Colonel Osborne in a manner that was not compatible with that wife-like indifference which he regarded as her duty.  Why had she written to him and received letters from him when her husband had plainly told her that any such communication was objectionable?  She had done so, and as far as Trevelyan could remember her words, had plainly 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 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 wrong 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 Exeter.  A further communication should be made by the next day’s post, in a letter which Mr Bozzle proposed to address to Z. A., Post-office, Waterloo Place.