The Piccadilly Puzzle by Fergus Hume

In the brilliant comedies of Wycherley, Moliere, Goldini, and Lope de Vega the betrayed husband is always made the scapegoat for the sins of the lovers, and all the sympathies of the dramatists are with the pretty wife and the gay deceiver. This was the case with poor Sir Rupert, for though his friends pitied him heartily for the manner in which his wife had behaved, yet they also laughed at him for the way in which he had allowed Calliston to carry on the intrigue under his very nose. Sir Rupert thought Calliston's visits were to his ward, but in reality she was merely used as a stalking-horse to conceal the designs of the young man on Lady Balscombe. When the blow came and the lady eloped, no one was surprised except the unsuspecting husband, who, having raised his wife from an obscure position to a brilliant one, and given her all she could wish for, never dreamt for a moment she would reward him in so base a manner.

Sir Rupert, however, had no idea of playing the complacent husband in this case, and at once proceeded to take steps for a divorce. The difficulty was to serve the guilty pair with citations, for as the yacht had gone to the Azores there was no chance of doing so until she returned to England, or until she touched at some civilized port easy to be reached by the long arm of the law.