There was that little slur on his good name to which allusion has been made; but those who knew Colonel Osborne best were generally willing to declare that no harm was intended, and that the evils which arose were always to be attributed to mistaken jealousy.

He had, his friends said, a free and pleasant way with women which women like,--a pleasant way of free friendship; that there was no more, and that the harm which had come had always come from false suspicion.

But there were certain ladies about the town,--good, motherly, discreet women,--who hated the name of Colonel Osborne, who would not admit him within their doors, who would not bow to him in other people's houses, who would always speak of him as a serpent, a hyena, a kite, or a shark.

Old Lady Milborough was one of these, a daughter of a friend of hers having once admitted the serpent to her intimacy.
"Augustus Poole was wise enough to take his wife abroad," said old Lady Milborough, discussing about this time with a gossip of hers the danger of Mrs.Trevelyan's position, "or there would have been a break-up there; and yet there never was a better girl in the world than Jane Marriott." The reader may be quite certain that Colonel Osborne had no premeditated evil intention when he allowed himself to become the intimate friend of his old friend's daughter.

There was nothing fiendish in his nature.