Not one must expect a man to be faithful to her, were she wife or mistress, he had said.

So starting heavily handicapped in the role of his secret and unacknowledged wife, Halcyone would stand a very poor chance of happiness.

Cheiron pictured things--John Derringham flattered and courted by the world and surrounded by adoring woman, while Halcyone sat at home in some quiet corner and received the scraps of his attentions that were left.
No! decidedly he would have no hand in aiding the sorry affair.
So he used his influence and even a little cunning in preventing Halcyone from writing to her lover.

He was too ill yet to be troubled, and she must wait until he should send some message to her.
"You do not want Mrs.Cricklander to read your letter, child," he said, when she timidly suggested one day that it would seem kinder if she wrote to say she was concerned at the accident to her old friend .-- The sad comedy was still kept up between them .-- And Halcyone had stiffened.
No, indeed! not that! She was woman enough in spite of the ennobling and broadening effects of her knowledge of nature, to feel the stab of jealous pain, though she had resolutely crushed from her thoughts the insinuation she had read of in the first notice of the disaster--about Mrs.Cricklander's interest in her lover.

Her pride took fire.