So he sat down, and took up his pen, and began to cudgel his brain about the scientific article.

He was intent on raising a dispute with some learned pundit about the waves of sound,--but he could think of no other sound than that of the light steps of Colonel Osborne as he had gone up-stairs.

He put down his pen, and clenched his fist, and allowed a black frown to settle upon his brow.

What right had the man to come there, unasked by him, and disturb his happiness?
And then this poor wife of his, who knew so little of English life, who had lived in the Mandarin Islands almost since she had been a child, who had lived in one colony or another almost since she had been born, who had had so few of those advantages for which he should have looked in marrying a wife, how was the poor girl to conduct herself properly when subjected to the arts and practised villanies of this viper?
And yet the poor girl was so stiff in her temper, had picked up such a trick of obstinacy in those tropical regions, that Louis Trevelyan felt that he did not know how to manage her.

He too had heard how Jane Marriott had been carried off to Naples after she had become Mrs.Poole.Must he too carry off his wife to Naples in order to place her out of the reach of this hyena?
It was terrible to him to think that he must pack up everything and run away from such a one as Colonel Osborne.