And, as far as he could understand, she would not have been so banished had she consented to say that she would give up her acquaintance with him.

In such circumstances as these was it possible that he should do nothing?
Various ideas ran through his head.

He began to think that if Trevelyan were out of the way, he might,--might perhaps be almost tempted to make this woman his wife.
She was so nice that he almost thought that he might be rash enough for that, although he knew well the satisfaction of being a bachelor; but as the thought suggested itself to him, he was well aware that he was thinking of a thing quite distant from him.

The reader is not to suppose that Colonel Osborne meditated any making-away with the husband.

Our Colonel was certainly not the man for a murder.