thorough conviction that he had earned
his bread on that day.

The letter to Z. A. did not give all these particulars, but it
did explain that Colonel Osborne had gone off, apparently, to
Cockchaffington, and that he,--Bozzle,--had himself visited Nuncombe
Putney. "The hawk hasn't been nigh the dovecot as yet," said Mr.
Bozzle in his letter, meaning to be both mysterious and facetious.

It would be difficult to say whether the wit or the mystery disgusted
Trevelyan the most. He had felt that he was defiling himself with
dirt when he first went to Mr. Bozzle. He knew that he was having
recourse to means that were base and low,--which could not be other
than base or low, let the circumstances be what they might. But Mr.
Bozzle's conversation had not been quite so bad as Mr. Bozzle's
letters; as it may have been that Mr. Bozzle's successful activity
was more insupportable than his futile attempts. But, nevertheless,
something must be done. It could not be that Colonel Osborne should
have gone down to the close neighbourhood of Nuncombe Putney without
the intention of seeing the lady whom his obtrusive pertinacity had
driven to that seclusion. It was terrible to Trevelyan that Colonel
Osborne should be there, and not the less terrible because such a one
as Mr. Bozzle was watching the Colonel on his behalf. Should he go to
Nuncombe Putney himself? And if so, when he got to Nuncombe Putney
what should he do there? At last, in his suspense and his grief, he
resolved that he would tell the whole to Hugh Stanbury.

"Do you mean," said Hugh, "that you have put a policeman on his
track?"

"The man was a policeman once."

"What we call a private detective. I can't say I think you were
right."

"But you see that it was necessary," said Trevelyan.

"I can't say that it was necessary. To speak out, I can't understand
that a wife should be worth watching who requires watching."

"Is a man to do nothing then? And even now it is not my wife whom I
doubt."

"As for Colonel Osborne, if he chooses to go to Lessboro', why
shouldn't he? Nothing that you can do, or that Bozzle can do, can
prevent him. He has a perfect right to go to Lessboro'."

"But he has not a right to go to my wife."

"And if your wife refuses to see him; or having seen him,--for a man
may force his way in anywhere with a little trouble,--if she sends
him away with a flea in his ear, as I believe she would--"

"She is so frightfully indiscreet."

"I don'