you do not desire either your friend or your enemy to be received into your house, you communicate your desire to the person who has charge of the door. But the cook!
“And now, Nora, if it were you, do you mean to say that you would remain with him?” asked Mrs. Trevelyan.
Nora simply replied that anything under any circumstances would be better than a separation.
On the morning of the third day there came the following letter:—
Wednesday, June 1, 12 midnight.
Dearest Emily,
You will readily believe me when I say that I never in my life was so wretched as I have been during the last two days. That you and I should be in the same house together and not able to speak to each other is in itself a misery, but this is terribly enhanced by the dread lest this state of things should be made to continue.
I want you to understand that I do not in the least suspect you of having as yet done anything wrong—or having even said anything injurious either to my position as your husband, or to your position as my wife. But I cannot but perceive that you are allowing yourself to be entrapped into an intimacy with Colonel Osborne which if it be not checked, will be destructive to my happiness and your own. After what had passed before, you cannot have thought it right to receive letters from him which I was not to see, or to write letters to him of which I was not to know the contents. It must be manifest to you that such conduct on your part is wrong as judged by any of the rules by which a wife’s conduct can be measured. And yet you have refused even to say that this shall be discontinued! I need hardly explain to you that if you persist in this refusal you and I cannot continue to live together as man and wife. All my hopes and prospects in life will be blighted by such a separation. I have not as yet been able to think what I should do in such wretched circumstances. And for you, as also for Nora, such a catastrophe would be most lamentable. Do, therefore, think of it well, and
