"Then say nothing about it. Let her write a letter to me proposing to come,—and she shall come."
"Very well. So far I understand. And now what about Colonel Osborne? You don't want me to quarrel with him I suppose?"
"I should like to keep that for myself," said Trevelyan, grimly.
"If you will take my advice you will not trouble yourself about him," said Stanbury. "But as far as I am concerned, I am not to meddle or make with him? Of course," continued Stanbury, after a pause, "if I find that he is intruding himself in my mother's house, I shall tell him that he must not come there."
"But if you find him installed in your mother's house as a visitor,—how 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."