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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Phineas Redux, by Anthony Trollope
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Phineas Redux
+
+
+Author: Anthony Trollope
+
+
+
+Release Date: June 21, 2006  [eBook #18640]
+This revision posted April 6, 2014
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PHINEAS REDUX***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.
+The original illustrations were generously provided by
+Internet Archive (https://archive.org).
+
+
+
+Editorial Note:
+
+      _Phineas Redux_ was published first in serial form in the
+      _Graphic: An Illustrated Weekly Newspaper_ from July, 1873,
+      to January, 1874, and then in book form by Chapman and Hall
+      in 1874.
+
+      The _Graphic_ version contained 26 illustrations by Frank
+      (Francis Montague) Holl (1845-1888). Twenty-four of those
+      were published in the Chapman and Hall first edition and are
+      included in this e-book. They can be seen by viewing the
+      HTML version of this file. See 18640-h.htm or 18640-h.zip:
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18640/18640-h/18640-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18640/18640-h.zip)
+
+      Images of the original illustrations are available through
+      Internet Archive. See
+      https://archive.org/details/phineasredux00trolrich
+
+
+
+
+
+PHINEAS REDUX
+
+by
+
+ANTHONY TROLLOPE
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+   VOLUME I
+
+            I. TEMPTATION
+           II. HARRINGTON HALL
+          III. GERARD MAULE
+           IV. TANKERVILLE
+            V. MR. DAUBENY'S GREAT MOVE
+           VI. PHINEAS AND HIS OLD FRIENDS
+          VII. COMING HOME FROM HUNTING
+         VIII. THE ADDRESS
+           IX. THE DEBATE
+            X. THE DESERTED HUSBAND
+           XI. THE TRUANT WIFE
+          XII. KÖNIGSTEIN
+         XIII. "I HAVE GOT THE SEAT"
+          XIV. TRUMPETON WOOD
+           XV. "HOW WELL YOU KNEW!"
+          XVI. COPPERHOUSE CROSS AND BROUGHTON SPINNIES
+         XVII. MADAME GOESLER'S STORY
+        XVIII. SPOONER OF SPOON HALL
+          XIX. SOMETHING OUT OF THE WAY
+           XX. PHINEAS AGAIN IN LONDON
+          XXI. MR. MAULE, SENIOR
+         XXII. "PURITY OF MORALS, FINN"
+        XXIII. MACPHERSON'S HOTEL
+         XXIV. MADAME GOESLER IS SENT FOR
+          XXV. "I WOULD DO IT NOW"
+         XXVI. THE DUKE'S WILL
+        XXVII. AN EDITOR'S WRATH
+       XXVIII. THE FIRST THUNDERBOLT
+         XXIX. THE SPOONER CORRESPONDENCE
+          XXX. REGRETS
+         XXXI. THE DUKE AND DUCHESS IN TOWN
+        XXXII. THE WORLD BECOMES COLD
+       XXXIII. THE TWO GLADIATORS
+        XXXIV. THE UNIVERSE
+         XXXV. POLITICAL VENOM
+        XXXVI. SEVENTY-TWO
+       XXXVII. THE CONSPIRACY
+      XXXVIII. ONCE AGAIN IN PORTMAN SQUARE
+        XXXIX. CAGLIOSTRO
+           XL. THE PRIME MINISTER IS HARD PRESSED
+
+   VOLUME II
+
+          XLI. "I HOPE I'M NOT DISTRUSTED"
+         XLII. BOULOGNE
+        XLIII. THE SECOND THUNDERBOLT
+         XLIV. THE BROWBOROUGH TRIAL
+          XLV. SOME PASSAGES IN THE LIFE OF MR. EMILIUS
+         XLVI. THE QUARREL
+        XLVII. WHAT CAME OF THE QUARREL
+       XLVIII. MR. MAULE'S ATTEMPT
+         XLIX. SHOWING WHAT MRS. BUNCE SAID TO THE POLICEMAN
+            L. WHAT THE LORDS AND COMMONS SAID ABOUT THE MURDER
+           LI. "YOU THINK IT SHAMEFUL"
+          LII. MR. KENNEDY'S WILL
+         LIII. NONE BUT THE BRAVE DESERVE THE FAIR
+          LIV. THE DUCHESS TAKES COUNSEL
+           LV. PHINEAS IN PRISON
+          LVI. THE MEAGER FAMILY
+         LVII. THE BEGINNING OF THE SEARCH FOR THE KEY AND THE COAT
+        LVIII. THE TWO DUKES
+          LIX. MRS. BONTEEN
+           LX. TWO DAYS BEFORE THE TRIAL
+          LXI. THE BEGINNING OF THE TRIAL
+         LXII. LORD FAWN'S EVIDENCE
+        LXIII. MR. CHAFFANBRASS FOR THE DEFENCE
+         LXIV. CONFUSION IN THE COURT
+          LXV. "I HATE HER!"
+         LXVI. THE FOREIGN BLUDGEON
+        LXVII. THE VERDICT
+       LXVIII. PHINEAS AFTER THE TRIAL
+         LXIX. THE DUKE'S FIRST COUSIN
+          LXX. "I WILL NOT GO TO LOUGHLINTER"
+         LXXI. PHINEAS FINN IS RE-ELECTED
+        LXXII. THE END OF THE STORY OF MR. EMILIUS AND LADY EUSTACE
+       LXXIII. PHINEAS FINN RETURNS TO HIS DUTIES
+        LXXIV. AT MATCHING
+         LXXV. THE TRUMPETON FEUD IS SETTLED
+        LXXVI. MADAME GOESLER'S LEGACY
+       LXXVII. PHINEAS FINN'S SUCCESS
+      LXXVIII. THE LAST VISIT TO SAULSBY
+        LXXIX. AT LAST--AT LAST
+         LXXX. CONCLUSION
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+   LADY CHILTERN AND HER BABY.                     CHAPTER II.
+   "WELL, THEN, I WON'T MENTION HER NAME AGAIN."   CHAPTER VI.
+   ADELAIDE PALLISER.                              CHAPTER VII.
+   THE LAIRD OF LOUGHLINTER.                       CHAPTER X.
+   "I SUPPOSE I SHALL SHAKE IT OFF."               CHAPTER XV.
+   "YOU KNOW IT'S THE KEEPERS DO IT ALL."          CHAPTER XVIII.
+   HE SAT DOWN FOR A MOMENT TO THINK OF IT ALL.    CHAPTER XIX.
+   "THEN, SIR, YOU SHALL ABIDE MY WRATH."          CHAPTER XXIII.
+   "I WOULD; I WOULD."                             CHAPTER XXV.
+   "LADY GLEN WILL TELL YOU THAT I CAN BE          CHAPTER XXX.
+      VERY OBSTINATE WHEN I PLEASE."
+   "I SHOULD HAVE HAD SOME ENJOYMENT,              CHAPTER XXXI.
+      I SUPPOSE."
+   "I MUST HAVE ONE WORD WITH YOU."                CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+   "THEY SEEM TO THINK THAT MR. BONTEEN MUST       CHAPTER XLV.
+      BE PRIME MINISTER."
+   "WHAT IS THE USE OF STICKING TO A MAN WHO       CHAPTER XLVIII.
+      DOES NOT WANT YOU?"
+   "HE HAS BEEN MURDERED," SAID MR. LOW.           CHAPTER XLIX.
+   "HE MAY SOFTEN HER HEART."                      CHAPTER LII.
+   OF COURSE IT WAS LADY LAURA.                    CHAPTER LV.
+   LIZZIE EUSTACE.                                 CHAPTER LIX.
+   "VIOLET, THEY WILL MURDER HIM."                 CHAPTER LXI.
+   THE BOY WHO FOUND THE BLUDGEON.                 CHAPTER LXVI.
+   AND SHE SAT WEEPING ALONE IN HER                CHAPTER LXVIII.
+      FATHER'S HOUSE.
+   LADY LAURA AT THE GLASS.                        CHAPTER LXX.
+   "YES, THERE SHE IS."                            CHAPTER LXXIV.
+   THEN SHE SUDDENLY TURNED UPON HIM,              CHAPTER LXXIX.
+      THROWING HER ARMS ROUND HIS NECK.
+
+
+
+
+VOLUME I.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+TEMPTATION.
+
+
+The circumstances of the general election of 18-- will be well
+remembered by all those who take an interest in the political
+matters of the country. There had been a coming in and a going out
+of Ministers previous to that,--somewhat rapid, very exciting, and,
+upon the whole, useful as showing the real feeling of the country
+upon sundry questions of public interest. Mr. Gresham had been Prime
+Minister of England, as representative of the Liberal party in
+politics. There had come to be a split among those who should have
+been his followers on the terribly vexed question of the Ballot. Then
+Mr. Daubeny for twelve months had sat upon the throne distributing
+the good things of the Crown amidst Conservative birdlings, with
+beaks wide open and craving maws, who certainly for some years
+previous had not received their share of State honours or State
+emoluments. And Mr. Daubeny was still so sitting, to the infinite
+dismay of the Liberals, every man of whom felt that his party
+was entitled by numerical strength to keep the management of the
+Government within its own hands.
+
+Let a man be of what side he may in politics,--unless he be
+much more of a partisan than a patriot,--he will think it well
+that there should be some equity of division in the bestowal
+of crumbs of comfort. Can even any old Whig wish that every Lord
+Lieutenant of a county should be an old Whig? Can it be good for the
+administration of the law that none but Liberal lawyers should become
+Attorney-Generals, and from thence Chief Justices or Lords of Appeal?
+Should no Conservative Peer ever represent the majesty of England
+in India, in Canada, or at St. Petersburgh? So arguing, moderate
+Liberals had been glad to give Mr. Daubeny and his merry men a
+chance. Mr. Daubeny and his merry men had not neglected the chance
+given them. Fortune favoured them, and they made their hay while the
+sun shone with an energy that had never been surpassed, improving
+upon Fortune, till their natural enemies waxed impatient. There had
+been as yet but one year of it, and the natural enemies, who had at
+first expressed themselves as glad that the turn had come, might
+have endured the period of spoliation with more equanimity. For to
+them, the Liberals, this cutting up of the Whitehall cake by the
+Conservatives was spoliation when the privilege of cutting was found
+to have so much exceeded what had been expected. Were not they, the
+Liberals, the real representatives of the people, and, therefore, did
+not the cake in truth appertain to them? Had not they given up the
+cake for a while, partly, indeed, through idleness and mismanagement,
+and quarrelling among themselves; but mainly with a feeling that
+a moderate slicing on the other side would, upon the whole, be
+advantageous? But when the cake came to be mauled like that--oh,
+heavens! So the men who had quarrelled agreed to quarrel no more,
+and it was decided that there should be an end of mismanagement and
+idleness, and that this horrid sight of the weak pretending to be
+strong, or the weak receiving the reward of strength, should be
+brought to an end. Then came a great fight, in the last agonies of
+which the cake was sliced manfully. All the world knew how the fight
+would go; but in the meantime lord-lieutenancies were arranged; very
+ancient judges retired upon pensions; vice-royal Governors were sent
+out in the last gasp of the failing battle; great places were filled
+by tens, and little places by twenties; private secretaries were
+established here and there; and the hay was still made even after the
+sun had gone down.
+
+In consequence of all this the circumstances of the election of 18--
+were peculiar. Mr. Daubeny had dissolved the House, not probably
+with any idea that he could thus retrieve his fortunes, but feeling
+that in doing so he was occupying the last normal position of a
+properly-fought Constitutional battle. His enemies were resolved,
+more firmly than they were resolved before, to knock him altogether
+on the head at the general election which he had himself called
+into existence. He had been disgracefully out-voted in the House of
+Commons on various subjects. On the last occasion he had gone into
+his lobby with a minority of 37, upon a motion brought forward by Mr.
+Palliser, the late Liberal Chancellor of the Exchequer, respecting
+decimal coinage. No politician, not even Mr. Palliser himself, had
+expected that he would carry his Bill in the present session. It
+was brought forward as a trial of strength; and for such a purpose
+decimal coinage was as good a subject as any other. It was Mr.
+Palliser's hobby, and he was gratified at having this further
+opportunity of ventilating it. When in power, he had not succeeded
+in carrying his measure, awed, and at last absolutely beaten, by the
+infinite difficulty encountered in arranging its details. But his
+mind was still set upon it, and it was allowed by the whole party
+to be as good as anything else for the purpose then required. The
+Conservative Government was beaten for the third or fourth time, and
+Mr. Daubeny dissolved the House.
+
+The whole world said that he might as well have resigned at once. It
+was already the end of July, and there must be an autumn Session with
+the new members. It was known to be impossible that he should find
+himself supported by a majority after a fresh election. He had been
+treated with manifest forbearance; the cake had been left in his
+hands for twelve months; the House was barely two years old; he
+had no "cry" with which to meet the country; the dissolution was
+factious, dishonest, and unconstitutional. So said all the Liberals,
+and it was deduced also that the Conservatives were in their hearts
+as angry as were their opponents. What was to be gained but the poor
+interval of three months? There were clever men who suggested that
+Mr. Daubeny had a scheme in his head--some sharp trick of political
+conjuring, some "hocus-pocus presto" sleight of hand, by which he
+might be able to retain power, let the elections go as they would.
+But, if so, he certainly did not make his scheme known to his own
+party.
+
+He had no cry with which to meet the country, nor, indeed, had
+the leaders of the Opposition. Retrenchment, army reform, navy
+excellence, Mr. Palliser's decimal coinage, and general good
+government gave to all the old-Whig moderate Liberals plenty of
+matter for speeches to their future constituents. Those who were more
+advanced could promise the Ballot, and suggest the disestablishment
+of the Church. But the Government of the day was to be turned out
+on the score of general incompetence. They were to be made to go,
+because they could not command majorities. But there ought to have
+been no dissolution, and Mr. Daubeny was regarded by his opponents,
+and indeed by very many of his followers also, with an enmity that
+was almost ferocious. A seat in Parliament, if it be for five or six
+years, is a blessing; but the blessing becomes very questionable if
+it have to be sought afresh every other Session.
+
+One thing was manifest to thoughtful, working, eager political
+Liberals. They must have not only a majority in the next Parliament,
+but a majority of good men--of men good and true. There must be no
+more mismanagement; no more quarrelling; no more idleness. Was it to
+be borne that an unprincipled so-called Conservative Prime Minister
+should go on slicing the cake after such a fashion as that lately
+adopted? Old bishops had even talked of resigning, and Knights of the
+Garter had seemed to die on purpose. So there was a great stir at the
+Liberal political clubs, and every good and true man was summoned to
+the battle.
+
+Now no Liberal soldier, as a young soldier, had been known to be more
+good and true than Mr. Finn, the Irishman, who had held office two
+years ago to the satisfaction of all his friends, and who had retired
+from office because he had found himself compelled to support a
+measure which had since been carried by those very men from whom he
+had been obliged on this account to divide himself. It had always
+been felt by his old friends that he had been, if not ill-used, at
+least very unfortunate. He had been twelve months in advance of his
+party, and had consequently been driven out into the cold. So when
+the names of good men and true were mustered, and weighed, and
+discussed, and scrutinised by some active members of the Liberal
+party in a certain very private room not far removed from our
+great seat of parliamentary warfare; and when the capabilities,
+and expediencies, and possibilities were tossed to and fro among
+these active members, it came to pass that the name of Mr. Finn
+was mentioned more than once. Mr. Phineas Finn was the gentleman's
+name--which statement may be necessary to explain the term of
+endearment which was occasionally used in speaking of him.
+
+"He has got some permanent place," said Mr. Ratler, who was living
+on the well-founded hope of being a Treasury Secretary under the new
+dispensation; "and of course he won't leave it."
+
+It must be acknowledged that Mr. Ratler, than whom no judge in such
+matters possessed more experience, had always been afraid of Phineas
+Finn.
+
+"He'll lave it fast enough, if you'll make it worth his while," said
+the Honourable Laurence Fitzgibbon, who also had his expectations.
+
+"But he married when he went away, and he can't afford it," said Mr.
+Bonteen, another keen expectant.
+
+"Devil a bit," said the Honourable Laurence; "or, anyways, the poor
+thing died of her first baby before it was born. Phinny hasn't an
+impidiment, no more than I have."
+
+"He's the best Irishman we ever got hold of," said Barrington
+Erle--"present company always excepted, Laurence."
+
+"Bedad, you needn't except me, Barrington. I know what a man's made
+of, and what a man can do. And I know what he can't do. I'm not bad
+at the outside skirmishing. I'm worth me salt. I say that with a just
+reliance on me own powers. But Phinny is a different sort of man.
+Phinny can stick to a desk from twelve to seven, and wish to come
+back again after dinner. He's had money left him, too, and 'd like to
+spend some of it on an English borough."
+
+"You never can quite trust him," said Bonteen. Now Mr. Bonteen had
+never loved Mr. Finn.
+
+"At any rate we'll try him again," said Barrington Erle, making a
+little note to that effect. And they did try him again.
+
+Phineas Finn, when last seen by the public, was departing from
+parliamentary life in London to the enjoyment of a modest place
+under Government in his own country, with something of a shattered
+ambition. After various turmoils he had achieved a competency, and
+had married the girl of his heart. But now his wife was dead, and he
+was again alone in the world. One of his friends had declared that
+money had been left to him. That was true, but the money had not been
+much. Phineas Finn had lost his father as well as his wife, and had
+inherited about four thousand pounds. He was not at this time much
+over thirty; and it must be acknowledged in regard to him that, since
+the day on which he had accepted place and retired from London, his
+very soul had sighed for the lost glories of Westminster and Downing
+Street.
+
+There are certain modes of life which, if once adopted, make
+contentment in any other circumstances almost an impossibility. In
+old age a man may retire without repining, though it is often beyond
+the power even of the old man to do so; but in youth, with all the
+faculties still perfect, with the body still strong, with the hopes
+still buoyant, such a change as that which had been made by Phineas
+Finn was more than he, or than most men, could bear with equanimity.
+He had revelled in the gas-light, and could not lie quiet on a sunny
+bank. To the palate accustomed to high cookery, bread and milk is
+almost painfully insipid. When Phineas Finn found himself discharging
+in Dublin the routine duties of his office,--as to which there was
+no public comment, no feeling that such duties were done in the face
+of the country,--he became sick at heart and discontented. Like
+the warhorse out at grass he remembered the sound of the battle
+and the noise of trumpets. After five years spent in the heat and
+full excitement of London society, life in Ireland was tame to
+him, and cold, and dull. He did not analyse the difference between
+metropolitan and quasi-metropolitan manners; but he found that men
+and women in Dublin were different from those to whom he had been
+accustomed in London. He had lived among lords, and the sons and
+daughters of lords; and though the official secretaries and assistant
+commissioners among whom his lot now threw him were for the most part
+clever fellows, fond of society, and perhaps more than his equals in
+the kind of conversation which he found to be prevalent, still they
+were not the same as the men he had left behind him,--men alive with
+the excitement of parliamentary life in London. When in London he had
+often told himself that he was sick of it, and that he would better
+love some country quiet life. Now Dublin was his Tibur, and the
+fickle one found that he could not be happy unless he were back again
+at Rome. When, therefore, he received the following letter from
+his friend, Barrington Erle, he neighed like the old warhorse, and
+already found himself shouting "Ha, ha," among the trumpets.
+
+
+   ---- Street, 9th July, 18--.
+
+   MY DEAR FINN,
+
+   Although you are not now immediately concerned in such
+   trifling matters you have no doubt heard that we are
+   all to be sent back at once to our constituents, and
+   that there will be a general election about the end of
+   September. We are sure that we shall have such a majority
+   as we never had before; but we are determined to make it
+   as strong as possible, and to get in all the good men that
+   are to be had. Have you a mind to try again? After all,
+   there is nothing like it.
+
+   Perhaps you may have some Irish seat in your eye for
+   which you would be safe. To tell the truth we know very
+   little of the Irish seats--not so much as, I think,
+   we ought to do. But if you are not so lucky I would
+   suggest Tankerville in Durham. Of course there would
+   be a contest, and a little money will be wanted; but the
+   money would not be much. Browborough has sat for the place
+   now for three Parliaments, and seems to think it all his
+   own. I am told that nothing could be easier than to turn
+   him out. You will remember the man--a great, hulking,
+   heavy, speechless fellow, who always used to sit just over
+   Lord Macaw's shoulder. I have made inquiry, and I am told
+   that he must walk if anybody would go down who could talk
+   to the colliers every night for a week or so. It would
+   just be the work for you. Of course, you should have all
+   the assistance we could give you, and Molescroft would put
+   you into the hands of an agent who wouldn't spend money
+   for you. £500 would do it all.
+
+   I am very sorry to hear of your great loss, as also was
+   Lady Laura, who, as you are aware, is still abroad with
+   her father. We have all thought that the loneliness of
+   your present life might perhaps make you willing to come
+   back among us. I write instead of Ratler, because I
+   am helping him in the Northern Counties. But you will
+   understand all about that.
+
+   Yours, ever faithfully,
+
+   BARRINGTON ERLE.
+
+   Of course Tankerville has been dirty. Browborough has
+   spent a fortune there. But I do not think that that need
+   dishearten you. You will go there with clean hands. It
+   must be understood that there shall not be as much as a
+   glass of beer. I am told that the fellows won't vote for
+   Browborough unless he spends money, and I fancy he will be
+   afraid to do it heavily after all that has come and gone.
+   If he does you'll have him out on a petition. Let us have
+   an answer as soon as possible.
+
+
+He at once resolved that he would go over and see; but, before he
+replied to Erle's letter, he walked half-a-dozen times the length
+of the pier at Kingston meditating on his answer. He had no one
+belonging to him. He had been deprived of his young bride, and left
+desolate. He could ruin no one but himself. Where could there be a
+man in all the world who had a more perfect right to play a trick
+with his own prospects? If he threw up his place and spent all his
+money, who could blame him? Nevertheless, he did tell himself that,
+when he should have thrown up his place and spent all his money,
+there would remain to him his own self to be disposed of in a manner
+that might be very awkward to him. A man owes it to his country, to
+his friends, even to his acquaintance, that he shall not be known to
+be going about wanting a dinner, with never a coin in his pocket. It
+is very well for a man to boast that he is lord of himself, and that
+having no ties he may do as he pleases with that possession. But it
+is a possession of which, unfortunately, he cannot rid himself when
+he finds that there is nothing advantageous to be done with it.
+Doubtless there is a way of riddance. There is the bare bodkin. Or a
+man may fall overboard between Holyhead and Kingston in the dark, and
+may do it in such a cunning fashion that his friends shall think that
+it was an accident. But against these modes of riddance there is a
+canon set, which some men still fear to disobey.
+
+The thing that he was asked to do was perilous. Standing in his
+present niche of vantage he was at least safe. And added to his
+safety there were material comforts. He had more than enough for his
+wants. His work was light; he lived among men and women with whom he
+was popular. The very fact of his past parliamentary life had caused
+him to be regarded as a man of some note among the notables of the
+Irish capital. Lord Lieutenants were gracious to him, and the wives
+of judges smiled upon him at their tables. He was encouraged to talk
+of those wars of the gods at which he had been present, and was so
+treated as to make him feel that he was somebody in the world of
+Dublin. Now he was invited to give all this up; and for what?
+
+He answered that question to himself with enthusiastic eloquence.
+The reward offered to him was the thing which in all the world he
+liked best. It was suggested to him that he should again have within
+his reach that parliamentary renown which had once been the very
+breath of his nostrils. We all know those arguments and quotations,
+antagonistic to prudence, with which a man fortifies himself in
+rashness. "None but the brave deserve the fair." "Where there's a
+will there's a way." "Nothing venture nothing have." "The sword is
+to him who can use it." "Fortune favours the bold." But on the other
+side there is just as much to be said. "A bird in the hand is worth
+two in the bush." "Look before you leap." "Thrust not out your hand
+further than you can draw it back again." All which maxims of life
+Phineas Finn revolved within his own heart, if not carefully, at
+least frequently, as he walked up and down the long pier of Kingston
+Harbour.
+
+But what matter such revolvings? A man placed as was our Phineas
+always does that which most pleases him at the moment, being but poor
+at argument if he cannot carry the weight to that side which best
+satisfies his own feelings. Had not his success been very great when
+he before made the attempt? Was he not well aware at every moment
+of his life that, after having so thoroughly learned his lesson in
+London, he was throwing away his hours amidst his present pursuits
+in Dublin? Did he not owe himself to his country? And then, again,
+what might not London do for him? Men who had begun as he begun had
+lived to rule over Cabinets, and to sway the Empire. He had been
+happy for a short twelvemonth with his young bride,--for a short
+twelvemonth,--and then she had been taken from him. Had she been
+spared to him he would never have longed for more than Fate had given
+him. He would never have sighed again for the glories of Westminster
+had his Mary not gone from him. Now he was alone in the world; and,
+though he could look forward to possible and not improbable events
+which would make that future disposition of himself a most difficult
+question for him, still he would dare to try.
+
+As the first result of Erle's letter Phineas was over in London early
+in August. If he went on with this matter, he must, of course, resign
+the office for holding which he was now paid a thousand a year. He
+could retain that as long as he chose to earn the money, but the
+earning of it would not be compatible with a seat in Parliament. He
+had a few thousand pounds with which he could pay for the contest at
+Tankerville, for the consequent petition which had been so generously
+suggested to him, and maintain himself in London for a session or two
+should he be so fortunate as to carry his election. Then he would be
+penniless, with the world before him as a closed oyster to be again
+opened, and he knew,--no one better,--that this oyster becomes harder
+and harder in the opening as the man who has to open it becomes
+older. It is an oyster that will close to again with a snap, after
+you have got your knife well into it, if you withdraw your point but
+for a moment. He had had a rough tussle with the oyster already, and
+had reached the fish within the shell. Nevertheless, the oyster which
+he had got was not the oyster which he wanted. So he told himself
+now, and here had come to him the chance of trying again.
+
+Early in August he went over to England, saw Mr. Molescroft, and
+made his first visit to Tankerville. He did not like the look of
+Tankerville; but nevertheless he resigned his place before the
+month was over. That was the one great step, or rather the leap in
+the dark,--and that he took. Things had been so arranged that the
+election at Tankerville was to take place on the 20th of October.
+When the dissolution had been notified to all the world by Mr.
+Daubeny an earlier day was suggested; but Mr. Daubeny saw reasons for
+postponing it for a fortnight. Mr. Daubeny's enemies were again very
+ferocious. It was all a trick. Mr. Daubeny had no right to continue
+Prime Minister a day after the decided expression of opinion as to
+unfitness which had been pronounced by the House of Commons. Men
+were waxing very wrath. Nevertheless, so much power remained in Mr.
+Daubeny's hand, and the election was delayed. That for Tankerville
+would not be held till the 20th of October. The whole House could not
+be chosen till the end of the month,--hardly by that time--and yet
+there was to be an autumn Session. The Ratlers and Bonteens were at
+any rate clear about the autumn Session. It was absolutely impossible
+that Mr. Daubeny should be allowed to remain in power over Christmas,
+and up to February.
+
+Mr. Molescroft, whom Phineas saw in London, was not a comfortable
+counsellor. "So you are going down to Tankerville?" he said.
+
+"They seem to think I might as well try."
+
+"Quite right;--quite right. Somebody ought to try it, no doubt. It
+would be a disgrace to the whole party if Browborough were allowed
+to walk over. There isn't a borough in England more sure to return a
+Liberal than Tankerville if left to itself. And yet that lump of a
+legislator has sat there as a Tory for the last dozen years by dint
+of money and brass."
+
+"You think we can unseat him?"
+
+"I don't say that. He hasn't come to the end of his money, and as to
+his brass that is positively without end."
+
+"But surely he'll have some fear of consequences after what has been
+done?"
+
+"None in the least. What has been done? Can you name a single
+Parliamentary aspirant who has been made to suffer?"
+
+"They have suffered in character," said Phineas. "I should not like
+to have the things said of me that have been said of them."
+
+"I don't know a man of them who stands in a worse position among his
+own friends than he occupied before. And men of that sort don't want
+a good position among their enemies. They know they're safe. When the
+seat is in dispute everybody is savage enough; but when it is merely
+a question of punishing a man, what is the use of being savage? Who
+knows whose turn it may be next?"
+
+"He'll play the old game, then?"
+
+"Of course he'll play the old game," said Mr. Molescroft. "He doesn't
+know any other game. All the purists in England wouldn't teach him to
+think that a poor man ought not to sell his vote, and that a rich man
+oughtn't to buy it. You mean to go in for purity?"
+
+"Certainly I do."
+
+"Browborough will think just as badly of you as you will of him.
+He'll hate you because he'll think you are trying to rob him of what
+he has honestly bought; but he'll hate you quite as much because
+you try to rob the borough. He'd tell you if you asked him that he
+doesn't want his seat for nothing, any more than he wants his house
+or his carriage-horses for nothing. To him you'll be a mean, low
+interloper. But you won't care about that."
+
+"Not in the least, if I can get the seat."
+
+"But I'm afraid you won't. He will be elected. You'll petition. He'll
+lose his seat. There will be a commission. And then the borough will
+be disfranchised. It's a fine career, but expensive; and then there
+is no reward beyond the self-satisfaction arising from a good action.
+However, Ruddles will do the best he can for you, and it certainly
+is possible that you may creep through." This was very disheartening,
+but Barrington Erle assured our hero that such was Mr. Molescroft's
+usual way with candidates, and that it really meant little or
+nothing. At any rate, Phineas Finn was pledged to stand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+HARRINGTON HALL.
+
+
+Phineas, on his first arrival in London, found a few of his old
+friends, men who were still delayed by business though the Session
+was over. He arrived on the 10th of August, which may be considered
+as the great day of the annual exodus, and he remembered how he,
+too, in former times had gone to Scotland to shoot grouse, and what
+he had done there besides shooting. He had been a welcome guest at
+Loughlinter, the magnificent seat of Mr. Kennedy, and indeed there
+had been that between him and Mr. Kennedy which ought to make him a
+welcome guest there still. But of Mr. Kennedy he had heard nothing
+directly since he had left London. From Mr. Kennedy's wife, Lady
+Laura, who had been his great friend, he had heard occasionally; but
+she was separated from her husband, and was living abroad with her
+father, the Earl of Brentford. Has it not been written in a former
+book how this Lady Laura had been unhappy in her marriage, having
+wedded herself to a man whom she had never loved, because he was rich
+and powerful, and how this very Phineas had asked her to be his bride
+after she had accepted the rich man's hand? Thence had come great
+trouble, but nevertheless there had been that between Mr. Kennedy and
+our hero which made Phineas feel that he ought still to be welcomed
+as a guest should he show himself at the door of Loughlinter Castle.
+The idea came upon him simply because he found that almost every man
+for whom he inquired had just started, or was just starting, for the
+North; and he would have liked to go where others went. He asked a
+few questions as to Mr. Kennedy from Barrington Erle and others, who
+had known him, and was told that the man now lived quite alone. He
+still kept his seat in Parliament, but had hardly appeared during
+the last Session, and it was thought that he would not come forward
+again. Of his life in the country nothing was known. "No one fishes
+his rivers, or shoots his moors, as far as I can learn," said
+Barrington Erle. "I suppose he looks after the sheep and says his
+prayers, and keeps his money together."
+
+"And there has been no attempt at a reconciliation?" Phineas asked.
+
+"She went abroad to escape his attempts, and remains there in order
+that she may be safe. Of all hatreds that the world produces, a
+wife's hatred for her husband, when she does hate him, is the
+strongest."
+
+In September Finn was back in Ireland, and about the end of that
+month he made his first visit to Tankerville. He remained there for
+three or four days, and was terribly disgusted while staying at the
+"Yellow" inn, to find that the people of the town would treat him as
+though he were rolling in wealth. He was soon tired of Tankerville,
+and as he could do nothing further, on the spot, till the time for
+canvassing should come on, about ten days previous to the election,
+he returned to London, somewhat at a loss to know how to bestir
+himself. But in London he received a letter from another old friend,
+which decided him:--
+
+"My dear Mr. Finn," said the letter,
+
+
+   of course you know that Oswald is now master of the Brake
+   hounds. Upon my word, I think it is the place in the world
+   for which he is most fit. He is a great martinet in the
+   field, and works at it as though it were for his bread. We
+   have been here looking after the kennels and getting up
+   the horses since the beginning of August, and have been
+   cub-hunting ever so long. Oswald wants to know whether you
+   won't come down to him till the election begins in earnest.
+
+   We were so glad to hear that you were going to appear
+   again. I have always known that it would be so. I have
+   told Oswald scores of times that I was sure you would
+   never be happy out of Parliament, and that your real
+   home must be somewhere near the Treasury Chambers. You
+   can't alter a man's nature. Oswald was born to be a master
+   of hounds, and you were born to be a Secretary of State.
+   He works the hardest and gets the least pay for it; but
+   then, as he says, he does not run so great a risk of being
+   turned out.
+
+   We haven't much of a house, but we have plenty of room for
+   you. As for the house, it was a matter of course, whether
+   good or bad. It goes with the kennels, and I should as
+   little think of having a choice as though I were one of
+   the horses. We have very good stables, and such a stud!
+   I can't tell you how many there are. In October it seems
+   as though their name were legion. In March there is
+   never anything for any body to ride on. I generally find
+   then that mine are taken for the whips. Do come and take
+   advantage of the flush. I can't tell you how glad we shall
+   be to see you. Oswald ought to have written himself, but
+   he says--; I won't tell you what he says. We shall take no
+   refusal. You can have nothing to do before you are wanted
+   at Tankerville.
+
+   I was so sorry to hear of your great loss. I hardly know
+   whether to mention it or to be silent in writing. If you
+   were here of course I should speak of her. And I would
+   rather renew your grief for a time than allow you to think
+   that I am indifferent. Pray come to us.
+
+   Yours ever most sincerely,
+
+   VIOLET CHILTERN.
+
+   Harrington Hall, Wednesday.
+
+
+Phineas Finn at once made up his mind that he would go to Harrington
+Hall. There was the prospect in this of an immediate return to some
+of the most charming pleasures of the old life, which was very
+grateful to him. It pleased him much that he should have been so
+thought of by this lady,--that she should have sought him out
+at once, at the moment of his reappearance. That she would have
+remembered him, he was quite sure, and that her husband, Lord
+Chiltern, should remember him also, was beyond a doubt. There had
+been passages in their joint lives which people cannot forget. But
+it might so well have been the case that they should not have cared
+to renew their acquaintance with him. As it was, they must have
+made close inquiry, and had sought him at the first day of his
+reappearance. The letter had reached him through the hands of
+Barrington Erle, who was a cousin of Lord Chiltern, and was at once
+answered as follows:--
+
+
+   Fowler's Hotel, Jermyn Street,
+   October 1st.
+
+   MY DEAR LADY CHILTERN,
+
+   I cannot tell you how much pleasure the very sight of
+   your handwriting gave me. Yes, here I am again, trying my
+   hand at the old game. They say that you can never cure a
+   gambler or a politician; and, though I had very much to
+   make me happy till that great blow came upon me, I believe
+   that it is so. I am uneasy till I can see once more the
+   Speaker's wig, and hear bitter things said of this "right
+   honourable gentleman," and of that noble friend. I want to
+   be once more in the midst of it; and as I have been left
+   singularly desolate in the world, without a tie by which
+   I am bound to aught but an honourable mode of living, I
+   have determined to run the risk, and have thrown up the
+   place which I held under Government. I am to stand for
+   Tankerville, as you have heard, and I am told by those to
+   whose tender mercies I have been confided by B. E. that I
+   have not a chance of success.
+
+   Your invitation is so tempting that I cannot refuse it.
+   As you say, I have nothing to do till the play begins.
+   I have issued my address, and must leave my name and my
+   fame to be discussed by the Tankervillians till I make
+   my appearance among them on the 10th of this month. Of
+   course, I had heard that Chiltern has the Brake, and I
+   have heard also that he is doing it uncommonly well. Tell
+   him that I have hardly seen a hound since the memorable
+   day on which I pulled him out from under his horse in the
+   brook at Wissindine. I don't know whether I can ride a
+   yard now. I will get to you on the 4th, and will remain if
+   you will keep me till the 9th. If Chiltern can put me up
+   on anything a little quieter than Bonebreaker, I'll go out
+   steadily, and see how he does his cubbing. I may, perhaps,
+   be justified in opining that Bonebreaker has before this
+   left the establishment. If so I may, perhaps, find myself
+   up to a little very light work.
+
+   Remember me very kindly to him. Does he make a good nurse
+   with the baby?
+
+   Yours, always faithfully,
+
+   PHINEAS FINN.
+
+   I cannot tell you with what pleasure I look forward to
+   seeing you both again.
+
+
+The next few days went very heavily with him. There had, indeed,
+been no real reason why he should not have gone to Harrington Hall
+at once, except that he did not wish to seem to be utterly homeless.
+And yet were he there, with his old friends, he would not scruple
+for a moment in owning that such was the case. He had fixed his day,
+however, and did remain in London till the 4th. Barrington Erle and
+Mr. Ratler he saw occasionally, for they were kept in town on the
+affairs of the election. The one was generally full of hope; but the
+other was no better than a Job's comforter. "I wouldn't advise you to
+expect too much at Tankerville, you know," said Mr. Ratler.
+
+"By no means," said Phineas, who had always disliked Ratler, and had
+known himself to be disliked in return. "I expect nothing."
+
+"Browborough understands such a place as Tankerville so well! He has
+been at it all his life. Money is no object to him, and he doesn't
+care a straw what anybody says of him. I don't think it's possible to
+unseat him."
+
+"We'll try at least," said Phineas, upon whom, however, such remarks
+as these cast a gloom which he could not succeed in shaking off,
+though he could summon vigour sufficient to save him from showing
+the gloom. He knew very well that comfortable words would be spoken
+to him at Harrington Hall, and that then the gloom would go. The
+comforting words of his friends would mean quite as little as the
+discourtesies of Mr. Ratler. He understood that thoroughly, and felt
+that he ought to hold a stronger control over his own impulses. He
+must take the thing as it would come, and neither the flatterings of
+friends nor the threatenings of enemies could alter it; but he knew
+his own weakness, and confessed to himself that another week of life
+by himself at Fowler's Hotel, refreshed by occasional interviews with
+Mr. Ratler, would make him altogether unfit for the coming contest at
+Tankerville.
+
+He reached Harrington Hall in the afternoon about four, and found
+Lady Chiltern alone. As soon as he saw her he told himself that she
+was not in the least altered since he had last been with her, and yet
+during the period she had undergone that great change which turns
+a girl into a mother. She had the baby with her when he came into
+the room, and at once greeted him as an old friend,--as a loved and
+loving friend who was to be made free at once to all the inmost
+privileges of real friendship, which are given to and are desired by
+so few. "Yes, here we are again," said Lady Chiltern, "settled, as
+far as I suppose we ever shall be settled, for ever so many years to
+come. The place belongs to old Lord Gunthorpe, I fancy, but really I
+hardly know. I do know that we should give it up at once if we gave
+up the hounds, and that we can't be turned out as long as we have
+them. Doesn't it seem odd to have to depend on a lot of yelping
+dogs?"
+
+
+[Illustration: Lady Chiltern and her baby.]
+
+
+"Only that the yelping dogs depend on you."
+
+"It's a kind of give and take, I suppose, like other things in the
+world. Of course, he's a beautiful baby. I had him in just that
+you might see him. I show Baby, and Oswald shows the hounds. We've
+nothing else to interest anybody. But nurse shall take him now.
+Come out and have a turn in the shrubbery before Oswald comes back.
+They're gone to-day as far as Trumpeton Wood, out of which no fox was
+ever known to break, and they won't be home till six."
+
+"Who are 'they'?" asked Phineas, as he took his hat.
+
+"The 'they' is only Adelaide Palliser. I don't think you ever knew
+her?"
+
+"Never. Is she anything to the other Pallisers?"
+
+"She is everything to them all; niece and grand-niece, and first
+cousin and grand-daughter. Her father was the fourth brother, and as
+she was one of six her share of the family wealth is small. Those
+Pallisers are very peculiar, and I doubt whether she ever saw the
+old duke. She has no father or mother, and lives when she is at home
+with a married sister, about seventy years older than herself, Mrs.
+Attenbury."
+
+"I remember Mrs. Attenbury."
+
+"Of course you do. Who does not? Adelaide was a child then, I
+suppose. Though I don't know why she should have been, as she calls
+herself one-and-twenty now. You'll think her pretty. I don't. But
+she is my great new friend, and I like her immensely. She rides to
+hounds, and talks Italian, and writes for the _Times_."
+
+"Writes for the _Times_!"
+
+"I won't swear that she does, but she could. There's only one other
+thing about her. She's engaged to be married."
+
+"To whom?"
+
+"I don't know that I shall answer that question, and indeed I'm not
+sure that she is engaged. But there's a man dying for her."
+
+"You must know, if she's your friend."
+
+"Of course I know; but there are ever so many ins and outs, and I
+ought not to have said a word about it. I shouldn't have done so to
+any one but you. And now we'll go in and have some tea, and go to
+bed."
+
+"Go to bed!"
+
+"We always go to bed here before dinner on hunting days. When the
+cubbing began Oswald used to be up at three."
+
+"He doesn't get up at three now."
+
+"Nevertheless we go to bed. You needn't if you don't like, and I'll
+stay with you if you choose till you dress for dinner. I did know
+so well that you'd come back to London, Mr. Finn. You are not a bit
+altered."
+
+"I feel to be changed in everything."
+
+"Why should you be altered? It's only two years. I am altered because
+of Baby. That does change a woman. Of course I'm thinking always of
+what he will do in the world; whether he'll be a master of hounds
+or a Cabinet Minister or a great farmer;--or perhaps a miserable
+spendthrift, who will let everything that his grandfathers and
+grandmothers have done for him go to the dogs."
+
+"Why do you think of anything so wretched, Lady Chiltern?"
+
+"Who can help thinking? Men do do so. It seems to me that that is the
+line of most young men who come to their property early. Why should I
+dare to think that my boy should be better than others? But I do; and
+I fancy that he will be a great statesman. After all, Mr. Finn, that
+is the best thing that a man can be, unless it is given him to be a
+saint and a martyr and all that kind of thing,--which is not just
+what a mother looks for."
+
+"That would only be better than the spendthrift and gambler."
+
+"Hardly better you'll say, perhaps. How odd that is! We all profess
+to believe when we're told that this world should be used merely as
+a preparation for the next; and yet there is something so cold and
+comfortless in the theory that we do not relish the prospect even for
+our children. I fancy your people have more real belief in it than
+ours."
+
+Now Phineas Finn was a Roman Catholic. But the discussion was stopped
+by the noise of an arrival in the hall.
+
+"There they are," said Lady Chiltern; "Oswald never comes in without
+a sound of trumpets to make him audible throughout the house." Then
+she went to meet her husband, and Phineas followed her out of the
+drawing-room.
+
+Lord Chiltern was as glad to see him as she had been, and in a very
+few minutes he found himself quite at home. In the hall he was
+introduced to Miss Palliser, but he was hardly able to see her as she
+stood there a moment in her hat and habit. There was ever so much
+said about the day's work. The earths had not been properly stopped,
+and Lord Chiltern had been very angry, and the owner of Trumpeton
+Wood, who was a great duke, had been much abused, and things had not
+gone altogether straight.
+
+"Lord Chiltern was furious," said Miss Palliser, laughing, "and
+therefore, of course, I became furious too, and swore that it was
+an awful shame. Then they all swore that it was an awful shame, and
+everybody was furious. And you might hear one man saying to another
+all day long, 'By George, this is too bad.' But I never could quite
+make out what was amiss, and I'm sure the men didn't know."
+
+"What was it, Oswald?"
+
+"Never mind now. One doesn't go to Trumpeton Wood expecting to be
+happy there. I've half a mind to swear I'll never draw it again."
+
+"I've been asking him what was the matter all the way home," said
+Miss Palliser, "but I don't think he knows himself."
+
+"Come upstairs, Phineas, and I'll show you your room," said Lord
+Chiltern. "It's not quite as comfortable as the old 'Bull,' but we
+make it do."
+
+Phineas, when he was alone, could not help standing for awhile with
+his back to the fire thinking of it all. He did already feel himself
+to be at home in that house, and his doing so was a contradiction to
+all the wisdom which he had been endeavouring to teach himself for
+the last two years. He had told himself over and over again that
+that life which he had lived in London had been, if not a dream, at
+any rate not more significant than a parenthesis in his days, which,
+as of course it had no bearing on those which had gone before, so
+neither would it influence those which were to follow. The dear
+friends of that period of feverish success would for the future
+be to him as--nothing. That was the lesson of wisdom which he had
+endeavoured to teach himself, and the facts of the last two years had
+seemed to show that the lesson was a true lesson. He had disappeared
+from among his former companions, and had heard almost nothing from
+them. From neither Lord Chiltern or his wife had he received any
+tidings. He had expected to receive none,--had known that in the
+common course of things none was to be expected. There were many
+others with whom he had been intimate--Barrington Erle, Laurence
+Fitzgibbon, Mr. Monk, a politician who had been in the Cabinet, and
+in consequence of whose political teaching he, Phineas Finn, had
+banished himself from the political world;--from none of these had he
+received a line till there came that letter summoning him back to the
+battle. There had never been a time during his late life in Dublin at
+which he had complained to himself that on this account his former
+friends had forgotten him. If they had not written to him, neither
+had he written to them. But on his first arrival in England he had,
+in the sadness of his solitude, told himself that he was forgotten.
+There would be no return, so he feared, of those pleasant intimacies
+which he now remembered so well, and which, as he remembered them,
+were so much more replete with unalloyed delights than they had ever
+been in their existing realities. And yet here he was, a welcome
+guest in Lord Chiltern's house, a welcome guest in Lady Chiltern's
+drawing-room, and quite as much at home with them as ever he had been
+in the old days.
+
+Who is there that can write letters to all his friends, or would not
+find it dreary work to do so even in regard to those whom he really
+loves? When there is something palpable to be said, what a blessing
+is the penny post! To one's wife, to one's child, one's mistress,
+one's steward if there be a steward; one's gamekeeper, if there be
+shooting forward; one's groom, if there be hunting; one's publisher,
+if there be a volume ready or money needed; or one's tailor
+occasionally, if a coat be required, a man is able to write. But
+what has a man to say to his friend,--or, for that matter, what has
+a woman? A Horace Walpole may write to a Mr. Mann about all things
+under the sun, London gossip or transcendental philosophy, and if
+the Horace Walpole of the occasion can write well and will labour
+diligently at that vocation, his letters may be worth reading by
+his Mr. Mann, and by others; but, for the maintenance of love and
+friendship, continued correspondence between distant friends is
+naught. Distance in time and place, but especially in time, will
+diminish friendship. It is a rule of nature that it should be so,
+and thus the friendships which a man most fosters are those which he
+can best enjoy. If your friend leave you, and seek a residence in
+Patagonia, make a niche for him in your memory, and keep him there
+as warm as you may. Perchance he may return from Patagonia and the
+old joys may be repeated. But never think that those joys can be
+maintained by the assistance of ocean postage, let it be at never
+so cheap a rate. Phineas Finn had not thought this matter out very
+carefully, and now, after two years of absence, he was surprised to
+find that he was still had in remembrance by those who had never
+troubled themselves to write to him a line during his absence.
+
+When he went down into the drawing-room he was surprised to find
+another old friend sitting there alone. "Mr. Finn," said the old
+lady, "I hope I see you quite well. I am glad to meet you again. You
+find my niece much changed, I dare say?"
+
+"Not in the least, Lady Baldock," said Phineas, seizing the proffered
+hand of the dowager. In that hour of conversation, which they had had
+together, Lady Chiltern had said not a word to Phineas of her aunt,
+and now he felt himself to be almost discomposed by the meeting. "Is
+your daughter here, Lady Baldock?"
+
+Lady Baldock shook her head solemnly and sadly. "Do not speak of her,
+Mr. Finn. It is too sad! We never mention her name now." Phineas
+looked as sad as he knew how to look, but he said nothing. The
+lamentation of the mother did not seem to imply that the daughter was
+dead; and, from his remembrance of Augusta Boreham, he would have
+thought her to be the last woman in the world to run away with the
+coachman. At the moment there did not seem to be any other sufficient
+cause for so melancholy a wagging of that venerable head. He had been
+told to say nothing, and he could ask no questions; but Lady Baldock
+did not choose that he should be left to imagine things more terrible
+than the truth. "She is lost to us for ever, Mr. Finn."
+
+"How very sad."
+
+"Sad, indeed! We don't know how she took it."
+
+"Took what, Lady Baldock?"
+
+"I am sure it was nothing that she ever saw at home. If there is
+a thing I'm true to, it is the Protestant Established Church of
+England. Some nasty, low, lying, wheedling priest got hold of her,
+and now she's a nun, and calls herself--Sister Veronica John!" Lady
+Baldock threw great strength and unction into her description of the
+priest; but as soon as she had told her story a sudden thought struck
+her. "Oh, laws! I quite forgot. I beg your pardon, Mr. Finn; but
+you're one of them!"
+
+"Not a nun, Lady Baldock." At that moment the door was opened, and
+Lord Chiltern came in, to the great relief of his wife's aunt.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+GERARD MAULE.
+
+
+"Why didn't you tell me?" said Phineas that night after Lady Baldock
+was gone to bed. The two men had taken off their dress coats, and had
+put on smoking caps,--Lord Chiltern, indeed, having clothed himself
+in a wonderful Chinese dressing-gown, and they were sitting round the
+fire in the smoking-room; but though they were thus employed and thus
+dressed the two younger ladies were still with them.
+
+"How could I tell you everything in two minutes?" said Lady Chiltern.
+
+"I'd have given a guinea to have heard her," said Lord Chiltern,
+getting up and rubbing his hands as he walked about the room. "Can't
+you fancy all that she'd say, and then her horror when she'd remember
+that Phineas was a Papist himself?"
+
+"But what made Miss Boreham turn nun?"
+
+"I fancy she found the penances lighter than they were at home," said
+the lord. "They couldn't well be heavier."
+
+"Dear old aunt!"
+
+"Does she never go to see Sister Veronica?" asked Miss Palliser.
+
+"She has been once," said Lady Chiltern.
+
+"And fumigated herself first so as to escape infection," said the
+husband. "You should hear Gerard Maule imitate her when she talks
+about the filthy priest."
+
+"And who is Gerard Maule?" Then Lady Chiltern looked at her friend,
+and Phineas was almost sure that Gerard Maule was the man who was
+dying for Adelaide Palliser.
+
+"He's a great ally of mine," said Lady Chiltern.
+
+"He's a young fellow who thinks he can ride to hounds," said Lord
+Chiltern, "and who very often does succeed in riding over them."
+
+"That's not fair, Lord Chiltern," said Miss Palliser.
+
+"Just my idea of it," replied the Master. "I don't think it's at all
+fair. Because a man has plenty of horses, and nothing else to do, and
+rides twelve stone, and doesn't care how he's sworn at, he's always
+to be over the scent, and spoil every one's sport. I don't call it at
+all fair."
+
+"He's a very nice fellow, and a great friend of Oswald's. He is to be
+here to-morrow, and you'll like him very much. Won't he, Adelaide?"
+
+"I don't know Mr. Finn's tastes quite so well as you do, Violet. But
+Mr. Maule is so harmless that no one can dislike him very much."
+
+"As for being harmless, I'm not so sure," said Lady Chiltern. After
+that they all went to bed.
+
+Phineas remained at Harrington Hall till the ninth, on which day he
+went to London so that he might be at Tankerville on the tenth. He
+rode Lord Chiltern's horses, and took an interest in the hounds, and
+nursed the baby. "Now tell me what you think of Gerard Maule," Lady
+Chiltern asked him, the day before he started.
+
+"I presume that he is the young man that is dying for Miss Palliser."
+
+"You may answer my question, Mr. Finn, without making any such
+suggestion."
+
+"Not discreetly. Of course if he is to be made happy, I am bound at
+the present moment to say all good things of him. At such a crisis it
+would be wicked to tinge Miss Palliser's hopes with any hue less warm
+than rose colour."
+
+"Do you suppose that I tell everything that is said to me?"
+
+"Not at all; but opinions do ooze out. I take him to be a good sort
+of a fellow; but why doesn't he talk a bit more?"
+
+"That's just it."
+
+"And why does he pretend to do nothing? When he's out he rides
+hard; but at other times there's a ha-ha, lack a-daisical air about
+him which I hate. Why men assume it I never could understand. It
+can recommend them to nobody. A man can't suppose that he'll gain
+anything by pretending that he never reads, and never thinks, and
+never does anything, and never speaks, and doesn't care what he has
+for dinner, and, upon the whole, would just as soon lie in bed all
+day as get up. It isn't that he is really idle. He rides and eats,
+and does get up, and I daresay talks and thinks. It's simply a poor
+affectation."
+
+"That's your rose colour, is it?"
+
+"You've promised secrecy, Lady Chiltern. I suppose he's well off?"
+
+"He is an eldest son. The property is not large, and I'm afraid
+there's something wrong about it."
+
+"He has no profession?"
+
+"None at all. He has an allowance of £800 a year, which in some sort
+of fashion is independent of his father. He has nothing on earth to
+do. Adelaide's whole fortune is four thousand pounds. If they were to
+marry what would become of them?"
+
+"That wouldn't be enough to live on?"
+
+"It ought to be enough,--as he must, I suppose, have the property
+some day,--if only he had something to do. What sort of a life would
+he lead?"
+
+"I suppose he couldn't become a Master of Hounds?"
+
+"That is ill-natured, Mr. Finn."
+
+"I did not mean it so. I did not indeed. You must know that I did
+not."
+
+"Of course Oswald had nothing to do, and, of course, there was a time
+when I wished that he should take to Parliament. No one knew all that
+better than you did. But he was very different from Mr. Maule."
+
+"Very different, indeed."
+
+"Oswald is a man full of energy, and with no touch of that
+affectation which you described. As it is, he does work hard. No
+man works harder. The learned people say that you should produce
+something, and I don't suppose that he produces much. But somebody
+must keep hounds, and nobody could do it better than he does."
+
+"You don't think that I meant to blame him?"
+
+"I hope not."
+
+"Are he and his father on good terms now?"
+
+"Oh, yes. His father wishes him to go to Saulsby, but he won't do
+that. He hates Saulsby."
+
+Saulsby was the country seat of the Earl of Brentford, the name of
+the property which must some day belong to this Lord Chiltern, and
+Phineas, as he heard this, remembered former days in which he had
+ridden about Saulsby Woods, and had thought them to be anything but
+hateful. "Is Saulsby shut up?" he asked.
+
+"Altogether, and so is the house in Portman Square. There never was
+anything more sad or desolate. You would find him altered, Mr. Finn.
+He is quite an old man now. He was here in the spring, for a week or
+two;--in England, that is; but he stayed at an hotel in London. He
+and Laura live at Dresden now, and a very sad time they must have."
+
+"Does she write?"
+
+"Yes; and keeps up all her interest about politics. I have already
+told her that you are to stand for Tankerville. No one,--no other
+human being in the world will be so interested for you as she is.
+If any friend ever felt an interest almost selfish for a friend's
+welfare, she will feel such an interest for you. If you were to
+succeed it would give her a hope in life." Phineas sat silent,
+drinking in the words that were said to him. Though they were true,
+or at least meant to be true, they were full of flattery. Why should
+this woman of whom they were speaking love him so dearly? She was
+nothing to him. She was highly born, greatly gifted, wealthy, and a
+married woman, whose character, as he well knew, was beyond the taint
+of suspicion, though she had been driven by the hard sullenness of
+her husband to refuse to live under his roof. Phineas Finn and Lady
+Laura Kennedy had not seen each other for two years, and when they
+had parted, though they had lived as friends, there had been no signs
+of still living friendship. True, indeed, she had written to him,
+but her letters had been short and cold, merely detailing certain
+circumstances of her outward life. Now he was told by this woman's
+dearest friend that his welfare was closer to her heart than any
+other interest!
+
+"I daresay you often think of her?" said Lady Chiltern.
+
+"Indeed, I do."
+
+"What virtues she used to ascribe to you! What sins she forgave you!
+How hard she fought for you! Now, though she can fight no more, she
+does not think of it all the less."
+
+"Poor Lady Laura!"
+
+"Poor Laura, indeed! When one sees such shipwreck it makes a woman
+doubt whether she ought to marry at all."
+
+"And yet he was a good man. She always said so."
+
+"Men are so seldom really good. They are so little sympathetic. What
+man thinks of changing himself so as to suit his wife? And yet men
+expect that women shall put on altogether new characters when they
+are married, and girls think that they can do so. Look at this
+Mr. Maule, who is really over head and ears in love with Adelaide
+Palliser. She is full of hope and energy. He has none. And yet he has
+the effrontery to suppose that she will adapt herself to his way of
+living if he marries her."
+
+"Then they are to be married?"
+
+"I suppose it will come to that. It always does if the man is
+in earnest. Girls will accept men simply because they think it
+ill-natured to return the compliment of an offer with a hearty 'No.'"
+
+"I suppose she likes him?"
+
+"Of course she does. A girl almost always likes a man who is in love
+with her,--unless indeed she positively dislikes him. But why should
+she like him? He is good-looking, is a gentleman, and not a fool.
+Is that enough to make such a girl as Adelaide Palliser think a man
+divine?"
+
+"Is nobody to be accepted who is not credited with divinity?"
+
+"The man should be a demigod, at least in respect to some part of his
+character. I can find nothing even demi-divine about Mr. Maule."
+
+"That's because you are not in love with him, Lady Chiltern."
+
+Six or seven very pleasant days Phineas Finn spent at Harrington
+Hall, and then he started alone, and very lonely, for Tankerville.
+But he admitted to himself that the pleasure which he had received
+during his visit was quite sufficient to qualify him in running
+any risk in an attempt to return to the kind of life which he had
+formerly led. But if he should fail at Tankerville what would become
+of him then?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+TANKERVILLE.
+
+
+The great Mr. Molescroft himself came over to Tankerville for the
+purpose of introducing our hero to the electors and to Mr. Ruddles,
+the local Liberal agent, who was to be employed. They met at the
+Lambton Arms, and there Phineas established himself, knowing well
+that he had before him ten days of unmitigated vexation and misery.
+Tankerville was a dirty, prosperous, ungainly town, which seemed to
+exude coal-dust or coal-mud at every pore. It was so well recognised
+as being dirty that people did not expect to meet each other with
+clean hands and faces. Linen was never white at Tankerville, and
+even ladies who sat in drawing-rooms were accustomed to the feel and
+taste and appearance of soot in all their daintiest recesses. We hear
+that at Oil City the flavour of petroleum is hardly considered to be
+disagreeable, and so it was with the flavour of coal at Tankerville.
+And we know that at Oil City the flavour of petroleum must not be
+openly declared to be objectionable, and so it was with coal at
+Tankerville. At Tankerville coal was much loved, and was not thought
+to be dirty. Mr. Ruddles was very much begrimed himself, and some
+of the leading Liberal electors, upon whom Phineas Finn had already
+called, seemed to be saturated with the product of the district. It
+would not, however, in any event be his duty to live at Tankerville,
+and he had believed from the first moment of his entrance into the
+town that he would soon depart from it, and know it no more. He felt
+that the chance of his being elected was quite a forlorn hope, and
+could hardly understand why he had allowed himself to be embarrassed
+by so very unprofitable a speculation.
+
+Phineas Finn had thrice before this been chosen to sit in
+Parliament--twice for the Irish borough of Loughshane, and once for
+the English borough of Loughton; but he had been so happy as hitherto
+to have known nothing of the miseries and occasional hopelessness of
+a contested election. At Loughton he had come forward as the nominee
+of the Earl of Brentford, and had been returned without any chance of
+failure by that nobleman's influence. At Loughshane things had nearly
+been as pleasant with him. He had almost been taught to think that
+nothing could be easier than getting into Parliament if only a man
+could live when he was there. But Loughton and Loughshane were gone,
+with so many other comfortable things of old days, and now he found
+himself relegated to a borough to which, as it seemed to him, he was
+sent to fight, not that he might win, but because it was necessary
+to his party that the seat should not be allowed to be lost without
+fighting. He had had the pleasant things of parliamentary adventure,
+and now must undergo those which were unpleasant. No doubt he could
+have refused, but he had listened to the tempter, and could not now
+go back, though Mr. Ruddles was hardly more encouraging than Mr.
+Molescroft.
+
+"Browborough has been at work for the last three days," said Mr.
+Ruddles, in a tone of reproach. Mr. Ruddles had always thought that
+no amount of work could be too heavy for his candidates.
+
+"Will that make much difference?" asked Mr. Molescroft.
+
+"Well, it does. Of course, he has been among the colliers,--when we
+ought to have been before him."
+
+"I came when I was told," said Phineas.
+
+"I'd have telegraphed to you if I'd known where you were. But there's
+no help for spilt milk. We must get to work now,--that's all. I
+suppose you're for disestablishing the Church?"
+
+"Not particularly," said Phineas, who felt that with him, as a Roman
+Catholic, this was a delicate subject.
+
+"We needn't go into that, need we?" said Mr. Molescroft, who, though
+a Liberal, was a good Churchman.
+
+Mr. Ruddles was a Dissenter, but the very strong opinion which Mr.
+Ruddles now expressed as to the necessity that the new candidate
+should take up the Church question did not spring at all from his own
+religious convictions. His present duty called upon him to have a
+Liberal candidate if possible returned for the borough with which he
+was connected, and not to disseminate the doctrines of his own sect.
+Nevertheless, his opinion was very strong. "I think we must, Mr.
+Molescroft," said he; "I'm sure we must. Browborough has taken up
+the other side. He went to church last Sunday with the Mayor and two
+of the Aldermen, and I'm told he said all the responses louder than
+anybody else. He dined with the Vicar of Trinity on Monday. He has
+been very loud in denouncing Mr. Finn as a Roman Catholic, and has
+declared that everything will be up with the State if Tankerville
+returns a friend and supporter of the Pope. You'll find that the
+Church will be the cry here this election. You can't get anything by
+supporting it, but you may make a strong party by pledging yourself
+to disendowment."
+
+"Wouldn't local taxation do?" asked Mr. Molescroft, who indeed
+preferred almost any other reform to disendowment.
+
+"I have made up my mind that we must have some check on municipal
+expenditure," said Phineas.
+
+"It won't do--not alone. If I understand the borough, the feeling at
+this election will altogether be about the Church. You see, Mr. Finn,
+your being a Roman Catholic gives them a handle, and they're already
+beginning to use it. They don't like Roman Catholics here; but if
+you can manage to give it a sort of Liberal turn,--as many of your
+constituents used to do, you know,--as though you disliked Church and
+State rather than cared for the Pope, may be it might act on our side
+rather than on theirs. Mr. Molescroft understands it all."
+
+"Oh, yes; I understand."
+
+Mr. Ruddles said a great deal more to the same effect, and though Mr.
+Molescroft did not express any acquiescence in these views, neither
+did he dissent. The candidate said but little at this interview, but
+turned the matter over in his mind. A seat in Parliament would be
+but a barren honour, and he could not afford to offer his services
+for barren honour. Honest political work he was anxious to do, but
+for what work he did he desired to be paid. The party to which he
+belonged had, as he knew, endeavoured to avoid the subject of the
+disendowment of the Church of England. It is the necessary nature
+of a political party in this country to avoid, as long as it can be
+avoided, the consideration of any question which involves a great
+change. There is a consciousness on the minds of leading politicians
+that the pressure from behind, forcing upon them great measures,
+drives them almost quicker than they can go, so that it becomes a
+necessity with them to resist rather than to aid the pressure which
+will certainly be at last effective by its own strength. The best
+carriage horses are those which can most steadily hold back against
+the coach as it trundles down the hill. All this Phineas knew, and
+was of opinion that the Barrington Erles and Ratlers of his party
+would not thank him for ventilating a measure which, however certain
+might be its coming, might well be postponed for a few years. Once
+already in his career he had chosen to be in advance of his party,
+and the consequences had been disastrous to him. On that occasion his
+feelings had been strong in regard to the measure upon which he broke
+away from his party; but, when he first thought of it, he did not
+care much about Church disendowment.
+
+But he found that he must needs go as he was driven or else depart
+out of the place. He wrote a line to his friend Erle, not to ask
+advice, but to explain the circumstances. "My only possible chance
+of success will lie in attacking the Church endowments. Of course I
+think they are bad, and of course I think that they must go. But I
+have never cared for the matter, and would have been very willing to
+leave it among those things which will arrange themselves. But I have
+no choice here." And so he prepared himself to run his race on the
+course arranged for him by Mr. Ruddles. Mr. Molescroft, whose hours
+were precious, soon took his leave, and Phineas Finn was placarded
+about the town as the sworn foe to all Church endowments.
+
+In the course of his canvass, and the commotions consequent upon
+it, he found that Mr. Ruddles was right. No other subject seemed at
+the moment to have any attraction in Tankerville. Mr. Browborough,
+whose life had not been passed in any strict obedience to the Ten
+Commandments, and whose religious observances had not hitherto
+interfered with either the pleasures or the duties of his life,
+repeated at every meeting which he attended, and almost to every
+elector whom he canvassed, the great Shibboleth which he had now
+adopted--"The prosperity of England depends on the Church of her
+people." He was not an orator. Indeed, it might be hard to find a
+man, who had for years been conversant with public life, less able
+to string a few words together for immediate use. Nor could he learn
+half-a-dozen sentences by rote. But he could stand up with unabashed
+brow and repeat with enduring audacity the same words a dozen times
+over--"The prosperity of England depends on the Church of her
+people." Had he been asked whether the prosperity which he promised
+was temporal or spiritual in its nature, not only could he not have
+answered, but he would not in the least have understood the question.
+But the words as they came from his mouth had a weight which seemed
+to ensure their truth, and many men in Tankerville thought that Mr.
+Browborough was eloquent.
+
+Phineas, on the other hand, made two or three great speeches every
+evening, and astonished even Mr. Ruddles by his oratory. He had
+accepted Mr. Ruddles's proposition with but lukewarm acquiescence,
+but in the handling of the matter he became zealous, fiery,
+and enthusiastic. He explained to his hearers with gracious
+acknowledgment that Church endowments had undoubtedly been most
+beneficent in past times. He spoke in the interests of no special
+creed. Whether in the so-called Popish days of Henry VIII and his
+ancestors, or in the so-called Protestant days that had followed,
+the state of society had required that spiritual teaching should be
+supplied from funds fixed and devoted to the purpose. The increasing
+intelligence and population of the country made this no longer
+desirable,--or, if desirable, no longer possible. Could these
+endowments be increased to meet the needs of the increasing millions?
+Was it not the fact that even among members of the Church of England
+they were altogether inefficient to supply the wants of our great
+towns? Did the people of Tankerville believe that the clergymen of
+London, of Liverpool, and of Manchester were paid by endowments? The
+arguments which had been efficacious in Ireland must be efficacious
+in England. He said this without reference to one creed or to
+another. He did believe in religious teaching. He had not a word to
+say against a Protestant Episcopal Church. But he thought, nay he
+was sure, that Church and State, as combined institutions, could no
+longer prevail in this country. If the people of Tankerville would
+return him to Parliament it should be his first object to put an end
+to this anomaly.
+
+The Browboroughites were considerably astonished by his success. The
+colliers on this occasion did not seem to regard the clamour that
+was raised against Irish Papists. Much dirt was thrown and some
+heads were broken; but Phineas persevered. Mr. Ruddles was lost in
+admiration. They had never before had at Tankerville a man who could
+talk so well. Mr. Browborough without ceasing repeated his well-worn
+assurance, and it was received with the loudest exclamations of
+delight by his own party. The clergymen of the town and neighbourhood
+crowded round him and pursued him, and almost seemed to believe in
+him. They were at any rate fighting their battle as best they knew
+how to fight it. But the great body of the colliers listened to
+Phineas, and every collier was now a voter. Then Mr. Ruddles, who
+had many eyes, began to perceive that the old game was to be played.
+"There'll be money going to-morrow after all," he whispered to Finn
+the evening before the election.
+
+"I suppose you expected that."
+
+"I wasn't sure. They began by thinking they could do without it. They
+don't want to sacrifice the borough."
+
+"Nor do I, Mr. Ruddles."
+
+"But they'll sooner do that than lose the seat. A couple of dozen of
+men out of the Fallgate would make us safe." Mr. Ruddles smiled as he
+said this.
+
+And Phineas smiled as he answered, "If any good can be done by
+talking to the men at the Fallgate, I'll talk to them by the hour
+together."
+
+"We've about done all that," said Mr. Ruddles.
+
+Then came the voting. Up to two o'clock the polling was so equal that
+the numbers at Mr. Browborough's committee room were always given in
+his favour, and those at the Liberal room in favour of Phineas Finn.
+At three o'clock Phineas was acknowledged to be ten ahead. He himself
+was surprised at his own success, and declared to himself that his
+old luck had not deserted him.
+
+"They're giving £2 10_s._ a vote at the Fallgate this minute," said
+Ruddles to him at a quarter-past three.
+
+"We shall have to prove it."
+
+"We can do that, I think," said Ruddles.
+
+At four o'clock, when the poll was over, Browborough was declared
+to have won on the post by seven votes. He was that same evening
+declared by the Mayor to have been elected sitting member for the
+borough, and he again assured the people in his speech that the
+prosperity of England depends on the Church of her people.
+
+"We shall carry the seat on a scrutiny as sure as eggs," said Mr.
+Ruddles, who had been quite won by the gallant way in which Phineas
+had fought his battle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+MR. DAUBENY'S GREAT MOVE.
+
+
+The whole Liberal party was taken very much by surprise at the course
+which the election ran. Or perhaps it might be more proper to say
+that the parliamentary leaders of the party were surprised. It had
+not been recognised by them as necessary that the great question of
+Church and State should be generally discussed on this occasion. It
+was a matter of course that it should be discussed at some places,
+and by some men. Eager Dissenters would, of course, take advantage
+of the opportunity to press their views, and no doubt the entire
+abolition of the Irish Church as a State establishment had taught
+Liberals to think and Conservatives to fear that the question would
+force itself forward at no very distant date. But it had not been
+expected to do so now. The general incompetence of a Ministry who
+could not command a majority on any measure was intended to be the
+strong point of the Liberal party, not only at the election, but at
+the meeting of Parliament. The Church question, which was necessarily
+felt by all statesmen to be of such magnitude as to dwarf every
+other, was not wanted as yet. It might remain in the background as
+the future standing-point for some great political struggle, in which
+it would be again necessary that every Liberal should fight, as
+though for life, with his teeth and nails. Men who ten years since
+regarded almost with abhorrence, and certainly with distrust, the
+idea of disruption between Church and State in England, were no
+doubt learning to perceive that such disruption must come, and were
+reconciling themselves to it after that slow, silent, inargumentative
+fashion in which convictions force themselves among us. And from
+reconciliation to the idea some were advancing to enthusiasm on its
+behalf. "It is only a question of time," was now said by many who
+hardly remembered how devoted they had been to the Established Church
+of England a dozen years ago. But the fruit was not yet ripe, and the
+leaders of the Liberal party by no means desired that it should be
+plucked. They were, therefore, surprised, and but little pleased,
+when they found that the question was more discussed than any other
+on the hustings of enthusiastically political boroughs.
+
+Barrington Erle was angry when he received the letter of Phineas
+Finn. He was at that moment staying with the Duke of St. Bungay,
+who was regarded by many as the only possible leader of the Liberal
+party, should Mr. Gresham for any reason fail them. Indeed the old
+Whigs, of whom Barrington Erle considered himself to be one, would
+have much preferred the Duke to Mr. Gresham, had it been possible
+to set Mr. Gresham aside. But Mr. Gresham was too strong to be set
+aside; and Erle and the Duke, with all their brethren, were minded to
+be thoroughly loyal to their leader. He was their leader, and not to
+be loyal was, in their minds, treachery. But occasionally they feared
+that the man would carry them whither they did not desire to go. In
+the meantime heavy things were spoken of our poor friend, Finn.
+
+"After all, that man is an ass," said Erle.
+
+"If so, I believe you are altogether responsible for him," said the
+Duke.
+
+"Well, yes, in a measure; but not altogether. That, however, is a
+long story. He has many good gifts. He is clever, good-tempered, and
+one of the pleasantest fellows that ever lived. The women all like
+him."
+
+"So the Duchess tells me."
+
+"But he is not what I call loyal. He cannot keep himself from running
+after strange gods. What need had he to take up the Church question
+at Tankerville? The truth is, Duke, the thing is going to pieces.
+We get men into the House now who are clever, and all that sort
+of thing, and who force their way up, but who can't be made to
+understand that everybody should not want to be Prime Minister." The
+Duke, who was now a Nestor among politicians, though very green in
+his age, smiled as he heard remarks which had been familiar to him
+for the last forty years. He, too, liked his party, and was fond of
+loyal men; but he had learned at last that all loyalty must be built
+on a basis of self-advantage. Patriotism may exist without it, but
+that which Erle called loyalty in politics was simply devotion to the
+side which a man conceives to be his side, and which he cannot leave
+without danger to himself.
+
+But if discontent was felt at the eagerness with which this subject
+was taken up at certain boroughs, and was adopted by men whose votes
+and general support would be essentially necessary to the would-be
+coming Liberal Government, absolute dismay was occasioned by a speech
+that was made at a certain county election. Mr. Daubeny had for many
+years been member for East Barsetshire, and was as sure of his seat
+as the Queen of her throne. No one would think of contesting Mr.
+Daubeny's right to sit for East Barsetshire, and no doubt he might
+have been returned without showing himself to the electors. But he
+did show himself to the electors; and, as a matter of course, made
+a speech on the occasion. It so happened that the day fixed for the
+election in this division of the county was quite at the close of
+this period of political excitement. When Mr. Daubeny addressed his
+friends in East Barsetshire the returns throughout the kingdom were
+nearly complete. No attention had been paid to this fact during the
+elections, but it was afterwards asserted that the arrangement had
+been made with a political purpose, and with a purpose which was
+politically dishonest. Mr. Daubeny, so said the angry Liberals,
+had not chosen to address his constituents till his speech at the
+hustings could have no effect on other counties. Otherwise,--so said
+the Liberals,--the whole Conservative party would have been called
+upon to disavow at the hustings the conclusion to which Mr. Daubeny
+hinted in East Barsetshire that he had arrived. The East Barsetshire
+men themselves,--so said the Liberals,--had been too crass to catch
+the meaning hidden under his ambiguous words; but those words, when
+read by the light of astute criticism, were found to contain an
+opinion that Church and State should be dissevered. "By G----! he's
+going to take the bread out of our mouths again," said Mr. Ratler.
+
+The speech was certainly very ambiguous, and I am not sure that the
+East Barsetshire folk were so crass as they were accused of being,
+in not understanding it at once. The dreadful hint was wrapped up in
+many words, and formed but a small part of a very long oration. The
+bucolic mind of East Barsetshire took warm delight in the eloquence
+of the eminent personage who represented them, but was wont to
+extract more actual enjoyment from the music of his periods than from
+the strength of his arguments. When he would explain to them that
+he had discovered a new, or rather hitherto unknown, Conservative
+element in the character of his countrymen, which he could best
+utilise by changing everything in the Constitution, he manipulated
+his words with such grace, was so profound, so broad, and so exalted,
+was so brilliant in mingling a deep philosophy with the ordinary
+politics of the day, that the bucolic mind could only admire. It
+was a great honour to the electors of that agricultural county that
+they should be made the first recipients of these pearls, which
+were not wasted by being thrown before them. They were picked up
+by the gentlemen of the Press, and became the pearls, not of East
+Barsetshire, but of all England. On this occasion it was found that
+one pearl was very big, very rare, and worthy of great attention;
+but it was a black pearl, and was regarded by many as an abominable
+prodigy. "The period of our history is one in which it becomes
+essential for us to renew those inquiries which have prevailed since
+man first woke to his destiny, as to the amount of connection which
+exists and which must exist between spiritual and simply human forms
+of government,--between our daily religion and our daily politics,
+between the Crown and the Mitre." The East Barsetshire clergymen and
+the East Barsetshire farmers like to hear something of the mitre in
+political speeches at the hustings. The word sounds pleasantly in
+their ears, as appertaining to good old gracious times and good old
+gracious things. As honey falls fast from the mouth of the practised
+speaker, the less practised hearer is apt to catch more of the words
+than of the sense. The speech of Mr. Daubeny was taken all in good
+part by his assembled friends. But when it was read by the quidnuncs
+on the following day it was found to contain so deep a meaning that
+it produced from Mr. Ratler's mouth those words of fear which have
+been already quoted.
+
+Could it really be the case that the man intended to perform so
+audacious a trick of legerdemain as this for the preservation of his
+power, and that if he intended it he should have the power to carry
+it through? The renewal of inquiry as to the connection which exists
+between the Crown and the Mitre, when the bran was bolted, could only
+mean the disestablishment of the Church. Mr. Ratler and his friends
+were not long in bolting the bran. Regarding the matter simply in its
+own light, without bringing to bear upon it the experience of the
+last half-century, Mr. Ratler would have thought his party strong
+enough to defy Mr. Daubeny utterly in such an attempt. The ordinary
+politician, looking at Mr. Daubeny's position as leader of the
+Conservative party, as a statesman depending on the support of the
+Church, as a Minister appointed to his present place for the express
+object of defending all that was left of old, and dear, and venerable
+in the Constitution, would have declared that Mr. Daubeny was
+committing political suicide, as to which future history would record
+a verdict of probably not temporary insanity. And when the speech was
+a week old this was said in many a respectable household through the
+country. Many a squire, many a parson, many a farmer was grieved for
+Mr. Daubeny when the words had been explained to him, who did not for
+a moment think that the words could be portentous as to the great
+Conservative party. But Mr. Ratler remembered Catholic emancipation,
+had himself been in the House when the Corn Laws were repealed, and
+had been nearly broken-hearted when household suffrage had become
+the law of the land while a Conservative Cabinet and a Conservative
+Government were in possession of dominion in Israel.
+
+Mr. Bonteen was disposed to think that the trick was beyond the
+conjuring power even of Mr. Daubeny. "After all, you know, there is
+the party," he said to Mr. Ratler. Mr. Ratler's face was as good
+as a play, and if seen by that party would have struck that party
+with dismay and shame. The meaning of Mr. Ratler's face was plain
+enough. He thought so little of that party, on the score either of
+intelligence, honesty, or fidelity, as to imagine that it would
+consent to be led whithersoever Mr. Daubeny might choose to lead
+it. "If they care about anything, it's about the Church," said Mr.
+Bonteen.
+
+"There's something they like a great deal better than the Church,"
+said Mr. Ratler. "Indeed, there's only one thing they care about at
+all now. They've given up all the old things. It's very likely that
+if Daubeny were to ask them to vote for pulling down the Throne and
+establishing a Republic they'd all follow him into the lobby like
+sheep. They've been so knocked about by one treachery after another
+that they don't care now for anything beyond their places."
+
+"It's only a few of them get anything, after all."
+
+"Yes, they do. It isn't just so much a year they want, though those
+who have that won't like to part with it. But they like getting
+the counties, and the Garters, and the promotion in the army. They
+like their brothers to be made bishops, and their sisters like the
+Wardrobe and the Bedchamber. There isn't one of them that doesn't
+hang on somewhere,--or at least not many. Do you remember Peel's bill
+for the Corn Laws?"
+
+"There were fifty went against him then," said Bonteen.
+
+"And what are fifty? A man doesn't like to be one of fifty. It's
+too many for glory, and not enough for strength. There has come up
+among them a general feeling that it's just as well to let things
+slide,--as the Yankees say. They're down-hearted about it enough
+within their own houses, no doubt. But what can they do, if they hold
+back? Some stout old cavalier here and there may shut himself up in
+his own castle, and tell himself that the world around him may go to
+wrack and ruin, but that he will not help the evil work. Some are
+shutting themselves up. Look at old Quin, when they carried their
+Reform Bill. But men, as a rule, don't like to be shut up. How they
+reconcile it to their conscience,--that's what I can't understand."
+Such was the wisdom, and such were the fears of Mr. Ratler. Mr.
+Bonteen, however, could not bring himself to believe that the
+Arch-enemy would on this occasion be successful. "It mayn't be too
+hot for him," said Mr. Bonteen, when he reviewed the whole matter,
+"but I think it'll be too heavy."
+
+They who had mounted higher than Mr. Ratler and Mr. Bonteen on the
+political ladder, but who had mounted on the same side, were no
+less astonished than their inferiors; and, perhaps, were equally
+disgusted, though they did not allow themselves to express their
+disgust as plainly. Mr. Gresham was staying in the country with his
+friend, Lord Cantrip, when the tidings reached them of Mr. Daubeny's
+speech to the electors of East Barsetshire. Mr. Gresham and Lord
+Cantrip had long sat in the same Cabinet, and were fast friends,
+understanding each other's views, and thoroughly trusting each
+other's loyalty. "He means it," said Lord Cantrip.
+
+"He means to see if it be possible," said the other. "It is thrown
+out as a feeler to his own party."
+
+"I'll do him the justice of saying that he's not afraid of his party.
+If he means it, he means it altogether, and will not retract it, even
+though the party should refuse as a body to support him. I give him
+no other credit, but I give him that."
+
+Mr. Gresham paused for a few moments before he answered. "I do not
+know," said he, "whether we are justified in thinking that one man
+will always be the same. Daubeny has once been very audacious, and he
+succeeded. But he had two things to help him,--a leader, who, though
+thoroughly trusted, was very idle, and an ill-defined question. When
+he had won his leader he had won his party. He has no such tower of
+strength now. And in the doing of this thing, if he means to do it,
+he must encounter the assured conviction of every man on his own
+side, both in the upper and lower House. When he told them that he
+would tap a Conservative element by reducing the suffrage they did
+not know whether to believe him or not. There might be something
+in it. It might be that they would thus resume a class of suffrage
+existing in former days, but which had fallen into abeyance, because
+not properly protected. They could teach themselves to believe that
+it might be so, and those among them who found it necessary to free
+their souls did so teach themselves. I don't see how they are to free
+their souls when they are invited to put down the State establishment
+of the Church."
+
+"He'll find a way for them."
+
+"It's possible. I'm the last man in the world to contest the
+possibility, or even the expediency, of changes in political opinion.
+But I do not know whether it follows that because he was brave and
+successful once he must necessarily be brave and successful again. A
+man rides at some outrageous fence, and by the wonderful activity and
+obedient zeal of his horse is carried over it in safety. It does not
+follow that his horse will carry him over a house, or that he should
+be fool enough to ask the beast to do so."
+
+"He intends to ride at the house," said Lord Cantrip; "and he means
+it because others have talked of it. You saw the line which my rash
+young friend Finn took at Tankerville."
+
+"And all for nothing."
+
+"I am not so sure of that. They say he is like the rest. If Daubeny
+does carry the party with him, I suppose the days of the Church are
+numbered."
+
+"And what if they be?" Mr. Gresham almost sighed as he said this,
+although he intended to express a certain amount of satisfaction.
+"What if they be? You know, and I know, that the thing has to be
+done. Whatever may be our own individual feelings, or even our
+present judgment on the subject,--as to which neither of us can
+perhaps say that his mind is not so made up that it may not soon
+be altered,--we know that the present union cannot remain. It is
+unfitted for that condition of humanity to which we are coming, and
+if so, the change must be for good. Why should not he do it as well
+as another? Or rather would not he do it better than another, if he
+can do it with less of animosity than we should rouse against us? If
+the blow would come softer from his hands than from ours, with less
+of a feeling of injury to those who dearly love the Church, should we
+not be glad that he should undertake the task?"
+
+"Then you will not oppose him?"
+
+"Ah;--there is much to be considered before we can say that. Though
+he may not be bound by his friends, we may be bound by ours. And
+then, though I can hint to you at a certain condition of mind,
+and can sympathise with you, feeling that such may become the
+condition of your mind, I cannot say that I should act upon it as an
+established conviction, or that I can expect that you will do so. If
+such be the political programme submitted to us when the House meets,
+then we must be prepared."
+
+Lord Cantrip also paused a moment before he answered, but he had his
+answer ready. "I can frankly say that I should follow your leading,
+but that I should give my voice for opposition."
+
+"Your voice is always persuasive," said Mr. Gresham.
+
+But the consternation felt among Mr. Daubeny's friends was infinitely
+greater than that which fell among his enemies, when those wonderful
+words were read, discussed, criticised, and explained. It seemed to
+every clergyman in England that nothing short of disestablishment
+could be intended by them. And this was the man to whom they had
+all looked for protection! This was the bulwark of the Church, to
+whom they had trusted! This was the hero who had been so sound and
+so firm respecting the Irish Establishment, when evil counsels
+had been allowed to prevail in regard to that ill-used but still
+sacred vineyard! All friends of the Church had then whispered
+among themselves fearfully, and had, with sad looks and grievous
+forebodings, acknowledged that the thin edge of the wedge had been
+driven into the very rock of the Establishment. The enemies of
+the Church were known to be powerful, numerous, and of course
+unscrupulous. But surely this Brutus would not raise a dagger against
+this Cæsar! And yet, if not, what was the meaning of those words?
+And then men and women began to tell each other,--the men and women
+who are the very salt of the earth in this England of ours,--that
+their Brutus, in spite of his great qualities, had ever been
+mysterious, unintelligible, dangerous, and given to feats of
+conjuring. They had only been too submissive to their Brutus.
+Wonderful feats of conjuring they had endured, understanding nothing
+of the manner in which they were performed,--nothing of their
+probable results; but this feat of conjuring they would not endure.
+And so there were many meetings held about the country, though the
+time for combined action was very short.
+
+Nothing more audacious than the speaking of those few words to the
+bucolic electors of East Barsetshire had ever been done in the
+political history of England. Cromwell was bold when he closed the
+Long Parliament. Shaftesbury was bold when he formed the plot for
+which Lord Russell and others suffered. Walpole was bold when, in
+his lust for power, he discarded one political friend after another.
+And Peel was bold when he resolved to repeal the Corn Laws. But in
+none of these instances was the audacity displayed more wonderful
+than when Mr. Daubeny took upon himself to make known throughout
+the country his intention of abolishing the Church of England. For
+to such a declaration did those few words amount. He was now the
+recognised parliamentary leader of that party to which the Church
+of England was essentially dear. He had achieved his place by skill,
+rather than principle,--by the conviction on men's minds that he was
+necessary rather than that he was fit. But still, there he was; and,
+though he had alarmed many,--had, probably, alarmed all those who
+followed him by his eccentric and dangerous mode of carrying on the
+battle; though no Conservative regarded him as safe; yet on this
+question of the Church it had been believed that he was sound. What
+might be the special ideas of his own mind regarding ecclesiastical
+policy in general, it had not been thought necessary to consider.
+His utterances had been confusing, mysterious, and perhaps purposely
+unintelligible; but that was matter of little moment so long as he
+was prepared to defend the establishment of the Church of England
+as an institution adapted for English purposes. On that point it
+was believed that he was sound. To that mast it was supposed he had
+nailed his own colours and those of his party. In defending that
+fortress it was thought that he would be ready to fall, should the
+defence of it require a fall. It was because he was so far safe that
+he was there. And yet he spoke these words without consulting a
+single friend, or suggesting the propriety of his new scheme to a
+single supporter. And he knew what he was doing. This was the way in
+which he had thought it best to make known to his own followers, not
+only that he was about to abandon the old Institution, but that they
+must do so too!
+
+As regarded East Barsetshire itself, he was returned, and fêted, and
+sent home with his ears stuffed with eulogy, before the bucolic mind
+had discovered his purpose. On so much he had probably calculated.
+But he had calculated also that after an interval of three or four
+days his secret would be known to all friends and enemies. On the day
+after his speech came the report of it in the newspapers; on the next
+day the leading articles, in which the world was told what it was
+that the Prime Minister had really said. Then, on the following day,
+the startled parsons, and the startled squires and farmers, and,
+above all, the startled peers and members of the Lower House, whose
+duty it was to vote as he should lead them, were all agog. Could it
+be that the newspapers were right in this meaning which they had
+attached to these words? On the day week after the election in East
+Barsetshire, a Cabinet Council was called in London, at which it
+would, of course, be Mr. Daubeny's duty to explain to his colleagues
+what it was that he did purpose to do.
+
+In the meantime he saw a colleague or two.
+
+"Let us look it straight in the face," he said to a noble colleague;
+"we must look it in the face before long."
+
+"But we need not hurry it forward."
+
+"There is a storm coming. We knew that before, and we heard the sound
+of it from every husting in the country. How shall we rule the storm
+so that it may pass over the land without devastating it? If we bring
+in a bill--"
+
+"A bill for disestablishing the Church!" said the horror-stricken
+lord.
+
+"If we bring in a bill, the purport of which shall be to moderate the
+ascendancy of the Church in accordance with the existing religious
+feelings of the population, we shall save much that otherwise must
+fall. If there must be a bill, would you rather that it should be
+modelled by us who love the Church, or by those who hate it?"
+
+That lord was very wrath, and told the right honourable gentleman
+to his face that his duty to his party should have constrained him
+to silence on that subject till he had consulted his colleagues. In
+answer to this Mr. Daubeny said with much dignity that, should such
+be the opinion of his colleagues in general, he would at once abandon
+the high place which he held in their councils. But he trusted that
+it might be otherwise. He had felt himself bound to communicate his
+ideas to his constituents, and had known that in doing so some minds
+must be shocked. He trusted that he might be able to allay this
+feeling of dismay. As regarded this noble lord, he did succeed in
+lessening the dismay before the meeting was over, though he did not
+altogether allay it.
+
+Another gentleman who was in the habit of sitting at Mr. Daubeny's
+elbow daily in the House of Commons was much gentler with him, both
+as to words and manner. "It's a bold throw, but I'm afraid it won't
+come up sixes," said the right honourable gentleman.
+
+"Let it come up fives, then. It's the only chance we have; and if
+you think, as I do, that it is essentially necessary for the welfare
+of the country that we should remain where we are, we must run the
+risk."
+
+With another colleague, whose mind was really set on that which
+the Church is presumed to represent, he used another argument.
+"I am convinced at any rate of this," said Mr. Daubeny; "that by
+sacrificing something of that ascendancy which the Establishment is
+supposed to give us, we can bring the Church, which we love, nearer
+to the wants of the people." And so it came about that before the
+Cabinet met, every member of it knew what it was that was expected
+of him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+PHINEAS AND HIS OLD FRIENDS.
+
+
+Phineas Finn returned from Tankerville to London in much better
+spirits than those which had accompanied him on his journey thither.
+He was not elected; but then, before the election, he had come to
+believe that it was quite out of the question that he should be
+elected. And now he did think it probable that he should get the seat
+on a petition. A scrutiny used to be a very expensive business, but
+under the existing law, made as the scrutiny would be in the borough
+itself, it would cost but little; and that little, should he be
+successful, would fall on the shoulders of Mr. Browborough. Should he
+knock off eight votes and lose none himself, he would be member for
+Tankerville. He knew that many votes had been given for Browborough
+which, if the truth were known of them, would be knocked off; and he
+did not know that the same could be said of any one of those by which
+he had been supported. But, unfortunately, the judge by whom all this
+would be decided might not reach Tankerville in his travels till
+after Christmas, perhaps not till after Easter; and in the meantime,
+what should he do with himself?
+
+As for going back to Dublin, that was now out of the question. He had
+entered upon a feverish state of existence in which it was impossible
+that he should live in Ireland. Should he ultimately fail in regard
+to his seat he must--vanish out of the world. While he remained in his
+present condition he would not even endeavour to think how he might
+in such case best bestow himself. For the present he would remain
+within the region of politics, and live as near as he could to the
+whirl of the wheel of which the sound was so dear to him. Of one club
+he had always remained a member, and he had already been re-elected
+a member of the Reform. So he took up his residence once more at the
+house of a certain Mr. and Mrs. Bunce, in Great Marlborough Street,
+with whom he had lodged when he first became a member of Parliament.
+
+"So you're at the old game, Mr. Finn?" said his landlord.
+
+"Yes; at the old game. I suppose it's the same with you?" Now Mr.
+Bunce had been a very violent politician, and used to rejoice in
+calling himself a Democrat.
+
+"Pretty much the same, Mr. Finn. I don't see that things are much
+better than they used to be. They tell me at the People's Banner
+office that the lords have had as much to do with this election as
+with any that ever went before it."
+
+"Perhaps they don't know much about it at the People's Banner office.
+I thought Mr. Slide and the People's Banner had gone over to the
+other side, Bunce?"
+
+"Mr. Slide is pretty wide-awake whatever side he's on. Not but what
+he's disgraced himself by what he's been and done now." Mr. Slide
+in former days had been the editor of the People's Banner, and
+circumstances had arisen in consequence of which there had been some
+acquaintance between him and our hero. "I see you was hammering away
+at the Church down at Tankerville."
+
+"I just said a word or two."
+
+"You was all right, there, Mr. Finn. I can't say as I ever saw very
+much in your religion; but what a man keeps in the way of religion
+for his own use is never nothing to me;--as what I keeps is nothing
+to him."
+
+"I'm afraid you don't keep much, Mr. Bunce."
+
+"And that's nothing to you, neither, is it, sir?"
+
+"No, indeed."
+
+"But when we read of Churches as is called State Churches,--Churches
+as have bishops you and I have to pay for, as never goes into them--"
+
+"But we don't pay the bishops, Mr. Bunce."
+
+"Oh yes, we do; because, if they wasn't paid, the money would come to
+us to do as we pleased with it. We proved all that when we pared them
+down a bit. What's an Ecclesiastical Commission? Only another name
+for a box to put the money into till you want to take it out again.
+When we hear of Churches such as these, as is not kept up by the
+people who uses them,--just as the theatres are, Mr. Finn, or the gin
+shops,--then I know there's a deal more to be done before honest men
+can come by their own. You're right enough, Mr. Finn, you are, as far
+as churches go, and you was right, too, when you cut and run off the
+Treasury Bench. I hope you ain't going to sit on that stool again."
+
+Mr. Bunce was a privileged person, and Mrs. Bunce made up for his
+apparent rudeness by her own affectionate cordiality. "Deary me,
+and isn't it a thing for sore eyes to have you back again! I never
+expected this. But I'll do for you, Mr. Finn, just as I ever did in
+the old days; and it was I that was sorry when I heard of the poor
+young lady's death; so I was, Mr. Finn; well, then, I won't mention
+her name never again. But after all there's been betwixt you and us
+it wouldn't be natural to pass it by without one word; would it, Mr.
+Finn? Well, yes; he's just the same man as ever, without a ha'porth
+of difference. He's gone on paying that shilling to the Union every
+week of his life, just as he used to do; and never got so much out
+of it, not as a junketing into the country. That he didn't. It makes
+me that sick sometimes when I think of where it's gone to, that I
+don't know how to bear it. Well, yes; that is true, Mr. Finn. There
+never was a man better at bringing home his money to his wife than
+Bunce, barring that shilling. If he'd drink it, which he never does,
+I think I'd bear it better than give it to that nasty Union. And
+young Jack writes as well as his father, pretty nigh, Mr. Finn,
+which is a comfort,"--Mr. Bunce was a journeyman scrivener at a law
+stationer's,--"and keeps his self; but he don't bring home his money,
+nor yet it can't be expected, Mr. Finn. I know what the young 'uns
+will do, and what they won't. And Mary Jane is quite handy about the
+house now,--only she do break things, which is an aggravation; and
+the hot water shall be always up at eight o'clock to a minute, if I
+bring it with my own hand, Mr. Finn."
+
+
+[Illustration: "Well, then, I won't mention her name again."]
+
+
+And so he was established once more in his old rooms in Great
+Marlborough Street; and as he sat back in the arm-chair, which he
+used to know so well, a hundred memories of former days crowded back
+upon him. Lord Chiltern for a few months had lived with him; and then
+there had arisen a quarrel, which he had for a time thought would
+dissolve his old life into ruin. Now Lord Chiltern was again his
+very intimate friend. And there had used to sit a needy money-lender
+whom he had been unable to banish. Alas! alas! how soon might he now
+require that money-lender's services! And then he recollected how he
+had left these rooms to go into others, grander and more appropriate
+to his life when he had filled high office under the State. Would
+there ever again come to him such cause for migration? And would he
+again be able to load the frame of the looking-glass over the fire
+with countless cards from Countesses and Ministers' wives? He had
+opened the oyster for himself once, though it had closed again with
+so sharp a snap when the point of his knife had been withdrawn. Would
+he be able to insert the point again between those two difficult
+shells? Would the Countesses once more be kind to him? Would
+drawing-rooms be opened to him, and sometimes opened to him and to
+no other? Then he thought of certain special drawing-rooms in which
+wonderful things had been said to him. Since that he had been a
+married man, and those special drawing-rooms and those wonderful
+words had in no degree actuated him in his choice of a wife. He had
+left all those things of his own free will, as though telling himself
+that there was a better life than they offered to him. But was he
+sure that he had found it to be better? He had certainly sighed for
+the gauds which he had left. While his young wife was living he had
+kept his sighs down, so that she should not hear them; but he had
+been forced to acknowledge that his new life had been vapid and
+flavourless. Now he had been tempted back again to the old haunts.
+Would the Countesses' cards be showered upon him again?
+
+One card, or rather note, had reached him while he was yet at
+Tankerville, reminding him of old days. It was from Mrs. Low, the
+wife of the barrister with whom he had worked when he had been a
+law student in London. She had asked him to come and dine with them
+after the old fashion in Baker Street, naming a day as to which she
+presumed that he would by that time have finished his affairs at
+Tankerville, intimating also that Mr. Low would then have finished
+his at North Broughton. Now Mr. Low had sat for North Broughton
+before Phineas left London, and his wife spoke of the seat as a
+certainty. Phineas could not keep himself from feeling that Mrs. Low
+intended to triumph over him; but, nevertheless, he accepted the
+invitation. They were very glad to see him, explaining that, as
+nobody was supposed to be in town, nobody had been asked to meet
+him. In former days he had been very intimate in that house, having
+received from both of them much kindness, mingled, perhaps, with some
+touch of severity on the part of the lady. But the ground for that
+was gone, and Mrs. Low was no longer painfully severe. A few words
+were said as to his great loss. Mrs. Low once raised her eyebrows in
+pretended surprise when Phineas explained that he had thrown up his
+place, and then they settled down on the question of the day. "And
+so," said Mrs. Low, "you've begun to attack the Church?" It must be
+remembered that at this moment Mr. Daubeny had not as yet electrified
+the minds of East Barsetshire, and that, therefore, Mrs. Low was not
+disturbed. To Mrs. Low, Church and State was the very breath of her
+nostrils; and if her husband could not be said to live by means of
+the same atmosphere it was because the breath of his nostrils had
+been drawn chiefly in the Vice-Chancellor's Court in Lincoln's Inn.
+But he, no doubt, would be very much disturbed indeed should he ever
+be told that he was required, as an expectant member of Mr. Daubeny's
+party, to vote for the Disestablishment of the Church of England.
+
+"You don't mean that I am guilty of throwing the first stone?" said
+Phineas.
+
+"They have been throwing stones at the Temple since first it was
+built," said Mrs. Low, with energy; "but they have fallen off its
+polished shafts in dust and fragments." I am afraid that Mrs. Low,
+when she allowed herself to speak thus energetically, entertained
+some confused idea that the Church of England and the Christian
+religion were one and the same thing, or, at least, that they had
+been brought into the world together.
+
+"You haven't thrown the first stone," said Mr. Low; "but you have
+taken up the throwing at the first moment in which stones may be
+dangerous."
+
+"No stones can be dangerous," said Mrs. Low.
+
+"The idea of a State Church," said Phineas, "is opposed to my theory
+of political progress. What I hope is that my friends will not
+suppose that I attack the Protestant Church because I am a Roman
+Catholic. If I were a priest it would be my business to do so; but
+I am not a priest."
+
+Mr. Low gave his old friend a bottle of his best wine, and in all
+friendly observances treated him with due affection. But neither did
+he nor did his wife for a moment abstain from attacking their guest
+in respect to his speeches at Tankerville. It seemed, indeed, to
+Phineas that as Mrs. Low was buckled up in such triple armour that
+she feared nothing, she might have been less loud in expressing her
+abhorrence of the enemies of the Church. If she feared nothing,
+why should she scream so loudly? Between the two he was a good
+deal crushed and confounded, and Mrs. Low was very triumphant when
+she allowed him to escape from her hands at ten o'clock. But, at
+that moment, nothing had as yet been heard in Baker Street of Mr.
+Daubeny's proposition to the electors of East Barsetshire! Poor Mrs.
+Low! We can foresee that there is much grief in store for her, and
+some rocks ahead, too, in the political career of her husband.
+
+Phineas was still in London, hanging about the clubs, doing nothing,
+discussing Mr. Daubeny's wonderful treachery with such men as came up
+to town, and waiting for the meeting of Parliament, when he received
+the following letter from Lady Laura Kennedy:--
+
+
+   Dresden, November 18, ----.
+
+   MY DEAR MR. FINN,
+
+   I have heard with great pleasure from my sister-in-law
+   that you have been staying with them at Harrington Hall.
+   It seems so like old days that you and Oswald and Violet
+   should be together,--so much more natural than that you
+   should be living in Dublin. I cannot conceive of you as
+   living any other life than that of the House of Commons,
+   Downing Street, and the clubs. Nor do I wish to do so. And
+   when I hear of you at Harrington Hall I know that you are
+   on your way to the other things.
+
+   Do tell me what life is like with Oswald and Violet. Of
+   course he never writes. He is one of those men who, on
+   marrying, assume that they have at last got a person to do
+   a duty which has always hitherto been neglected. Violet
+   does write, but tells me little or nothing of themselves.
+   Her letters are very nice, full of anecdote, well
+   written,--letters that are fit to be kept and printed;
+   but they are never family letters. She is inimitable in
+   discussing the miseries of her own position as the wife
+   of a Master of Hounds; but the miseries are as evidently
+   fictitious as the art is real. She told me how poor dear
+   Lady Baldock communicated to you her unhappiness about her
+   daughter in a manner that made even me laugh; and would
+   make thousands laugh in days to come were it ever to be
+   published. But of her inside life, of her baby, or of her
+   husband as a husband, she never says a word. You will have
+   seen it all, and have enough of the feminine side of a
+   man's character to be able to tell me how they are living.
+   I am sure they are happy together, because Violet has more
+   common sense than any woman I ever knew.
+
+   And pray tell me about the affair at Tankerville. My
+   cousin Barrington writes me word that you will certainly
+   get the seat. He declares that Mr. Browborough is almost
+   disposed not to fight the battle, though a man more
+   disposed to fight never bribed an elector. But Barrington
+   seems to think that you managed as well as you did by
+   getting outside the traces, as he calls it. We certainly
+   did not think that you would come out strong against the
+   Church. Don't suppose that I complain. For myself I hate
+   to think of the coming severance; but if it must come, why
+   not by your hands as well as by any other? It is hardly
+   possible that you in your heart should love a Protestant
+   ascendant Church. But, as Barrington says, a horse won't
+   get oats unless he works steady between the traces.
+
+   As to myself, what am I to say to you? I and my father
+   live here a sad, sombre, solitary life, together. We have
+   a large furnished house outside the town, with a pleasant
+   view and a pretty garden. He does--nothing. He reads the
+   English papers, and talks of English parties, is driven
+   out, and eats his dinner, and sleeps. At home, as you
+   know, not only did he take an active part in politics, but
+   he was active also in the management of his own property.
+   Now it seems to him to be almost too great a trouble to
+   write a letter to his steward; and all this has come upon
+   him because of me. He is here because he cannot bear that
+   I should live alone. I have offered to return with him to
+   Saulsby, thinking that Mr. Kennedy would trouble me no
+   further,--or to remain here by myself; but he will consent
+   to neither. In truth the burden of idleness has now fallen
+   upon him so heavily that he cannot shake it off. He dreads
+   that he may be called upon to do anything.
+
+   To me it is all one tragedy. I cannot but think of things
+   as they were two or three years since. My father and my
+   husband were both in the Cabinet, and you, young as you
+   were, stood but one step below it. Oswald was out in the
+   cold. He was very poor. Papa thought all evil of him.
+   Violet had refused him over and over again. He quarrelled
+   with you, and all the world seemed against him. Then of a
+   sudden you vanished, and we vanished. An ineffable misery
+   fell upon me and upon my wretched husband. All our good
+   things went from us at a blow. I and my poor father became
+   as it were outcasts. But Oswald suddenly retricked his
+   beams, and is flaming in the forehead of the morning sky.
+   He, I believe, has no more than he has deserved. He won
+   his wife honestly;--did he not? And he has ever been
+   honest. It is my pride to think I never gave him up. But
+   the bitter part of my cup consists in this,--that as he
+   has won what he has deserved, so have we. I complain of no
+   injustice. Our castle was built upon the sand. Why should
+   Mr. Kennedy have been a Cabinet Minister;--and why should
+   I have been his wife? There is no one else of whom I can
+   ask that question as I can of you, and no one else who can
+   answer it as you can do.
+
+   Of Mr. Kennedy it is singular how little I know, and how
+   little I ever hear. There is no one whom I can ask to tell
+   me of him. That he did not attend during the last Session
+   I do know, and we presume that he has now abandoned his
+   seat. I fear that his health is bad,--or perhaps, worse
+   still, that his mind is affected by the gloom of his life.
+   I suppose that he lives exclusively at Loughlinter. From
+   time to time I am implored by him to return to my duty
+   beneath his roof. He grounds his demand on no affection of
+   his own, on no presumption that any affection can remain
+   with me. He says no word of happiness. He offers no
+   comfort. He does not attempt to persuade with promises of
+   future care. He makes his claim simply on Holy Writ, and
+   on the feeling of duty which thence ought to weigh upon
+   me. He has never even told me that he loves me; but he is
+   persistent in declaring that those whom God has joined
+   together nothing human should separate. Since I have been
+   here I have written to him once,--one sad, long, weary
+   letter. Since that I am constrained to leave his letters
+   unanswered.
+
+   And now, my friend, could you not do for me a great
+   kindness? For a while, till the inquiry be made at
+   Tankerville, your time must be vacant. Cannot you come and
+   see us? I have told Papa that I should ask you, and he
+   would be delighted. I cannot explain to you what it would
+   be to me to be able to talk again to one who knows all
+   the errors and all the efforts of my past life as you do.
+   Dresden is very cold in the winter. I do not know whether
+   you would mind that. We are very particular about the
+   rooms, but my father bears the temperature wonderfully
+   well, though he complains. In March we move down south
+   for a couple of months. Do come if you can.
+
+   Most sincerely yours,
+
+   LAURA KENNEDY.
+
+   If you come, of course you will have yourself brought
+   direct to us. If you can learn anything of Mr. Kennedy's
+   life, and of his real condition, pray do. The faint
+   rumours which reach me are painfully distressing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+COMING HOME FROM HUNTING.
+
+
+Lady Chiltern was probably right when she declared that her husband
+must have been made to be a Master of Hounds,--presuming it to be
+granted that somebody must be Master of Hounds. Such necessity
+certainly does exist in this, the present condition of England.
+Hunting prevails; hunting men increase in numbers; foxes are
+preserved; farmers do not rebel; owners of coverts, even when they
+are not hunting men themselves, acknowledge the fact, and do not dare
+to maintain their pheasants at the expense of the much better-loved
+four-footed animal. Hounds are bred, and horses are trained specially
+to the work. A master of fox hounds is a necessity of the period.
+Allowing so much, we cannot but allow also that Lord Chiltern must
+have been made to fill the situation. He understood hunting, and,
+perhaps, there was nothing else requiring acute intelligence that he
+did understand. And he understood hunting, not only as a huntsman
+understands it,--in that branch of the science which refers simply to
+the judicious pursuit of the fox, being probably inferior to his own
+huntsman in that respect,--but he knew exactly what men should do,
+and what they should not. In regard to all those various interests
+with which he was brought in contact, he knew when to hold fast to
+his own claims, and when to make no claims at all. He was afraid of
+no one, but he was possessed of a sense of justice which induced him
+to acknowledge the rights of those around him. When he found that the
+earths were not stopped in Trumpeton Wood,--from which he judged that
+the keeper would complain that the hounds would not or could not kill
+any of the cubs found there,--he wrote in very round terms to the
+Duke who owned it. If His Grace did not want to have the wood drawn,
+let him say so. If he did, let him have the earths stopped. But when
+that great question came up as to the Gartlow coverts--when that
+uncommonly disagreeable gentleman, Mr. Smith, of Gartlow, gave notice
+that the hounds should not be admitted into his place at all,--Lord
+Chiltern soon put the whole matter straight by taking part with the
+disagreeable gentleman. The disagreeable gentleman had been ill
+used. Men had ridden among his young laurels. If gentlemen who did
+hunt,--so said Lord Chiltern to his own supporters,--did not know
+how to conduct themselves in a matter of hunting, how was it to be
+expected that a gentleman who did not hunt should do so? On this
+occasion Lord Chiltern rated his own hunt so roundly that Mr. Smith
+and he were quite in a bond together, and the Gartlow coverts were
+re-opened. Now all the world knows that the Gartlow coverts, though
+small, are material as being in the very centre of the Brake country.
+
+It is essential that a Master of Hounds should be somewhat feared by
+the men who ride with him. There should be much awe mixed with the
+love felt for him. He should be a man with whom other men will not
+care to argue; an irrational, cut and thrust, unscrupulous, but yet
+distinctly honest man; one who can be tyrannical, but will tyrannise
+only over the evil spirits; a man capable of intense cruelty to those
+alongside of him, but who will know whether his victim does in truth
+deserve scalping before he draws his knife. He should be savage and
+yet good-humoured; severe and yet forbearing; truculent and pleasant
+in the same moment. He should exercise unflinching authority, but
+should do so with the consciousness that he can support it only by
+his own popularity. His speech should be short, incisive, always
+to the point, but never founded on argument. His rules are based
+on no reason, and will never bear discussion. He must be the most
+candid of men, also the most close;--and yet never a hypocrite. He
+must condescend to no explanation, and yet must impress men with an
+assurance that his decisions will certainly be right. He must rule
+all as though no man's special welfare were of any account, and yet
+must administer all so as to offend none. Friends he must have, but
+not favourites. He must be self-sacrificing, diligent, eager, and
+watchful. He must be strong in health, strong in heart, strong in
+purpose, and strong in purse. He must be economical and yet lavish;
+generous as the wind and yet obdurate as the frost. He should be
+assured that of all human pursuits hunting is the best, and that of
+all living things a fox is the most valuable. He must so train his
+heart as to feel for the fox a mingled tenderness and cruelty which
+is inexplicable to ordinary men and women. His desire to preserve the
+brute and then to kill him should be equally intense and passionate.
+And he should do it all in accordance with a code of unwritten laws,
+which cannot be learnt without profound study. It may not perhaps be
+truly asserted that Lord Chiltern answered this description in every
+detail; but he combined so many of the qualities required that his
+wife showed her discernment when she declared that he seemed to have
+been made to be a Master of Hounds.
+
+Early in that November he was riding home with Miss Palliser by his
+side, while the huntsmen and whips were trotting on with the hounds
+before him. "You call that a good run, don't you?"
+
+
+[Illustration: Adelaide Palliser.]
+
+
+"No; I don't."
+
+"What was the matter with it? I declare it seems to me that something
+is always wrong. Men like hunting better than anything else, and yet
+I never find any man contented."
+
+"In the first place we didn't kill."
+
+"You know you're short of foxes at Gartlow," said Miss Palliser, who,
+as is the manner with all hunting ladies, liked to show that she
+understood the affairs of the hunt.
+
+"If I knew there were but one fox in a county, and I got upon that
+one fox, I would like to kill that one fox,--barring a vixen in
+March."
+
+"I thought it very nice. It was fast enough for anybody."
+
+"You might go as fast with a drag, if that's all. I'll tell you
+something else. We should have killed him if Maule hadn't once ridden
+over the hounds when we came out of the little wood. I spoke very
+sharply to him."
+
+"I heard you, Lord Chiltern."
+
+"And I suppose you thought I was a brute."
+
+"Who? I? No, I didn't;--not particularly, you know. Men do say such
+things to each other!"
+
+"He doesn't mind it, I fancy."
+
+"I suppose a man does not like to be told that directly he shows
+himself in a run the sport is all over and the hounds ought to be
+taken home."
+
+"Did I say that? I don't remember now what I said, but I know he made
+me angry. Come, let us trot on. They can take the hounds home without
+us."
+
+"Good night, Cox," said Miss Palliser, as they passed by the pack.
+"Poor Mr. Maule! I did pity him, and I do think he does care for
+it, though he is so impassive. He would be with us now, only he is
+chewing the cud of his unhappiness in solitude half a mile behind
+us."
+
+"That is hard upon you."
+
+"Hard upon me, Lord Chiltern! It is hard upon him, and, perhaps, upon
+you. Why should it be hard upon me?"
+
+"Hard upon him, I should have said. Though why it shouldn't be the
+other way I don't know. He's a friend of yours."
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"And an especial friend, I suppose. As a matter of course Violet
+talks to me about you both."
+
+"No doubt she does. When once a woman is married she should be
+regarded as having thrown off her allegiance to her own sex. She is
+sure to be treacherous at any rate in one direction. Not that Lady
+Chiltern can tell anything of me that might not be told to all the
+world as far as I am concerned."
+
+"There is nothing in it, then?"
+
+"Nothing at all."
+
+"Honour bright?"
+
+"Oh,--honour as bright as it ever is in such matters as these."
+
+"I am sorry for that,--very sorry."
+
+"Why so, Lord Chiltern?"
+
+"Because if you were engaged to him I thought that perhaps you might
+have induced him to ride a little less forward."
+
+"Lord Chiltern," said Miss Palliser, seriously; "I will never again
+speak to you a word on any subject except hunting."
+
+At this moment Gerard Maule came up behind them, with a cigar in his
+mouth, apparently quite unconscious of any of that displeasure as
+to which Miss Palliser had supposed that he was chewing the cud in
+solitude. "That was a goodish thing, Chiltern," he said.
+
+"Very good."
+
+"And the hounds hunted him well to the end."
+
+"Very well."
+
+"It's odd how the scent will die away at a moment. You see they
+couldn't carry on a field after we got out of the copse."
+
+"Not a field."
+
+"Considering all things I am glad we didn't kill him."
+
+"Uncommon glad," said Lord Chiltern. Then they trotted on in silence
+a little way, and Maule again dropped behind. "I'm blessed if he
+knows that I spoke to him, roughly," said Chiltern. "He's deaf, I
+think, when he chooses to be."
+
+"You're not sorry, Lord Chiltern."
+
+"Not in the least. Nothing will ever do any good. As for offending
+him, you might as well swear at a tree, and think to offend it.
+There's comfort in that, anyway. I wonder whether he'd talk to you if
+I went away?"
+
+"I hope that you won't try the experiment."
+
+"I don't believe he would, or I'd go at once. I wonder whether you
+really do care for him?"
+
+"Not in the least."
+
+"Or he for you."
+
+"Quite indifferent, I should say; but I can't answer for him, Lord
+Chiltern, quite as positively as I can for myself. You know, as
+things go, people have to play at caring for each other."
+
+"That's what we call flirting."
+
+"Just the reverse. Flirting I take to be the excitement of love,
+without its reality, and without its ordinary result in marriage.
+This playing at caring has none of the excitement, but it often
+leads to the result, and sometimes ends in downright affection."
+
+"If Maule perseveres then you'll take him, and by-and-bye you'll come
+to like him."
+
+"In twenty years it might come to that, if we were always to live in
+the same house; but as he leaves Harrington to-morrow, and we may
+probably not meet each other for the next four years, I think the
+chance is small."
+
+Then Maule trotted up again, and after riding in silence with the
+other two for half an hour, he pulled out his case and lit a fresh
+cigar from the end of the old one, which he threw away. "Have a
+baccy, Chiltern?" he said.
+
+"No, thank you, I never smoke going home; my mind is too full. I've
+all that family behind to think of, and I'm generally out of sorts
+with the miseries of the day. I must say another word to Cox, or I
+should have to go to the kennels on my way home." And so he dropped
+behind.
+
+Gerard Maule smoked half his cigar before he spoke a word, and Miss
+Palliser was quite resolved that she would not open her mouth till he
+had spoken. "I suppose he likes it?" he said at last.
+
+"Who likes what, Mr. Maule?"
+
+"Chiltern likes blowing fellows up."
+
+"It's a part of his business."
+
+"That's the way I look at it. But I should think it must be
+disagreeable. He takes such a deal of trouble about it. I heard him
+going on to-day to some one as though his whole soul depended on it."
+
+"He is very energetic."
+
+"Just so. I'm quite sure it's a mistake. What does a man ever get by
+it? Folks around you soon discount it till it goes for nothing."
+
+"I don't think energy goes for nothing, Mr. Maule."
+
+"A bull in a china shop is not a useful animal, nor is he ornamental,
+but there can be no doubt of his energy. The hare was full of energy,
+but he didn't win the race. The man who stands still is the man who
+keeps his ground."
+
+"You don't stand still when you're out hunting."
+
+"No;--I ride about, and Chiltern swears at me. Every man is a fool
+sometimes."
+
+"And your wisdom, perfect at all other times, breaks down in the
+hunting-field?"
+
+"I don't in the least mind your chaffing. I know what you think of me
+just as well as though you told me."
+
+"What do I think of you?"
+
+"That I'm a poor creature, generally half asleep, shallow-pated,
+slow-blooded, ignorant, useless, and unambitious."
+
+"Certainly unambitious, Mr. Maule."
+
+"And that word carries all the others. What's the good of ambition?
+There's the man they were talking about last night,--that Irishman."
+
+"Mr. Finn?"
+
+"Yes; Phineas Finn. He is an ambitious fellow. He'll have to starve,
+according to what Chiltern was saying. I've sense enough to know I
+can't do any good."
+
+"You are sensible, I admit."
+
+"Very well, Miss Palliser. You can say just what you like, of course.
+You have that privilege."
+
+"I did not mean to say anything severe. I do admit that you are
+master of a certain philosophy, for which much may be said. But you
+are not to expect that I shall express an approval which I do not
+feel."
+
+"But I want you to approve it."
+
+"Ah!--there, I fear, I cannot oblige you."
+
+"I want you to approve it, though no one else may."
+
+"Though all else should do so, I cannot."
+
+"Then take the task of curing the sick one, and of strengthening
+the weak one, into your own hands. If you will teach, perhaps I may
+learn."
+
+"I have no mission for teaching, Mr. Maule."
+
+"You once said that,--that--"
+
+"Do not be so ungenerous as to throw in my teeth what I once
+said,--if I ever said a word that I would not now repeat."
+
+"I do not think that I am ungenerous, Miss Palliser."
+
+"I am sure you are not."
+
+"Nor am I self-confident. I am obliged to seek comfort from such
+scraps of encouragement as may have fallen in my way here and there.
+I once did think that you intended to love me."
+
+"Does love go by intentions?"
+
+"I think so,--frequently with men, and much more so with girls."
+
+"It will never go so with me. I shall never intend to love any one.
+If I ever love any man it will be because I am made to do so, despite
+my intentions."
+
+"As a fortress is taken?"
+
+"Well,--if you like to put it so. Only I claim this advantage,--that
+I can always get rid of my enemy when he bores me."
+
+"Am I boring you now?"
+
+"I didn't say so. Here is Lord Chiltern again, and I know by the
+rattle of his horse's feet that something is the matter."
+
+Lord Chiltern came up full of wrath. One of the men's horses was
+thoroughly broken down, and, as the Master said, wasn't worth the
+saddle he carried. He didn't care a ---- for the horse, but the man
+hadn't told him. "At this rate there won't be anything to carry
+anybody by Christmas."
+
+"You'll have to buy some more," said Gerard Maule.
+
+"Buy some more!" said Lord Chiltern, turning round, and looking at
+the man. "He talks of buying horses as he would sugar plums!" Then
+they trotted in at the gate, and in two minutes were at the hall
+door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE ADDRESS.
+
+
+Before the 11th of November, the day on which Parliament was to meet,
+the whole country was in a hubbub. Consternation and triumph were
+perhaps equally predominant, and equally strong. There were those who
+declared that now at length was Great Britain to be ruined in actual
+present truth; and those who asserted that, of a sudden, after a
+fashion so wholly unexpected as to be divine,--as great fires, great
+famines, and great wars are called divine,--a mighty hand had been
+stretched out to take away the remaining incubus of superstition,
+priestcraft, and bigotry under which England had hitherto been
+labouring. The proposed disestablishment of the State Church of
+England was, of course, the subject of this diversity of opinion.
+
+And there was not only diversity, but with it great confusion. The
+political feelings of the country are, as a rule, so well marked that
+it is easy, as to almost every question, to separate the sheep from
+the goats. With but few exceptions one can tell where to look for the
+supporters and where for the opponents of one measure or of another.
+Meetings are called in this or in that public hall to assist or to
+combat the Minister of the day, and men know what they are about. But
+now it was not so. It was understood that Mr. Daubeny, the accredited
+leader of the Conservatives, was about to bring in the bill, but
+no one as yet knew who would support the bill. His own party, to a
+man,--without a single exception,--were certainly opposed to the
+measure in their minds. It must be so. It could not but be certain
+that they should hate it. Each individual sitting on the Conservative
+side in either House did most certainly within his own bosom cry
+Ichabod when the fatal news reached his ears. But such private
+opinions and inward wailings need not, and probably would not, guide
+the body. Ichabod had been cried before, though probably never with
+such intensity of feeling. Disestablishment might be worse than Free
+Trade or Household Suffrage, but was not more absolutely opposed to
+Conservative convictions than had been those great measures. And yet
+the party, as a party, had swallowed them both. To the first and
+lesser evil, a compact little body of staunch Commoners had stood
+forth in opposition,--but nothing had come of it to those true
+Britons beyond a feeling of living in the cold shade of exclusion.
+When the greater evil arrived, that of Household Suffrage,--a measure
+which twenty years since would hardly have been advocated by the
+advanced Liberals of the day,--the Conservatives had learned to
+acknowledge the folly of clinging to their own convictions, and had
+swallowed the dose without serious disruption of their ranks. Every
+man,--with but an exception or two,--took the measure up, some with
+faces so singularly distorted as to create true pity, some with an
+assumption of indifference, some with affected glee. But in the
+double process the party had become used to this mode of carrying on
+the public service. As poor old England must go to the dogs, as the
+doom had been pronounced against the country that it should be ruled
+by the folly of the many foolish, and not by the wisdom of the few
+wise, why should the few wise remain out in the cold,--seeing, as
+they did, that by so doing no good would be done to the country?
+Dissensions among their foes did, when properly used, give them
+power,--but such power they could only use by carrying measures which
+they themselves believed to be ruinous. But the ruin would be as
+certain should they abstain. Each individual might have gloried
+in standing aloof,--in hiding his face beneath his toga, and in
+remembering that Rome did once exist in her splendour. But a party
+cannot afford to hide its face in its toga. A party has to be
+practical. A party can only live by having its share of Garters,
+lord-lieutenants, bishops, and attorney-generals. Though the country
+were ruined, the party should be supported. Hitherto the party had
+been supported, and had latterly enjoyed almost its share of stars
+and Garters,--thanks to the individual skill and strategy of that
+great English political Von Moltke Mr. Daubeny.
+
+And now what would the party say about the disestablishment of the
+Church? Even a party must draw the line somewhere. It was bad to
+sacrifice things mundane; but this thing was the very Holy of Holies!
+Was nothing to be conserved by a Conservative party? What if Mr.
+Daubeny were to explain some day to the electors of East Barsetshire
+that an hereditary peerage was an absurdity? What if in some rural
+nook of his Boeotia he should suggest in ambiguous language to the
+farmers that a Republic was the only form of Government capable of
+a logical defence? Duke had already said to Duke, and Earl to Earl,
+and Baronet to Baronet that there must be a line somewhere. Bishops
+as a rule say but little to each other, and now were afraid to
+say anything. The Church, which had been, which was, so truly
+beloved;--surely that must be beyond the line! And yet there crept
+through the very marrow of the party an agonising belief that Mr.
+Daubeny would carry the bulk of his party with him into the lobby of
+the House of Commons.
+
+But if such was the dismay of the Conservatives, how shall any writer
+depict the consternation of the Liberals? If there be a feeling
+odious to the mind of a sober, hardworking man, it is the feeling
+that the bread he has earned is to be taken out of his mouth. The
+pay, the patronage, the powers, and the pleasure of Government were
+all due to the Liberals. "God bless my soul," said Mr. Ratler, who
+always saw things in a practical light, "we have a larger fighting
+majority than any party has had since Lord Liverpool's time. They
+have no right to attempt it. They are bound to go out." "There's
+nothing of honesty left in politics," said Mr. Bonteen, declaring
+that he was sick of the life. Barrington Erle thought that the whole
+Liberal party should oppose the measure. Though they were Liberals
+they were not democrats; nor yet infidels. But when Barrington Erle
+said this, the great leaders of the Liberal party had not as yet
+decided on their ground of action.
+
+There was much difficulty in reaching any decision. It had been
+asserted so often that the disestablishment of the Church was only a
+question of time, that the intelligence of the country had gradually
+so learned to regard it. Who had said so, men did not know and did
+not inquire;--but the words were spoken everywhere. Parsons with
+sad hearts,--men who in their own parishes were enthusiastic, pure,
+pious, and useful,--whispered them in the dead of the night to the
+wives of their bosoms. Bishops, who had become less pure by contact
+with the world at clubs, shrugged their shoulders and wagged their
+heads, and remembered comfortably the sanctity of vested interests.
+Statesmen listened to them with politeness, and did not deny that
+they were true. In the free intercourse of closest friendships the
+matter was discussed between ex-Secretaries of State. The Press
+teemed with the assertion that it was only a question of time. Some
+fervent, credulous friends predicted another century of life;--some
+hard-hearted logical opponents thought that twenty years would put an
+end to the anomaly:--a few stout enemies had sworn on the hustings
+with an anathema that the present Session should see the deposition
+from her high place of this eldest daughter of the woman of Babylon.
+But none had expected the blow so soon as this; and none certainly
+had expected it from this hand.
+
+But what should the Liberal party do? Ratler was for opposing Mr.
+Daubeny with all their force, without touching the merits of the
+case. It was no fitting work for Mr. Daubeny, and the suddenness of
+the proposition coming from such a quarter would justify them now and
+for ever, even though they themselves should disestablish everything
+before the Session were over. Barrington Erle, suffering under a real
+political conviction for once in his life, was desirous of a positive
+and chivalric defence of the Church. He believed in the twenty years.
+Mr. Bonteen shut himself up in disgust. Things were amiss; and, as he
+thought, the evil was due to want of party zeal on the part of his
+own leader, Mr. Gresham. He did not dare to say this, lest, when
+the house door should at last be opened, he might not be invited to
+enter with the others; but such was his conviction. "If we were all
+a little less in the abstract, and a little more in the concrete, it
+would be better for us." Laurence Fitzgibbon, when these words had
+been whispered to him by Mr. Bonteen, had hardly understood them;
+but it had been explained to him that his friend had meant "men,
+not measures." When Parliament met, Mr. Gresham, the leader of the
+Liberal party, had not as yet expressed any desire to his general
+followers.
+
+The Queen's Speech was read, and the one paragraph which seemed
+to possess any great public interest was almost a repetition of
+the words which Mr. Daubeny had spoken to the electors of East
+Barsetshire. "It will probably be necessary for you to review the
+connection which still exists between, and which binds together,
+the Church and the State." Mr. Daubeny's words had of course been
+more fluent, but the gist of the expression was the same. He had
+been quite in earnest when addressing his friends in the country.
+And though there had been but an interval of a few weeks, the
+Conservative party in the two Houses heard the paragraph read
+without surprise and without a murmur. Some said that the gentlemen
+on the Treasury Bench in the House of Commons did not look to be
+comfortable. Mr. Daubeny sat with his hat over his brow, mute,
+apparently impassive and unapproachable, during the reading of
+the Speech and the moving and seconding of the Address. The House
+was very full, and there was much murmuring on the side of the
+Opposition;--but from the Government benches hardly a sound was
+heard, as a young gentleman, from one of the Midland counties, in
+a deputy-lieutenant's uniform, who had hitherto been known for no
+particular ideas of his own, but had been believed to be at any rate
+true to the Church, explained, not in very clear language, that the
+time had at length come when the interests of religion demanded a
+wider support and a fuller sympathy than could be afforded under that
+system of Church endowment and State establishment for which the
+country had hitherto been so grateful, and for which the country
+had such boundless occasion for gratitude. Another gentleman, in
+the uniform of the Guards, seconded the Address, and declared that
+in nothing was the sagacity of a Legislature so necessary as in
+discerning the period in which that which had hitherto been good
+ceased to be serviceable. The status pupillaris was mentioned, and
+it was understood that he had implied that England was now old enough
+to go on in matters of religion without a tutor in the shape of a
+State Church.
+
+Who makes the speeches, absolutely puts together the words, which
+are uttered when the Address is moved and seconded? It can hardly be
+that lessons are prepared and sent to the noble lords and honourable
+gentlemen to be learned by heart like a school-boy's task. And
+yet, from their construction, style, and general tone,--from the
+platitudes which they contain as well as from the general safety
+and good sense of the remarks,--from the absence of any attempt to
+improve a great occasion by the fire of oratory, one cannot but be
+convinced that a very absolute control is exercised. The gorgeously
+apparelled speakers, who seem to have great latitude allowed them in
+the matter of clothing, have certainly very little in the matter of
+language. And then it always seems that either of the four might
+have made the speech of any of the others. It could not have been
+the case that the Hon. Colonel Mowbray Dick, the Member for West
+Bustard, had really elaborated out of his own head that theory of
+the status pupillaris. A better fellow, or a more popular officer,
+or a sweeter-tempered gentleman than Mowbray Dick does not exist;
+but he certainly never entertained advanced opinions respecting the
+religious education of his country. When he is at home with his
+family, he always goes to church, and there has been an end of it.
+
+And then the fight began. The thunderbolts of opposition were
+unloosed, and the fires of political rancour blazed high. Mr. Gresham
+rose to his legs, and declared to all the world that which he had
+hitherto kept secret from his own party. It was known afterwards that
+in discussion with his own dearly-beloved political friend, Lord
+Cantrip, he had expressed his unbounded anger at the duplicity, greed
+for power, and want of patriotism displayed by his opponent; but he
+had acknowledged that the blow had come so quick and so unexpectedly
+that he thought it better to leave the matter to the House without
+instruction from himself. He now revelled in sarcasm, and before
+his speech was over raged into wrath. He would move an amendment to
+the Address for two reasons,--first because this was no moment for
+bringing before Parliament the question of the Church establishment,
+when as yet no well-considered opportunity of expressing itself on
+the subject had been afforded to the country, and secondly because
+any measure of reform on that matter should certainly not come to
+them from the right honourable gentleman opposite. As to the first
+objection, he should withhold his arguments till the bill suggested
+had been presented to them. It was in handling the second that he
+displayed his great power of invective. All those men who then sat in
+the House, and who on that night crowded the galleries, remember his
+tones as, turning to the dissenters who usually supported him, and
+pointing over the table to his opponents, he uttered that well-worn
+quotation, _Quod minime reris_,--then he paused, and began again;
+_Quod minime reris,--Graiâ pandetur ab urbe_. The power and inflexion
+of his voice at the word _Graiâ_ were certainly very wonderful. He
+ended by moving an amendment to the Address, and asking for support
+equally from one side of the House as from the other.
+
+When at length Mr. Daubeny moved his hat from his brow and rose to
+his legs he began by expressing his thankfulness that he had not
+been made a victim to the personal violence of the right honourable
+gentleman. He continued the same strain of badinage throughout,--in
+which he was thought to have been wrong, as it was a method of
+defence, or attack, for which his peculiar powers hardly suited him.
+As to any bill that was to be laid upon the table, he had not as yet
+produced it. He did not doubt that the dissenting interests of the
+country would welcome relief from an anomaly, let it come whence
+it might, even _Graiâ ab urbe_, and he waved his hand back to
+the clustering Conservatives who sat behind him. That the right
+honourable gentleman should be angry he could understand, as the
+return to power of the right honourable gentleman and his party had
+been anticipated, and he might almost say discounted as a certainty.
+
+Then, when Mr. Daubeny sat down, the House was adjourned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE DEBATE.
+
+
+The beginning of the battle as recorded in the last chapter took
+place on a Friday,--Friday, 11th November,--and consequently two
+entire days intervened before the debate could be renewed. There
+seemed to prevail an opinion during this interval that Mr. Gresham
+had been imprudent. It was acknowledged by all men that no finer
+speech than that delivered by him had ever been heard within the
+walls of that House. It was acknowledged also that as regarded the
+question of oratory Mr. Daubeny had failed signally. But the strategy
+of the Minister was said to have been excellent, whereas that of
+the ex-Minister was very loudly condemned. There is nothing so
+prejudicial to a cause as temper. This man is declared to be unfit
+for any position of note, because he always shows temper. Anything
+can be done with another man,--he can be made to fit almost any
+hole,--because he has his temper under command. It may, indeed, be
+assumed that a man who loses his temper while he is speaking is
+endeavouring to speak the truth such as he believes it to be, and
+again it may be assumed that a man who speaks constantly without
+losing his temper is not always entitled to the same implicit faith.
+Whether or not this be a reason the more for preferring the calm
+and tranquil man may be doubted; but the calm and tranquil man is
+preferred for public services. We want practical results rather than
+truth. A clear head is worth more than an honest heart. In a matter
+of horseflesh of what use is it to have all manner of good gifts if
+your horse won't go whither you want him, and refuses to stop when
+you bid him? Mr. Gresham had been very indiscreet, and had especially
+sinned in opposing the Address without arrangements with his party.
+
+And he made the matter worse by retreating within his own shell
+during the whole of that Saturday, Sunday, and Monday morning.
+Lord Cantrip was with him three or four times, and he saw both Mr.
+Palliser, who had been Chancellor of the Exchequer under him, and Mr.
+Ratler. But he went amidst no congregation of Liberals, and asked
+for no support. He told Ratler that he wished gentlemen to vote
+altogether in accordance with their opinions; and it came to be
+whispered in certain circles that he had resigned, or was resigning,
+or would resign, the leadership of his party. Men said that his
+passions were too much for him, and that he was destroyed by feelings
+of regret, and almost of remorse.
+
+The Ministers held a Cabinet Council on the Monday morning, and it
+was supposed afterwards that that also had been stormy. Two gentlemen
+had certainly resigned their seats in the Government before the House
+met at four o'clock, and there were rumours abroad that others would
+do so if the suggested measure should be found really to amount to
+disestablishment. The rumours were, of course, worthy of no belief,
+as the transactions of the Cabinet are of necessity secret. Lord
+Drummond at the War Office, and Mr. Boffin from the Board of Trade,
+did, however, actually resign; and Mr. Boffin's explanations in
+the House were heard before the debate was resumed. Mr. Boffin had
+certainly not joined the present Ministry,--so he said,--with the
+view of destroying the Church. He had no other remark to make, and he
+was sure that the House would appreciate the course which had induced
+him to seat himself below the gangway. The House cheered very loudly,
+and Mr. Boffin was the hero of ten minutes. Mr. Daubeny detracted
+something from this triumph by the overstrained and perhaps ironic
+pathos with which he deplored the loss of his right honourable
+friend's services. Now this right honourable gentleman had never been
+specially serviceable.
+
+But the wonder of the world arose from the fact that only two
+gentlemen out of the twenty or thirty who composed the Government did
+give up their places on this occasion. And this was a Conservative
+Government! With what a force of agony did all the Ratlers of the
+day repeat that inappropriate name! Conservatives! And yet they
+were ready to abandon the Church at the bidding of such a man as Mr.
+Daubeny! Ratler himself almost felt that he loved the Church. Only
+two resignations;--whereas it had been expected that the whole House
+would fall to pieces! Was it possible that these earls, that marquis,
+and the two dukes, and those staunch old Tory squires, should remain
+in a Government pledged to disestablish the Church? Was all the
+honesty, all the truth of the great party confined to the bosoms of
+Mr. Boffin and Lord Drummond? Doubtless they were all Esaus; but
+would they sell their great birthright for so very small a mess of
+pottage? The parsons in the country, and the little squires who but
+rarely come up to London, spoke of it all exactly as did the Ratlers.
+There were parishes in the country in which Mr. Boffin was canonised,
+though up to that date no Cabinet Minister could well have been less
+known to fame than was Mr. Boffin.
+
+What would those Liberals do who would naturally rejoice in the
+disestablishment of the Church,--those members of the Lower House,
+who had always spoken of the ascendancy of Protestant episcopacy with
+the bitter acrimony of exclusion? After all, the success or failure
+of Mr. Daubeny must depend, not on his own party, but on them.
+It must always be so when measures of Reform are advocated by a
+Conservative Ministry. There will always be a number of untrained men
+ready to take the gift without looking at the giver. They have not
+expected relief from the hands of Greeks, but will take it when it
+comes from Greeks or Trojans. What would Mr. Turnbull say in this
+debate,--and what Mr. Monk? Mr. Turnbull was the people's tribune, of
+the day; Mr. Monk had also been a tribune, then a Minister, and now
+was again--something less than a tribune. But there were a few men in
+the House, and some out of it, who regarded Mr. Monk as the honestest
+and most patriotic politician of the day.
+
+The debate was long and stormy, but was peculiarly memorable for the
+skill with which Mr. Daubeny's higher colleagues defended the steps
+they were about to take. The thing was to be done in the cause of
+religion. The whole line of defence was indicated by the gentlemen
+who moved and seconded the Address. An active, well-supported Church
+was the chief need of a prosperous and intelligent people. As to the
+endowments, there was some confusion of ideas; but nothing was to be
+done with them inappropriate to religion. Education would receive
+the bulk of what was left after existing interests had been amply
+guaranteed. There would be no doubt,--so said these gentlemen,--that
+ample funds for the support of an Episcopal Church would come from
+those wealthy members of the body to whom such a Church was dear.
+There seemed to be a conviction that clergymen under the new order
+of things would be much better off than under the old. As to the
+connection with the State, the time for it had clearly gone by. The
+Church, as a Church, would own increased power when it could appoint
+its own bishops, and be wholly dissevered from State patronage. It
+seemed to be almost a matter of surprise that really good Churchmen
+should have endured so long to be shackled by subservience to the
+State. Some of these gentlemen pleaded their cause so well that they
+almost made it appear that episcopal ascendancy would be restored in
+England by the disseverance of the Church and State.
+
+Mr. Turnbull, who was himself a dissenter, was at last upon his legs,
+and then the Ratlers knew that the game was lost. It would be lost as
+far as it could be lost by a majority in that House on that motion;
+and it was by that majority or minority that Mr. Daubeny would be
+maintained in his high office or ejected from it. Mr. Turnbull began
+by declaring that he did not at all like Mr. Daubeny as a Minister
+of the Crown. He was not in the habit of attaching himself specially
+to any Minister of the Crown. Experience had taught him to doubt
+them all. Of all possible Ministers of the Crown at this period, Mr.
+Daubeny was he thought perhaps the worst, and the most dangerous. But
+the thing now offered was too good to be rejected, let it come from
+what quarter it would. Indeed, might it not be said of all the good
+things obtained for the people, of all really serviceable reforms,
+that they were gathered and garnered home in consequence of the
+squabbles of Ministers? When men wanted power, either to grasp at
+it or to retain it, then they offered bribes to the people. But in
+the taking of such bribes there was no dishonesty, and he should
+willingly take this bribe.
+
+Mr. Monk spoke also. He would not, he said, feel himself justified
+in refusing the Address to the Crown proposed by Ministers, simply
+because that Address was founded on the proposition of a future
+reform, as to the expediency of which he had not for many years
+entertained a doubt. He could not allow it to be said of him that he
+had voted for the permanence of the Church establishment, and he must
+therefore support the Government. Then Ratler whispered a few words
+to his neighbour: "I knew the way he'd run when Gresham insisted on
+poor old Mildmay's taking him into the Cabinet." "The whole thing has
+gone to the dogs," said Bonteen. On the fourth night the House was
+divided, and Mr. Daubeny was the owner of a majority of fifteen.
+
+Very many of the Liberal party expressed an opinion that the battle
+had been lost through the want of judgment evinced by Mr. Gresham.
+There was certainly no longer that sturdy adherence to their chief
+which is necessary for the solidarity of a party. Perhaps no leader
+of the House was ever more devoutly worshipped by a small number of
+adherents than was Mr. Gresham now; but such worship will not support
+power. Within the three days following the division the Ratlers had
+all put their heads together and had resolved that the Duke of St.
+Bungay was now the only man who could keep the party together. "But
+who should lead our House?" asked Bonteen. Ratler sighed instead of
+answering. Things had come to that pass that Mr. Gresham was the only
+possible leader. And the leader of the House of Commons, on behalf
+of the Government, must be the chief man in the Government, let the
+so-called Prime Minister be who he may.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE DESERTED HUSBAND.
+
+
+Phineas Finn had been in the gallery of the House throughout the
+debate, and was greatly grieved at Mr. Daubeny's success, though
+he himself had so strongly advocated the disestablishment of the
+Church in canvassing the electors of Tankerville. No doubt he had
+advocated the cause,--but he had done so as an advanced member of the
+Liberal party, and he regarded the proposition when coming from Mr.
+Daubeny as a horrible and abnormal birth. He, however, was only a
+looker-on,--could be no more than a looker-on for the existing short
+session. It had already been decided that the judge who was to try
+the case at Tankerville should visit that town early in January; and
+should it be decided on a scrutiny that the seat belonged to our
+hero, then he would enter upon his privilege in the following Session
+without any further trouble to himself at Tankerville. Should this
+not be the case,--then the abyss of absolute vacuity would be open
+before him. He would have to make some disposition of himself, but he
+would be absolutely without an idea as to the how or where. He was in
+possession of funds to support himself for a year or two; but after
+that, and even during that time, all would be dark. If he should get
+his seat, then again the power of making an effort would at last be
+within his hands.
+
+He had made up his mind to spend the Christmas with Lord Brentford
+and Lady Laura Kennedy at Dresden, and had already fixed the day of
+his arrival there. But this had been postponed by another invitation
+which had surprised him much, but which it had been impossible for
+him not to accept. It had come as follows:--
+
+
+   November 9th, Loughlinter.
+
+   DEAR SIR,
+
+   I am informed by letter from Dresden that you are in
+   London on your way to that city with the view of spending
+   some days with the Earl of Brentford. You will, of course,
+   be once more thrown into the society of my wife, Lady
+   Laura Kennedy.
+
+   I have never understood, and certainly have never
+   sanctioned, that breach of my wife's marriage vow which
+   has led to her withdrawal from my roof. I never bade her
+   go, and I have bidden her return. Whatever may be her
+   feelings, or mine, her duty demands her presence here,
+   and my duty calls upon me to receive her. This I am and
+   always have been ready to do. Were the laws of Europe
+   sufficiently explicit and intelligible I should force her
+   to return to my house,--because she sins while she remains
+   away, and I should sin were I to omit to use any means
+   which the law might place in my hands for the due control
+   of my own wife. I am very explicit to you although we
+   have of late been strangers, because in former days you
+   were closely acquainted with the condition of my family
+   affairs.
+
+   Since my wife left me I have had no means of communicating
+   with her by the assistance of any common friend. Having
+   heard that you are about to visit her at Dresden I feel a
+   great desire to see you that I may be enabled to send by
+   you a personal message. My health, which is now feeble,
+   and the altered habits of my life render it almost
+   impossible that I should proceed to London with this
+   object, and I therefore ask it of your Christian charity
+   that you should visit me here at Loughlinter. You, as a
+   Roman Catholic, cannot but hold the bond of matrimony
+   to be irrefragable. You cannot, at least, think that it
+   should be set aside at the caprice of an excitable woman
+   who is not able and never has been able to assign any
+   reason for leaving the protection of her husband.
+
+   I shall have much to say to you, and I trust you will
+   come. I will not ask you to prolong your visit, as I have
+   nothing to offer you in the way of amusement. My mother is
+   with me; but otherwise I am alone. Since my wife left me I
+   have not thought it even decent to entertain guests or to
+   enjoy society. I have lived a widowed life. I cannot even
+   offer you shooting, as I have no keepers on the mountains.
+   There are fish in the river doubtless, for the gifts of
+   God are given let men be ever so unworthy; but this, I
+   believe, is not the month for fishermen. I ask you to come
+   to me, not as a pleasure, but as a Christian duty.
+
+   Yours truly,
+
+   ROBERT KENNEDY.
+
+   Phineas Finn, Esq.
+
+
+As soon as he had read the letter Phineas felt that he had no
+alternative but to go. The visit would be very disagreeable, but it
+must be made. So he sent a line to Robert Kennedy naming a day; and
+wrote another to Lady Laura postponing his time at Dresden by a week,
+and explaining the cause of its postponement. As soon as the debate
+on the Address was over he started for Loughlinter.
+
+A thousand memories crowded on his brain as he made the journey.
+Various circumstances had in his early life,--in that period of his
+life which had lately seemed to be cut off from the remainder of his
+days by so clear a line,--thrown him into close connection with this
+man, and with the man's wife. He had first gone to Loughlinter, not
+as Lady Laura's guest,--for Lady Laura had not then been married, or
+even engaged to be married,--but on her persuasion rather than on
+that of Mr. Kennedy. When there he had asked Lady Laura to be his own
+wife, and she had then told him that she was to become the wife of
+the owner of that domain. He remembered the blow as though it had
+been struck but yesterday, and yet the pain of the blow had not been
+long enduring. But though then rejected he had always been the chosen
+friend of the woman,--a friend chosen after an especial fashion. When
+he had loved another woman this friend had resented his defection
+with all a woman's jealousy. He had saved the husband's life, and had
+then become also the husband's friend, after that cold fashion which
+an obligation will create. Then the husband had been jealous, and
+dissension had come, and the ill-matched pair had been divided, with
+absolute ruin to both of them, as far as the material comforts and
+well-being of life were concerned. Then he, too, had been ejected,
+as it were, out of the world, and it had seemed to him as though
+Laura Standish and Robert Kennedy had been the inhabitants of another
+hemisphere. Now he was about to see them both again, both separately;
+and to become the medium of some communication between them. He knew,
+or thought that he knew, that no communication could avail anything.
+
+It was dark night when he was driven up to the door of Loughlinter
+House in a fly from the town of Callender. When he first made the
+journey, now some six or seven years since, he had done so with Mr.
+Ratler, and he remembered well that circumstance. He remembered also
+that on his arrival Lady Laura had scolded him for having travelled
+in such company. She had desired him to seek other friends,--friends
+higher in general estimation, and nobler in purpose. He had done so,
+partly at her instance, and with success. But Mr. Ratler was now
+somebody in the world, and he was nobody. And he remembered also how
+on that occasion he had been troubled in his mind in regard to a
+servant, not as yet knowing whether the usages of the world did or
+did not require that he should go so accompanied. He had taken the
+man, and had been thoroughly ashamed of himself for doing so. He had
+no servant now, no grandly developed luggage, no gun, no elaborate
+dress for the mountains. On that former occasion his heart had been
+very full when he reached Loughlinter, and his heart was full now.
+Then he had resolved to say a few words to Lady Laura, and he had
+hardly known how best to say them. Now he would be called upon to
+say a few to Lady Laura's husband, and the task would be almost as
+difficult.
+
+The door was opened for him by an old servant in black, who proposed
+at once to show him to his room. He looked round the vast hall,
+which, when he had before known it, was ever filled with signs of
+life, and felt at once that it was empty and deserted. It struck him
+as intolerably cold, and he saw that the huge fireplace was without a
+spark of fire. Dinner, the servant said, was prepared for half-past
+seven. Would Mr. Finn wish to dress? Of course he wished to dress.
+And as it was already past seven he hurried up stairs to his room.
+Here again everything was cold and wretched. There was no fire, and
+the man had left him with a single candle. There were candlesticks on
+the dressing-table, but they were empty. The man had suggested hot
+water, but the hot water did not come. In his poorest days he had
+never known discomfort such as this, and yet Mr. Kennedy was one of
+the richest commoners of Great Britain.
+
+But he dressed, and made his way down stairs, not knowing where
+he should find his host or his host's mother. He recognised the
+different doors and knew the rooms within them, but they seemed
+inhospitably closed against him, and he went and stood in the cold
+hall. But the man was watching for him, and led him into a small
+parlour. Then it was explained to him that Mr. Kennedy's state of
+health did not admit of late dinners. He was to dine alone, and Mr.
+Kennedy would receive him after dinner. In a moment his cheeks became
+red, and a flash of wrath crossed his heart. Was he to be treated
+in this way by a man on whose behalf,--with no thought of his own
+comfort or pleasure,--he had made this long and abominable journey?
+Might it not be well for him to leave the house without seeing Mr.
+Kennedy at all? Then he remembered that he had heard it whispered
+that the man had become bewildered in his mind. He relented,
+therefore, and condescended to eat his dinner.
+
+A very poor dinner it was. There was a morsel of flabby white fish,
+as to the nature of which Phineas was altogether in doubt, a beef
+steak as to the nature of which he was not at all in doubt, and a
+little crumpled-up tart which he thought the driver of the fly must
+have brought with him from the pastry-cook's at Callender. There was
+some very hot sherry, but not much of it. And there was a bottle of
+claret, as to which Phineas, who was not usually particular in the
+matter of wine, persisted in declining to have anything to do with
+it after the first attempt. The gloomy old servant, who stuck to him
+during the repast, persisted in offering it, as though the credit
+of the hospitality of Loughlinter depended on it. There are so many
+men by whom the tenuis ratio saporum has not been achieved, that the
+Caleb Balderstones of those houses in which plenty does not flow
+are almost justified in hoping that goblets of Gladstone may pass
+current. Phineas Finn was not a martyr to eating or drinking. He
+played with his fish without thinking much about it. He worked
+manfully at the steak. He gave another crumple to the tart, and left
+it without a pang. But when the old man urged him, for the third
+time, to take that pernicious draught with his cheese, he angrily
+demanded a glass of beer. The old man toddled out of the room, and
+on his return he proffered to him a diminutive glass of white spirit,
+which he called usquebaugh. Phineas, happy to get a little whisky,
+said nothing more about the beer, and so the dinner was over.
+
+He rose so suddenly from his chair that the man did not dare to ask
+him whether he would not sit over his wine. A suggestion that way was
+indeed made, would he "visit the laird out o' hand, or would he bide
+awee?" Phineas decided on visiting the laird out of hand, and was
+at once led across the hall, down a back passage which he had never
+before traversed, and introduced to the chamber which had ever been
+known as the "laird's ain room." Here Robert Kennedy rose to receive
+him.
+
+Phineas knew the man's age well. He was still under fifty, but he
+looked as though he were seventy. He had always been thin, but he was
+thinner now than ever. He was very grey, and stooped so much, that
+though he came forward a step or two to greet his guest, it seemed
+as though he had not taken the trouble to raise himself to his
+proper height. "You find me a much altered man," he said. The change
+had been so great that it was impossible to deny it, and Phineas
+muttered something of regret that his host's health should be so
+bad. "It is trouble of the mind,--not of the body, Mr. Finn. It is
+her doing,--her doing. Life is not to me a light thing, nor are
+the obligations of life light. When I married a wife, she became
+bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh. Can I lose my bones and
+my flesh,--knowing that they are not with God but still subject
+elsewhere to the snares of the devil, and live as though I were a
+sound man? Had she died I could have borne it. I hope they have made
+you comfortable, Mr. Finn?"
+
+"Oh, yes," said Phineas.
+
+"Not that Loughlinter can be comfortable now to any one. How can a
+man, whose wife has deserted him, entertain his guests? I am ashamed
+even to look a friend in the face, Mr. Finn." As he said this he
+stretched forth his open hand as though to hide his countenance, and
+Phineas hardly knew whether the absurdity of the movement or the
+tragedy of the feeling struck him the more forcibly. "What did I do
+that she should leave me? Did I strike her? Was I faithless? Had she
+not the half of all that was mine? Did I frighten her by hard words,
+or exact hard tasks? Did I not commune with her, telling her all my
+most inward purposes? In things of this world, and of that better
+world that is coming, was she not all in all to me? Did I not make
+her my very wife? Mr. Finn, do you know what made her go away?" He
+had asked perhaps a dozen questions. As to the eleven which came
+first it was evident that no answer was required; and they had been
+put with that pathetic dignity with which it is so easy to invest
+the interrogatory form of address. But to the last question it was
+intended that Phineas should give an answer, as Phineas presumed
+at once; and then it was asked with a wink of the eye, a low eager
+voice, and a sly twist of the face that were frightfully ludicrous.
+"I suppose you do know," said Mr. Kennedy, again working his eye,
+and thrusting his chin forward.
+
+
+[Illustration: The Laird of Loughlinter.]
+
+
+"I imagine that she was not happy."
+
+"Happy? What right had she to expect to be happy? Are we to believe
+that we should be happy here? Are we not told that we are to look
+for happiness there, and to hope for none below?" As he said this he
+stretched his left hand to the ceiling. "But why shouldn't she have
+been happy? What did she want? Did she ever say anything against me,
+Mr. Finn?"
+
+"Nothing but this,--that your temper and hers were incompatible."
+
+"I thought at one time that you advised her to go away?"
+
+"Never!"
+
+"She told you about it?"
+
+"Not, if I remember, till she had made up her mind, and her father
+had consented to receive her. I had known, of course, that things
+were unpleasant."
+
+"How were they unpleasant? Why were they unpleasant? She wouldn't let
+you come and dine with me in London. I never knew why that was. When
+she did what was wrong, of course I had to tell her. Who else should
+tell her but her husband? If you had been her husband, and I only
+an acquaintance, then I might have said what I pleased. They rebel
+against the yoke because it is a yoke. And yet they accept the yoke,
+knowing it to be a yoke. It comes of the devil. You think a priest
+can put everything right."
+
+"No, I don't," said Phineas.
+
+"Nothing can put you right but the fear of God; and when a woman
+is too proud to ask for that, evils like these are sure to come.
+She would not go to church on Sunday afternoon, but had meetings of
+Belial at her father's house instead." Phineas well remembered those
+meetings of Belial, in which he with others had been wont to discuss
+the political prospects of the day. "When she persisted in breaking
+the Lord's commandment, and defiling the Lord's day, I knew well what
+would come of it."
+
+"I am not sure, Mr. Kennedy, that a husband is justified in demanding
+that a wife shall think just as he thinks on matters of religion. If
+he is particular about it, he should find all that out before."
+
+"Particular! God's word is to be obeyed, I suppose?"
+
+"But people doubt about God's word."
+
+"Then people will be damned," said Mr. Kennedy, rising from his
+chair. "And they will be damned."
+
+"A woman doesn't like to be told so."
+
+"I never told her so. I never said anything of the kind. I never
+spoke a hard word to her in my life. If her head did but ache, I hung
+over her with the tenderest solicitude. I refused her nothing. When
+I found that she was impatient I chose the shortest sermon for our
+Sunday evening's worship, to the great discomfort of my mother."
+Phineas wondered whether this assertion as to the discomfort of old
+Mrs. Kennedy could possibly be true. Could it be that any human being
+really preferred a long sermon to a short one,--except the being who
+preached it or read it aloud? "There was nothing that I did not do
+for her. I suppose you really do know why she went away, Mr. Finn?"
+
+"I know nothing more than I have said."
+
+"I did think once that she was--"
+
+"There was nothing more than I have said," asserted Phineas sternly,
+fearing that the poor insane man was about to make some suggestion
+that would be terribly painful. "She felt that she did not make you
+happy."
+
+"I did not want her to make me happy. I do not expect to be made
+happy. I wanted her to do her duty. You were in love with her once,
+Mr. Finn?"
+
+"Yes, I was. I was in love with Lady Laura Standish."
+
+"Ah! Yes. There was no harm in that, of course; only when any thing
+of that kind happens, people had better keep out of each other's way
+afterwards. Not that I was ever jealous, you know."
+
+"I should hope not."
+
+"But I don't see why you should go all the way to Dresden to pay her
+a visit. What good can that do? I think you had much better stay
+where you are, Mr. Finn; I do indeed. It isn't a decent thing for a
+young unmarried man to go half across Europe to see a lady who is
+separated from her husband, and who was once in love with him;--I
+mean he was once in love with her. It's a very wicked thing, Mr.
+Finn, and I have to beg that you will not do it."
+
+Phineas felt that he had been grossly taken in. He had been asked to
+come to Loughlinter in order that he might take a message from the
+husband to the wife, and now the husband made use of his compliance
+to forbid the visit on some grotesque score of jealousy. He knew that
+the man was mad, and that therefore he ought not to be angry; but the
+man was not too mad to require a rational answer, and had some method
+in his madness. "Lady Laura Kennedy is living with her father," said
+Phineas.
+
+"Pshaw;--dotard!"
+
+"Lady Laura Kennedy is living with her father," repeated Phineas;
+"and I am going to the house of the Earl of Brentford."
+
+"Who was it wrote and asked you?"
+
+"The letter was from Lady Laura."
+
+"Yes;--from my wife. What right had my wife to write to you when
+she will not even answer my appeals? She is my wife;--my wife! In
+the presence of God she and I have been made one, and even man's
+ordinances have not dared to separate us. Mr. Finn, as the husband
+of Lady Laura Kennedy, I desire that you abstain from seeking her
+presence." As he said this he rose from his chair, and took the poker
+in his hand. The chair in which he was sitting was placed upon the
+rug, and it might be that the fire required his attention. As he
+stood bending down, with the poker in his right hand, with his eye
+still fixed on his guest's face, his purpose was doubtful. The motion
+might be a threat, or simply have a useful domestic tendency. But
+Phineas, believing that the man was mad, rose from his seat and stood
+upon his guard. The point of the poker had undoubtedly been raised;
+but as Phineas stretched himself to his height, it fell gradually
+towards the fire, and at last was buried very gently among the coals.
+But he was never convinced that Mr. Kennedy had carried out the
+purpose with which he rose from his chair. "After what has passed,
+you will no doubt abandon your purpose," said Mr. Kennedy.
+
+"I shall certainly go to Dresden," said Phineas. "If you have a
+message to send, I will take it."
+
+"Then you will be accursed among adulterers," said the laird of
+Loughlinter. "By such a one I will send no message. From the first
+moment that I saw you I knew you for a child of Apollyon. But the sin
+was my own. Why did I ask to my house an idolater, one who pretends
+to believe that a crumb of bread is my God, a Papist, untrue alike
+to his country and to his Saviour? When she desired it of me I knew
+that I was wrong to yield. Yes;--it is you who have done it all, you,
+you, you;--and if she be a castaway, the weight of her soul will be
+doubly heavy on your own."
+
+To get out of the room, and then at the earliest possible hour of the
+morning out of the house, were now the objects to be attained. That
+his presence had had a peculiarly evil influence on Mr. Kennedy,
+Phineas could not doubt; as assuredly the unfortunate man would
+not have been left with mastery over his own actions had his usual
+condition been such as that which he now displayed. He had been told
+that "poor Kennedy" was mad,--as we are often told of the madness
+of our friends when they cease for awhile to run in the common
+grooves of life. But the madman had now gone a long way out of
+the grooves;--so far, that he seemed to Phineas to be decidedly
+dangerous. "I think I had better wish you good night," he said.
+
+"Look here, Mr. Finn."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I hope you won't go and make more mischief."
+
+"I shall not do that, certainly."
+
+"You won't tell her what I have said?"
+
+"I shall tell her nothing to make her think that your opinion of her
+is less high than it ought to be."
+
+"Good night."
+
+"Good night," said Phineas again; and then he left the room. It was
+as yet but nine o'clock, and he had no alternative but to go to bed.
+He found his way back into the hall, and from thence up to his own
+chamber. But there was no fire there, and the night was cold. He went
+to the window, and raised it for a moment, that he might hear the
+well-remembered sound of the Fall of Linter. Though the night was
+dark and wintry, a dismal damp November night, he would have crept
+out of the house and made his way up to the top of the brae, for
+the sake of auld lang syne, had he not feared that the inhospitable
+mansion would be permanently closed against him on his return. He
+rang the bell once or twice, and after a while the old serving man
+came to him. Could he have a cup of tea? The man shook his head, and
+feared that no boiling water could be procured at that late hour of
+the night. Could he have his breakfast the next morning at seven, and
+a conveyance to Callender at half-past seven? When the old man again
+shook his head, seeming to be dazed at the enormity of the demand,
+Phineas insisted that his request should be conveyed to the master of
+the house. As to the breakfast, he said he did not care about it, but
+the conveyance he must have. He did, in fact, obtain both, and left
+the house early on the following morning without again seeing Mr.
+Kennedy, and without having spoken a single word to Mr. Kennedy's
+mother. And so great was his hurry to get away from the place which
+had been so disagreeable to him, and which he thought might possibly
+become more so, that he did not even run across the sward that
+divided the gravel sweep from the foot of the waterfall.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE TRUANT WIFE.
+
+
+Phineas on his return to London wrote a line to Lady Chiltern in
+accordance with a promise which had been exacted from him. She was
+anxious to learn something as to the real condition of her husband's
+brother-in-law, and, when she heard that Phineas was going to
+Loughlinter, had begged that he would tell her the truth. "He has
+become eccentric, gloomy, and very strange," said Phineas. "I do not
+believe that he is really mad, but his condition is such that I think
+no friend should recommend Lady Laura to return to him. He seems to
+have devoted himself to a gloomy religion,--and to the saving of
+money. I had but one interview with him, and that was essentially
+disagreeable." Having remained two days in London, and having
+participated, as far as those two days would allow him, in the
+general horror occasioned by the wickedness and success of Mr.
+Daubeny, he started for Dresden.
+
+He found Lord Brentford living in a spacious house, with a huge
+garden round it, close upon the northern confines of the town.
+Dresden, taken altogether, is a clean cheerful city, and strikes
+the stranger on his first entrance as a place in which men are
+gregarious, busy, full of merriment, and pre-eminently social. Such
+is the happy appearance of but few towns either in the old or the
+new world, and is hardly more common in Germany than elsewhere.
+Leipsic is decidedly busy, but does not look to be social. Vienna is
+sufficiently gregarious, but its streets are melancholy. Munich is
+social, but lacks the hum of business. Frankfort is both practical
+and picturesque, but it is dirty, and apparently averse to mirth.
+Dresden has much to recommend it, and had Lord Brentford with his
+daughter come abroad in quest of comfortable easy social life, his
+choice would have been well made. But, as it was, any of the towns
+above named would have suited him as well as Dresden, for he saw no
+society, and cared nothing for the outward things of the world around
+him. He found Dresden to be very cold in the winter and very hot in
+the summer, and he liked neither heat nor cold; but he had made up
+his mind that all places, and indeed all things, are nearly equally
+disagreeable, and therefore he remained at Dresden, grumbling almost
+daily as to the climate and manners of the people.
+
+Phineas, when he arrived at the hall door, almost doubted whether
+he had not been as wrong in visiting Lord Brentford as he had in
+going to Loughlinter. His friendship with the old Earl had been
+very fitful, and there had been quarrels quite as pronounced as the
+friendship. He had often been happy in the Earl's house, but the
+happiness had not sprung from any love for the man himself. How would
+it be with him if he found the Earl hardly more civil to him than the
+Earl's son-in-law had been? In former days the Earl had been a man
+quite capable of making himself disagreeable, and probably had not
+yet lost the power of doing so. Of all our capabilities this is the
+one which clings longest to us. He was thinking of all this when he
+found himself at the door of the Earl's house. He had travelled all
+night, and was very cold. At Leipsic there had been a nominal twenty
+minutes for refreshment, which the circumstances of the station had
+reduced to five. This had occurred very early in the morning, and had
+sufficed only to give him a bowl of coffee. It was now nearly ten,
+and breakfast had become a serious consideration with him. He almost
+doubted whether it would not have been better for him to have gone to
+an hotel in the first instance.
+
+He soon found himself in the hall amidst a cluster of servants, among
+whom he recognised the face of a man from Saulsby. He had, however,
+little time allowed him for looking about. He was hardly in the house
+before Lady Laura Kennedy was in his arms. She had run forward, and
+before he could look into her face, she had put up her cheek to his
+lips and had taken both his hands. "Oh, my friend," she said; "oh,
+my friend! How good you are to come to me! How good you are to come!"
+And then she led him into a large room, in which a table had been
+prepared for breakfast, close to an English-looking open fire. "How
+cold you must be, and how hungry! Shall I have breakfast for you at
+once, or will you dress first? You are to be quite at home, you know;
+exactly as though we were brother and sister. You are not to stand on
+any ceremonies." And again she took him by the hand. He had hardly
+looked her yet in the face, and he could not do so now because he
+knew that she was crying. "Then I will show you to your room," she
+said, when he had decided for a tub of water before breakfast. "Yes,
+I will,--my own self. And I'd fetch the water for you, only I know it
+is there already. How long will you be? Half an hour? Very well. And
+you would like tea best, wouldn't you?"
+
+"Certainly, I should like tea best."
+
+"I will make it for you. Papa never comes down till near two, and we
+shall have all the morning for talking. Oh, Phineas, it is such a
+pleasure to hear your voice again. You have been at Loughlinter?"
+
+"Yes, I have been there."
+
+"How very good of you; but I won't ask a question now. You must put
+up with a stove here, as we have not open fires in the bed-rooms. I
+hope you will be comfortable. Don't be more than half an hour, as I
+shall be impatient."
+
+Though he was thus instigated to haste he stood a few minutes with
+his back to the warm stove that he might be enabled to think of it
+all. It was two years since he had seen this woman, and when they had
+parted there had been more between them of the remembrances of old
+friendship than of present affection. During the last few weeks of
+their intimacy she had made a point of telling him that she intended
+to separate herself from her husband; but she had done so as though
+it were a duty, and an arranged part of her own defence of her own
+conduct. And in the latter incidents of her London life,--that life
+with which he had been conversant,--she had generally been opposed
+to him, or, at any rate, had chosen to be divided from him. She had
+said severe things to him,--telling him that he was cold, heartless,
+and uninterested, never trying even to please him with that sort of
+praise which had once been so common with her in her intercourse with
+him, and which all men love to hear from the mouths of women. She
+had then been cold to him, though she would make wretched allusions
+to the time when he, at any rate, had not been cold to her. She had
+reproached him, and had at the same time turned away from him. She
+had repudiated him, first as a lover, then as a friend; and he had
+hitherto never been able to gauge the depth of the affection for him
+which had underlaid all her conduct. As he stood there thinking of it
+all, he began to understand it.
+
+How natural had been her conduct on his arrival, and how like that
+of a genuine, true-hearted, honest woman! All her first thoughts had
+been for his little personal wants,--that he should be warmed, and
+fed, and made outwardly comfortable. Let sorrow be ever so deep,
+and love ever so true, a man will be cold who travels by winter,
+and hungry who has travelled by night. And a woman, who is a true,
+genuine woman, always takes delight in ministering to the natural
+wants of her friend. To see a man eat and drink, and wear his
+slippers, and sit at ease in his chair, is delightful to the feminine
+heart that loves. When I heard the other day that a girl had herself
+visited the room prepared for a man in her mother's house, then
+I knew that she loved him, though I had never before believed it.
+Phineas, as he stood there, was aware that this woman loved him
+dearly. She had embraced him, and given her face to him to kiss. She
+had clasped his hands, and clung to him, and had shown him plainly
+that in the midst of all her sorrow she could be made happy by
+his coming. But he was a man far too generous to take all this as
+meaning aught that it did not mean,--too generous, and intrinsically
+too manly. In his character there was much of weakness, much of
+vacillation, perhaps some deficiency of strength and purpose; but
+there was no touch of vanity. Women had loved him, and had told him
+so; and he had been made happy, and also wretched, by their love. But
+he had never taken pride, personally, to himself because they had
+loved him. It had been the accident of his life. Now he remembered
+chiefly that this woman had called herself his sister, and he was
+grateful.
+
+Then he thought of her personal appearance. As yet he had hardly
+looked at her, but he felt that she had become old and worn, angular
+and hard-visaged. All this had no effect upon his feelings towards
+her, but filled him with ineffable regret. When he had first known
+her she had been a woman with a noble presence--not soft and feminine
+as had been Violet Effingham, but handsome and lustrous, with a
+healthy youth. In regard to age he and she were of the same standing.
+That he knew well. She had passed her thirty-second birthday, but
+that was all. He felt himself to be still a young man, but he could
+not think of her as of a young woman.
+
+When he went down she had been listening for his footsteps, and
+met him at the door of the room. "Now sit down," she said, "and be
+comfortable--if you can, with German surroundings. They are almost
+always late, and never give one any time. Everybody says so. The
+station at Leipsic is dreadful, I know. Good coffee is very well, but
+what is the use of good coffee if you have no time to drink it? You
+must eat our omelette. If there is one thing we can do better than
+you it is to make an omelette. Yes,--that is genuine German sausage.
+There is always some placed upon the table, but the Germans who come
+here never touch it themselves. You will have a cutlet, won't you?
+I breakfasted an hour ago, and more. I would not wait because then
+I thought I could talk to you better, and wait upon you. I did not
+think that anything would ever please me so much again as your coming
+has done. Oh, how much we shall have to say! Do you remember when we
+last parted;--when you were going back to Ireland?"
+
+"I remember it well."
+
+"Ah me; as I look back upon it all, how strange it seems. I dare say
+you don't remember the first day I met you, at Mr. Mildmay's,--when I
+asked you to come to Portman Square because Barrington had said that
+you were clever?"
+
+"I remember well going to Portman Square."
+
+"That was the beginning of it all. Oh dear, oh dear; when I think of
+it I find it so hard to see where I have been right, and where I have
+been wrong. If I had not been very wrong all this evil could not have
+come upon me."
+
+"Misfortune has not always been deserved."
+
+"I am sure it has been so with me. You can smoke here if you like."
+This Phineas persistently refused to do. "You may if you please. Papa
+never comes in here, and I don't mind it. You'll settle down in a day
+or two, and understand the extent of your liberties. Tell me first
+about Violet. She is happy?"
+
+"Quite happy, I think."
+
+"I knew he would be good to her. But does she like the kind of life?"
+
+"Oh, yes."
+
+"She has a baby, and therefore of course she is happy. She says he is
+the finest fellow in the world."
+
+"I dare say he is. They all seem to be contented with him, but they
+don't talk much about him."
+
+"No; they wouldn't. Had you a child you would have talked about him,
+Phineas. I should have loved my baby better than all the world, but I
+should have been silent about him. With Violet of course her husband
+is the first object. It would certainly be so from her nature. And so
+Oswald is quite tame?"
+
+"I don't know that he is very tame out hunting."
+
+"But to her?"
+
+"I should think always. She, you know, is very clever."
+
+"So clever!"
+
+"And would be sure to steer clear of all offence," said Phineas,
+enthusiastically.
+
+"While I could never for an hour avoid it. Did they say anything
+about the journey to Flanders?"
+
+"Chiltern did, frequently. He made me strip my shoulder to show him
+the place where he hit me."
+
+"How like Oswald!"
+
+"And he told me that he would have given one of his eyes to kill me,
+only Colepepper wouldn't let him go on. He half quarrelled with his
+second, but the man told him that I had not fired at him, and the
+thing must drop. 'It's better as it is, you know,' he said. And I
+agreed with him."
+
+"And how did Violet receive you?"
+
+"Like an angel,--as she is."
+
+"Well, yes. I'll grant she is an angel now. I was angry with her
+once, you know. You men find so many angels in your travels. You have
+been honester than some. You have generally been off with the old
+angel before you were on with the new,--as far at least as I knew."
+
+"Is that meant for rebuke, Lady Laura?"
+
+"No, my friend; no. That is all over. I said to myself when you told
+me that you would come, that I would not utter one ill-natured word.
+And I told myself more than that!"
+
+"What more?"
+
+"That you had never deserved it,--at least from me. But surely you
+were the most simple of men."
+
+"I dare say."
+
+"Men when they are true are simple. They are often false as hell,
+and then they are crafty as Lucifer. But the man who is true judges
+others by himself,--almost without reflection. A woman can be true as
+steel and cunning at the same time. How cunning was Violet, and yet
+she never deceived one of her lovers, even by a look. Did she?"
+
+"She never deceived me,--if you mean that. She never cared a straw
+about me, and told me so to my face very plainly."
+
+"She did care,--many straws. But I think she always loved Oswald. She
+refused him again and again, because she thought it wrong to run a
+great risk, but I knew she would never marry any one else. How little
+Lady Baldock understood her. Fancy your meeting Lady Baldock at
+Oswald's house!"
+
+"Fancy Augusta Boreham turning nun!"
+
+"How exquisitely grotesque it must have been when she made her
+complaint to you."
+
+"I pitied her with all my heart."
+
+"Of course you did,--because you are so soft. And now, Phineas, we
+will put it off no longer. Tell me all that you have to tell me about
+him."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+KÖNIGSTEIN.
+
+
+Phineas Finn and Lady Laura Kennedy sat together discussing the
+affairs of the past till the servant told them that "My Lord" was in
+the next room, and ready to receive Mr. Finn. "You will find him much
+altered," said Lady Laura, "even more than I am."
+
+"I do not find you altered at all."
+
+"Yes, you do,--in appearance. I am a middle-aged woman, and conscious
+that I may use my privileges as such. But he has become quite an old
+man,--not in health so much as in manner. But he will be very glad to
+see you." So saying she led him into a room, in which he found the
+Earl seated near the fireplace, and wrapped in furs. He got up to
+receive his guest, and Phineas saw at once that during the two years
+of his exile from England Lord Brentford had passed from manhood to
+senility. He almost tottered as he came forward, and he wrapped his
+coat around him with that air of studious self-preservation which
+belongs only to the infirm.
+
+"It is very good of you to come and see me, Mr. Finn," he said.
+
+"Don't call him Mr. Finn, Papa. I call him Phineas."
+
+"Well, yes; that's all right, I dare say. It's a terrible long
+journey from London, isn't it, Mr. Finn?"
+
+"Too long to be pleasant, my lord."
+
+"Pleasant! Oh, dear. There's no pleasantness about it. And so they've
+got an autumn session, have they? That's always a very stupid thing
+to do, unless they want money."
+
+"But there is a money bill which must be passed. That's Mr. Daubeny's
+excuse."
+
+"Ah, if they've a money bill of course it's all right. So you're in
+Parliament again?"
+
+"I'm sorry to say I'm not." Then Lady Laura explained to her father,
+probably for the third or fourth time, exactly what was their guest's
+position. "Oh, a scrutiny. We didn't use to have any scrutinies at
+Loughton, did we? Ah, me; well, everything seems to be going to
+the dogs. I'm told they're attacking the Church now." Lady Laura
+glanced at Phineas; but neither of them said a word. "I don't
+quite understand it; but they tell me that the Tories are going to
+disestablish the Church. I'm very glad I'm out of it all. Things
+have come to such a pass that I don't see how a gentleman is to hold
+office now-a-days. Have you seen Chiltern lately?"
+
+After a while, when Phineas had told the Earl all that there was
+to tell of his son and his grandson, and all of politics and of
+Parliament, Lady Laura suddenly interrupted them. "You knew, Papa,
+that he was to see Mr. Kennedy. He has been to Loughlinter, and has
+seen him."
+
+"Oh, indeed!"
+
+"He is quite assured that I could not with wisdom return to live with
+my husband."
+
+"It is a very grave decision to make," said the Earl.
+
+"But he has no doubt about it," continued Lady Laura.
+
+"Not a shadow of doubt," said Phineas. "I will not say that Mr.
+Kennedy is mad; but the condition of his mind is such in regard to
+Lady Laura that I do not think she could live with him in safety. He
+is crazed about religion."
+
+"Dear, dear, dear," exclaimed the Earl.
+
+"The gloom of his house is insupportable. And he does not pretend
+that he desires her to return that he and she may be happy together."
+
+"What for then?"
+
+"That we might be unhappy together," said Lady Laura.
+
+"He repudiates all belief in happiness. He wishes her to return to
+him chiefly because it is right that a man and wife should live
+together."
+
+"So it is," said the Earl.
+
+"But not to the utter wretchedness of both of them," said Lady Laura.
+"He says," and she pointed to Phineas, "that were I there he would
+renew his accusation against me. He has not told me all. Perhaps he
+cannot tell me all. But I certainly will not return to Loughlinter."
+
+"Very well, my dear."
+
+"It is not very well, Papa; but, nevertheless, I will not return to
+Loughlinter. What I suffered there neither of you can understand."
+
+That afternoon Phineas went out alone to the galleries, but the next
+day she accompanied him, and showed him whatever of glory the town
+had to offer in its winter dress. They stood together before great
+masters, and together examined small gems. And then from day to
+day they were always in each other's company. He had promised to
+stay a month, and during that time he was petted and comforted
+to his heart's content. Lady Laura would have taken him into the
+Saxon Switzerland, in spite of the inclemency of the weather and her
+father's rebukes, had he not declared vehemently that he was happier
+remaining in the town. But she did succeed in carrying him off to the
+fortress of Königstein; and there as they wandered along the fortress
+constructed on that wonderful rock there occurred between them a
+conversation which he never forgot, and which it would not have been
+easy to forget. His own prospects had of course been frequently
+discussed. He had told her everything, down to the exact amount of
+money which he had to support him till he should again be enabled to
+earn an income, and had received assurances from her that everything
+would be just as it should be after a lapse of a few months. The
+Liberals would, as a matter of course, come in, and equally as a
+matter of course, Phineas would be in office. She spoke of this with
+such certainty that she almost convinced him. Having tempted him away
+from the safety of permanent income, the party could not do less than
+provide for him. If he could only secure a seat he would be safe; and
+it seemed that Tankerville would be a certain seat. This certainty he
+would not admit; but, nevertheless, he was comforted by his friend.
+When you have done the rashest thing in the world it is very pleasant
+to be told that no man of spirit could have acted otherwise. It was a
+matter of course that he should return to public life,--so said Lady
+Laura;--and doubly a matter of course when he found himself a widower
+without a child. "Whether it be a bad life or a good life," said Lady
+Laura, "you and I understand equally well that no other life is worth
+having after it. We are like the actors, who cannot bear to be away
+from the gaslights when once they have lived amidst their glare." As
+she said this they were leaning together over one of the parapets of
+the great fortress, and the sadness of the words struck him as they
+bore upon herself. She also had lived amidst the gaslights, and now
+she was self-banished into absolute obscurity. "You could not have
+been content with your life in Dublin," she said.
+
+"Are you content with your life in Dresden?"
+
+"Certainly not. We all like exercise; but the man who has had his
+leg cut off can't walk. Some can walk with safety; others only with
+a certain peril; and others cannot at all. You are in the second
+position, but I am in the last."
+
+"I do not see why you should not return."
+
+"And if I did what would come of it? In place of the seclusion
+of Dresden, there would be the seclusion of Portman Square or of
+Saulsby. Who would care to have me at their houses, or to come to
+mine? You know what a hazardous, chancy, short-lived thing is the
+fashion of a woman. With wealth, and wit, and social charm, and
+impudence, she may preserve it for some years, but when she has once
+lost it she can never recover it. I am as much lost to the people who
+did know me in London as though I had been buried for a century. A
+man makes himself really useful, but a woman can never do that."
+
+"All those general rules mean nothing," said Phineas. "I should try
+it."
+
+"No, Phineas. I know better than that. It would only be
+disappointment. I hardly think that after all you ever did understand
+when it was that I broke down utterly and marred my fortunes for
+ever."
+
+"I know the day that did it."
+
+"When I accepted him?"
+
+"Of course it was. I know that, and so do you. There need be no
+secret between us."
+
+"There need be no secret between us certainly,--and on my part there
+shall be none. On my part there has been none."
+
+"Nor on mine."
+
+"There has been nothing for you to tell,--since you blurted out your
+short story of love that day over the waterfall, when I tried so hard
+to stop you."
+
+"How was I to be stopped then?"
+
+"No; you were too simple. You came there with but one idea, and you
+could not change it on the spur of the moment. When I told you that
+I was engaged you could not swallow back the words that were not yet
+spoken. Ah, how well I remember it. But you are wrong, Phineas. It
+was not my engagement or my marriage that has made the world a blank
+for me." A feeling came upon him which half-choked him, so that he
+could ask her no further question. "You know that, Phineas."
+
+"It was your marriage," he said, gruffly.
+
+"It was, and has been, and still will be my strong, unalterable,
+unquenchable love for you. How could I behave to that other man with
+even seeming tenderness when my mind was always thinking of you, when
+my heart was always fixed upon you? But you have been so simple, so
+little given to vanity,"--she leaned upon his arm as she spoke,--"so
+pure and so manly, that you have not believed this, even when I told
+you. Has it not been so?"
+
+"I do not wish to believe it now."
+
+"But you do believe it? You must and shall believe it. I ask for
+nothing in return. As my God is my judge, if I thought it possible
+that your heart should be to me as mine is to you, I could have
+put a pistol to my ear sooner than speak as I have spoken." Though
+she paused for some word from him he could not utter a word. He
+remembered many things, but even to her in his present mood he could
+not allude to them;--how he had kissed her at the Falls, how she had
+bade him not come back to the house because his presence to her was
+insupportable; how she had again encouraged him to come, and had
+then forbidden him to accept even an invitation to dinner from her
+husband. And he remembered too the fierceness of her anger to him
+when he told her of his love for Violet Effingham. "I must insist
+upon it," she continued, "that you shall take me now as I really
+am,--as your dearest friend, your sister, your mother, if you will.
+I know what I am. Were my husband not still living it would be the
+same. I should never under any circumstances marry again. I have
+passed the period of a woman's life when as a woman she is loved;
+but I have not outlived the power of loving. I shall fret about you,
+Phineas, like an old hen after her one chick; and though you turn
+out to be a duck, and get away into waters where I cannot follow
+you, I shall go cackling round the pond, and always have my eye upon
+you." He was holding her now by the hand, but he could not speak
+for the tears were trickling down his cheeks. "When I was young,"
+she continued, "I did not credit myself with capacity for so much
+passion. I told myself that love after all should be a servant and
+not a master, and I married my husband fully intending to do my duty
+to him. Now we see what has come of it."
+
+"It has been his fault; not yours," said Phineas.
+
+"It was my fault,--mine; for I never loved him. Had you not told me
+what manner of man he was before? And I had believed you, though I
+denied it. And I knew when I went to Loughlinter that it was you whom
+I loved. And I knew too,--I almost knew that you would ask me to be
+your wife were not that other thing settled first. And I declared to
+myself that, in spite of both our hearts, it should not be so. I had
+no money then,--nor had you."
+
+"I would have worked for you."
+
+"Ah, yes; but you must not reproach me now, Phineas. I never deserted
+you as regarded your interests, though what little love you had
+for me was short-lived indeed. Nay; you are not accused, and shall
+not excuse yourself. You were right,--always right. When you had
+failed to win one woman your heart with a true natural spring went to
+another. And so entire had been the cure, that you went to the first
+woman with the tale of your love for the second."
+
+"To whom was I to go but to a friend?"
+
+"You did come to a friend, and though I could not drive out of my
+heart the demon of jealousy, though I was cut to the very bone, I
+would have helped you had help been possible. Though it had been the
+fixed purpose of my life that Violet and Oswald should be man and
+wife, I would have helped you because that other purpose of serving
+you in all things had become more fixed. But it was to no good end
+that I sang your praises. Violet Effingham was not the girl to marry
+this man or that at the bidding of any one;--was she?"
+
+"No, indeed."
+
+"It is of no use now talking of it; is it? But I want you to
+understand me from the beginning;--to understand all that was evil,
+and anything that was good. Since first I found that you were to me
+the dearest of human beings I have never once been untrue to your
+interests, though I have been unable not to be angry with you. Then
+came that wonderful episode in which you saved my husband's life."
+
+"Not his life."
+
+"Was it not singular that it should come from your hand? It seemed
+like Fate. I tried to use the accident, to make his friendship for
+you as thorough as my own. And then I was obliged to separate you,
+because,--because, after all I was so mere a woman that I could not
+bear to have you near me. I can bear it now."
+
+"Dear Laura!"
+
+"Yes; as your sister. I think you cannot but love me a little when
+you know how entirely I am devoted to you. I can bear to have you
+near me now and think of you only as the hen thinks of her duckling.
+For a moment you are out of the pond, and I have gathered you under
+my wing. You understand?"
+
+"I know that I am unworthy of what you say of me."
+
+"Worth has nothing to do with it,--has no bearing on it. I do not say
+that you are more worthy than all whom I have known. But when did
+worth create love? What I want is that you should believe me, and
+know that there is one bound to you who will never be unbound, one
+whom you can trust in all things,--one to whom you can confess that
+you have been wrong if you go wrong, and yet be sure that you will
+not lessen her regard. And with this feeling you must pretend to
+nothing more than friendship. You will love again, of course."
+
+"Oh, no."
+
+"Of course you will. I tried to blaze into power by a marriage, and
+I failed,--because I was a woman. A woman should marry only for
+love. You will do it yet, and will not fail. You may remember this
+too,--that I shall never be jealous again. You may tell me everything
+with safety. You will tell me everything?"
+
+"If there be anything to tell, I will."
+
+"I will never stand between you and your wife,--though I would fain
+hope that she should know how true a friend I am. Now we have walked
+here till it is dark, and the sentry will think we are taking plans
+of the place. Are you cold?"
+
+"I have not thought about the cold."
+
+"Nor have I. We will go down to the inn and warm ourselves before the
+train comes. I wonder why I should have brought you here to tell you
+my story. Oh, Phineas." Then she threw herself into his arms, and he
+pressed her to his heart, and kissed first her forehead and then her
+lips. "It shall never be so again," she said. "I will kill it out
+of my heart even though I should crucify my body. But it is not my
+love that I will kill. When you are happy I will be happy. When you
+prosper I will prosper. When you fail I will fail. When you rise,--as
+you will rise,--I will rise with you. But I will never again feel the
+pressure of your arm round my waist. Here is the gate, and the old
+guide. So, my friend, you see that we are not lost." Then they walked
+down the very steep hill to the little town below the fortress, and
+there they remained till the evening train came from Prague, and took
+them back to Dresden.
+
+Two days after this was the day fixed for Finn's departure. On
+the intermediate day the Earl begged for a few minutes' private
+conversation with him, and the two were closeted together for an
+hour. The Earl, in truth, had little or nothing to say. Things had
+so gone with him that he had hardly a will of his own left, and did
+simply that which his daughter directed him to do. He pretended to
+consult Phineas as to the expediency of his returning to Saulsby.
+Did Phineas think that his return would be of any use to the party?
+Phineas knew very well that the party would not recognise the
+difference whether the Earl lived at Dresden or in London. When a
+man has come to the end of his influence as the Earl had done he is
+as much a nothing in politics as though he had never risen above
+that quantity. The Earl had never risen very high, and even Phineas,
+with all his desire to be civil, could not say that the Earl's
+presence would materially serve the interests of the Liberal party.
+He made what most civil excuses he could, and suggested that if Lord
+Brentford should choose to return, Lady Laura would very willingly
+remain at Dresden alone. "But why shouldn't she come too?" asked the
+Earl. And then, with the tardiness of old age, he proposed his little
+plan. "Why should she not make an attempt to live once more with her
+husband?"
+
+"She never will," said Phineas.
+
+"But think how much she loses," said the Earl.
+
+"I am quite sure she never will. And I am quite sure that she ought
+not to do so. The marriage was a misfortune. As it is they are better
+apart." After that the Earl did not dare to say another word about
+his daughter; but discussed his son's affairs. Did not Phineas think
+that Chiltern might now be induced to go into Parliament? "Nothing
+would make him do so," said Phineas.
+
+"But he might farm?"
+
+"You see he has his hands full."
+
+"But other men keep hounds and farm too," said the Earl.
+
+"But Chiltern is not like other men. He gives his whole mind to it,
+and finds full employment. And then he is quite happy, and so is she.
+What more can you want for him? Everybody respects him."
+
+"That goes a very great way," said the Earl. Then he thanked Phineas
+cordially, and felt that now as ever he had done his duty by his
+family.
+
+There was no renewal of the passionate conversation which had taken
+place on the ramparts, but much of tenderness and of sympathy arose
+from it. Lady Laura took upon herself the tone and manners of an
+elder sister,--of a sister very much older than her brother,--and
+Phineas submitted to them not only gracefully but with delight to
+himself. He had not thanked her for her love when she expressed it,
+and he did not do so afterwards. But he accepted it, and bowed to it,
+and recognised it as constituting one of the future laws of his life.
+He was to do nothing of importance without her knowledge, and he
+was to be at her command should she at any time want assistance in
+England. "I suppose I shall come back some day," she said, as they
+were sitting together late on the evening before his departure.
+
+"I cannot understand why you should not do so now. Your father wishes
+it."
+
+"He thinks he does; but were he told that he was to go to-morrow, or
+next summer, it would fret him. I am assured that Mr. Kennedy could
+demand my return,--by law."
+
+"He could not enforce it."
+
+"He would attempt it. I will not go back until he consents to my
+living apart from him. And, to tell the truth, I am better here for
+awhile. They say that the sick animals always creep somewhere under
+cover. I am a sick animal, and now that I have crept here I will
+remain till I am stronger. How terribly anxious you must be about
+Tankerville!"
+
+"I am anxious."
+
+"You will telegraph to me at once? You will be sure to do that?"
+
+"Of course I will, the moment I know my fate."
+
+"And if it goes against you?"
+
+"Ah,--what then?"
+
+"I shall at once write to Barrington Erle. I don't suppose he would
+do much now for his poor cousin, but he can at any rate say what can
+be done. I should bid you come here,--only that stupid people would
+say that you were my lover. I should not mind, only that he would
+hear it, and I am bound to save him from annoyance. Would you not go
+down to Oswald again?"
+
+"With what object?"
+
+"Because anything will be better than returning to Ireland. Why not
+go down and look after Saulsby? It would be a home, and you need not
+tie yourself to it. I will speak to Papa about that. But you will get
+the seat."
+
+"I think I shall," said Phineas.
+
+"Do;--pray do! If I could only get hold of that judge by the ears!
+Do you know what time it is? It is twelve, and your train starts at
+eight." Then he arose to bid her adieu. "No," she said; "I shall see
+you off."
+
+"Indeed you will not. It will be almost night when I leave this, and
+the frost is like iron."
+
+"Neither the night nor the frost will kill me. Do you think I will
+not give you your last breakfast? God bless you, dear."
+
+And on the following morning she did give him his breakfast by
+candle-light, and went down with him to the station. The morning was
+black, and the frost was, as he had said, as hard as iron, but she
+was thoroughly good-humoured, and apparently happy. "It has been so
+much to me to have you here, that I might tell you everything," she
+said. "You will understand me now."
+
+"I understand, but I know not how to believe," he said.
+
+"You do believe. You would be worse than a Jew if you did not believe
+me. But you understand also. I want you to marry, and you must tell
+her all the truth. If I can I will love her almost as much as I do
+you. And if I live to see them, I will love your children as dearly
+as I do you. Your children shall be my children;--or at least one of
+them shall be mine. You will tell me when it is to be."
+
+"If I ever intend such a thing, I will tell you."
+
+"Now, good-bye. I shall stand back there till the train starts, but
+do not you notice me. God bless you, Phineas." She held his hand
+tight within her own for some seconds, and looked into his face with
+an unutterable love. Then she drew down her veil, and went and stood
+apart till the train had left the platform.
+
+"He has gone, Papa," Lady Laura said, as she stood afterwards by her
+father's bedside.
+
+"Has he? Yes; I know he was to go, of course. I was very glad to see
+him, Laura."
+
+"So was I, Papa;--very glad indeed. Whatever happens to him, we must
+never lose sight of him again."
+
+"We shall hear of him, of course, if he is in the House."
+
+"Whether he is in the House or out of it we must hear of him. While
+we have aught he must never want." The Earl stared at his daughter.
+The Earl was a man of large possessions, and did not as yet
+understand that he was to be called upon to share them with Phineas
+Finn. "I know, Papa, you will never think ill of me."
+
+"Never, my dear."
+
+"I have sworn that I will be a sister to that man, and I will keep my
+oath."
+
+"I know you are a very good sister to Chiltern," said the Earl. Lady
+Laura had at one time appropriated her whole fortune, which had been
+large, to the payment of her brother's debts. The money had been
+returned, and had gone to her husband. Lord Brentford now supposed
+that she intended at some future time to pay the debts of Phineas
+Finn.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+"I HAVE GOT THE SEAT."
+
+
+When Phineas returned to London, the autumn Session, though it had
+been carried on so near to Christmas as to make many members very
+unhappy, had already been over for a fortnight. Mr. Daubeny had
+played his game with consummate skill to the last. He had brought
+in no bill, but had stated his intention of doing so early in the
+following Session. He had, he said, of course been aware from the
+first that it would have been quite impossible to carry such a
+measure as that proposed during the few weeks in which it had been
+possible for them to sit between the convening of Parliament and the
+Christmas holidays; but he thought that it was expedient that the
+proposition should be named to the House and ventilated as it had
+been, so that members on both sides might be induced to give their
+most studious attention to the subject before a measure, which
+must be so momentous, should be proposed to them. As had happened,
+the unforeseen division to which the House had been pressed on the
+Address had proved that the majority of the House was in favour of
+the great reform which it was the object of his ambition to complete.
+They were aware that they had been assembled at a somewhat unusual
+and inconvenient period of the year, because the service of the
+country had demanded that certain money bills should be passed. He,
+however, rejoiced greatly that this earliest opportunity had been
+afforded to him of explaining the intentions of the Government with
+which he had the honour of being connected. In answer to this there
+arose a perfect torrent of almost vituperative antagonism from the
+opposite side of the House. Did the Right Honourable gentleman dare
+to say that the question had been ventilated in the country, when it
+had never been broached by him or any of his followers till after
+the general election had been completed? Was it not notorious to
+the country that the first hint of it had been given when the Right
+Honourable gentleman was elected for East Barsetshire, and was it not
+equally notorious that that election had been so arranged that the
+marvellous proposition of the Right Honourable gentleman should not
+be known even to his own party till there remained no possibility
+of the expression of any condemnation from the hustings? It might
+be that the Right Honourable could so rule his own followers in
+that House as to carry them with him even in a matter so absolutely
+opposite to their own most cherished convictions. It certainly seemed
+that he had succeeded in doing so for the present. But would any one
+believe that he would have carried the country, had he dared to face
+the country with such a measure in his hands? Ventilation, indeed! He
+had not dared to ventilate his proposition. He had used this short
+Session in order that he might keep his clutch fastened on power, and
+in doing so was indifferent alike to the Constitution, to his party,
+and to the country. Harder words had never been spoken in the House
+than were uttered on this occasion. But the Minister was successful.
+He had been supported on the Address; and he went home to East
+Barsetshire at Christmas, perhaps with some little fear of the
+parsons around him; but with a full conviction that he would at least
+carry the second reading of his bill.
+
+London was more than usually full and busy this year immediately
+after Christmas. It seemed as though it were admitted by all the
+Liberal party generally that the sadness of the occasion ought to
+rob the season of its usual festivities. Who could eat mince pies
+or think of Twelfth Night while so terribly wicked a scheme was in
+progress for keeping the real majority out in the cold? It was the
+injustice of the thing that rankled so deeply,--that, and a sense
+of inferiority to the cleverness displayed by Mr. Daubeny! It was
+as when a player is checkmated by some audacious combination of
+two pawns and a knight, such being all the remaining forces of the
+victorious adversary, when the beaten man has two castles and a queen
+upon the board. It was, indeed, worse than this,--for the adversary
+had appropriated to his own use the castles and the queen of the
+unhappy vanquished one. This Church Reform was the legitimate
+property of the Liberals, and had not been as yet used by them only
+because they had felt it right to keep in the background for some
+future great occasion so great and so valuable a piece of ordnance.
+It was theirs so safely that they could afford to bide their time.
+And then,--so they all said, and so some of them believed,--the
+country was not ready for so great a measure. It must come; but there
+must be tenderness in the mode of producing it. The parsons must be
+respected, and the great Church-of-England feeling of the people must
+be considered with affectionate regard. Even the most rabid Dissenter
+would hardly wish to see a structure so nearly divine attacked and
+destroyed by rude hands. With grave and slow and sober earnestness,
+with loving touches and soft caressing manipulation let the beautiful
+old Church be laid to its rest, as something too exquisite, too
+lovely, too refined for the present rough manners of the world! Such
+were the ideas as to Church Reform of the leading Liberals of the
+day; and now this man, without even a majority to back him, this
+audacious Cagliostro among statesmen, this destructive leader of all
+declared Conservatives, had come forward without a moment's warning,
+and pretended that he would do the thing out of hand! Men knew that
+it had to be done. The country had begun to perceive that the old
+Establishment must fall; and, knowing this, would not the Liberal
+backbone of Great Britain perceive the enormity of this Cagliostro's
+wickedness,--and rise against him and bury him beneath its scorn
+as it ought to do? This was the feeling that made a real Christmas
+impossible to Messrs. Ratler and Bonteen.
+
+"The one thing incredible to me," said Mr. Ratler, "is that
+Englishmen should be so mean." He was alluding to the Conservatives
+who had shown their intention of supporting Mr. Daubeny, and whom
+he accused of doing so, simply with a view to power and patronage,
+without any regard to their own consistency or to the welfare of
+the country. Mr. Ratler probably did not correctly read the minds
+of the men whom he was accusing, and did not perceive, as he should
+have done with his experience, how little there was among them of
+concerted action. To defend the Church was a duty to each of them;
+but then, so also was it a duty to support his party. And each one
+could see his way to the one duty, whereas the other was vague, and
+too probably ultimately impossible. If it were proper to throw off
+the incubus of this conjuror's authority, surely some wise, and
+great, and bold man would get up and so declare. Some junto of wise
+men of the party would settle that he should be deposed. But where
+were they to look for the wise and bold men? where even for the
+junto? Of whom did the party consist?--Of honest, chivalrous, and
+enthusiastic men, but mainly of men who were idle, and unable to
+take upon their own shoulders the responsibility of real work. Their
+leaders had been selected from the outside,--clever, eager, pushing
+men, but of late had been hardly selected from among themselves. As
+used to be the case with Italian Powers, they entrusted their cause
+to mercenary foreign generals, soldiers of fortune, who carried their
+good swords whither they were wanted; and, as of old, the leaders
+were ever ready to fight, but would themselves declare what should
+be and what should not be the _casus belli_. There was not so much
+meanness as Mr. Ratler supposed in the Conservative ranks, but very
+much more unhappiness. Would it not be better to go home and live
+at the family park all the year round, and hunt, and attend Quarter
+Sessions, and be able to declare morning and evening with a clear
+conscience that the country was going to the dogs? Such was the
+mental working of many a Conservative who supported Mr. Daubeny on
+this occasion.
+
+At the instance of Lady Laura, Phineas called upon the Duke of St.
+Bungay soon after his return, and was very kindly received by his
+Grace. In former days, when there were Whigs instead of Liberals, it
+was almost a rule of political life that all leading Whigs should be
+uncles, brothers-in-law, or cousins to each other. This was pleasant
+and gave great consistency to the party; but the system has now gone
+out of vogue. There remain of it, however, some traces, so that among
+the nobler born Liberals of the day there is still a good deal of
+agreeable family connection. In this way the St. Bungay Fitz-Howards
+were related to the Mildmays and Standishes, and such a man as
+Barrington Erle was sure to be cousin to all of them. Lady Laura
+had thus only sent her friend to a relation of her own, and as the
+Duke and Phineas had been in the same Government, his Grace was
+glad enough to receive the returning aspirant. Of course there was
+something said at first as to the life of the Earl at Dresden. The
+Duke recollected the occasion of such banishment, and shook his head;
+and attempted to look unhappy when the wretched condition of Mr.
+Kennedy was reported to him. But he was essentially a happy man, and
+shook off the gloom at once when Phineas spoke of politics. "So you
+are coming back to us, Mr. Finn?"
+
+"They tell me I may perhaps get the seat."
+
+"I am heartily glad, for you were very useful. I remember how Cantrip
+almost cried when he told me you were going to leave him. He had been
+rather put upon, I fancy, before."
+
+"There was perhaps something in that, your Grace."
+
+"There will be nothing to return to now beyond barren honours."
+
+"Not for a while."
+
+"Not for a long while," said the Duke;--"for a long while, that is,
+as candidates for office regard time. Mr. Daubeny will be safe for
+this Session at least. I doubt whether he will really attempt to
+carry his measure this year. He will bring it forward, and after the
+late division he must get his second reading. He will then break
+down gracefully in Committee, and declare that the importance of the
+interests concerned demands further inquiry. It wasn't a thing to be
+done in one year."
+
+"Why should he do it at all?" asked Phineas.
+
+"That's what everybody asks, but the answer seems to be so plain!
+Because he can do it, and we can't. He will get from our side much
+support, and we should get none from his."
+
+"There is something to me sickening in their dishonesty," said
+Phineas energetically.
+
+"The country has the advantage; and I don't know that they are
+dishonest. Ought we to come to a deadlock in legislation in order
+that parties might fight out their battle till one had killed the
+other?"
+
+"I don't think a man should support a measure which he believes to be
+destructive."
+
+"He doesn't believe it to be destructive. The belief is
+theoretic,--or not even quite that. It is hardly more than romantic.
+As long as acres are dear, and he can retain those belonging to him,
+the country gentleman will never really believe his country to be in
+danger. It is the same with commerce. As long as the Three per Cents.
+do not really mean Four per Cent.,--I may say as long as they don't
+mean Five per Cent.,--the country will be rich, though every one
+should swear that it be ruined."
+
+"I'm very glad, at the same time, that I don't call myself a
+Conservative," said Phineas.
+
+"That shows how disinterested you are, as you certainly would be
+in office. Good-bye. Come and see the Duchess when she comes to
+town. And if you've nothing better to do, give us a day or two at
+Longroyston at Easter." Now Longroyston was the Duke's well-known
+country seat, at which Whig hospitality had been dispensed with a
+lavish hand for two centuries.
+
+On the 20th January Phineas travelled down to Tankerville again in
+obedience to a summons served upon him at the instance of the judge
+who was to try his petition against Browborough. It was the special
+and somewhat unusual nature of this petition that the complainants
+not only sought to oust the sitting member, but also to give the
+seat to the late unsuccessful candidate. There was to be a scrutiny,
+by which, if it should be successful, so great a number of votes
+would be deducted from those polled on behalf of the unfortunate
+Mr. Browborough as to leave a majority for his opponent, with the
+additional disagreeable obligation upon him of paying the cost of the
+transaction by which he would thus lose his seat. Mr. Browborough,
+no doubt, looked upon the whole thing with the greatest disgust. He
+thought that a battle when once won should be regarded as over till
+the occasion should come for another battle. He had spent his money
+like a gentleman, and hated these mean ways. No one could ever say
+that he had ever petitioned. That was his way of looking at it. That
+Shibboleth of his as to the prospects of England and the Church of
+her people had, no doubt, made the House less agreeable to him during
+the last Short session than usual; but he had stuck to his party, and
+voted with Mr. Daubeny on the Address,--the obligation for such vote
+having inconveniently pressed itself upon him before the presentation
+of the petition had been formally completed. He had always stuck to
+his party. It was the pride of his life that he had been true and
+consistent. He also was summoned to Tankerville, and he was forced
+to go, although he knew that the Shibboleth would be thrown in his
+teeth.
+
+Mr. Browborough spent two or three very uncomfortable days at
+Tankerville, whereas Phineas was triumphant. There were worse things
+in store for poor Mr. Browborough than his repudiated Shibboleth, or
+even than his lost seat. Mr. Ruddles, acting with wondrous energy,
+succeeded in knocking off the necessary votes, and succeeded also in
+proving that these votes were void by reason of gross bribery. He
+astonished Phineas by the cool effrontery with which he took credit
+to himself for not having purchased votes in the Fallgate on the
+Liberal side, but Phineas was too wise to remind him that he himself
+had hinted at one time that it would be well to lay out a little
+money in that way. No one at the present moment was more clear than
+was Ruddles as to the necessity of purity at elections. Not a penny
+had been misspent by the Finnites. A vote or two from their score
+was knocked off on grounds which did not touch the candidate or his
+agents. One man had personated a vote, but this appeared to have been
+done at the instigation of some very cunning Browborough partisan.
+Another man had been wrongly described. This, however, amounted to
+nothing. Phineas Finn was seated for the borough, and the judge
+declared his purpose of recommending the House of Commons to issue
+a commission with reference to the expediency of instituting a
+prosecution. Mr. Browborough left the town in great disgust, not
+without various publicly expressed intimations from his opponents
+that the prosperity of England depended on the Church of her people.
+Phineas was gloriously entertained by the Liberals of the borough,
+and then informed that as so much had been done for him it was hoped
+that he would now open his pockets on behalf of the charities of
+the town. "Gentlemen," said Phineas, to one or two of the leading
+Liberals, "it is as well that you should know at once that I am a
+very poor man." The leading Liberals made wry faces, but Phineas was
+member for the borough.
+
+The moment that the decision was announced, Phineas, shaking off for
+the time his congratulatory friends, hurried to the post-office and
+sent his message to Lady Laura Standish at Dresden: "I have got the
+seat." He was almost ashamed of himself as the telegraph boy looked
+up at him when he gave in the words, but this was a task which he
+could not have entrusted to any one else. He almost thought that this
+was in truth the proudest and happiest moment of his life. She would
+so thoroughly enjoy his triumph, would receive from it such great
+and unselfish joy, that he almost wished that he could have taken
+the message himself. Surely had he done so there would have been fit
+occasion for another embrace.
+
+He was again a member of the British House of Commons,--was again in
+possession of that privilege for which he had never ceased to sigh
+since the moment in which he lost it. A drunkard or a gambler may be
+weaned from his ways, but not a politician. To have been in the House
+and not to be there was, to such a one as Phineas Finn, necessarily
+a state of discontent. But now he had worked his way up again, and
+he was determined that no fears for the future should harass him. He
+would give his heart and soul to the work while his money lasted. It
+would surely last him for the Session. He was all alone in the world,
+and would trust to the chapter of accidents for the future.
+
+"I never knew a fellow with such luck as yours," said Barrington Erle
+to him, on his return to London. "A seat always drops into your mouth
+when the circumstances seem to be most forlorn."
+
+"I have been lucky, certainly."
+
+"My cousin, Laura Kennedy, has been writing to me about you."
+
+"I went over to see them, you know."
+
+"So I heard. She talks some nonsense about the Earl being willing to
+do anything for you. What could the Earl do? He has no more influence
+in the Loughton borough than I have. All that kind of thing is clean
+done for,--with one or two exceptions. We got much better men while
+it lasted than we do now."
+
+"I should doubt that."
+
+"We did;--much truer men,--men who went straighter. By the bye,
+Phineas, we must have no tricks on this Church matter. We mean to do
+all we can to throw out the second reading."
+
+"You know what I said at the hustings."
+
+"D---- the hustings. I know what Browborough said, and Browborough
+voted like a man with his party. You were against the Church at the
+hustings, and he was for it. You will vote just the other way. There
+will be a little confusion, but the people of Tankerville will never
+remember the particulars."
+
+"I don't know that I can do that."
+
+"By heavens, if you don't, you shall never more be officer of
+ours,--though Laura Kennedy should cry her eyes out."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+TRUMPETON WOOD.
+
+
+In the meantime the hunting season was going on in the Brake country
+with chequered success. There had arisen the great Trumpeton Wood
+question, about which the sporting world was doomed to hear so much
+for the next twelve months,--and Lord Chiltern was in an unhappy
+state of mind. Trumpeton Wood belonged to that old friend of ours,
+the Duke of Omnium, who had now almost fallen into second childhood.
+It was quite out of the question that the Duke should himself
+interfere in such a matter, or know anything about it; but Lord
+Chiltern, with headstrong resolution, had persisted in writing to the
+Duke himself. Foxes had always hitherto been preserved in Trumpeton
+Wood, and the earths had always been stopped on receipt of due notice
+by the keepers. During the cubbing season there had arisen quarrels.
+The keepers complained that no effort was made to kill the foxes.
+Lord Chiltern swore that the earths were not stopped. Then there came
+tidings of a terrible calamity. A dying fox, with a trap to its pad,
+was found in the outskirts of the Wood; and Lord Chiltern wrote to
+the Duke. He drew the Wood in regular course before any answer could
+be received,--and three of his hounds picked up poison, and died
+beneath his eyes. He wrote to the Duke again,--a cutting letter; and
+then came from the Duke's man of business, Mr. Fothergill, a very
+short reply, which Lord Chiltern regarded as an insult. Hitherto the
+affair had not got into the sporting papers, and was simply a matter
+of angry discussion at every meet in the neighbouring counties. Lord
+Chiltern was very full of wrath, and always looked as though he
+desired to avenge those poor hounds on the Duke and all belonging
+to him. To a Master of Hounds the poisoning of one of his pack is
+murder of the deepest dye. There probably never was a Master who in
+his heart of hearts would not think it right that a detected culprit
+should be hung for such an offence. And most Masters would go further
+than this, and declare that in the absence of such detection the
+owner of the covert in which the poison had been picked up should be
+held to be responsible. In this instance the condition of ownership
+was unfortunate. The Duke himself was old, feeble, and almost
+imbecile. He had never been eminent as a sportsman; but, in a not
+energetic manner, he had endeavoured to do his duty by the country.
+His heir, Plantagenet Palliser, was simply a statesman, who, as
+regarded himself, had never a day to spare for amusement; and who, in
+reference to sport, had unfortunate fantastic notions that pheasants
+and rabbits destroyed crops, and that foxes were injurious to old
+women's poultry. He, however, was not the owner, and had refused
+to interfere. There had been family quarrels too, adverse to the
+sporting interests of the younger Palliser scions, so that the
+shooting of this wood had drifted into the hands of Mr. Fothergill
+and his friends. Now, Lord Chiltern had settled it in his own mind
+that the hounds had been poisoned, if not in compliance with Mr.
+Fothergill's orders, at any rate in furtherance of his wishes,
+and, could he have had his way, he certainly would have sent Mr.
+Fothergill to the gallows. Now, Miss Palliser, who was still staying
+at Lord Chiltern's house, was niece to the old Duke, and first cousin
+to the heir. "They are nothing to me," she said once, when Lord
+Chiltern had attempted to apologise for the abuse he was heaping on
+her relatives. "I haven't seen the Duke since I was a little child,
+and I shouldn't know my cousin were I to meet him."
+
+"So much the more gracious is your condition," said Lady
+Chiltern,--"at any rate in Oswald's estimation."
+
+"I know them, and once spent a couple of days at Matching with them,"
+said Lord Chiltern. "The Duke is an old fool, who always gave himself
+greater airs than any other man in England,--and as far as I can see,
+with less to excuse them. As for Planty Pall, he and I belong so
+essentially to different orders of things, that we can hardly be
+reckoned as being both men."
+
+"And which is the man, Lord Chiltern?"
+
+"Whichever you please, my dear; only not both. Doggett was over there
+yesterday, and found three separate traps."
+
+"What did he do with the traps?" said Lady Chiltern.
+
+"I wasn't fool enough to ask him, but I don't in the least doubt that
+he threw them into the water--or that he'd throw Palliser there too
+if he could get hold of him. As for taking the hounds to Trumpeton
+again, I wouldn't do it if there were not another covert in the
+country."
+
+"Then leave it so, and have done with it," said his wife. "I wouldn't
+fret as you do for what another man did with his own property, for
+all the foxes in England."
+
+"That is because you understand nothing of hunting, my dear. A man's
+property is his own in one sense, but isn't his own in another. A man
+can't do what he likes with his coverts."
+
+"He can cut them down."
+
+"But he can't let another pack hunt them, and he can't hunt them
+himself. If he's in a hunting county he is bound to preserve foxes."
+
+"What binds him, Oswald? A man can't be bound without a penalty."
+
+"I should think it penalty enough for everybody to hate me. What are
+you going to do about Phineas Finn?"
+
+"I have asked him to come on the 1st and stay till Parliament meets."
+
+"And is that woman coming?"
+
+"There are two or three women coming."
+
+"She with the German name, whom you made me dine with in Park Lane?"
+
+"Madame Max Goesler is coming. She brings her own horses, and they
+will stand at Doggett's."
+
+"They can't stand here, for there is not a stall."
+
+"I am so sorry that my poor little fellow should incommode you," said
+Miss Palliser.
+
+"You're a licensed offender,--though, upon my honour, I don't know
+whether I ought to give a feed of oats to any one having a connection
+with Trumpeton Wood. And what is Phineas to ride?"
+
+"He shall ride my horses," said Lady Chiltern, whose present
+condition in life rendered hunting inopportune to her.
+
+"Neither of them would carry him a mile. He wants about as good an
+animal as you can put him upon. I don't know what I'm to do. It's all
+very well for Laura to say that he must be mounted."
+
+"You wouldn't refuse to give Mr. Finn a mount!" said Lady Chiltern,
+almost with dismay.
+
+"I'd give him my right hand to ride, only it wouldn't carry him. I
+can't make horses. Harry brought home that brown mare on Tuesday with
+an overreach that she won't get over this season. What the deuce they
+do with their horses to knock them about so, I can't understand. I've
+killed horses in my time, and ridden them to a stand-still, but I
+never bruised them and battered them about as these fellows do."
+
+"Then I'd better write to Mr. Finn, and tell him," said Lady
+Chiltern, very gravely.
+
+"Oh, Phineas Finn!" said Lord Chiltern; "oh, Phineas Finn! what a
+pity it was that you and I didn't see the matter out when we stood
+opposite to each other on the sands at Blankenberg!"
+
+"Oswald," said his wife, getting up, and putting her arm over his
+shoulder, "you know you would give your best horse to Mr. Finn,
+as long as he chose to stay here, though you rode upon a donkey
+yourself."
+
+"I know that if I didn't, you would," said Lord Chiltern. And so the
+matter was settled.
+
+At night, when they were alone together, there was further discussion
+as to the visitors who were coming to Harrington Hall. "Is Gerard
+Maule to come back?" asked the husband.
+
+"I have asked him. He left his horses at Doggett's, you know."
+
+"I didn't know."
+
+"I certainly told you, Oswald. Do you object to his coming? You can't
+really mean that you care about his riding?"
+
+"It isn't that. You must have some whipping post, and he's as good
+as another. But he shilly-shallies about that girl. I hate all that
+stuff like poison."
+
+"All men are not so--abrupt shall I say?--as you were."
+
+"I had something to say, and I said it. When I had said it a dozen
+times, I got to have it believed. He doesn't say it as though he
+meant to have it believed."
+
+"You were always in earnest, Oswald."
+
+"I was."
+
+"To the extent of the three minutes which you allowed yourself. It
+sufficed, however;--did it not? You are glad you persevered?"
+
+"What fools women are."
+
+"Never mind that. Say you are glad. I like you to tell me so. Let me
+be a fool if I will."
+
+"What made you so obstinate?"
+
+"I don't know. I never could tell. It wasn't that I didn't dote upon
+you, and think about you, and feel quite sure that there never could
+be any other one than you."
+
+"I've no doubt it was all right;--only you very nearly made me shoot
+a fellow, and now I've got to find horses for him. I wonder whether
+he could ride Dandolo?"
+
+"Don't put him up on anything very hard."
+
+"Why not? His wife is dead, and he hasn't got a child, nor yet an
+acre of property. I don't know who is entitled to break his neck if
+he is not. And Dandolo is as good a horse as there is in the stable,
+if you can once get him to go. Mind, I have to start to-morrow at
+nine, for it's all eighteen miles." And so the Master of the Brake
+Hounds took himself to his repose.
+
+Lady Laura Kennedy had written to Barrington Erle respecting her
+friend's political interests, and to her sister-in-law, Lady
+Chiltern, as to his social comfort. She could not bear to think that
+he should be left alone in London till Parliament should meet, and
+had therefore appealed to Lady Chiltern as to the memory of many past
+events. The appeal had been unnecessary and superfluous. It cannot
+be said that Phineas and his affairs were matters of as close an
+interest to Lady Chiltern as to Lady Laura. If any woman loved her
+husband beyond all things Lord Chiltern's wife did, and ever had done
+so. But there had been a tenderness in regard to the young Irish
+Member of Parliament, which Violet Effingham had in old days shared
+with Lady Laura, and which made her now think that all good things
+should be done for him. She believed him to be addicted to hunting,
+and therefore horses must be provided for him. He was a widower, and
+she remembered of old that he was fond of pretty women, and she knew
+that in coming days he might probably want money;--and therefore she
+had asked Madame Max Goesler to spend a fortnight at Harrington Hall.
+Madame Max Goesler and Phineas Finn had been acquainted before, as
+Lady Chiltern was well aware. But perhaps Lady Chiltern, when she
+summoned Madame Max into the country, did not know how close the
+acquaintance had been.
+
+Madame Max came a couple of days before Phineas, and was taken out
+hunting on the morning after her arrival. She was a lady who could
+ride to hounds,--and who, indeed, could do nearly anything to which
+she set her mind. She was dark, thin, healthy, good-looking, clever,
+ambitious, rich, unsatisfied, perhaps unscrupulous,--but not without
+a conscience. As has been told in a former portion of this chronicle,
+she could always seem to be happy with her companion of the day, and
+yet there was ever present a gnawing desire to do something more and
+something better than she had as yet achieved. Of course, as he took
+her to the meet, Lord Chiltern told her his grievance respecting
+Trumpeton Wood. "But, my dear Lord Chiltern, you must not abuse the
+Duke of Omnium to me."
+
+"Why not to you?"
+
+"He and I are sworn friends."
+
+"He's a hundred years old."
+
+"And why shouldn't I have a friend a hundred years old? And as
+for Mr. Palliser, he knows no more of your foxes than I know of
+his taxes. Why don't you write to Lady Glencora? She understands
+everything."
+
+"Is she a friend of yours, too?"
+
+"My particular friend. She and I, you know, look after the poor dear
+Duke between us."
+
+"I can understand why she should sacrifice herself."
+
+"But not why I do. I can't explain it myself; but so it has come
+to pass, and I must not hear the Duke abused. May I write to Lady
+Glencora about it?"
+
+"Certainly,--if you please; but not as giving her any message from
+me. Her uncle's property is mismanaged most damnably. If you choose
+to tell her that I say so you can. I'm not going to ask anything as a
+favour. I never do ask favours. But the Duke or Planty Palliser among
+them should do one of two things. They should either stand by the
+hunting, or they should let it alone;--and they should say what they
+mean. I like to know my friends, and I like to know my enemies."
+
+"I am sure the Duke is not your enemy, Lord Chiltern."
+
+"These Pallisers have always been running with the hare and hunting
+with the hounds. They are great aristocrats, and yet are always
+going in for the people. I'm told that Planty Pall calls fox-hunting
+barbarous. Why doesn't he say so out loud, and stub up Trumpeton Wood
+and grow corn?"
+
+"Perhaps he will when Trumpeton Wood belongs to him."
+
+"I should like that much better than poisoning hounds and trapping
+foxes." When they got to the meet, conclaves of men might be
+seen gathered together here and there, and in each conclave they
+were telling something new or something old as to the iniquities
+perpetrated at Trumpeton Wood.
+
+On that evening before dinner Madame Goesler was told by her
+hostess that Phineas Finn was expected on the following day. The
+communication was made quite as a matter of course; but Lady Chiltern
+had chosen a time in which the lights were shaded, and the room was
+dark. Adelaide Palliser was present, as was also a certain Lady
+Baldock,--not that Lady Baldock who had abused all Papists to poor
+Phineas, but her son's wife. They were drinking tea together over
+the fire, and the dim lights were removed from the circle. This, no
+doubt, was simply an accident; but the gloom served Madame Goesler
+during one moment of embarrassment. "An old friend of yours is coming
+here to-morrow," said Lady Chiltern.
+
+"An old friend of mine! Shall I call my friend he or she?"
+
+"You remember Mr. Finn?"
+
+That was the moment in which Madame Goesler rejoiced that no strong
+glare of light fell upon her face. But she was a woman who would not
+long leave herself subject to any such embarrassment. "Surely," she
+said, confining herself at first to the single word.
+
+"He is coming here. He is a great friend of mine."
+
+"He always was a good friend of yours, Lady Chiltern."
+
+"And of yours, too, Madame Max. A sort of general friend, I think,
+was Mr. Finn in the old days. I hope you will be glad to see him."
+
+"Oh, dear, yes."
+
+"I thought him very nice," said Adelaide Palliser.
+
+"I remember mamma saying, before she was mamma, you know," said Lady
+Baldock, "that Mr. Finn was very nice indeed, only he was a Papist,
+and only he had got no money, and only he would fall in love with
+everybody. Does he go on falling in love with people, Violet?"
+
+"Never with married women, my dear. He has had a wife himself since
+that, Madame Goesler, and the poor thing died."
+
+"And now here he is beginning all over again," said Lady Baldock.
+
+"And as pleasant as ever," said her cousin. "You know he has done all
+manner of things for our family. He picked Oswald up once after one
+of those terrible hunting accidents; and he saved Mr. Kennedy when
+men were murdering him."
+
+"That was questionable kindness," said Lady Baldock.
+
+"And he sat for Lord Brentford's borough."
+
+"How good of him!" said Miss Palliser.
+
+"And he has done all manner of things," said Lady Chiltern.
+
+"Didn't he once fight a duel?" asked Madame Goesler.
+
+"That was the grandest thing of all," said his friend, "for he
+didn't shoot somebody whom perhaps he might have shot had he been
+as bloodthirsty as somebody else. And now he has come back to
+Parliament, and all that kind of thing, and he's coming here to hunt.
+I hope you'll be glad to see him, Madame Goesler."
+
+"I shall be very glad to see him," said Madame Goesler, slowly; "I
+heard about his success at that town, and I knew that I should meet
+him somewhere."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+"HOW WELL YOU KNEW!"
+
+
+It was necessary also that some communication should be made to
+Phineas, so that he might not come across Madame Goesler unawares.
+Lady Chiltern was more alive to that necessity than she had been to
+the other, and felt that the gentleman, if not warned of what was to
+take place, would be much more likely than the lady to be awkward at
+the trying moment. Madame Goesler would in any circumstances be sure
+to recover her self-possession very quickly, even were she to lose it
+for a moment; but so much could hardly be said for the social powers
+of Phineas Finn. Lady Chiltern therefore contrived to see him alone
+for a moment on his arrival. "Who do you think is here?"
+
+"Lady Laura has not come!"
+
+"Indeed, no; I wish she had. An old friend, but not so old as Laura!"
+
+"I cannot guess;--not Lord Fawn?"
+
+"Lord Fawn! What would Lord Fawn do here? Don't you know that Lord
+Fawn goes nowhere since his last matrimonial trouble? It's a friend
+of yours, not of mine."
+
+"Madame Goesler?" whispered Phineas.
+
+"How well you knew when I said it was a friend of yours. Madame
+Goesler is here,--not altered in the least."
+
+"Madame Goesler!"
+
+"Does it annoy you?"
+
+"Oh, no. Why should it annoy me?"
+
+"You never quarrelled with her?"
+
+"Never!"
+
+"There is no reason why you should not meet her?"
+
+"None at all;--only I was surprised. Did she know that I was coming?"
+
+"I told her yesterday. I hope that I have not done wrong or made
+things unpleasant. I knew that you used to be friends."
+
+"And as friends we parted, Lady Chiltern." He had nothing more to
+say in the matter; nor had she. He could not tell the story of what
+had taken place between himself and the lady, and she could not keep
+herself from surmising that something had taken place, which, had she
+known it, would have prevented her from bringing the two together at
+Harrington.
+
+Madame Goesler, when she was dressing, acknowledged to herself that
+she had a task before her which would require all her tact and all
+her courage. She certainly would not have accepted Lady Chiltern's
+invitation had she known that she would encounter Phineas Finn at the
+house. She had twenty-four hours to think of it, and at one time had
+almost made up her mind that some sudden business should recall her
+to London. Of course, her motive would be suspected. Of course Lady
+Chiltern would connect her departure with the man's arrival. But even
+that, bad as it would be, might be preferable to the meeting! What a
+fool had she been,--so she accused herself,--in not foreseeing that
+such an accident might happen, knowing as she did that Phineas Finn
+had reappeared in the political world, and that he and the Chiltern
+people had ever been fast friends! As she had thought about it, lying
+awake at night, she had told herself that she must certainly be
+recalled back to London by business. She would telegraph up to town,
+raising a question about any trifle, and on receipt of the answer she
+could be off with something of an excuse. The shame of running away
+from the man seemed to be a worse evil than the shame of meeting him.
+She had in truth done nothing to disgrace herself. In her desire
+to save a man whom she had loved from the ruin which she thought
+had threatened him, she had--offered him her hand. She had made
+the offer, and he had refused it! That was all. No; she would not
+be driven to confess to herself that she had ever fled from the face
+of man or woman. This man would be again in London, and she could
+not always fly. It would be only necessary that she should maintain
+her own composure, and the misery of the meeting would pass away
+after the first few minutes. One consolation was assured to her.
+She thoroughly believed in the man,--feeling certain that he had
+not betrayed her, and would not betray her. But now, as the time
+for the meeting drew near, as she stood for a moment before the
+glass,--pretending to look at herself in order that her maid might
+not remark her uneasiness, she found that her courage, great as
+it was, hardly sufficed her. She almost plotted some scheme of a
+headache, by which she might be enabled not to show herself till
+after dinner. "I am so blind that I can hardly see out of my eyes,"
+she said to the maid, actually beginning the scheme. The woman
+assumed a look of painful solicitude, and declared that "Madame did
+not look quite her best." "I suppose I shall shake it off," said
+Madame Goesler; and then she descended the stairs.
+
+
+[Illustration: "I suppose I shall shake it off."]
+
+
+The condition of Phineas Finn was almost as bad, but he had a much
+less protracted period of anticipation than that with which the lady
+was tormented. He was sent up to dress for dinner with the knowledge
+that in half an hour he would find himself in the same room with
+Madame Goesler. There could be no question of his running away, no
+possibility even of his escaping by a headache. But it may be doubted
+whether his dismay was not even more than hers. She knew that she
+could teach herself to use no other than fitting words; but he was
+almost sure that he would break down if he attempted to speak to her.
+She would be safe from blushing, but he would assuredly become as
+red as a turkey-cock's comb up to the roots of his hair. Her blood
+would be under control, but his would be coursing hither and thither
+through his veins, so as to make him utterly unable to rule himself.
+Nevertheless, he also plucked up his courage and descended, reaching
+the drawing-room before Madame Goesler had entered it. Chiltern was
+going on about Trumpeton Wood to Lord Baldock, and was renewing his
+fury against all the Pallisers, while Adelaide stood by and laughed.
+Gerard Maule was lounging on a chair, wondering that any man could
+expend such energy on such a subject. Lady Chiltern was explaining
+the merits of the case to Lady Baldock,--who knew nothing about
+hunting; and the other guests were listening with eager attention.
+A certain Mr. Spooner, who rode hard and did nothing else,
+and who acted as an unacknowledged assistant-master under Lord
+Chiltern,--there is such a man in every hunt,--acted as chorus, and
+indicated, chiefly with dumb show, the strong points of the case.
+
+"Finn, how are you?" said Lord Chiltern, stretching out his left
+hand. "Glad to have you back again, and congratulate you about the
+seat. It was put down in red herrings, and we found nearly a dozen of
+them afterwards,--enough to kill half the pack."
+
+"Picked up nine," said Mr. Spooner.
+
+"Children might have picked them up quite as well,--and eaten them,"
+said Lady Chiltern.
+
+"They didn't care about that," continued the Master. "And now
+they've wires and traps over the whole place. Palliser's a friend of
+yours--isn't he, Finn?"
+
+"Of course I knew him,--when I was in office."
+
+"I don't know what he may be in office, but he's an uncommon bad sort
+of fellow to have in a county."
+
+"Shameful!" said Mr. Spooner, lifting up both his hands.
+
+"This is my first cousin, you know," whispered Adelaide, to Lady
+Baldock.
+
+"If he were my own brother, or my grandmother, I should say the
+same," continued the angry lord. "We must have a meeting about it,
+and let the world know it,--that's all." At this moment the door was
+again opened, and Madame Goesler entered the room.
+
+When one wants to be natural, of necessity one becomes the reverse of
+natural. A clever actor,--or more frequently a clever actress,--will
+assume the appearance; but the very fact of the assumption renders
+the reality impossible. Lady Chiltern was generally very clever in
+the arrangement of all little social difficulties, and, had she
+thought less about it, might probably have managed the present affair
+in an easy and graceful manner. But the thing had weighed upon her
+mind, and she had decided that it would be expedient that she should
+say something when those two old friends first met each other again
+in her drawing-room. "Madame Max," she said, "you remember Mr. Finn."
+Lord Chiltern for a moment stopped the torrent of his abuse. Lord
+Baldock made a little effort to look uninterested, but quite in vain.
+Mr. Spooner stood on one side. Lady Baldock stared with all her
+eyes,--with some feeling of instinct that there would be something to
+see; and Gerard Maule, rising from the sofa, joined the circle. It
+seemed as though Lady Chiltern's words had caused the formation of a
+ring in the midst of which Phineas and Madame Goesler were to renew
+their acquaintance.
+
+"Very well indeed," said Madame Max, putting out her hand and looking
+full into our hero's face with her sweetest smile. "And I hope Mr.
+Finn will not have forgotten me." She did it admirably--so well that
+surely she need not have thought of running away.
+
+But poor Phineas was not happy. "I shall never forget you," said he;
+and then that unavoidable blush suffused his face, and the blood
+began to career through his veins.
+
+"I am so glad you are in Parliament again," said Madame Max.
+
+"Yes;--I've got in again, after a struggle. Are you still living in
+Park Lane?"
+
+"Oh, yes;--and shall be most happy to see you." Then she seated
+herself,--as did also Lady Chiltern by her side. "I see the poor
+Duke's iniquities are still under discussion. I hope Lord Chiltern
+recognises the great happiness of having a grievance. It would be a
+pity that so great a blessing should be thrown away upon him." For
+the moment Madame Max had got through her difficulty, and, indeed,
+had done so altogether till the moment should come in which she
+should find herself alone with Phineas. But he slunk back from the
+gathering before the fire, and stood solitary and silent till dinner
+was announced. It became his fate to take an old woman into dinner
+who was not very clearsighted. "Did you know that lady before?" she
+asked.
+
+"Oh, yes; I knew her two or three years ago in London."
+
+"Do you think she is pretty?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"All the men say so, but I never can see it. They have been saying
+ever so long that the old Duke of Omnium means to marry her on his
+deathbed, but I don't suppose there can be anything in it."
+
+"Why should he put it off for so very inopportune an occasion?" asked
+Phineas.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+COPPERHOUSE CROSS AND BROUGHTON SPINNIES.
+
+
+After all, the thing had not been so very bad. With a little courage
+and hardihood we can survive very great catastrophes, and go through
+them even without broken bones. Phineas, when he got up to his room,
+found that he had spent the evening in company with Madame Goesler,
+and had not suffered materially, except at the very first moment of
+the meeting. He had not said a word to the lady, except such as were
+spoken in mixed conversation with her and others; but they had been
+together, and no bones had been broken. It could not be that his
+old intimacy should be renewed, but he could now encounter her in
+society, as the Fates might direct, without a renewal of that feeling
+of dismay which had been so heavy on him.
+
+He was about to undress when there came a knock at the door, and his
+host entered the room. "What do you mean to do about smoking?" Lord
+Chiltern asked.
+
+"Nothing at all."
+
+"There's a fire in the smoking-room, but I'm tired, and I want to
+go to bed. Baldock doesn't smoke. Gerard Maule is smoking in his
+own room, I take it. You'll probably find Spooner at this moment
+established somewhere in the back slums, having a pipe with old
+Doggett, and planning retribution. You can join them if you please."
+
+"Not to-night, I think. They wouldn't trust me,--and I should spoil
+their plans."
+
+"They certainly wouldn't trust you,--or any other human being. You
+don't mind a horse that baulks a little, do you?"
+
+"I'm not going to hunt, Chiltern."
+
+"Yes, you are. I've got it all arranged. Don't you be a fool, and
+make us all uncomfortable. Everybody rides here;--every man, woman,
+and child about the place. You shall have one of the best horses I've
+got;--only you must be particular about your spurs."
+
+"Indeed, I'd rather not. The truth is, I can't afford to ride my own
+horses, and therefore I'd rather not ride my friends'."
+
+"That's all gammon. When Violet wrote she told you you'd be expected
+to come out. Your old flame, Madame Max, will be there, and I tell
+you she has a very pretty idea of keeping to hounds. Only Dandolo has
+that little defect."
+
+"Is Dandolo the horse?"
+
+"Yes;--Dandolo is the horse. He's up to a stone over your weight, and
+can do any mortal thing within a horse's compass. Cox won't ride him
+because he baulks, and so he has come into my stable. If you'll only
+let him know that you're on his back, and have got a pair of spurs on
+your heels with rowels in them, he'll take you anywhere. Good-night,
+old fellow. You can smoke if you choose, you know."
+
+Phineas had resolved that he would not hunt; but, nevertheless, he
+had brought boots with him, and breeches, fancying that if he did not
+he would be forced out without those comfortable appurtenances. But
+there came across his heart a feeling that he had reached a time of
+life in which it was no longer comfortable for him to live as a poor
+man with men who were rich. It had been his lot to do so when he was
+younger, and there had been some pleasure in it; but now he would
+rather live alone and dwell upon the memories of the past. He, too,
+might have been rich, and have had horses at command, had he chosen
+to sacrifice himself for money.
+
+On the next morning they started in a huge waggonette for Copperhouse
+Cross,--a meet that was suspiciously near to the Duke's fatal wood.
+Spooner had explained to Phineas over night that they never did draw
+Trumpeton Wood on Copperhouse Cross days, and that under no possible
+circumstances would Chiltern now draw Trumpeton Wood. But there is
+no saying where a fox may run. At this time of the year, just the
+beginning of February, dog-foxes from the big woods were very apt
+to be away from home, and when found would go straight for their
+own earths. It was very possible that they might find themselves in
+Trumpeton Wood, and then certainly there would be a row. Spooner
+shrugged his shoulders, and shook his head, and seemed to insinuate
+that Lord Chiltern would certainly do something very dreadful to the
+Duke or to the Duke's heir if any law of venery should again be found
+to have been broken on this occasion.
+
+The distance to Copperhouse Cross was twelve miles, and Phineas found
+himself placed in the carriage next to Madame Goesler. It had not
+been done of fixed design; but when a party of six are seated in a
+carriage, the chances are that one given person will be next to or
+opposite to any other given person. Madame Max had remembered this,
+and had prepared herself, but Phineas was taken aback when he found
+how close was his neighbourhood to the lady. "Get in, Phineas," said
+his lordship. Gerard Maule had already seated himself next to Miss
+Palliser, and Phineas had no alternative but to take the place next
+to Madame Max.
+
+"I didn't know that you rode to hounds?" said Phineas.
+
+"Oh, yes; I have done so for years. When we met it was always in
+London, Mr. Finn; and people there never know what other people do.
+Have you heard of this terrible affair about the Duke?"
+
+"Oh, dear, yes."
+
+"Poor Duke! He and I have seen a great deal of each other
+since,--since the days when you and I used to meet. He knows nothing
+about all this, and the worst of it is, he is not in a condition to
+be told."
+
+"Lady Glencora could put it all right."
+
+"I'll tell Lady Glencora, of course," said Madame Max. "It seems so
+odd in this country that the owner of a property does not seem at all
+to have any exclusive right to it. I suppose the Duke could shut up
+the wood if he liked."
+
+"But they poisoned the hounds."
+
+"Nobody supposes the Duke did that,--or even the Duke's servants, I
+should think. But Lord Chiltern will hear us if we don't take care."
+
+"I've heard every word you've been saying," exclaimed Lord Chiltern.
+
+"Has it been traced to any one?"
+
+"No,--not traced, I suppose."
+
+"What then, Lord Chiltern? You may speak out to me. When I'm wrong I
+like to be told so."
+
+"Then you're wrong now," said Lord Chiltern, "if you take the part of
+the Duke or of any of his people. He is bound to find foxes for the
+Brake hunt. It is almost a part of his title deeds. Instead of doing
+so he has had them destroyed."
+
+"It's as bad as voting against the Church establishment," said Madame
+Goesler.
+
+There was a very large meet at Copperhouse Cross, and both Madame
+Goesler and Phineas Finn found many old acquaintances there. As
+Phineas had formerly sat in the House for five years, and had been
+in office, and had never made himself objectionable either to his
+friends or adversaries, he had been widely known. He now found half
+a dozen men who were always members of Parliament,--men who seem,
+though commoners, to have been born legislators,--who all spoke to
+him as though his being member for Tankerville and hunting with the
+Brake hounds were equally matters of course. They knew him, but they
+knew nothing of the break in his life. Or if they remembered that he
+had not been seen about the House for the last two or three years
+they remembered also that accidents do happen to some men. It will
+occur now and again that a regular denizen of Westminster will get
+a fall in the political hunting-field, and have to remain about the
+world for a year or two without a seat. That Phineas had lately
+triumphed over Browborough at Tankerville was known, the event
+having been so recent; and men congratulated him, talking of poor
+Browborough,--whose heavy figure had been familiar to them for many
+a year,--but by no means recognising that the event of which they
+spoke had been, as it were, life and death to their friend. Roby was
+there, who was at this moment Mr. Daubeny's head whip and patronage
+secretary. If any one should have felt acutely the exclusion of Mr.
+Browborough from the House,--any one beyond the sufferer himself,--it
+should have been Mr. Roby; but he made himself quite pleasant, and
+even condescended to be jocose upon the occasion. "So you've beat
+poor Browborough in his own borough," said Mr. Roby.
+
+"I've beat him," said Phineas; "but not, I hope, in a borough of his
+own."
+
+"He's been there for the last fifteen years. Poor old fellow! He's
+awfully cut up about this Church Question. I shouldn't have thought
+he'd have taken anything so much to heart. There are worse fellows
+than Browborough, let me tell you. What's all this I hear about the
+Duke poisoning the foxes?" But the crowd had begun to move, and
+Phineas was not called upon to answer the question.
+
+Copperhouse Cross in the Brake Hunt was a very popular meet. It
+was easily reached by a train from London, was in the centre of an
+essentially hunting country, was near to two or three good coverts,
+and was in itself a pretty spot. Two roads intersected each other on
+the middle of Copperhouse Common, which, as all the world knows, lies
+just on the outskirts of Copperhouse Forest. A steep winding hill
+leads down from the Wood to the Cross, and there is no such thing
+within sight as an enclosure. At the foot of the hill, running under
+the wooden bridge, straggles the Copperhouse Brook,--so called by the
+hunting men of the present day, though men who know the country of
+old, or rather the county, will tell you that it is properly called
+the river Cobber, and that the spacious old farm buildings above
+were once known as the Cobber Manor House. He would be a vain man
+who would now try to change the name, as Copperhouse Cross has been
+printed in all the lists of hunting meets for at least the last
+thirty years; and the Ordnance map has utterly rejected the two b's.
+Along one of the cross-roads there was a broad extent of common, some
+seven or eight hundred yards in length, on which have been erected
+the butts used by those well-known defenders of their country, the
+Copperhouse Volunteer Rifles; and just below the bridge the sluggish
+water becomes a little lake, having probably at some time been
+artificially widened, and there is a little island and a decoy for
+ducks. On the present occasion carriages were drawn up on all the
+roads, and horses were clustered on each side of the brook, and the
+hounds sat stately on their haunches where riflemen usually kneel to
+fire, and there was a hum of merry voices, and the bright colouring
+of pink coats, and the sheen of ladies' hunting toilettes, and that
+mingled look of business and amusement which is so peculiar to our
+national sports. Two hundred men and women had come there for the
+chance of a run after a fox,--for a chance against which the odds are
+more than two to one at every hunting day,--for a chance as to which
+the odds are twenty to one against the success of the individuals
+collected; and yet, for every horseman and every horsewoman there,
+not less than £5 a head will have been spent for this one day's
+amusement. When we give a guinea for a stall at the opera we think
+that we pay a large sum; but we are fairly sure of having our music.
+When you go to Copperhouse Cross you are by no means sure of your
+opera.
+
+Why is it that when men and women congregate, though the men may beat
+the women in numbers by ten to one, and though they certainly speak
+the louder, the concrete sound that meets the ears of any outside
+listener is always a sound of women's voices? At Copperhouse Cross
+almost every one was talking, but the feeling left upon the senses
+was that of an amalgam of feminine laughter, feminine affectation,
+and feminine eagerness. Perhaps at Copperhouse Cross the determined
+perseverance with which Lady Gertrude Fitzaskerley addressed herself
+to Lord Chiltern, to Cox the huntsman, to the two whips, and at
+last to Mr. Spooner, may have specially led to the remark on this
+occasion. Lord Chiltern was very short with her, not loving Lady
+Gertrude. Cox bestowed upon her two "my lady's," and then turned from
+her to some peccant hound. But Spooner was partly gratified, and
+partly incapable, and underwent a long course of questions about
+the Duke and the poisoning. Lady Gertrude, whose father seemed to
+have owned half the coverts in Ireland, had never before heard of
+such enormity. She suggested a round robin and would not be at all
+ashamed to put her own name to it. "Oh, for the matter of that," said
+Spooner, "Chiltern can be round enough himself without any robin."
+"He can't be too round," said Lady Gertrude, with a very serious
+aspect.
+
+At last they moved away, and Phineas found himself riding by the side
+of Madame Goesler. It was natural that he should do so, as he had
+come with her. Maule had, of course, remained with Miss Palliser,
+and Chiltern and Spooner had taken themselves to their respective
+duties. Phineas might have avoided her, but in doing so he would have
+seemed to avoid her. She accepted his presence apparently as a matter
+of course, and betrayed by her words and manner no memory of past
+scenes. It was not customary with them to draw the forest, which
+indeed, as it now stood, was a forest only in name, and they trotted
+off to a gorse a mile and a half distant. This they drew blank,--then
+another gorse also blank,--and two or three little fringes of wood,
+such as there are in every country, and through which huntsmen run
+their hounds, conscious that no fox will lie there. At one o'clock
+they had not found, and the hilarity of the really hunting men as
+they ate their sandwiches and lit their cigars was on the decrease.
+The ladies talked more than ever, Lady Gertrude's voice was heard
+above them all, and Lord Chiltern trotted on close behind his hounds
+in obdurate silence. When things were going bad with him no one in
+the field dared to speak to him.
+
+Phineas had never seen his horse till he reached the meet, and there
+found a fine-looking, very strong, bay animal, with shoulders like
+the top of a hay-stack, short-backed, short-legged, with enormous
+quarters, and a wicked-looking eye. "He ought to be strong," said
+Phineas to the groom. "Oh, sir; strong ain't no word for him," said
+the groom; "'e can carry a 'ouse." "I don't know whether he's fast?"
+inquired Phineas. "He's fast enough for any 'ounds, sir," said the
+man with that tone of assurance which always carries conviction. "And
+he can jump?" "He can jump!" continued the groom; "no 'orse in my
+lord's stables can't beat him." "But he won't?" said Phineas. "It's
+only sometimes, sir, and then the best thing is to stick him at it
+till he do. He'll go, he will, like a shot at last; and then he's
+right for the day." Hunting men will know that all this was not quite
+comfortable. When you ride your own horse, and know his special
+defects, you know also how far that defect extends, and what real
+prospect you have of overcoming it. If he be slow through the mud,
+you keep a good deal on the road in heavy weather, and resolve that
+the present is not an occasion for distinguishing yourself. If he be
+bad at timber, you creep through a hedge. If he pulls, you get as far
+from the crowd as may be. You gauge your misfortune, and make your
+little calculation as to the best mode of remedying the evil. But
+when you are told that your friend's horse is perfect,--only that he
+does this or that,--there comes a weight on your mind from which you
+are unable to release it. You cannot discount your trouble at any
+percentage. It may amount to absolute ruin, as far as that day is
+concerned; and in such a circumstance you always look forward to
+the worst. When the groom had done his description, Phineas Finn
+would almost have preferred a day's canvass at Tankerville under Mr.
+Ruddles's authority to his present position.
+
+When the hounds entered Broughton Spinnies, Phineas and Madame
+Goesler were still together. He had not been riding actually at her
+side all the morning. Many men and two or three ladies had been
+talking to her. But he had never been far from her in the ruck, and
+now he was again close by her horse's head. Broughton Spinnies were
+in truth a series of small woods, running one into another almost
+without intermission, never thick, and of no breadth. There was
+always a litter or two of cubs at the place, and in no part of the
+Brake country was greater care taken in the way of preservation and
+encouragement to interesting vixens; but the lying was bad; there was
+little or no real covert; and foxes were very apt to travel and get
+away into those big woods belonging to the Duke,--where, as the Brake
+sportsmen now believed, they would almost surely come to an untimely
+end. "If we draw this blank I don't know what we are to do," said Mr.
+Spooner, addressing himself to Madame Goesler with lachrymose
+anxiety.
+
+"Have you nothing else to draw?" asked Phineas.
+
+"In the common course of things we should take Muggery Gorse, and so
+on to Trumpeton Wood. But Muggery is on the Duke's land, and Chiltern
+is in such a fix! He won't go there unless he can't help it. Muggery
+Gorse is only a mile this side of the big wood."
+
+"And foxes of course go to the big wood?" asked Madame Max.
+
+"Not always. They often come here,--and as they can't hang here, we
+have the whole country before us. We get as good runs from Muggery as
+from any covert in the country. But Chiltern won't go there to-day
+unless the hounds show a line. By George, that's a fox! That's Dido.
+That's a find!" And Spooner galloped away, as though Dido could do
+nothing with the fox she had found unless he was there to help her.
+
+Spooner was quite right, as he generally was on such occasions. He
+knew the hounds even by voice, and knew what hound he could believe.
+Most hounds will lie occasionally, but Dido never lied. And there
+were many besides Spooner who believed in Dido. The whole pack rushed
+to her music, though the body of them would have remained utterly
+unmoved at the voice of any less reverenced and less trustworthy
+colleague. The whole wood was at once in commotion,--men and women
+riding hither and thither, not in accordance with any judgment; but
+as they saw or thought they saw others riding who were supposed to
+have judgment. To get away well is so very much! And to get away well
+is often so very difficult! There are so many things of which the
+horseman is bound to think in that moment. Which way does the wind
+blow? And then, though a fox will not long run up wind, he will break
+covert up wind, as often as not. From which of the various rides
+can you find a fair exit into the open country, without a chance of
+breaking your neck before the run begins? When you hear some wild
+halloa, informing you that one fox has gone in the direction exactly
+opposite to that in which the hounds are hunting, are you sure that
+the noise is not made about a second fox? On all these matters you
+are bound to make up your mind without losing a moment; and if you
+make up your mind wrongly the five pounds you have invested in that
+day's amusement will have been spent for nothing. Phineas and Madame
+Goesler were in the very centre of the wood when Spooner rushed away
+from them down one of the rides on hearing Dido's voice; and at
+that time they were in a crowd. Almost immediately the fox was seen
+to cross another ride, and a body of horsemen rushed away in that
+direction, knowing that the covert was small, and there the animal
+must soon leave the wood. Then there was a shout of "Away!" repeated
+over and over again, and Lord Chiltern, running up like a flash of
+lightning, and passing our two friends, galloped down a third ride
+to the right of the others. Phineas at once followed the master of
+the pack, and Madame Goesler followed Phineas. Men were still riding
+hither and thither; and a farmer, meeting them, with his horse turned
+back towards the centre of the wood which they were leaving, halloaed
+out as they passed that there was no way out at the bottom. They met
+another man in pink, who screamed out something as to "the devil of a
+bank down there." Chiltern, however, was still going on, and our hero
+had not the heart to stop his horse in its gallop and turn back from
+the direction in which the hounds were running. At that moment he
+hardly remembered the presence of Madame Goesler, but he did remember
+every word that had been said to him about Dandolo. He did not in the
+least doubt but that Chiltern had chosen his direction rightly, and
+that if he were once out of the wood he would find himself with the
+hounds; but what if this brute should refuse to take him out of the
+wood? That Dandolo was very fast he soon became aware, for he gained
+upon his friend before him as they neared the fence. And then he saw
+what there was before him. A new broad ditch had been cut, with the
+express object of preventing egress or ingress at that point; and a
+great bank had been constructed with the clay. In all probability
+there might be another ditch on the other side. Chiltern, however,
+had clearly made up his mind about it. The horse he was riding went
+at it gallantly, cleared the first ditch, balanced himself for half a
+moment on the bank, and then, with a fresh spring, got into the field
+beyond. The tail hounds were running past outside the covert, and the
+master had placed himself exactly right for the work in hand. How
+excellent would be the condition of Finn if only Dandolo would do
+just as Chiltern's horse had done before him!
+
+And Phineas almost began to hope that it might be so. The horse was
+going very well, and very willingly. His head was stretched out, he
+was pulling, not more, however, than pleasantly, and he seemed to
+be as anxious as his rider. But there was a little twitch about his
+ears which his rider did not like, and then it was impossible not to
+remember that awful warning given by the groom, "It's only sometimes,
+sir." And after what fashion should Phineas ride him at the obstacle?
+He did not like to strike a horse that seemed to be going well, and
+was unwilling, as are all good riders, to use his heels. So he spoke
+to him, and proposed to lift him at the ditch. To the very edge the
+horse galloped,--too fast, indeed, if he meant to take the bank as
+Chiltern's horse had done,--and then stopping himself so suddenly
+that he must have shaken every joint in his body, he planted his
+fore feet on the very brink, and there he stood, with his head down,
+quivering in every muscle. Phineas Finn, following naturally the
+momentum which had been given to him, went over the brute's neck
+head-foremost into the ditch. Madame Max was immediately off her
+horse. "Oh, Mr. Finn, are you hurt?"
+
+But Phineas, happily, was not hurt. He was shaken and dirty, but not
+so shaken, and not so dirty, but that he was on his legs in a minute,
+imploring his companion not to mind him but go on. "Going on doesn't
+seem to be so easy," said Madame Goesler, looking at the ditch as she
+held her horse in her hand. But to go back in such circumstances is a
+terrible disaster. It amounts to complete defeat; and is tantamount
+to a confession that you must go home, because you are unable to ride
+to hounds. A man, when he is compelled to do this, is almost driven
+to resolve at the spur of the moment that he will give up hunting for
+the rest of his life. And if one thing be more essential than any
+other to the horseman in general, it is that he, and not the animal
+which he rides, shall be the master. "The best thing is to stick him
+at it till he do," the groom had said; and Phineas resolved to be
+guided by the groom.
+
+But his first duty was to attend on Madame Goesler. With very little
+assistance she was again in her saddle, and she at once declared
+herself certain that her horse could take the fence. Phineas again
+instantly jumped into his saddle, and turning Dandolo again at the
+ditch, rammed the rowels into the horse's sides. But Dandolo would
+not jump yet. He stood with his fore feet on the brink, and when
+Phineas with his whip struck him severely over the shoulders, he went
+down into the ditch on all fours, and then scrambled back again to
+his former position. "What an infernal brute!" said Phineas, gnashing
+his teeth.
+
+"He is a little obstinate, Mr. Finn; I wonder whether he'd jump if
+I gave him a lead." But Phineas was again making the attempt, urging
+the horse with spurs, whip, and voice. He had brought himself now
+to that condition in which a man is utterly reckless as to falling
+himself,--or even to the kind of fall he may get,--if he can only
+force his animal to make the attempt. But Dandolo would not make
+the attempt. With ears down and head outstretched, he either stuck
+obstinately on the brink, or allowed himself to be forced again and
+again into the ditch. "Let me try it once, Mr. Finn," said Madame
+Goesler in her quiet way.
+
+She was riding a small horse, very nearly thoroughbred, and known
+as a perfect hunter by those who habitually saw Madame Goesler ride.
+No doubt he would have taken the fence readily enough had his rider
+followed immediately after Lord Chiltern; but Dandolo had baulked at
+the fence nearly a dozen times, and evil communications will corrupt
+good manners. Without any show of violence, but still with persistent
+determination, Madame Goesler's horse also declined to jump. She put
+him at it again and again, and he would make no slightest attempt to
+do his business. Phineas raging, fuming, out of breath, miserably
+unhappy, shaking his reins, plying his whip, rattling himself about
+in the saddle, and banging his legs against the horse's sides, again
+and again plunged away at the obstacle. But it was all to no purpose.
+Dandolo was constantly in the ditch, sometimes lying with his side
+against the bank, and had now been so hustled and driven that, had he
+been on the other side, he would have had no breath left to carry his
+rider, even in the ruck of the hunt. In the meantime the hounds and
+the leading horsemen were far away,--never more to be seen on that
+day by either Phineas Finn or Madame Max Goesler. For a while, during
+the frantic efforts that were made, an occasional tardy horseman was
+viewed galloping along outside the covert, following the tracks of
+those who had gone before. But before the frantic efforts had been
+abandoned as utterly useless every vestige of the morning's work
+had left the neighbourhood of Broughton Spinnies, except these two
+unfortunate ones. At last it was necessary that the defeat should be
+acknowledged. "We're beaten, Madame Goesler," said Phineas, almost in
+tears.
+
+"Altogether beaten, Mr. Finn."
+
+"I've a good mind to swear that I'll never come out hunting again."
+
+"Swear what you like, if it will relieve you, only don't think of
+keeping such an oath. I've known you before this to be depressed by
+circumstances quite as distressing as these, and to be certain that
+all hope was over;--but yet you have recovered." This was the only
+allusion she had yet made to their former acquaintance. "And now we
+must think of getting out of the wood."
+
+"I haven't the slightest idea of the direction of anything."
+
+"Nor have I; but as we clearly can't get out this way we might as
+well try the other. Come along. We shall find somebody to put us in
+the right road. For my part I'm glad it is no worse. I thought at one
+time that you were going to break your neck." They rode on for a few
+minutes in silence, and then she spoke again. "Is it not odd, Mr.
+Finn, that after all that has come and gone you and I should find
+ourselves riding about Broughton Spinnies together?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+MADAME GOESLER'S STORY.
+
+
+"After all that has come and gone, is it not odd that you and I
+should find ourselves riding about Broughton Spinnies together?" That
+was the question which Madame Goesler asked Phineas Finn when they
+had both agreed that it was impossible to jump over the bank out of
+the wood, and it was, of course, necessary that some answer should be
+given to it.
+
+"When I saw you last in London," said Phineas, with a voice that was
+gruff, and a manner that was abrupt, "I certainly did not think that
+we should meet again so soon."
+
+"No;--I left you as though I had grounds for quarrelling; but there
+was no quarrel. I wrote to you, and tried to explain that."
+
+"You did;--and though my answer was necessarily short, I was very
+grateful."
+
+"And here you are back among us; and it does seem so odd. Lady
+Chiltern never told me that I was to meet you."
+
+"Nor did she tell me."
+
+"It is better so, for otherwise I should not have come, and then,
+perhaps, you would have been all alone in your discomfiture at the
+bank."
+
+"That would have been very bad."
+
+"You see I can be quite frank with you, Mr. Finn. I am heartily glad
+to see you, but I should not have come had I been told. And when
+I did see you, it was quite improbable that we should be thrown
+together as we are now,--was it not? Ah;--here is a man, and he can
+tell us the way back to Copperhouse Cross. But I suppose we had
+better ask for Harrington Hall at once."
+
+The man knew nothing at all about Harrington Hall, and very little
+about Copperhouse; but he did direct them on to the road, and they
+found that they were about sixteen miles from Lord Chiltern's house.
+The hounds had gone away in the direction of Trumpeton Wood, and it
+was agreed that it would be useless to follow them. The waggonette
+had been left at an inn about two miles from Copperhouse Cross, but
+they resolved to abandon that and to ride direct to Harrington Hall.
+It was now nearly three o'clock, and they would not be subjected to
+the shame which falls upon sportsmen who are seen riding home very
+early in the day. To get oneself lost before twelve, and then to come
+home, is a very degrading thing; but at any time after two you may be
+supposed to have ridden the run of the season, and to be returning
+after an excellent day's work.
+
+Then Madame Goesler began to talk about herself, and to give a short
+history of her life during the last two-and-a-half years. She did
+this in a frank natural manner, continuing her tale in a low voice,
+as though it were almost a matter of course that she should make the
+recital to so old a friend. And Phineas soon began to feel that it
+was natural that she should do so. "It was just before you left us,"
+she said, "that the Duke took to coming to my house." The duke spoken
+of was the Duke of Omnium, and Phineas well remembered to have heard
+some rumours about the Duke and Madame Max. It had been hinted to him
+that the Duke wanted to marry the lady, but that rumour he had never
+believed. The reader, if he has duly studied the history of the age,
+will know that the Duke did make an offer to Madame Goesler, pressing
+it with all his eloquence, but that Madame Goesler, on mature
+consideration, thought it best to decline to become a duchess. Of all
+this, however, the reader who understands Madame Goesler's character
+will be quite sure that she did not say a word to Phineas Finn. Since
+the business had been completed she had spoken of it to no one but to
+Lady Glencora Palliser, who had forced herself into a knowledge of
+all the circumstances while they were being acted.
+
+"I met the Duke once at Matching," said Phineas.
+
+"I remember it well. I was there, and first made the Duke's
+acquaintance on that occasion. I don't know how it was that we became
+intimate;--but we did, and then I formed a sort of friendship with
+Lady Glencora; and somehow it has come about that we have been a
+great deal together since."
+
+"I suppose you like Lady Glencora?"
+
+"Very much indeed,--and the Duke, too. The truth is, Mr. Finn, that
+let one boast as one may of one's independence,--and I very often do
+boast of mine to myself,--one is inclined to do more for a Duke of
+Omnium than for a Mr. Jones."
+
+"The Dukes have more to offer than the Joneses;--I don't mean in the
+way of wealth only, but of what one enjoys most in society
+generally."
+
+"I suppose they have. At any rate, I am glad that you should make
+some excuse for me. But I do like the man. He is gracious and noble
+in his bearing. He is now very old, and sinking fast into the grave;
+but even the wreck is noble."
+
+"I don't know that he ever did much," said Phineas.
+
+"I don't know that he ever did anything according to your idea of
+doing. There must be some men who do nothing."
+
+"But a man with his wealth and rank has opportunities so great! Look
+at his nephew!"
+
+"No doubt Mr. Palliser is a great man. He never has a moment to speak
+to his wife or to anybody else; and is always thinking so much about
+the country that I doubt if he knows anything about his own affairs.
+Of course he is a man of a different stamp,--and of a higher stamp,
+if you will. But I have an idea that such characters as those of the
+present Duke are necessary to the maintenance of a great aristocracy.
+He has had the power of making the world believe in him simply
+because he has been rich and a duke. His nephew, when he comes to the
+title, will never receive a tithe of the respect that has been paid
+to this old fainéant."
+
+"But he will achieve much more than ten times the reputation," said
+Phineas.
+
+"I won't compare them, nor will I argue; but I like the Duke. Nay;--I
+love him. During the last two years I have allowed the whole fashion
+of my life to be remodelled by this intimacy. You knew what were my
+habits. I have only been in Vienna for one week since I last saw you,
+and I have spent months and months at Matching."
+
+"What do you do there?"
+
+"Read to him;--talk to him;--give him his food, and do all that in
+me lies to make his life bearable. Last year, when it was thought
+necessary that very distinguished people should be entertained at the
+great family castle,--in Barsetshire, you know--"
+
+"I have heard of the place."
+
+"A regular treaty or agreement was drawn up. Conditions were sealed
+and signed. One condition was that both Lady Glencora and I should
+be there. We put our heads together to try to avoid this; as, of
+course, the Prince would not want to see me particularly,--and it was
+altogether so grand an affair that things had to be weighed. But the
+Duke was inexorable. Lady Glencora at such a time would have other
+things to do, and I must be there, or Gatherum Castle should not be
+opened. I suggested whether I could not remain in the background and
+look after the Duke as a kind of upper nurse,--but Lady Glencora said
+it would not do."
+
+"Why should you subject yourself to such indignity?"
+
+"Simply from love of the man. But you see I was not subjected. For
+two days I wore my jewels beneath royal eyes,--eyes that will sooner
+or later belong to absolute majesty. It was an awful bore, and I
+ought to have been at Vienna. You ask me why I did it. The fact is
+that things sometimes become too strong for one, even when there is
+no real power of constraint. For years past I have been used to have
+my own way, but when there came a question of the entertainment of
+royalty I found myself reduced to blind obedience. I had to go to
+Gatherum Castle, to the absolute neglect of my business; and I went."
+
+"Do you still keep it up?"
+
+"Oh, dear, yes. He is at Matching now, and I doubt whether he will
+ever leave it again. I shall go there from here as a matter of
+course, and relieve guard with Lady Glencora."
+
+"I don't see what you get for it all."
+
+"Get;--what should I get? You don't believe in friendship, then?"
+
+"Certainly I do;--but this friendship is so unequal. I can hardly
+understand that it should have grown from personal liking on your
+side."
+
+"I think it has," said Madame Goesler, slowly. "You see, Mr. Finn,
+that you as a young man can hardly understand how natural it is that
+a young woman,--if I may call myself young,--should minister to an
+old man."
+
+"But there should be some bond to the old man."
+
+"There is a bond."
+
+"You must not be angry with me," said Phineas.
+
+"I am not in the least angry."
+
+"I should not venture to express any opinion, of course,--only that
+you ask me."
+
+"I do ask you, and you are quite welcome to express your opinion. And
+were it not expressed, I should know what you thought just the same.
+I have wondered at it myself sometimes,--that I should have become as
+it were engulfed in this new life, almost without will of my own. And
+when he dies, how shall I return to the other life? Of course I have
+the house in Park Lane still, but my very maid talks of Matching as
+my home."
+
+"How will it be when he has gone?"
+
+"Ah,--how indeed? Lady Glencora and I will have to curtsey to each
+other, and there will be an end of it. She will be a duchess then,
+and I shall no longer be wanted."
+
+"But even if you were wanted--?"
+
+"Oh, of course. It must last the Duke's time, and last no longer. It
+would not be a healthy kind of life were it not that I do my very
+best to make the evening of his days pleasant for him, and in that
+way to be of some service in the world. It has done me good to think
+that I have in some small degree sacrificed myself. Let me see;--we
+are to turn here to the left. That goes to Copperhouse Cross, no
+doubt. Is it not odd that I should have told you all this history?"
+
+"Just because this brute would not jump over the fence."
+
+"I dare say I should have told you, even if he had jumped over; but
+certainly this has been a great opportunity. Do you tell your friend
+Lord Chiltern not to abuse the poor Duke any more before me. I dare
+say our host is all right in what he says; but I don't like it.
+You'll come and see me in London, Mr. Finn?"
+
+"But you'll be at Matching?"
+
+"I do get a few days at home sometimes. You see I have escaped for
+the present,--or otherwise you and I would not have come to grief
+together in Broughton Spinnies."
+
+Soon after this they were overtaken by others who were returning
+home, and who had been more fortunate than they in getting away
+with the hounds. The fox had gone straight for Trumpeton Wood, not
+daring to try the gorse on the way, and then had been run to ground.
+Chiltern was again in a towering passion, as the earths, he said,
+had been purposely left open. But on this matter the men who had
+overtaken our friends were both of opinion that Chiltern was wrong.
+He had allowed it to be understood that he would not draw Trumpeton
+Wood, and he had therefore no right to expect that the earths should
+be stopped. But there were and had been various opinions on this
+difficult point, as the laws of hunting are complex, recondite,
+numerous, traditional, and not always perfectly understood. Perhaps
+the day may arrive in which they shall be codified under the care of
+some great and laborious master of hounds.
+
+"And they did nothing more?" asked Phineas.
+
+"Yes;--they chopped another fox before they left the place,--so that
+in point of fact they have drawn Trumpeton. But they didn't mean it."
+
+When Madame Max Goesler and Phineas had reached Harrington Hall
+they were able to give their own story of the day's sport to Lady
+Chiltern, as the remainder of the party had not as yet returned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+SPOONER OF SPOON HALL.
+
+
+Adelaide Palliser was a tall, fair girl, exquisitely made, with
+every feminine grace of motion, highly born, and carrying always
+the warranty of her birth in her appearance; but with no special
+loveliness of face. Let not any reader suppose that therefore she
+was plain. She possessed much more than a sufficiency of charm to
+justify her friends in claiming her as a beauty, and the demand had
+been generally allowed by public opinion. Adelaide Palliser was
+always spoken of as a girl to be admired; but she was not one whose
+countenance would strike with special admiration any beholder who did
+not know her. Her eyes were pleasant and bright, and, being in truth
+green, might, perhaps with propriety, be described as grey. Her nose
+was well formed. Her mouth was, perhaps, too small. Her teeth were
+perfect. Her chin was somewhat too long, and was on this account
+the defective feature of her face. Her hair was brown and plentiful;
+but in no way peculiar. No doubt she wore a chignon; but if so she
+wore it with the special view of being in no degree remarkable
+in reference to her head-dress. Such as she was,--beauty or no
+beauty--her own mind on the subject was made up, and she had resolved
+long since that the gift of personal loveliness had not been
+bestowed upon her. And yet after a fashion she was proud of her own
+appearance. She knew that she looked like a lady, and she knew also
+that she had all that command of herself which health and strength
+can give to a woman when she is without feminine affectation.
+
+Lady Chiltern, in describing her to Phineas Finn, had said that she
+talked Italian, and wrote for the _Times_. The former assertion
+was, no doubt, true, as Miss Palliser had passed some years of her
+childhood in Florence; but the latter statement was made probably
+with reference to her capability rather than her performance. Lady
+Chiltern intended to imply that Miss Palliser was so much better
+educated than young ladies in general that she was able to express
+herself intelligibly in her own language. She had been well educated,
+and would, no doubt, have done the _Times_ credit had the _Times_
+chosen to employ her.
+
+She was the youngest daughter of the youngest brother of the existing
+Duke of Omnium, and the first cousin, therefore, of Mr. Plantagenet
+Palliser, who was the eldest son of the second brother. And as her
+mother had been a Bavilard there could be no better blood. But
+Adelaide had been brought up so far away from the lofty Pallisers and
+lofty Bavilards as almost to have lost the flavour of her birth. Her
+father and mother had died when she was an infant, and she had gone
+to the custody of a much older half-sister, Mrs. Atterbury, whose
+mother had been not a Bavilard, but a Brown. And Mr. Atterbury was a
+mere nobody, a rich, erudite, highly-accomplished gentleman, whose
+father had made his money at the bar, and whose grandfather had
+been a country clergyman. Mrs. Atterbury, with her husband, was
+still living at Florence; but Adelaide Palliser had quarrelled with
+Florence life, and had gladly consented to make a long visit to her
+friend Lady Chiltern.
+
+In Florence she had met Gerard Maule, and the acquaintance had not
+been viewed with favour by the Atterburys. Mrs. Atterbury knew
+the history of the Maule family, and declared to her sister that
+no good could come from any intimacy. Old Mr. Maule, she said,
+was disreputable. Mrs. Maule, the mother,--who, according to Mr.
+Atterbury, had been the only worthy member of the family,--was long
+since dead. Gerard Maule's sister had gone away with an Irish cousin,
+and they were now living in India on the professional income of
+a captain in a foot regiment. Gerard Maule's younger brother had
+gone utterly to the dogs, and nobody knew anything about him.
+Maule Abbey, the family seat in Herefordshire, was,--so said Mrs.
+Atterbury,--absolutely in ruins. The furniture, as all the world
+knew, had been sold by the squire's creditors under the sheriff's
+order ten years ago, and not a chair or a table had been put into
+the house since that time. The property, which was small,--£2,000
+a year at the outside,--was, no doubt, entailed on the eldest son;
+and Gerard, fortunately, had a small fortune of his own, independent
+of his father. But then he was also a spendthrift,--so said Mrs.
+Atterbury,--keeping a stable full of horses, for which he could not
+afford to pay; and he was, moreover, the most insufferably idle man
+who ever wandered about the world without any visible occupation
+for his hours. "But he hunts," said Adelaide. "Do you call that an
+occupation?" asked Mrs. Atterbury with scorn. Now Mrs. Atterbury
+painted pictures, copied Madonnas, composed sonatas, corresponded
+with learned men in Rome, Berlin, and Boston, had been the intimate
+friend of Cavour, had paid a visit to Garibaldi on his island with
+the view of explaining to him the real condition of Italy,--and was
+supposed to understand Bismarck. Was it possible that a woman who so
+filled her own life should accept hunting as a creditable employment
+for a young man, when it was admitted to be his sole employment? And,
+moreover, she desired that her sister Adelaide should marry a certain
+Count Brudi, who, according to her belief, had more advanced ideas
+about things in general than any other living human being. Adelaide
+Palliser had determined that she would not marry Count Brudi; had,
+indeed, almost determined that she would marry Gerard Maule, and
+had left her brother-in-law's house in Florence after something
+like a quarrel. Mrs. Atterbury had declined to authorise the visit
+to Harrington Hall, and then Adelaide had pleaded her age and
+independence. She was her own mistress if she so chose to call
+herself, and would not, at any rate, remain in Florence at the
+present moment to receive the attentions of Signor Brudi. Of the
+previous winter she had passed three months with some relatives in
+England, and there she had learned to ride to hounds, had first met
+Gerard Maule, and had made acquaintance with Lady Chiltern. Gerard
+Maule had wandered to Italy after her, appearing at Florence in his
+desultory way, having no definite purpose, not even that of asking
+Adelaide to be his wife,--but still pursuing her, as though he wanted
+her without knowing what he wanted. In the course of the Spring,
+however, he had proposed, and had been almost accepted. But Adelaide,
+though she would not yield to her sister, had been frightened. She
+knew that she loved the man, and she swore to herself a thousand
+times that she would not be dictated to by her sister;--but was she
+prepared to accept the fate which would at once be hers were she now
+to marry Gerard Maule? What could she do with a man who had no ideas
+of his own as to what he ought to do with himself?
+
+Lady Chiltern was in favour of the marriage. The fortune, she said,
+was as much as Adelaide was entitled to expect, the man was a
+gentleman, was tainted by no vices, and was truly in love. "You had
+better let them fight it out somewhere else," Lord Chiltern had said
+when his wife proposed that the invitation to Gerard Maule should be
+renewed; but Lady Chiltern had known that if "fought out" at all, it
+must be fought out at Harrington Hall. "We have asked him to come
+back," she said to Adelaide, "in order that you may make up your
+mind. If he chooses to come, it will show that he is in earnest; and
+then you must take him, or make him understand that he is not to be
+taken." Gerard Maule had chosen to come; but Adelaide Palliser had
+not as yet quite made up her mind.
+
+Perhaps there is nothing so generally remarkable in the conduct of
+young ladies in the phase of life of which we are now speaking as the
+facility,--it may almost be said audacity,--with which they do make
+up their minds. A young man seeks a young woman's hand in marriage,
+because she has waltzed stoutly with him, and talked pleasantly
+between the dances;--and the young woman gives it, almost with
+gratitude. As to the young man, the readiness of his action is less
+marvellous than hers. He means to be master, and, by the very nature
+of the joint life they propose to lead, must take her to his sphere
+of life, not bind himself to hers. If he worked before he will work
+still. If he was idle before he will be idle still; and he probably
+does in some sort make a calculation and strike a balance between his
+means and the proposed additional burden of a wife and children. But
+she, knowing nothing, takes a monstrous leap in the dark, in which
+everything is to be changed, and in which everything is trusted to
+chance. Miss Palliser, however, differing in this from the majority
+of her friends and acquaintances, frightened, perhaps by those
+representations of her sister to which she would not altogether
+yield, had paused, and was still pausing. "Where should we go and
+live if I did marry him?" she said to Lady Chiltern.
+
+"I suppose he has an opinion of his own on that subject?"
+
+"Not in the least, I should think."
+
+"Has he never said anything about it?"
+
+"Oh dear no. Matters have not got so far as that at all;--nor would
+they ever, out of his own head. If we were married and taken away to
+the train he would only ask what place he should take the tickets for
+when he got to the station."
+
+"Couldn't you manage to live at Maule Abbey?"
+
+"Perhaps we might; only there is no furniture, and, as I am told,
+only half a roof."
+
+"It does seem to be absurd that you two should not make up your mind,
+just as other people do," said Lady Chiltern. "Of course he is not a
+rich man, but you have known that all along."
+
+"It is not a question of wealth or poverty, but of an utterly
+lack-a-daisical indifference to everything in the world."
+
+"He is not indifferent to you."
+
+"That is the marvellous part of it," said Miss Palliser.
+
+This was said on the evening of the famous day at Broughton Spinnies,
+and late on that night Lord Chiltern predicted to his wife that
+another episode was about to occur in the life of their friend.
+
+"What do you think Spooner has just asked me?"
+
+"Permission to fight the Duke, or Mr. Palliser?"
+
+"No,--it's nothing about the hunting. He wants to know if you'd mind
+his staying here three or four days longer."
+
+"What a very odd request!"
+
+"It is odd, because he was to have gone to-morrow. I suppose there's
+no objection."
+
+"Of course not if you like to have him."
+
+"I don't like it a bit," said Lord Chiltern; "but I couldn't turn him
+out. And I know what it means."
+
+"What does it mean?"
+
+"You haven't observed anything?"
+
+"I have observed nothing in Mr. Spooner, except an awe-struck horror
+at the trapping of a fox."
+
+"He's going to propose to Adelaide Palliser."
+
+"Oswald! You are not in earnest."
+
+"I believe he is. He would have told me if he thought I could give
+him the slightest encouragement. You can't very well turn him out
+now."
+
+"He'll get an answer that he won't like if he does," said Lady
+Chiltern.
+
+Miss Palliser had ridden well on that day, and so had Gerard Maule.
+That Mr. Spooner should ride well to hounds was quite a matter of
+course. It was the business of his life to do so, and he did it with
+great judgment. He hated Maule's style of riding, considering it to
+be flashy, injurious to hunting, and unsportsmanlike; and now he had
+come to hate the man. He had, of course, perceived how close were the
+attentions paid by Mr. Maule to Miss Palliser, and he thought that
+he perceived that Miss Palliser did not accept them with thorough
+satisfaction. On his way back to Harrington Hall he made some
+inquiries, and was taught to believe that Mr. Maule was not a man
+of very high standing in the world. Mr. Spooner himself had a very
+pretty property of his own,--which was all his own. There was no
+doubt about his furniture, or about the roof at Spoon Hall. He was
+Spooner of Spoon Hall, and had been High Sheriff for his county. He
+was not so young as he once had been;--but he was still a young man,
+only just turned forty, and was his own master in everything. He
+could read, and he always looked at the country newspaper; but a book
+was a thing that he couldn't bear to handle. He didn't think he had
+ever seen a girl sit a horse better than Adelaide Palliser sat hers,
+and a girl who rode as she did would probably like a man addicted to
+hunting. Mr. Spooner knew that he understood hunting, whereas that
+fellow Maule cared for nothing but jumping over flights of rails.
+He asked a few questions that evening of Phineas Finn respecting
+Gerard Maule, but did not get much information. "I don't know where
+he lives;" said Phineas; "I never saw him till I met him here."
+
+"Don't you think he seems sweet upon that girl?"
+
+"I shouldn't wonder if he is."
+
+"She's an uncommonly clean-built young woman, isn't she?" said Mr.
+Spooner; "but it seems to me she don't care much for Master Maule.
+Did you see how he was riding to-day?"
+
+"I didn't see anything, Mr. Spooner."
+
+"No, no; you didn't get away. I wish he'd been with you. But she went
+uncommon well." After that he made his request to Lord Chiltern, and
+Lord Chiltern, with a foresight quite unusual to him, predicted the
+coming event to his wife.
+
+There was shooting on the following day, and Gerard Maule and Mr.
+Spooner were both out. Lunch was sent down to the covert side, and
+the ladies walked down and joined the sportsmen. On this occasion Mr.
+Spooner's assiduity was remarkable, and seemed to be accepted with
+kindly grace. Adelaide even asked a question about Trumpeton Wood,
+and expressed an opinion that her cousin was quite wrong because
+he did not take the matter up. "You know it's the keepers do it
+all," said Mr. Spooner, shaking his head with an appearance of great
+wisdom. "You never can have foxes unless you keep your keepers well
+in hand. If they drew the Spoon Hall coverts blank I'd dismiss my man
+the next day."
+
+
+[Illustration: "You know it's the keepers do it all."]
+
+
+"It mightn't be his fault."
+
+"He knows my mind, and he'll take care that there are foxes. They've
+been at my stick covert three times this year, and put a brace out
+each time. A leash went from it last Monday week. When a man really
+means a thing, Miss Palliser, he can pretty nearly always do it."
+Miss Palliser replied with a smile that she thought that to be true,
+and Mr. Spooner was not slow at perceiving that this afforded good
+encouragement to him in regard to that matter which was now weighing
+most heavily upon his mind.
+
+On the next day there was hunting again, and Phineas was mounted on a
+horse more amenable to persuasion than old Dandolo. There was a fair
+run in the morning, and both Phineas and Madame Max were carried
+well. The remarkable event in the day, however, was the riding of
+Dandolo in the afternoon by Lord Chiltern himself. He had determined
+that the horse should go out, and had sworn that he would ride him
+over a fence if he remained there making the attempt all night. For
+two weary hours he did remain, with a groom behind him, spurring the
+brute against a thick hedge, with a ditch at the other side of it,
+and at the end of the two hours he succeeded. The horse at last made
+a buck leap and went over with a loud grunt. On his way home Lord
+Chiltern sold the horse to a farmer for fifteen pounds;--and that
+was the end of Dandolo as far as the Harrington Hall stables were
+concerned. This took place on the Friday, the 8th of February. It was
+understood that Mr. Spooner was to return to Spoon Hall on Saturday,
+and on Monday, the 11th, Phineas was to go to London. On the 12th
+the Session would begin, and he would once more take his seat in
+Parliament.
+
+"I give you my word and honour, Lady Chiltern," Gerard Maule said to
+his hostess, "I believe that oaf of a man is making up to Adelaide."
+Mr. Maule had not been reticent about his love towards Lady Chiltern,
+and came to her habitually in all his troubles.
+
+"Chiltern has told me the same thing."
+
+"No!"
+
+"Why shouldn't he see it, as well as you? But I wouldn't believe it."
+
+"Upon my word I believe it's true. But, Lady Chiltern--"
+
+"Well, Mr. Maule."
+
+"You know her so well."
+
+"Adelaide, you mean?"
+
+"You understand her thoroughly. There can't be anything in it; is
+there?"
+
+"How anything?"
+
+"She can't really--like him?"
+
+"Mr. Maule, if I were to tell her that you had asked such a question
+as that I don't believe that she'd ever speak a word to you again;
+and it would serve you right. Didn't you call him an oaf?"
+
+"I did."
+
+"And how long has she known him?"
+
+"I don't believe she ever spoke to him before yesterday."
+
+"And yet you think that she will be ready to accept this oaf as her
+husband to-morrow! Do you call that respect?"
+
+"Girls do such wonderful strange things. What an impudent ass he must
+be!"
+
+"I don't see that at all. He may be an ass and yet not impudent, or
+impudent and yet not an ass. Of course he has a right to speak his
+mind,--and she will have a right to speak hers."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+SOMETHING OUT OF THE WAY.
+
+
+The Brake hounds went out four days a week, Monday, Wednesday,
+Friday, and Saturday; but the hunting party on this Saturday was very
+small. None of the ladies joined in it, and when Lord Chiltern came
+down to breakfast at half-past eight he met no one but Gerard Maule.
+"Where's Spooner?" he asked. But neither Maule nor the servant could
+answer the question. Mr. Spooner was a man who never missed a day
+from the beginning of cubbing to the end of the season, and who,
+when April came, could give you an account of the death of every fox
+killed. Chiltern cracked his eggs, and said nothing more for the
+moment, but Gerard Maule had his suspicions. "He must be coming,"
+said Maule; "suppose you send up to him." The servant was sent, and
+came down with Mr. Spooner's compliments. Mr. Spooner didn't mean
+to hunt to-day. He had something of a headache. He would see Lord
+Chiltern at the meet on Monday.
+
+Maule immediately declared that neither would he hunt; but Lord
+Chiltern looked at him, and he hesitated. "I don't care about your
+knowing," said Gerard.
+
+"Oh,--I know. Don't you be an ass."
+
+"I don't see why I should give him an opportunity."
+
+"You're to go and pull your boots and breeches off because he has not
+put his on, and everybody is to be told of it! Why shouldn't he have
+an opportunity, as you call it? If the opportunity can do him any
+good, you may afford to be very indifferent."
+
+"It's a piece of d---- impertinence," said Maule, with most unusual
+energy.
+
+"Do you finish your breakfast, and come and get into the trap. We've
+twenty miles to go. You can ask Spooner on Monday how he spent his
+morning."
+
+At ten o'clock the ladies came down to breakfast, and the whole party
+were assembled. "Mr. Spooner!" said Lady Chiltern to that gentleman,
+who was the last to enter the room. "This is a marvel!" He was
+dressed in a dark-blue frock-coat, with a coloured silk handkerchief
+round his neck, and had brushed his hair down close to his head. He
+looked quite unlike himself, and would hardly have been known by
+those who had never seen him out of the hunting field. In his dress
+clothes of an evening, or in his shooting coat, he was still himself.
+But in the garb he wore on the present occasion he was quite unlike
+Spooner of Spoon Hall, whose only pride in regard to clothes had
+hitherto been that he possessed more pairs of breeches than any
+other man in the county. It was ascertained afterwards, when
+the circumstances came to be investigated, that he had sent
+a man all the way across to Spoon Hall for that coat and the
+coloured neck-handkerchief on the previous day; and some one, most
+maliciously, told the story abroad. Lady Chiltern, however, always
+declared that her secrecy on the matter had always been inviolable.
+
+"Yes, Lady Chiltern; yes," said Mr. Spooner, as he took a seat at the
+table; "wonders never cease, do they?" He had prepared himself even
+for this moment, and had determined to show Miss Palliser that he
+could be sprightly and engaging even without his hunting habiliments.
+
+"What will Lord Chiltern do without you?" one of the ladies asked.
+
+"He'll have to do his best."
+
+"He'll never kill a fox," said Miss Palliser.
+
+"Oh, yes; he knows what he's about. I was so fond of my pillow this
+morning that I thought I'd let the hunting slide for once. A man
+should not make a toil of his pleasure."
+
+Lady Chiltern knew all about it, but Adelaide Palliser knew nothing.
+Madame Goesler, when she observed the light-blue necktie, at once
+suspected the execution of some great intention. Phineas was absorbed
+in his observation of the difference in the man. In his pink coat
+he always looked as though he had been born to wear it, but his
+appearance was now that of an amateur actor got up in a miscellaneous
+middle-age costume. He was sprightly, but the effort was painfully
+visible. Lady Baldock said something afterwards, very ill-natured,
+about a hog in armour, and old Mrs. Burnaby spoke the truth when she
+declared that all the comfort of her tea and toast was sacrificed
+to Mr. Spooner's frock coat. But what was to be done with him when
+breakfast was over? For a while he was fixed upon poor Phineas, with
+whom he walked across to the stables. He seemed to feel that he could
+hardly hope to pounce upon his prey at once, and that he must bide
+his time.
+
+Out of the full heart the mouth speaks. "Nice girl, Miss Palliser,"
+he said to Phineas, forgetting that he had expressed himself nearly
+in the same way to the same man on a former occasion.
+
+"Very nice, indeed. It seems to me that you are sweet upon her
+yourself."
+
+"Who? I! Oh, no--I don't think of those sort of things. I suppose I
+shall marry some day. I've a house fit for a lady to-morrow, from top
+to bottom, linen and all. And my property's my own."
+
+"That's a comfort."
+
+"I believe you. There isn't a mortgage on an acre of it, and that's
+what very few men can say. As for Miss Palliser, I don't know that
+a man could do better; only I don't think much of those things. If
+ever I do pop the question, I shall do it on the spur of the moment.
+There'll be no preparation with me, nor yet any beating about the
+bush. 'Would it suit your views, my dear, to be Mrs. Spooner?' that's
+about the long and the short of it. A clean-made little mare, isn't
+she?" This last observation did not refer to Adelaide Palliser, but
+to an animal standing in Lord Chiltern's stables. "He bought her from
+Charlie Dickers for a twenty pound note last April. The mare hadn't
+a leg to stand upon. Charlie had been stagging with her for the last
+two months, and knocked her all to pieces. She's a screw, of course,
+but there isn't anything carries Chiltern so well. There's nothing
+like a good screw. A man'll often go with two hundred and fifty
+guineas between his legs, supposed to be all there because the
+animal's sound, and yet he don't know his work. If you like schooling
+a young 'un, that's all very well. I used to be fond of it myself;
+but I've come to feel that being carried to hounds without much
+thinking about it is the cream of hunting, after all. I wonder what
+the ladies are at? Shall we go back and see?" Then they turned to the
+house, and Mr. Spooner began to be a little fidgety. "Do they sit
+altogether mostly all the morning?"
+
+"I fancy they do."
+
+"I suppose there's some way of dividing them. They tell me you know
+all about women. If you want to get one to yourself, how do you
+manage it?"
+
+"In perpetuity, do you mean, Mr. Spooner?"
+
+"Any way;--in the morning, you know."
+
+"Just to say a few words to her?"
+
+"Exactly that;--just to say a few words. I don't mind asking you,
+because you've done this kind of thing before."
+
+"I should watch my opportunity," said Phineas, remembering a period
+of his life in which he had watched much and had found it very
+difficult to get an opportunity.
+
+"But I must go after lunch," said Mr. Spooner; "I'm expected home to
+dinner, and I don't know much whether they'll like me to stop over
+Sunday."
+
+"If you were to tell Lady Chiltern--"
+
+"I was to have gone on Thursday, you know. You won't tell anybody?"
+
+"Oh dear no."
+
+"I think I shall propose to that girl. I've about made up my mind to
+do it, only a fellow can't call her out before half-a-dozen of them.
+Couldn't you get Lady C. to trot her out into the garden? You and she
+are as thick as thieves."
+
+"I should think Miss Palliser was rather difficult to be managed."
+
+Phineas declined to interfere, taking upon himself to assure
+Mr. Spooner that attempts to arrange matters in that way never
+succeeded. He went in and settled himself to the work of answering
+correspondents at Tankerville, while Mr. Spooner hung about the
+drawing-room, hoping that circumstances and time might favour him. It
+is to be feared that he made himself extremely disagreeable to poor
+Lady Chiltern, to whom he was intending to open his heart could he
+only find an opportunity for so much as that. But Lady Chiltern was
+determined not to have his confidence, and at last withdrew from the
+scene in order that she might not be entrapped. Before lunch had come
+all the party knew what was to happen,--except Adelaide herself. She,
+too, perceived that something was in the wind, that there was some
+stir, some discomfort, some secret affair forward, or some event
+expected which made them all uneasy;--and she did connect it with
+the presence of Mr. Spooner. But, in pitiable ignorance of the facts
+that were clear enough to everybody else, she went on watching and
+wondering, with a half-formed idea that the house would be more
+pleasant as soon as Mr. Spooner should have taken his departure. He
+was to go after lunch. But on such occasions there is, of course, a
+latitude, and "after lunch" may be stretched at any rate to the five
+o'clock tea. At three o'clock Mr. Spooner was still hanging about.
+Madame Goesler and Phineas, with an openly declared intention of
+friendly intercourse, had gone out to walk together. Lord and Lady
+Baldock were on horseback. Two or three old ladies hung over the
+fire and gossiped. Lady Chiltern had retired to her baby;--when on a
+sudden Adelaide Palliser declared her intention of walking into the
+village. "Might I accompany you, Miss Palliser?" said Mr. Spooner;
+"I want a walk above all things." He was very brave, and persevered
+though it was manifest that the lady did not desire his company.
+Adelaide said something about an old woman whom she intended to
+visit; whereupon Mr. Spooner declared that visiting old women was the
+delight of his life. He would undertake to give half a sovereign to
+the old woman if Miss Palliser would allow him to come. He was very
+brave, and persevered in such a fashion that he carried his point.
+Lady Chiltern from her nursery window saw them start through the
+shrubbery together.
+
+"I have been waiting for this opportunity all the morning," said Mr.
+Spooner, gallantly.
+
+But in spite of his gallantry, and although she had known, almost
+from breakfast time, that he had been waiting for something, still
+she did not suspect his purpose. It has been said that Mr. Spooner
+was still young, being barely over forty years of age; but he had
+unfortunately appeared to be old to Miss Palliser. To himself it
+seemed as though the fountains of youth were still running through
+all his veins. Though he had given up schooling young horses, he
+could ride as hard as ever. He could shoot all day. He could take
+"his whack of wine," as he called it, sit up smoking half the night,
+and be on horseback the next morning after an early breakfast without
+the slightest feeling of fatigue. He was a red-faced little man,
+with broad shoulders, clean shaven, with small eyes, and a nose on
+which incipient pimples began to show themselves. To himself and the
+comrades of his life he was almost as young as he had ever been; but
+the young ladies of the county called him Old Spooner, and regarded
+him as a permanent assistant unpaid huntsman to the Brake hounds. It
+was not within the compass of Miss Palliser's imagination to conceive
+that this man should intend to propose himself to her as her lover.
+
+"I have been waiting for this opportunity all the morning," said Mr.
+Spooner. Adelaide Palliser turned round and looked at him, still
+understanding nothing. Ride at any fence hard enough, and the chances
+are you'll get over. The harder you ride the heavier the fall, if
+you get a fall; but the greater the chance of your getting over.
+This had been a precept in the life of Mr. Spooner, verified by much
+experience, and he had resolved that he would be guided by it on this
+occasion. "Ever since I first saw you, Miss Palliser, I have been so
+much taken by you that,--that,--in point of fact, I love you better
+than all the women in the world I ever saw; and will you,--will you
+be Mrs. Spooner?"
+
+He had at any rate ridden hard at his fence. There had been no
+craning,--no looking about for an easy place, no hesitation as he
+brought his horse up to it. No man ever rode straighter than he did
+on this occasion. Adelaide stopped short on the path, and he stood
+opposite to her, with his fingers inserted between the closed buttons
+of his frock-coat. "Mr. Spooner!" exclaimed Adelaide.
+
+"I am quite in earnest, Miss Palliser; no man ever was more in
+earnest. I can offer you a comfortable well-furnished home, an
+undivided heart, a good settlement, and no embarrassment on the
+property. I'm fond of a country life myself, but I'll adapt myself
+to you in everything reasonable."
+
+"You are mistaken, Mr. Spooner; you are indeed."
+
+"How mistaken?"
+
+"I mean that it is altogether out of the question. You have surprised
+me so much that I couldn't stop you sooner; but pray do not speak of
+it again."
+
+"It is a little sudden, but what is a man to do? If you will only
+think of it--"
+
+"I can't think of it at all. There is no need for thinking. Really,
+Mr. Spooner, I can't go on with you. If you wouldn't mind turning
+back I'll walk into the village by myself." Mr. Spooner, however, did
+not seem inclined to obey this injunction, and stood his ground, and,
+when she moved on, walked on beside her. "I must insist on being left
+alone," she said.
+
+"I haven't done anything out of the way," said the lover.
+
+"I think it's very much out of the way. I have hardly ever spoken to
+you before. If you will only leave me now there shall not be a word
+more said about it."
+
+But Mr. Spooner was a man of spirit. "I'm not in the least ashamed of
+what I've done," he said.
+
+"But you might as well go away, when it can't be of any use."
+
+"I don't know why it shouldn't be of use. Miss Palliser, I'm a man of
+good property. My great-great-grandfather lived at Spoon Hall, and
+we've been there ever since. My mother was one of the Platters of
+Platter House. I don't see that I've done anything out of the way. As
+for shilly-shallying, and hanging about, I never knew any good come
+from it. Don't let us quarrel, Miss Palliser. Say that you'll take a
+week to think of it."
+
+"But I won't think of it at all; and I won't go on walking with you.
+If you'll go one way, Mr. Spooner, I'll go the other."
+
+Then Mr. Spooner waxed angry. "Why am I to be treated with disdain?"
+he said.
+
+"I don't want to treat you with disdain. I only want you to go away."
+
+"You seem to think that I'm something,--something altogether beneath
+you."
+
+And so in truth she did. Miss Palliser had never analysed her own
+feelings and emotions about the Spooners whom she met in society; but
+she probably conceived that there were people in the world who, from
+certain accidents, were accustomed to sit at dinner with her, but
+who were no more fitted for her intimacy than were the servants who
+waited upon her. Such people were to her little more than the tables
+and chairs with which she was brought in contact. They were persons
+with whom it seemed to her to be impossible that she should have
+anything in common,--who were her inferiors, as completely as were
+the menials around her. Why she should thus despise Mr. Spooner,
+while in her heart of hearts she loved Gerard Maule, it would be
+difficult to explain. It was not simply an affair of age,--nor of
+good looks, nor altogether of education. Gerard Maule was by no means
+wonderfully erudite. They were both addicted to hunting. Neither
+of them did anything useful. In that respect Mr. Spooner stood the
+higher, as he managed his own property successfully. But Gerard Maule
+so wore his clothes, and so carried his limbs, and so pronounced his
+words that he was to be regarded as one entitled to make love to any
+lady; whereas poor Mr. Spooner was not justified in proposing to
+marry any woman much more gifted than his own housemaid. Such, at
+least, were Adelaide Palliser's ideas. "I don't think anything of the
+kind," she said, "only I want you to go away. I shall go back to the
+house, and I hope you won't accompany me. If you do, I shall turn
+the other way." Whereupon she did retire at once, and he was left
+standing in the path.
+
+There was a seat there, and he sat down for a moment to think of it
+all. Should he persevere in his suit, or should he rejoice that he
+had escaped from such an ill-conditioned minx? He remembered that he
+had read, in his younger days, that lovers in novels generally do
+persevere, and that they are almost always successful at last. In
+affairs of the heart, such perseverance was, he thought, the correct
+thing. But in this instance the conduct of the lady had not given him
+the slightest encouragement. When a horse balked with him at a fence,
+it was his habit to force the animal till he jumped it,--as the
+groom had recommended Phineas to do. But when he had encountered
+a decided fall, it was not sensible practice to ride the horse at
+the same place again. There was probably some occult cause for
+failure. He could not but own that he had been thrown on the present
+occasion,--and upon the whole, he thought that he had better give it
+up. He found his way back to the house, put up his things, and got
+away to Spoon Hall in time for dinner, without seeing Lady Chiltern
+or any of her guests.
+
+
+[Illustration: He sat down for a moment to think of it all.]
+
+
+"What has become of Mr. Spooner?" Maule asked, as soon as he returned
+to Harrington Hall.
+
+"Nobody knows," said Lady Chiltern, "but I believe he has gone."
+
+"Has anything happened?"
+
+"I have heard no tidings; but, if you ask for my opinion, I think
+something has happened. A certain lady seems to have been ruffled,
+and a certain gentleman has disappeared. I am inclined to think that
+a few unsuccessful words have been spoken." Gerard Maule saw that
+there was a smile in her eye, and he was satisfied.
+
+"My dear, what did Mr. Spooner say to you during his walk?" This
+question was asked by the ill-natured old lady in the presence of
+nearly all the party.
+
+"We were talking of hunting," said Adelaide.
+
+"And did the poor old woman get her half-sovereign?"
+
+"No;--he forgot that. We did not go into the village at all. I was
+tired and came back."
+
+"Poor old woman;--and poor Mr. Spooner!"
+
+Everybody in the house knew what had occurred, as Mr. Spooner's
+discretion in the conduct of this affair had not been equal to his
+valour; but Miss Palliser never confessed openly, and almost taught
+herself to believe that the man had been mad or dreaming during that
+special hour.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+PHINEAS AGAIN IN LONDON.
+
+
+Phineas, on his return to London, before he had taken his seat in the
+House, received the following letter from Lady Laura Kennedy:--
+
+
+   Dresden, Feb. 8, 1870.
+
+   DEAR FRIEND,--
+
+   I thought that perhaps you would have written to me from
+   Harrington. Violet has told me of the meeting between you
+   and Madame Goesler, and says that the old friendship seems
+   to have been perfectly re-established. She used to think
+   once that there might be more than friendship, but I
+   never quite believed that. She tells me that Chiltern is
+   quarrelling with the Pallisers. You ought not to let him
+   quarrel with people. I know that he would listen to you.
+   He always did.
+
+   I write now especially because I have just received so
+   dreadful a letter from Mr. Kennedy! I would send it you
+   were it not that there are in it a few words which on his
+   behalf I shrink from showing even to you. It is full of
+   threats. He begins by quotations from the Scriptures, and
+   from the Prayer-Book, to show that a wife has no right to
+   leave her husband,--and then he goes on to the law. One
+   knows all that of course. And then he asks whether he ever
+   ill-used me? Was he ever false to me? Do I think, that
+   were I to choose to submit the matter to the iniquitous
+   practices of the present Divorce Court, I could prove
+   anything against him by which even that low earthly
+   judge would be justified in taking from him his marital
+   authority? And if not,--have I no conscience? Can I
+   reconcile it to myself to make his life utterly desolate
+   and wretched simply because duties which I took upon
+   myself at my marriage have become distasteful to me?
+
+   These questions would be very hard to answer, were there
+   not other questions that I could ask. Of course I was
+   wrong to marry him. I know that now, and I repent my sin
+   in sackcloth and ashes. But I did not leave him after
+   I married him till he had brought against me horrid
+   accusations,--accusations which a woman could not bear,
+   which, if he believed them himself, must have made it
+   impossible for him to live with me. Could any wife live
+   with a husband who declared to her face that he believed
+   that she had a lover? And in this very letter he says that
+   which almost repeats the accusation. He has asked me how I
+   can have dared to receive you, and desires me never either
+   to see you or to wish to see you again. And yet he sent
+   for you to Loughlinter before you came, in order that you
+   might act as a friend between us. How could I possibly
+   return to a man whose power of judgment has so absolutely
+   left him?
+
+   I have a conscience in the matter, a conscience that
+   is very far from being at ease. I have done wrong, and
+   have shipwrecked every hope in this world. No woman was
+   ever more severely punished. My life is a burden to me,
+   and I may truly say that I look for no peace this side
+   the grave. I am conscious, too, of continued sin,--a
+   sin unlike other sins,--not to be avoided, of daily
+   occurrence, a sin which weighs me to the ground. But I
+   should not sin the less were I to return to him. Of course
+   he can plead his marriage. The thing is done. But it can't
+   be right that a woman should pretend to love a man whom
+   she loathes. I couldn't live with him. If it were simply
+   to go and die, so that his pride would be gratified by my
+   return, I would do it; but I should not die. There would
+   come some horrid scene, and I should be no more a wife to
+   him than I am while living here.
+
+   He now threatens me with publicity. He declares that
+   unless I return to him he will put into some of the papers
+   a statement of the whole case. Of course this would be
+   very bad. To be obscure and untalked of is all the comfort
+   that now remains to me. And he might say things that
+   would be prejudicial to others,--especially to you. Could
+   this in any way be prevented? I suppose the papers would
+   publish anything; and you know how greedily people will
+   read slander about those whose names are in any way
+   remarkable. In my heart I believe he is insane; but it is
+   very hard that one's privacy should be at the mercy of a
+   madman. He says that he can get an order from the Court of
+   Queen's Bench which will oblige the judges in Saxony to
+   send me back to England in the custody of the police, but
+   that I do not believe. I had the opinion of Sir Gregory
+   Grogram before I came away, and he told me that it was not
+   so. I do not fear his power over my person, while I remain
+   here, but that the matter should be dragged forward before
+   the public.
+
+   I have not answered him yet, nor have I shown his letter
+   to Papa. I hardly liked to tell you when you were here,
+   but I almost fear to talk to Papa about it. He never urges
+   me to go back, but I know that he wishes that I should do
+   so. He has ideas about money, which seem singular to me,
+   knowing, as I do, how very generous he has been himself.
+   When I married, my fortune, as you knew, had been just
+   used in paying Chiltern's debts. Mr. Kennedy had declared
+   himself to be quite indifferent about it, though the sum
+   was large. The whole thing was explained to him, and he
+   was satisfied. Before a year was over he complained to
+   Papa, and then Papa and Chiltern together raised the
+   money,--£40,000,--and it was paid to Mr. Kennedy. He
+   has written more than once to Papa's lawyer to say that,
+   though the money is altogether useless to him, he will not
+   return a penny of it, because by doing so he would seem
+   to abandon his rights. Nobody has asked him to return
+   it. Nobody has asked him to defray a penny on my account
+   since I left him. But Papa continues to say that the
+   money should not be lost to the family. I cannot, however,
+   return to such a husband for the sake of £40,000. Papa is
+   very angry about the money, because he says that if it had
+   been paid in the usual way at my marriage, settlements
+   would have been required that it should come back to the
+   family after Mr. Kennedy's death in the event of my having
+   no child. But, as it is now, the money would go to his
+   estate after my death. I don't understand why it should be
+   so, but Papa is always harping upon it, and declaring that
+   Mr. Kennedy's pretended generosity has robbed us all. Papa
+   thinks that were I to return this could be arranged; but
+   I could not go back to him for such a reason. What does
+   it matter? Chiltern and Violet will have enough; and of
+   what use would it be to such a one as I am to have a sum
+   of money to leave behind me? I should leave it to your
+   children, Phineas, and not to Chiltern's.
+
+   He bids me neither see you nor write to you,--but how can
+   I obey a man whom I believe to be mad? And when I will
+   not obey him in the greater matter by returning to him it
+   would be absurd were I to attempt to obey him in smaller
+   details. I don't suppose I shall see you very often. His
+   letter has, at any rate, made me feel that it would be
+   impossible for me to return to England, and it is not
+   likely that you will soon come here again. I will not even
+   ask you to do so, though your presence gave a brightness
+   to my life for a few days which nothing else could have
+   produced. But when the lamp for a while burns with special
+   brightness there always comes afterwards a corresponding
+   dullness. I had to pay for your visit, and for the comfort
+   of my confession to you at Königstein. I was determined
+   that you should know it all; but, having told you, I do
+   not want to see you again. As for writing, he shall not
+   deprive me of the consolation,--nor I trust will you.
+
+   Do you think that I should answer his letter, or will it
+   be better that I should show it to Papa? I am very averse
+   to doing this, as I have explained to you; but I would
+   do so if I thought that Mr. Kennedy really intended to
+   act upon his threats. I will not conceal from you that it
+   would go nigh to kill me if my name were dragged through
+   the papers. Can anything be done to prevent it? If he were
+   known to be mad of course the papers would not publish his
+   statements; but I suppose that if he were to send a letter
+   from Loughlinter with his name to it they would print it.
+   It would be very, very cruel.
+
+   God bless you. I need not say how faithfully I am
+
+   Your friend,
+
+   L. K.
+
+
+This letter was addressed to Phineas at his club, and there he
+received it on the evening before the meeting of Parliament. He sat
+up for nearly an hour thinking of it after he read it. He must answer
+it at once. That was a matter of course. But he could give her no
+advice that would be of any service to her. He was, indeed, of all
+men the least fitted to give her counsel in her present emergency.
+It seemed to him that as she was safe from any attack on her person,
+she need only remain at Dresden, answering his letter by what softest
+negatives she could use. It was clear to him that in his present
+condition she could take no steps whatever in regard to the money.
+That must be left to his conscience, to time, and to chance. As to
+the threat of publicity, the probability, he thought, was that it
+would lead to nothing. He doubted whether any respectable newspaper
+would insert such a statement as that suggested. Were it published,
+the evil must be borne. No diligence on her part, or on the part of
+her lawyers, could prevent it.
+
+But what had she meant when she wrote of continual sin, sin not to be
+avoided, of sin repeated daily which nevertheless weighed her to the
+ground? Was it expected of him that he should answer that portion of
+her letter? It amounted to a passionate renewal of that declaration
+of affection for himself which she had made at Königstein, and which
+had pervaded her whole life since some period antecedent to her
+wretched marriage. Phineas, as he thought of it, tried to analyse the
+nature of such a love. He also, in those old days, had loved her, and
+had at once resolved that he must tell her so, though his hopes of
+success had been poor indeed. He had taken the first opportunity, and
+had declared his purpose. She, with the imperturbable serenity of a
+matured kind-hearted woman, had patted him on the back, as it were,
+as she told him of her existing engagement with Mr. Kennedy. Could
+it be that at that moment she could have loved him as she now said
+she did, and that she should have been so cold, so calm, and so kind;
+while, at that very moment, this coldness, calmness, and kindness was
+but a thin crust over so strong a passion? How different had been
+his own love! He had been neither calm nor kind. He had felt himself
+for a day or two to be so terribly knocked about that the world was
+nothing to him. For a month or two he had regarded himself as a man
+peculiarly circumstanced,--marked for misfortune and for a solitary
+life. Then he had retricked his beams, and before twelve months were
+passed had almost forgotten his love. He knew now, or thought that
+he knew,--that the continued indulgence of a hopeless passion was a
+folly opposed to the very instincts of man and woman,--a weakness
+showing want of fibre and of muscle in the character. But here was
+a woman who could calmly conceal her passion in its early days and
+marry a man whom she did not love in spite of it, who could make her
+heart, her feelings, and all her feminine delicacy subordinate to
+material considerations, and nevertheless could not rid herself of
+her passion in the course of years, although she felt its existence
+to be an intolerable burden on her conscience. On which side lay
+strength of character and on which side weakness? Was he strong or
+was she?
+
+And he tried to examine his own feelings in regard to her. The thing
+was so long ago that she was to him as some aunt, or sister, so much
+the elder as to be almost venerable. He acknowledged to himself a
+feeling which made it incumbent upon him to spend himself in her
+service, could he serve her by any work of his. He was,--or would be,
+devoted to her. He owed her a never-dying gratitude. But were she
+free to marry again to-morrow, he knew that he could not marry her.
+She herself had said the same thing. She had said that she would be
+his sister. She had specially required of him that he should make
+known to her his wife, should he ever marry again. She had declared
+that she was incapable of further jealousy;--and yet she now told him
+of daily sin of which her conscience could not assoil itself.
+
+"Phineas," said a voice close to his ears, "are you repenting your
+sins?"
+
+"Oh, certainly;--what sins?"
+
+It was Barrington Erle. "You know that we are going to do nothing
+to-morrow," continued he.
+
+"So I am told."
+
+"We shall let the Address pass almost without a word. Gresham will
+simply express his determination to oppose the Church Bill to the
+knife. He means to be very plain-spoken about it. Whatever may be the
+merits of the Bill, it must be regarded as an unconstitutional effort
+to retain power in the hands of the minority, coming from such hands
+as those of Mr. Daubeny. I take it he will go at length into the
+question of majorities, and show how inexpedient it is on behalf
+of the nation that any Ministry should remain in power who cannot
+command a majority in the House on ordinary questions. I don't know
+whether he will do that to-morrow or at the second reading of the
+Bill."
+
+"I quite agree with him."
+
+"Of course you do. Everybody agrees with him. No gentleman can have
+a doubt on the subject. Personally, I hate the idea of Church Reform.
+Dear old Mildmay, who taught me all I know, hates it too. But Mr.
+Gresham is the head of our party now, and much as I may differ from
+him on many things, I am bound to follow him. If he proposes Church
+Reform in my time, or anything else, I shall support him."
+
+"I know those are your ideas."
+
+"Of course they are. There are no other ideas on which things can be
+made to work. Were it not that men get drilled into it by the force
+of circumstances any government in this country would be impossible.
+Were it not so, what should we come to? The Queen would find herself
+justified in keeping in any set of Ministers who could get her
+favour, and ambitious men would prevail without any support from the
+country. The Queen must submit to dictation from some quarter."
+
+"She must submit to advice, certainly."
+
+"Don't cavil at a word when you know it to be true," said Barrington,
+energetically. "The constitution of the country requires that she
+should submit to dictation. Can it come safely from any other quarter
+than that of a majority of the House of Commons?"
+
+"I think not."
+
+"We are all agreed about that. Not a single man in either House would
+dare to deny it. And if it be so, what man in his senses can think
+of running counter to the party which he believes to be right in its
+general views? A man so burthened with scruples as to be unable to
+act in this way should keep himself aloof from public life. Such a
+one cannot serve the country in Parliament, though he may possibly do
+so with pen and ink in his closet."
+
+"I wonder then that you should have asked me to come forward again
+after what I did about the Irish land question," said Phineas.
+
+"A first fault may be forgiven when the sinner has in other respects
+been useful. The long and the short of it is that you must vote
+with us against Daubeny's bill. Browborough sees it plainly enough.
+He supported his chief in the teeth of all his protestations at
+Tankerville."
+
+"I am not Browborough."
+
+"Nor half so good a man if you desert us," said Barrington Erle, with
+anger.
+
+"I say nothing about that. He has his ideas of duty, and I have mine.
+But I will go so far as this. I have not yet made up my mind. I shall
+ask advice; but you must not quarrel with me if I say that I must
+seek it from some one who is less distinctly a partisan than you
+are."
+
+"From Monk?"
+
+"Yes;--from Mr. Monk. I do think it will be bad for the country that
+this measure should come from the hands of Mr. Daubeny."
+
+"Then why the d---- should you support it, and oppose your own party
+at the same time? After that you can't do it. Well, Ratler, my guide
+and philosopher, how is it going to be?"
+
+Mr. Ratler had joined them, but was still standing before the seat
+they occupied, not condescending to sit down in amicable intercourse
+with a man as to whom he did not yet know whether to regard him as
+a friend or foe. "We shall be very quiet for the next month or six
+weeks," said Ratler.
+
+"And then?" asked Phineas.
+
+"Well, then it will depend on what may be the number of a few insane
+men who never ought to have seats in the House."
+
+"Such as Mr. Monk and Mr. Turnbull?" Now it was well known that both
+those gentlemen, who were recognised as leading men, were strong
+Radicals, and it was supposed that they both would support any bill,
+come whence it might, which would separate Church and State.
+
+"Such as Mr. Monk," said Ratler. "I will grant that Turnbull may be
+an exception. It is his business to go in for everything in the way
+of agitation, and he at any rate is consistent. But when a man has
+once been in office,--why then--"
+
+"When he has taken the shilling?" said Phineas. "Just so. I confess
+I do not like a deserter."
+
+"Phineas will be all right," said Barrington Erle.
+
+"I hope so," said Mr. Ratler, as he passed on.
+
+"Ratler and I run very much in the same groove," said Barrington,
+"but I fancy there is some little difference in the motive power."
+
+"Ratler wants place."
+
+"And so do I."
+
+"He wants it just as most men want professional success," said
+Phineas. "But if I understand your object, it is chiefly the
+maintenance of the old-established political power of the Whigs. You
+believe in families?"
+
+"I do believe in the patriotism of certain families. I believe that
+the Mildmays, FitzHowards, and Pallisers have for some centuries
+brought up their children to regard the well-being of their country
+as their highest personal interest, and that such teaching has been
+generally efficacious. Of course, there have been failures. Every
+child won't learn its lesson however well it may be taught. But the
+school in which good training is most practised will, as a rule, turn
+out the best scholars. In this way I believe in families. You have
+come in for some of the teaching, and I expect to see you a scholar
+yet."
+
+The House met on the following day, and the Address was moved and
+seconded; but there was no debate. There was not even a full House.
+The same ceremony had taken place so short a time previously, that
+the whole affair was flat and uninteresting. It was understood that
+nothing would in fact be done. Mr. Gresham, as leader of his side
+of the House, confined himself to asserting that he should give
+his firmest opposition to the proposed measure, which was, it
+seemed, so popular with the gentlemen who sat on the other side,
+and who supported the so-called Conservative Government of the day.
+His reasons for doing so had been stated very lately, and must
+unfortunately be repeated very soon, and he would not, therefore, now
+trouble the House with them. He did not on this occasion explain his
+ideas as to majorities, and the Address was carried by seven o'clock
+in the evening. Mr. Daubeny named a day a month hence for the first
+reading of his bill, and was asked the cause of the delay by some
+member on a back bench. "Because it cannot be ready sooner," said
+Mr. Daubeny. "When the honourable gentleman has achieved a position
+which will throw upon him the responsibility of bringing forward
+some great measure for the benefit of his country, he will probably
+find it expedient to devote some little time to details. If he do
+not, he will be less anxious to avoid attack than I am." A Minister
+can always give a reason; and, if he be clever, he can generally
+when doing so punish the man who asks for it. The punishing of an
+influential enemy is an indiscretion; but an obscure questioner may
+often be crushed with good effect.
+
+Mr. Monk's advice to Phineas was both simple and agreeable. He
+intended to support Mr. Gresham, and of course counselled his friend
+to do the same.
+
+"But you supported Mr. Daubeny on the Address before Christmas," said
+Phineas.
+
+"And shall therefore be bound to explain why I oppose him now;--but
+the task will not be difficult. The Queen's speech to Parliament was
+in my judgment right, and therefore I concurred in the Address. But I
+certainly cannot trust Mr. Daubeny with Church Reform. I do not know
+that many will make the same distinction, but I shall do so."
+
+Phineas soon found himself sitting in the House as though he had
+never left it. His absence had not been long enough to make the place
+feel strange to him. He was on his legs before a fortnight was over
+asking some question of some Minister, and of course insinuating
+as he did so that the Minister in question had been guilty of some
+enormity of omission or commission. It all came back upon him as
+though he had been born to the very manner. And as it became known
+to the Ratlers that he meant to vote right on the great coming
+question,--to vote right and to speak right in spite of his doings
+at Tankerville,--everybody was civil to him. Mr. Bonteen did express
+an opinion to Mr. Ratler that it was quite impossible that Phineas
+Finn should ever again accept office, as of course the Tankervillians
+would never replace him in his seat after manifest apostasy to his
+pledge; but Mr. Ratler seemed to think very little of that. "They
+won't remember, Lord bless you;--and then he's one of those fellows
+that always get in somewhere. He's not a man I particularly like; but
+you'll always see him in the House;--up and down, you know. When a
+fellow begins early, and has got it in him, it's hard to shake him
+off." And thus even Mr. Ratler was civil to our hero.
+
+Lady Laura Kennedy's letter had, of course, been answered,--not
+without very great difficulty. "My dear Laura," he had begun,--for
+the first time in his life. She had told him to treat her as
+a brother would do, and he thought it best to comply with her
+instructions. But beyond that, till he declared himself at the end to
+be hers affectionately, he made no further protestation of affection.
+He made no allusion to that sin which weighed so heavily on her, but
+answered all her questions. He advised her to remain at Dresden. He
+assured her that no power could be used to enforce her return. He
+expressed his belief that Mr. Kennedy would abstain from making any
+public statement, but suggested that if any were made the answering
+of it should be left to the family lawyer. In regard to the money, he
+thought it impossible that any step should be taken. He then told her
+all there was to tell of Lord and Lady Chiltern, and something also
+of himself. When the letter was written he found that it was cold and
+almost constrained. To his own ears it did not sound like the hearty
+letter of a generous friend. It savoured of the caution with which
+it had been prepared. But what could he do? Would he not sin against
+her and increase her difficulties if he addressed her with warm
+affection? Were he to say a word that ought not to be addressed to
+any woman he might do her an irreparable injury; and yet the tone of
+his own letter was odious to him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+MR. MAULE, SENIOR.
+
+
+The life of Mr. Maurice Maule, of Maule Abbey, the father of Gerard
+Maule, had certainly not been prosperous. He had from his boyhood
+enjoyed a reputation for cleverness, and at school had done great
+things,--winning prizes, spouting speeches on Speech days, playing in
+elevens, and looking always handsome. He had been one of those show
+boys of which two or three are generally to be found at our great
+schools, and all manner of good things had been prophesied on his
+behalf. He had been in love before he was eighteen, and very nearly
+succeeded in running away with the young lady before he went to
+college. His father had died when he was an infant, so that at
+twenty-one he was thought to be in possession of comfortable wealth.
+At Oxford he was considered to have got into a good set,--men of
+fashion who were also given to talking of books,--who spent money,
+read poetry, and had opinions of their own respecting the Tracts
+and Mr. Newman. He took his degree, and then started himself in the
+world upon that career which is of all the most difficult to follow
+with respect and self-comfort. He proposed to himself the life of an
+idle man with a moderate income,--a life which should be luxurious,
+refined, and graceful, but to which should be attached the burden
+of no necessary occupation. His small estate gave him but little to
+do, as he would not farm any portion of his own acres. He became a
+magistrate in his county; but he would not interest himself with the
+price of a good yoke of bullocks, as did Mr. Justice Shallow,--nor
+did he ever care how a score of ewes went at any fair. There is no
+harder life than this. Here and there we may find a man who has so
+trained himself that day after day he can devote his mind without
+compulsion to healthy pursuits, who can induce himself to work,
+though work be not required from him for any ostensible object, who
+can save himself from the curse of misusing his time, though he has
+for it no defined and necessary use; but such men are few, and are
+made of better metal than was Mr. Maule. He became an idler, a man of
+luxury, and then a spendthrift. He was now hardly beyond middle life,
+and he assumed for himself the character of a man of taste. He loved
+music, and pictures, and books, and pretty women. He loved also good
+eating and drinking; but conceived of himself that in his love for
+them he was an artist, and not a glutton. He had married early, and
+his wife had died soon. He had not given himself up with any special
+zeal to the education of his children, nor to the preservation of his
+property. The result of his indifference has been told in a previous
+chapter. His house was deserted, and his children were scattered
+about the world. His eldest son, having means of his own, was living
+an idle, desultory life, hardly with prospects of better success than
+had attended his father.
+
+Mr. Maule was now something about fifty-five years of age, and
+almost considered himself young. He lived in chambers on a flat in
+Westminster, and belonged to two excellent clubs. He had not been
+near his property for the last ten years, and as he was addicted to
+no country sport there were ten weeks in the year which were terrible
+to him. From the middle of August to the end of October for him there
+was no whist, no society,--it may almost be said no dinner. He had
+tried going to the seaside; he had tried going to Paris; he had
+endeavoured to enjoy Switzerland and the Italian lakes;--but all
+had failed, and he had acknowledged to himself that this sad period
+of the year must always be endured without relaxation, and without
+comfort.
+
+Of his children he now took but little notice. His daughter was
+married and in India. His younger son had disappeared, and the father
+was perhaps thankful that he was thus saved from trouble. With his
+elder son he did maintain some amicable intercourse, but it was very
+slight in its nature. They never corresponded unless the one had
+something special to say to the other. They had no recognised ground
+for meeting. They did not belong to the same clubs. They did not live
+in the same circles. They did not follow the same pursuits. They were
+interested in the same property;--but, as on that subject there had
+been something approaching to a quarrel, and as neither looked for
+assistance from the other, they were now silent on the matter. The
+father believed himself to be a poorer man than his son, and was very
+sore on the subject; but he had nothing beyond a life interest in
+his property, and there remained to him a certain amount of prudence
+which induced him to abstain from eating more of his pudding,--lest
+absolute starvation and the poorhouse should befall him. There still
+remained to him the power of spending some five or six hundred a
+year, and upon this practice had taught him to live with a very
+considerable amount of self-indulgence. He dined out a great deal,
+and was known everywhere as Mr. Maule of Maule Abbey.
+
+He was a slight, bright-eyed, grey-haired, good-looking man,
+who had once been very handsome. He had married, let us say for
+love;--probably very much by chance. He had ill-used his wife, and
+had continued a long-continued liaison with a complaisant friend.
+This had lasted some twenty years of his life, and had been to him an
+intolerable burden. He had come to see the necessity of employing his
+good looks, his conversational powers, and his excellent manners on
+a second marriage which might be lucrative; but the complaisant lady
+had stood in his way. Perhaps there had been a little cowardice on
+his part; but at any rate he had hitherto failed. The season for such
+a mode of relief was not, however, as yet clean gone with him, and
+he was still on the look out. There are women always in the market
+ready to buy for themselves the right to hang on the arm of a real
+gentleman. That Mr. Maurice Maule was a real gentleman no judge in
+such matters had ever doubted.
+
+On a certain morning just at the end of February Mr. Maule was
+sitting in his library,--so-called,--eating his breakfast, at about
+twelve o'clock; and at his side there lay a note from his son Gerard.
+Gerard had written to say that he would call on that morning, and the
+promised visit somewhat disturbed the father's comfort. He was in
+his dressing-gown and slippers, and had his newspaper in his hand.
+When his newspaper and breakfast should be finished,--as they would
+be certainly at the same moment,--there were in store for him two
+cigarettes, and perhaps some new French novel which had just reached
+him. They would last him till two o'clock. Then he would dress and
+saunter out in his great coat, made luxurious with furs. He would
+see a picture, or perhaps some china-vase, of which news had reached
+him, and would talk of them as though he might be a possible buyer.
+Everybody knew that he never bought anything;--but he was a man whose
+opinion on such matters was worth having. Then he would call on
+some lady whose acquaintance at the moment might be of service to
+him;--for that idea of blazing once more out into the world on a
+wife's fortune was always present to him. At about five he would
+saunter into his club, and play a rubber in a gentle unexcited manner
+till seven. He never played for high points, and would never be
+enticed into any bet beyond the limits of his club stakes. Were he
+to lose £10 or £20 at a sitting his arrangements would be greatly
+disturbed, and his comfort seriously affected. But he played well,
+taking pains with his game, and some who knew him well declared that
+his whist was worth a hundred a year to him. Then he would dress and
+generally dine in society. He was known as a good diner out, though
+in what his excellence consisted they who entertained him might find
+it difficult to say. He was not witty, nor did he deal in anecdotes.
+He spoke with a low voice, never addressing himself to any but his
+neighbour, and even to his neighbour saying but little. But he looked
+like a gentleman, was well dressed, and never awkward. After dinner
+he would occasionally play another rubber; but twelve o'clock always
+saw him back into his own rooms. No one knew better than Mr. Maule
+that the continual bloom of lasting summer which he affected requires
+great accuracy in living. Late hours, nocturnal cigars, and midnight
+drinkings, pleasurable though they may be, consume too quickly the
+free-flowing lamps of youth, and are fatal at once to the husbanded
+candle-ends of age.
+
+But such as his days were, every minute of them was precious to him.
+He possessed the rare merit of making a property of his time and
+not a burden. He had so shuffled off his duties that he had now
+rarely anything to do that was positively disagreeable. He had been
+a spendthrift; but his creditors, though perhaps never satisfied,
+had been quieted. He did not now deal with reluctant and hard-tasked
+tenants, but with punctual, though inimical, trustees, who paid to
+him with charming regularity that portion of his income which he was
+allowed to spend. But that he was still tormented with the ambition
+of a splendid marriage it might be said of him that he was completely
+at his ease. Now, as he lit his cigarette, he would have been
+thoroughly comfortable, were it not that he was threatened with
+disturbance by his son. Why should his son wish to see him, and thus
+break in upon him at the most charming hour of the day? Of course
+his son would not come to him without having some business in hand
+which must be disagreeable. He had not the least desire to see his
+son,--and yet, as they were on amicable terms, he could not deny
+himself after the receipt of his son's note. Just at one, as he
+finished his first cigarette, Gerard was announced.
+
+"Well, Gerard!"
+
+"Well, father,--how are you? You are looking as fresh as paint, sir."
+
+"Thanks for the compliment, if you mean one. I am pretty well. I
+thought you were hunting somewhere."
+
+"So I am; but I have just come up to town to see you. I find you have
+been smoking;--may I light a cigar?"
+
+"I never do smoke cigars here, Gerard. I'll offer you a cigarette."
+The cigarette was reluctantly offered, and accepted with a shrug.
+"But you didn't come here merely to smoke, I dare say."
+
+"Certainly not, sir. We do not often trouble each other, father; but
+there are things about which I suppose we had better speak. I'm going
+to be married!"
+
+"To be married!" The tone in which Mr. Maule, senior, repeated the
+words was much the same as might be used by any ordinary father if
+his son expressed an intention of going into the shoe-black business.
+
+"Yes, sir. It's a kind of thing men do sometimes."
+
+"No doubt;--and it's a kind of thing that they sometimes repent of
+having done."
+
+"Let us hope for the best. It is too late at any rate to think about
+that, and as it is to be done, I have come to tell you."
+
+"Very well. I suppose you are right to tell me. Of course you know
+that I can do nothing for you; and I don't suppose that you can do
+anything for me. As far as your own welfare goes, if she has a large
+fortune,--"
+
+"She has no fortune."
+
+"No fortune!"
+
+"Two or three thousand pounds perhaps."
+
+"Then I look upon it as an act of simple madness, and can only say
+that as such I shall treat it. I have nothing in my power, and
+therefore I can neither do you good or harm; but I will not hear
+any particulars, and I can only advise you to break it off, let the
+trouble be what it may."
+
+"I certainly shall not do that, sir."
+
+"Then I have nothing more to say. Don't ask me to be present, and
+don't ask me to see her."
+
+"You haven't heard her name yet."
+
+"I do not care one straw what her name is."
+
+"It is Adelaide Palliser."
+
+"Adelaide Muggins would be exactly the same thing to me. My dear
+Gerard, I have lived too long in the world to believe that men can
+coin into money the noble blood of well-born wives. Twenty thousand
+pounds is worth more than all the blood of all the Howards, and
+a wife even with twenty thousand pounds would make you a poor,
+embarrassed, and half-famished man."
+
+"Then I suppose I shall be whole famished, as she certainly has not
+got a quarter of that sum."
+
+"No doubt you will."
+
+"Yet, sir, married men with families have lived on my income."
+
+"And on less than a quarter of it. The very respectable man who
+brushes my clothes no doubt does so. But then you see he has been
+brought up in that way. I suppose that you as a bachelor put by every
+year at least half your income?"
+
+"I never put by a shilling, sir. Indeed, I owe a few hundred pounds."
+
+"And yet you expect to keep a house over your head, and an expensive
+wife and family, with lady's maid, nurses, cook, footman, and grooms,
+on a sum which has been hitherto insufficient for your own wants! I
+didn't think you were such an idiot, my boy."
+
+"Thank you, sir."
+
+"What will her dress cost?"
+
+"I have not the slightest idea."
+
+"I dare say not. Probably she is a horsewoman. As far as I know
+anything of your life that is the sphere in which you will have made
+the lady's acquaintance."
+
+"She does ride."
+
+"No doubt, and so do you; and it will be very easy to say whither you
+will ride together if you are fools enough to get married. I can only
+advise you to do nothing of the kind. Is there anything else?"
+
+There was much more to be said if Gerard could succeed in forcing his
+father to hear him. Mr. Maule, who had hitherto been standing, seated
+himself as he asked that last question, and took up the book which
+had been prepared for his morning's delectation. It was evidently
+his intention that his son should leave him. The news had been
+communicated to him, and he had said all that he could say on the
+subject. He had at once determined to confine himself to a general
+view of the matter, and to avoid details,--which might be personal to
+himself. But Gerard had been specially required to force his father
+into details. Had he been left to himself he would certainly have
+thought that the conversation had gone far enough. He was inclined,
+almost as well as his father, to avoid present discomfort. But when
+Miss Palliser had suddenly,--almost suddenly,--accepted him; and
+when he had found himself describing the prospects of his life in
+her presence and in that of Lady Chiltern, the question of the
+Maule Abbey inheritance had of necessity been discussed. At Maule
+Abbey there might be found a home for the married couple, and,--so
+thought Lady Chiltern,--the only fitting home. Mr. Maule, the father,
+certainly did not desire to live there. Probably arrangements might
+be made for repairing the house and furnishing it with Adelaide's
+money. Then, if Gerard Maule would be prudent, and give up hunting,
+and farm a little himself,--and if Adelaide would do her own
+housekeeping and dress upon forty pounds a year, and if they would
+both live an exemplary, model, energetic, and strictly economical
+life, both ends might be made to meet. Adelaide had been quite
+enthusiastic as to the forty pounds, and had suggested that she would
+do it for thirty. The housekeeping was a matter of course, and the
+more so as a leg of mutton roast or boiled would be the beginning
+and the end of it. To Adelaide the discussion had been exciting and
+pleasurable, and she had been quite in earnest when looking forward
+to a new life at Maule Abbey. After all there could be no such great
+difficulty for a young married couple to live on £800 a year, with
+a house and garden of their own. There would be no carriage and no
+man servant till,--till old Mr. Maule was dead. The suggestion as to
+the ultimate and desirable haven was wrapped up in ambiguous words.
+"The property must be yours some day," suggested Lady Chiltern.
+"If I outlive my father." "We take that for granted; and then, you
+know--" So Lady Chiltern went on, dilating upon a future state of
+squirearchal bliss and rural independence. Adelaide was enthusiastic;
+but Gerard Maule,--after he had assented to the abandonment of his
+hunting, much as a man assents to being hung when the antecedents of
+his life have put any option in the matter out of his power,--had
+sat silent and almost moody while the joys of his coming life were
+described to him. Lady Chiltern, however, had been urgent in pointing
+out to him that the scheme of living at Maule Abbey could not be
+carried out without his father's assistance. They all knew that Mr.
+Maule himself could not be affected by the matter, and they also
+knew that he had but very little power in reference to the property.
+But the plan could not be matured without some sanction from him.
+Therefore there was still much more to be said when the father had
+completed the exposition of his views on marriage in general. "I
+wanted to speak to you about the property," said Gerard. He had been
+specially enjoined to be staunch in bringing his father to the point.
+
+"And what about the property?"
+
+"Of course my marriage will not affect your interests."
+
+"I should say not. It would be very odd if it did. As it is, your
+income is much larger than mine."
+
+"I don't know how that is, sir; but I suppose you will not refuse to
+give me a helping hand if you can do so without disturbance to your
+own comfort."
+
+"In what sort of way? Don't you think anything of that kind can be
+managed better by the lawyer? If there is a thing I hate, it is
+business."
+
+Gerard, remembering his promise to Lady Chiltern, did persevere,
+though the perseverance went much against the grain with him. "We
+thought, sir, that if you would consent we might live at Maule
+Abbey."
+
+"Oh;--you did; did you?"
+
+"Is there any objection?"
+
+"Simply the fact that it is my house, and not yours."
+
+"It belongs, I suppose, to the property; and as--"
+
+"As what?" asked the father, turning upon the son with sharp angry
+eyes, and with something of real animation in his face.
+
+Gerard was very awkward in conveying his meaning to his father. "And
+as," he continued,--"as it must come to me, I suppose, some day, and
+it will be the proper sort of thing that we should live there then,
+I thought that you would agree that if we went and lived there now it
+would be a good sort of thing to do."
+
+"That was your idea?"
+
+"We talked it over with our friend, Lady Chiltern."
+
+"Indeed! I am so much obliged to your friend, Lady Chiltern, for the
+interest she takes in my affairs. Pray make my compliments to Lady
+Chiltern, and tell her at the same time that, though no doubt I have
+one foot in the grave, I should like to keep my house for the other
+foot, though too probably I may never be able to drag it so far as
+Maule Abbey."
+
+"But you don't think of living there."
+
+"My dear boy, if you will inquire among any friends you may happen
+to know who understand the world better than Lady Chiltern seems
+to do, they will tell you that a son should not suggest to his
+father the abandonment of the family property, because the father
+may--probably--soon--be conveniently got rid of under ground."
+
+"There was no thought of such a thing," said Gerard.
+
+"It isn't decent. I say that with all due deference to Lady
+Chiltern's better judgment. It's not the kind of thing that men
+do. I care less about it than most men, but even I object to such
+a proposition when it is made so openly. No doubt I am old." This
+assertion Mr. Maule made in a weak, quavering voice, which showed
+that had his intention been that way turned in his youth, he might
+probably have earned his bread on the stage.
+
+"Nobody thought of your being old, sir."
+
+"I shan't last long, of course. I am a poor feeble creature. But
+while I do live, I should prefer not to be turned out of my own
+house,--if Lady Chiltern could be induced to consent to such an
+arrangement. My doctor seems to think that I might linger on for a
+year or two,--with great care."
+
+"Father, you know I was thinking of nothing of the kind."
+
+"We won't act the king and the prince any further, if you please.
+The prince protested very well, and, if I remember right, the father
+pretended to believe him. In my weak state you have rather upset me.
+If you have no objection I would choose to be left to recover myself
+a little."
+
+"And is that all that you will say to me?"
+
+"Good heavens;--what more can you want? I will not--consent--to give
+up--my house at Maule Abbey for your use,--as long as I live. Will
+that do? And if you choose to marry a wife and starve, I won't think
+that any reason why I should starve too. Will that do? And your
+friend, Lady Chiltern, may--go--and be d----d. Will that do?"
+
+"Good morning, sir."
+
+"Good morning, Gerard." So the interview was over, and Gerard Maule
+left the room. The father, as soon as he was alone, immediately lit
+another cigarette, took up his French novel, and went to work as
+though he was determined to be happy and comfortable again without
+losing a moment. But he found this to be beyond his power. He had
+been really disturbed, and could not easily compose himself. The
+cigarette was almost at once chucked into the fire, and the little
+volume was laid on one side. Mr. Maule rose almost impetuously from
+his chair, and stood with his back to the fire, contemplating the
+proposition that had been made to him.
+
+It was actually true that he had been offended by the very faint idea
+of death which had been suggested to him by his son. Though he was
+a man bearing no palpable signs of decay, in excellent health, with
+good digestion,--who might live to be ninety,--he did not like to
+be warned that his heir would come after him. The claim which had
+been put forward to Maule Abbey by his son had rested on the fact
+that when he should die the place must belong to his son;--and the
+fact was unpleasant to him. Lady Chiltern had spoken of him behind
+his back as being mortal, and in doing so had been guilty of an
+impertinence. Maule Abbey, no doubt, was a ruined old house, in
+which he never thought of living,--which was not let to a tenant by
+the creditors of his estate, only because its condition was unfit
+for tenancy. But now Mr. Maule began to think whether he might not
+possibly give the lie to these people who were compassing his death,
+by returning to the halls of his ancestors, if not in the bloom of
+youth, still in the pride of age. Why should he not live at Maule
+Abbey if this successful marriage could be effected? He almost knew
+himself well enough to be aware that a month at Maule Abbey would
+destroy him; but it is the proper thing for a man of fashion to have
+a place of his own, and he had always been alive to the glory of
+being Mr. Maule of Maule Abbey. In preparing the way for the marriage
+that was to come he must be so known. To be spoken of as the father
+of Maule of Maule Abbey would have been fatal to him. To be the
+father of a married son at all was disagreeable, and therefore
+when the communication was made to him he had managed to be very
+unpleasant. As for giving up Maule Abbey,--! He fretted and fumed
+as he thought of the proposition through the hour which should have
+been to him an hour of enjoyment; and his anger grew hot against
+his son as he remembered all that he was losing. At last, however,
+he composed himself sufficiently to put on with becoming care his
+luxurious furred great coat, and then he sallied forth in quest of
+the lady.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+"PURITY OF MORALS, FINN."
+
+
+Mr. Quintus Slide was now, as formerly, the editor of the People's
+Banner, but a change had come over the spirit of his dream. His
+newspaper was still the People's Banner, and Mr. Slide still
+professed to protect the existing rights of the people, and to demand
+new rights for the people. But he did so as a Conservative. He had
+watched the progress of things, and had perceived that duty called
+upon him to be the organ of Mr. Daubeny. This duty he performed with
+great zeal, and with an assumption of consistency and infallibility
+which was charming. No doubt the somewhat difficult task of veering
+round without inconsistency, and without flaw to his infallibility,
+was eased by Mr. Daubeny's newly-declared views on Church matters.
+The People's Banner could still be a genuine People's Banner in
+reference to ecclesiastical policy. And as that was now the subject
+mainly discussed by the newspapers, the change made was almost
+entirely confined to the lauding of Mr. Daubeny instead of Mr.
+Turnbull. Some other slight touches were no doubt necessary. Mr.
+Daubeny was the head of the Conservative party in the kingdom, and
+though Mr. Slide himself might be of all men in the kingdom the most
+democratic, or even the most destructive, still it was essential that
+Mr. Daubeny's organ should support the Conservative party all round.
+It became Mr. Slide's duty to speak of men as heaven-born patriots
+whom he had designated a month or two since as bloated aristocrats
+and leeches fattened on the blood of the people. Of course remarks
+were made by his brethren of the press,--remarks which were intended
+to be very unpleasant. One evening newspaper took the trouble to
+divide a column of its own into double columns, printing on one
+side of the inserted line remarks made by the People's Banner in
+September respecting the Duke of ----, and the Marquis of ----, and
+Sir ---- ----, which were certainly very harsh; and on the other side
+remarks equally laudatory as to the characters of the same titled
+politicians. But a journalist, with the tact and experience of Mr.
+Quintus Slide, knew his business too well to allow himself to be
+harassed by any such small stratagem as that. He did not pause to
+defend himself, but boldly attacked the meanness, the duplicity,
+the immorality, the grammar, the paper, the type, and the wife of
+the editor of the evening newspaper. In the storm of wind in which
+he rowed it was unnecessary for him to defend his own conduct.
+"And then," said he at the close of a very virulent and successful
+article, "the hirelings of ---- dare to accuse me of inconsistency!"
+The readers of the People's Banner all thought that their editor
+had beaten his adversary out of the field.
+
+Mr. Quintus Slide was certainly well adapted for his work. He could
+edit his paper with a clear appreciation of the kind of matter which
+would best conduce to its success, and he could write telling leading
+articles himself. He was indefatigable, unscrupulous, and devoted
+to his paper. Perhaps his great value was shown most clearly in his
+distinct appreciation of the low line of public virtue with which
+his readers would be satisfied. A highly-wrought moral strain would
+he knew well create either disgust or ridicule. "If there is any
+beastliness I 'ate it is 'igh-faluting," he has been heard to say to
+his underlings. The sentiment was the same as that conveyed in the
+"Point de zèle" of Talleyrand. "Let's 'ave no d----d nonsense," he
+said on another occasion, when striking out from a leading article
+a passage in praise of the patriotism of a certain public man. "Mr.
+Gresham is as good as another man, no doubt; what we want to know is
+whether he's along with us." Mr. Gresham was not along with Mr. Slide
+at present, and Mr. Slide found it very easy to speak ill of Mr.
+Gresham.
+
+Mr. Slide one Sunday morning called at the house of Mr. Bunce in
+Great Marlborough Street, and asked for Phineas Finn. Mr. Slide and
+Mr. Bunce had an old acquaintance with each other, and the editor was
+not ashamed to exchange a few friendly words with the law-scrivener
+before he was shown up to the member of Parliament. Mr. Bunce was an
+outspoken, eager, and honest politician,--with very little accurate
+knowledge of the political conditions by which he was surrounded,
+but with a strong belief in the merits of his own class. He was a
+sober, hardworking man, and he hated all men who were not sober and
+hardworking. He was quite clear in his mind that all nobility should
+be put down, and that all property in land should be taken away
+from men who were enabled by such property to live in idleness.
+What should be done with the land when so taken away was a question
+which he had not yet learnt to answer. At the present moment he
+was accustomed to say very hard words of Mr. Slide behind his back,
+because of the change which had been effected in the People's
+Banner, and he certainly was not the man to shrink from asserting
+in a person's presence aught that he said in his absence. "Well, Mr.
+Conservative Slide," he said, stepping into the little back parlour,
+in which the editor was left while Mrs. Bunce went up to learn
+whether the member of Parliament would receive his visitor.
+
+"None of your chaff, Bunce."
+
+"We have enough of your chaff, anyhow; don't we, Mr. Slide? I still
+sees the Banner, Mr. Slide,--most days; just for the joke of it."
+
+"As long as you take it, Bunce, I don't care what the reason is."
+
+"I suppose a heditor's about the same as a Cabinet Minister. You've
+got to keep your place;--that's about it, Mr. Slide."
+
+"We've got to tell the people who's true to 'em. Do you believe
+that Gresham 'd ever have brought in a Bill for doing away with the
+Church? Never;--not if he'd been Prime Minister till doomsday. What
+you want is progress."
+
+"That's about it, Mr. Slide."
+
+"And where are you to get it? Did you ever hear that a rose by any
+other name 'd smell as sweet? If you can get progress from the
+Conservatives, and you want progress, why not go to the Conservatives
+for it? Who repealed the corn laws? Who gave us 'ousehold suffrage?"
+
+"I think I've been told all that before, Mr. Slide; them things
+weren't given by no manner of means, as I look at it. We just went in
+and took 'em. It was hall a haccident whether it was Cobden or Peel,
+Gladstone or Disraeli, as was the servants we employed to do our
+work. But Liberal is Liberal, and Conservative is Conservative. What
+are you, Mr. Slide, to-day?"
+
+"If you'd talk of things, Bunce, which you understand, you would not
+talk quite so much nonsense."
+
+At this moment Mrs. Bunce entered the room, perhaps preventing a
+quarrel, and offered to usher Mr. Slide up to the young member's
+room. Phineas had not at first been willing to receive the gentleman,
+remembering that when they had last met the intercourse had not been
+pleasant,--but he knew that enmities are foolish things, and that
+it did not become him to perpetuate a quarrel with such a man as Mr.
+Quintus Slide. "I remember him very well, Mrs. Bunce."
+
+"I know you didn't like him, Sir."
+
+"Not particularly."
+
+"No more don't I. No more don't Bunce. He's one of them as 'd say
+a'most anything for a plate of soup and a glass of wine. That's what
+Bunce says."
+
+"It won't hurt me to see him."
+
+"No, sir; it won't hurt you. It would be a pity indeed if the likes
+of him could hurt the likes of you." And so Mr. Quintus Slide was
+shown up into the room.
+
+The first greeting was very affectionate, at any rate on the part of
+the editor. He grasped the young member's hand, congratulated him
+on his seat, and began his work as though he had never been all but
+kicked out of that very same room by its present occupant. "Now you
+want to know what I'm come about; don't you?"
+
+"No doubt I shall hear in good time, Mr. Slide."
+
+"It's an important matter;--and so you'll say when you do hear. And
+it's one in which I don't know whether you'll be able to see your way
+quite clear."
+
+"I'll do my best, if it concerns me."
+
+"It does." So saying, Mr. Slide, who had seated himself in an
+arm-chair by the fireside opposite to Phineas, crossed his legs,
+folded his arms on his breast, put his head a little on one side,
+and sat for a few moments in silence, with his eyes fixed on his
+companion's face. "It does concern you, or I shouldn't be here.
+Do you know Mr. Kennedy,--the Right Honourable Robert Kennedy, of
+Loughlinter, in Scotland?"
+
+"I do know Mr. Kennedy."
+
+"And do you know Lady Laura Kennedy, his wife?"
+
+"Certainly I do."
+
+"So I supposed. And do you know the Earl of Brentford, who is, I take
+it, father to the lady in question?"
+
+"Of course I do. You know that I do." For there had been a time in
+which Phineas had been subjected to the severest censure which the
+People's Banner could inflict upon him, because of his adherence
+to Lord Brentford, and the vials of wrath had been poured out by the
+hands of Mr. Quintus Slide himself.
+
+"Very well. It does not signify what I know or what I don't. Those
+preliminary questions I have been obliged to ask as my justification
+for coming to you on the present occasion. Mr. Kennedy has I believe
+been greatly wronged."
+
+"I am not prepared to talk about Mr. Kennedy's affairs," said Phineas
+gravely.
+
+"But unfortunately he is prepared to talk about them. That's the rub.
+He has been ill-used, and he has come to the People's Banner for
+redress. Will you have the kindness to cast your eye down that slip?"
+Whereupon the editor handed to Phineas a long scrap of printed paper,
+amounting to about a column and a half of the People's Banner,
+containing a letter to the editor dated from Loughlinter, and signed
+Robert Kennedy at full length.
+
+"You don't mean to say that you're going to publish this," said
+Phineas before he had read it.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"The man is a madman."
+
+"There's nothing in the world easier than calling a man mad. It's
+what we do to dogs when we want to hang them. I believe Mr. Kennedy
+has the management of his own property. He is not too mad for that.
+But just cast your eye down and read it."
+
+Phineas did cast his eye down, and read the whole letter;--nor as
+he read it could he bring himself to believe that the writer of it
+would be judged to be mad from its contents. Mr. Kennedy had told
+the whole story of his wrongs, and had told it well,--with piteous
+truthfulness, as far as he himself knew and understood the truth. The
+letter was almost simple in its wailing record of his own desolation.
+With a marvellous absence of reticence he had given the names of all
+persons concerned. He spoke of his wife as having been, and being,
+under the influence of Mr. Phineas Finn;--spoke of his own former
+friendship for that gentleman, who had once saved his life when
+he fell among thieves, and then accused Phineas of treachery in
+betraying that friendship. He spoke with bitter agony of the injury
+done him by the Earl, his wife's father, in affording a home to his
+wife, when her proper home was at Loughlinter. And then declared
+himself willing to take the sinning woman back to his bosom. "That
+she had sinned is certain," he said; "I do not believe she has sinned
+as some sin; but, whatever be her sin, it is for a man to forgive as
+he hopes for forgiveness." He expatiated on the absolute and almost
+divine right which it was intended that a husband should exercise
+over his wife, and quoted both the Old and New Testament in proof of
+his assertions. And then he went on to say that he appealed to public
+sympathy, through the public press, because, owing to some gross
+insufficiency in the laws of extradition, he could not call upon the
+magistracy of a foreign country to restore to him his erring wife.
+But he thought that public opinion, if loudly expressed, would have
+an effect both upon her and upon her father, which his private words
+could not produce. "I wonder very greatly that you should put such a
+letter as that into type," said Phineas when he had read it all.
+
+"Why shouldn't we put it into type?"
+
+"You don't mean to say that you'll publish it."
+
+"Why shouldn't we publish it?"
+
+"It's a private quarrel between a man and his wife. What on earth
+have the public got to do with that?"
+
+"Private quarrels between gentlemen and ladies have been public
+affairs for a long time past. You must know that very well."
+
+"When they come into court they are."
+
+"In court and out of court! The morale of our aristocracy,--what
+you call the Upper Ten,--would be at a low ebb indeed if the public
+press didn't act as their guardians. Do you think that if the Duke
+of ---- beats his wife black and blue, nothing is to be said about it
+unless the Duchess brings her husband into court? Did you ever know
+of a separation among the Upper Ten, that wasn't handled by the
+press one way or the other? It's my belief that there isn't a peer
+among 'em all as would live with his wife constant, if it was not
+for the press;--only some of the very old ones, who couldn't help
+themselves."
+
+"And you call yourself a Conservative?"
+
+"Never mind what I call myself. That has nothing to do with what
+we're about now. You see that letter, Finn. There is nothing little
+or dirty about us. We go in for morals and purity of life, and we
+mean to do our duty by the public without fear or favour. Your name
+is mentioned there in a manner that you won't quite like, and I think
+I am acting uncommon kind by you in showing it to you before we
+publish it." Phineas, who still held the slip in his hand, sat silent
+thinking of the matter. He hated the man. He could not endure the
+feeling of being called Finn by him without showing his resentment.
+As regarded himself, he was thoroughly well inclined to kick Mr.
+Slide and his Banner into the street. But he was bound to think
+first of Lady Laura. Such a publication as this, which was now
+threatened, was the misfortune which the poor woman dreaded more
+than any other. He, personally, had certainly been faultless in the
+matter. He had never addressed a word of love to Mr. Kennedy's wife
+since the moment in which she had told him that she was engaged to
+marry the Laird of Loughlinter. Were the letter to be published he
+could answer it, he thought, in such a manner as to defend himself
+and her without damage to either. But on her behalf he was bound to
+prevent this publicity if it could be prevented;--and he was bound
+also, for her sake, to allow himself to be called Finn by this most
+obnoxious editor. "In the ordinary course of things, Finn, it will
+come out to-morrow morning," said the obnoxious editor.
+
+"Every word of it is untrue," said Phineas.
+
+"You say that, of course."
+
+"And I should at once declare myself willing to make such a statement
+on oath. It is a libel of the grossest kind, and of course there
+would be a prosecution. Both Lord Brentford and I would be driven to
+that."
+
+"We should be quite indifferent. Mr. Kennedy would hold us harmless.
+We're straightforward. My showing it to you would prove that."
+
+"What is it you want, Mr. Slide?"
+
+"Want! You don't suppose we want anything. If you think that the
+columns of the People's Banner are to be bought, you must have
+opinions respecting the press of the day which make me pity you as
+one grovelling in the very dust. The daily press of London is pure
+and immaculate. That is, the morning papers are. Want, indeed! What
+do you think I want?"
+
+"I have not the remotest idea."
+
+"Purity of morals, Finn;--punishment for the guilty;--defence for the
+innocent;--support for the weak;--safety for the oppressed;--and a
+rod of iron for the oppressors!"
+
+"But that is a libel."
+
+"It's very heavy on the old Earl, and upon you, and upon Lady
+Laura;--isn't it?"
+
+"It's a libel,--as you know. You tell me that purity of morals can be
+supported by such a publication as this! Had you meant to go on with
+it, you would hardly have shown it to me."
+
+"You're in the wrong box there, Finn. Now I'll tell you what
+we'll do,--on behalf of what I call real purity. We'll delay the
+publication if you'll undertake that the lady shall go back to her
+husband."
+
+"The lady is not in my hands."
+
+"She's under your influence. You were with her over at Dresden not
+much more than a month ago. She'd go sharp enough if you told her."
+
+"You never made a greater mistake in your life."
+
+"Say that you'll try."
+
+"I certainly will not do so."
+
+"Then it goes in to-morrow," said Mr. Quintus Slide, stretching out
+his hand and taking back the slip.
+
+"What on earth is your object?"
+
+"Morals! Morals! We shall be able to say that we've done our best to
+promote domestic virtue and secure forgiveness for an erring wife.
+You've no notion, Finn, in your mind of what will soon be the hextent
+of the duties, privileges, and hinfluences of the daily press;--the
+daily morning press, that is; for I look on those little evening
+scraps as just so much paper and ink wasted. You won't interfere,
+then?"
+
+"Yes, I will;--if you'll give me time. Where is Mr. Kennedy?"
+
+"What has that to do with it? Do you write over to Lady Laura and the
+old lord and tell them that if she'll undertake to be at Loughlinter
+within a month this shall be suppressed. Will you do that?"
+
+"Let me first see Mr. Kennedy."
+
+Mr. Slide thought a while over that matter. "Well," said he at last,
+"you can see Kennedy if you will. He came up to town four or five
+days ago, and he's staying at an hotel in Judd Street."
+
+"An hotel in Judd Street?"
+
+"Yes;--Macpherson's in Judd Street. I suppose he likes to keep among
+the Scotch. I don't think he ever goes out of the house, and he's
+waiting in London till this thing is published."
+
+"I will go and see him," said Phineas.
+
+"I shouldn't wonder if he murdered you;--but that's between you and
+him."
+
+"Just so."
+
+"And I shall hear from you?"
+
+"Yes," said Phineas, hesitating as he made the promise. "Yes, you
+shall hear from me."
+
+"We've got our duty to do, and we mean to do it. If we see that we
+can induce the lady to go back to her husband, we shall habstain from
+publishing, and virtue will be its own reward. I needn't tell you
+that such a letter as that would sell a great many copies, Finn."
+Then, at last, Mr. Slide arose and departed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+MACPHERSON'S HOTEL.
+
+
+Phineas, when he was left alone, found himself greatly at a loss as
+to what he had better do. He had pledged himself to see Mr. Kennedy,
+and was not much afraid of encountering personal violence at the
+hands of that gentleman. But he could think of nothing which he could
+with advantage say to Mr. Kennedy. He knew that Lady Laura would not
+return to her husband. Much as she dreaded such exposure as was now
+threatened, she would not return to Loughlinter to avoid even that.
+He could not hold out any such hope to Mr. Kennedy;--and without
+doing so how could he stop the publication? He thought of getting
+an injunction from the Vice-Chancellor;--but it was now Sunday, and
+he had understood that the publication would appear on the morrow,
+unless stopped by some note from himself. He thought of finding some
+attorney, and taking him to Mr. Kennedy; but he knew that Mr. Kennedy
+would be deterred by no attorney. Then he thought of Mr. Low. He
+would see Mr. Kennedy first, and then go to Mr. Low's house.
+
+Judd Street runs into the New Road near the great stations of the
+Midland and Northern Railways, and is a highly respectable street.
+But it can hardly be called fashionable, as is Piccadilly; or
+central, as is Charing Cross; or commercial, as is the neighbourhood
+of St. Paul's. Men seeking the shelter of an hotel in Judd Street
+most probably prefer decent and respectable obscurity to other
+advantages. It was some such feeling, no doubt, joined to the fact
+that the landlord had originally come from the neighbourhood of
+Loughlinter, which had taken Mr. Kennedy to Macpherson's Hotel.
+Phineas, when he called at about three o'clock on Sunday afternoon,
+was at once informed by Mrs. Macpherson that Mr. Kennedy was "nae
+doubt at hame, but was nae willing to see folk on the Saaboth."
+Phineas pleaded the extreme necessity of his business, alleging
+that Mr. Kennedy himself would regard its nature as a sufficient
+justification for such Sabbath-breaking,--and sent up his card.
+Then there came down a message to him. Could not Mr. Finn postpone
+his visit to the following morning? But Phineas declared that it
+could not be postponed. Circumstances, which he would explain to
+Mr. Kennedy, made it impossible. At last he was desired to walk up
+stairs, though Mrs. Macpherson, as she showed him the way, evidently
+thought that her house was profaned by such wickedness.
+
+Macpherson in preparing his house had not run into that extravagance
+of architecture which has lately become so common in our hotels.
+It was simply an ordinary house, with the words "Macpherson's
+Hotel" painted on a semi-circular board over the doorway. The front
+parlour had been converted into a bar, and in the back parlour the
+Macphersons lived. The staircase was narrow and dirty, and in the
+front drawing-room,--with the chamber behind for his bedroom,--Mr.
+Kennedy was installed. Mr. Macpherson probably did not expect any
+customers beyond those friendly Scots who came up to London from his
+own side of the Highlands. Mrs. Macpherson, as she opened the door,
+was silent and almost mysterious. Such a breach of the law might
+perhaps be justified by circumstances of which she knew nothing, but
+should receive no sanction from her which she could avoid. So she did
+not even whisper the name.
+
+Mr. Kennedy, as Phineas entered, slowly rose from his chair, putting
+down the Bible which had been in his hands. He did not speak at once,
+but looked at his visitor over the spectacles which he wore. Phineas
+thought that he was even more haggard in appearance and aged than
+when they two had met hardly three months since at Loughlinter. There
+was no shaking of hands, and hardly any pretence at greeting. Mr.
+Kennedy simply bowed his head, and allowed his visitor to begin the
+conversation.
+
+"I should not have come to you on such a day as this, Mr. Kennedy--"
+
+"It is a day very unfitted for the affairs of the world," said Mr.
+Kennedy.
+
+"Had not the matter been most pressing in regard both to time and its
+own importance."
+
+"So the woman told me, and therefore I have consented to see you."
+
+"You know a man of the name of--Slide, Mr. Kennedy?" Mr. Kennedy
+shook his head. "You know the editor of the People's Banner?" Again
+he shook his head. "You have, at any rate, written a letter for
+publication to that newspaper."
+
+"Need I consult you as to what I write?"
+
+"But he,--the editor,--has consulted me."
+
+"I can have nothing to do with that."
+
+"This Mr. Slide, the editor of the People's Banner, has just been
+with me, having in his hand a printed letter from you, which,--you
+will excuse me, Mr. Kennedy,--is very libellous."
+
+"I will bear the responsibility of that."
+
+"But you would not wish to publish falsehood about your wife, or even
+about me."
+
+"Falsehood! sir; how dare you use that word to me? Is it false to say
+that she has left my house? Is it false to say that she is my wife,
+and cannot desert me, as she has done, without breaking her vows, and
+disregarding the laws both of God and man? Am I false when I say that
+I gave her no cause? Am I false when I offer to take her back, let
+her faults be what they may have been? Am I false when I say that her
+father acts illegally in detaining her? False! False in your teeth!
+Falsehood is villany, and it is not I that am the villain."
+
+"You have joined my name in the accusation."
+
+"Because you are her paramour. I know you now;--viper that was warmed
+in my bosom! Will you look me in the face and tell me that, had
+it not been for you, she would not have strayed from me?" To this
+Phineas could make no answer. "Is it not true that when she went with
+me to the altar you had been her lover?"
+
+"I was her lover no longer, when she once told me that she was to be
+your wife."
+
+"Has she never spoken to you of love since? Did she not warn you from
+the house in her faint struggle after virtue? Did she not whistle you
+back again when she found the struggle too much for her? When I asked
+you to the house, she bade you not come. When I desired that you
+might never darken my eyes again, did she not seek you? With whom was
+she walking on the villa grounds by the river banks when she resolved
+that she would leave all her duties and desert me? Will you dare
+to say that you were not then in her confidence? With whom was she
+talking when she had the effrontery to come and meet me at the house
+of the Prime Minister, which I was bound to attend? Have you not been
+with her this very winter in her foreign home?"
+
+"Of course I have,--and you sent her a message by me."
+
+"I sent no message. I deny it. I refused to be an accomplice in your
+double guilt. I laid my command upon you that you should not visit my
+wife in my absence, and you disobeyed, and you are an adulterer. Who
+are you that you are to come for ever between me and my wife?"
+
+"I never injured you in thought or deed. I come to you now because I
+have seen a printed letter which contains a gross libel upon myself."
+
+"It is printed then?" he asked, in an eager tone.
+
+"It is printed; but it need not, therefore, be published. It is a
+libel, and should not be published. I shall be forced to seek redress
+at law. You cannot hope to regain your wife by publishing false
+accusations against her."
+
+"They are true. I can prove every word that I have written. She dare
+not come here, and submit herself to the laws of her country. She is
+a renegade from the law, and you abet her in her sin. But it is not
+vengeance that I seek. 'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.'"
+
+"It looks like vengeance, Mr. Kennedy."
+
+"Is it for you to teach me how I shall bear myself in this time of my
+great trouble?" Then suddenly he changed; his voice falling from one
+of haughty defiance to a low, mean, bargaining whisper. "But I'll
+tell you what I'll do. If you will say that she shall come back again
+I'll have it cancelled, and pay all the expenses."
+
+"I cannot bring her back to you."
+
+"She'll come if you tell her. If you'll let them understand that she
+must come they'll give way. You can try it at any rate."
+
+"I shall do nothing of the kind. Why should I ask her to submit
+herself to misery?"
+
+"Misery! What misery? Why should she be miserable? Must a woman need
+be miserable because she lives with her husband? You hear me say that
+I will forgive everything. Even she will not doubt me when I say so,
+because I have never lied to her. Let her come back to me, and she
+shall live in peace and quiet, and hear no word of reproach."
+
+"I can have nothing to do with it, Mr. Kennedy."
+
+"Then, sir, you shall abide my wrath." With that he sprang quickly
+round, grasping at something which lay upon a shelf near him, and
+Phineas saw that he was armed with a pistol. Phineas, who had
+hitherto been seated, leaped to his legs; but the pistol in a moment
+was at his head, and the madman pulled at the trigger. But the
+mechanism of the instrument required that some bolt should be loosed
+before the hammer would fall upon the nipple, and the unhandy wretch
+for an instant fumbled over the work so that Phineas, still facing
+his enemy, had time to leap backwards towards the door. But Kennedy,
+though he was awkward, still succeeded in firing before our friend
+could leave the room. Phineas heard the thud of the bullet, and knew
+that it must have passed near his head. He was not struck, however;
+and the man, frightened at his own deed, abstained from the second
+shot, or loitered long enough in his remorse to enable his prey to
+escape. With three or four steps Phineas leaped down the stairs, and,
+finding the front door closed, took shelter within Mrs. Macpherson's
+bar. "The man is mad," he said; "did you not hear the shot?" The
+woman was too frightened to reply, but stood trembling, holding
+Phineas by the arm. There was nobody in the house, she said, but
+she and the two lasses. "Nae doobt the Laird's by ordinaire," she
+said at last. She had known of the pistol; but had not dared to have
+it removed. She and Macpherson had only feared that he would hurt
+himself,--and had at last agreed, as day after day passed without any
+injury from the weapon, to let the thing remain unnoticed. She had
+heard the shot, and had been sure that one of the two men above would
+have been killed.
+
+
+[Illustration: "Then, sir, you shall abide my wrath."]
+
+
+Phineas was now in great doubt as to what duty was required of him.
+His first difficulty consisted in this,--that his hat was still in
+Mr. Kennedy's room, and that Mrs. Macpherson altogether refused to go
+and fetch it. While they were still discussing this, and Phineas had
+not as yet resolved whether he would first get a policeman or go at
+once to Mr. Low, the bell from the room was rung furiously. "It's
+the Laird," said Mrs. Macpherson, "and if naebody waits on him he'll
+surely be shooting ane of us." The two girls were now outside the bar
+shaking in their shoes, and evidently unwilling to face the danger.
+At last the door of the room above was opened, and our hero's hat was
+sent rolling down the stairs.
+
+It was clear to Phineas that the man was so mad as to be not even
+aware of the act he had perpetrated. "He'll do nothing more with the
+pistol," he said, "unless he should attempt to destroy himself." At
+last it was determined that one of the girls should be sent to fetch
+Macpherson home from the Scotch Church, and that no application
+should be made at once to the police. It seemed that the Macphersons
+knew the circumstances of their guest's family, and that there was a
+cousin of his in London who was the only one with whom he seemed to
+have any near connection. The thing that had occurred was to be told
+to this cousin, and Phineas left his address, so that if it should be
+thought necessary he might be called upon to give his account of the
+affair. Then, in his perturbation of spirit, he asked for a glass of
+brandy; and having swallowed it, was about to take his leave. "The
+brandy wull be saxpence, sir," said Mrs. Macpherson, as she wiped the
+tears from her eyes.
+
+Having paid for his refreshment, Phineas got into a cab, and had
+himself driven to Mr. Low's house. He had escaped from his peril,
+and now again it became his strongest object to stop the publication
+of the letter which Slide had shown him. But as he sat in the cab
+he could not hinder himself from shuddering at the danger which had
+been so near to him. He remembered his sensation as he first saw the
+glimmer of the barrel of the pistol, and then became aware of the
+man's first futile attempt, and afterwards saw the flash and heard
+the hammer fall at the same moment. He had once stood up to be fired
+at in a duel, and had been struck by the ball. But nothing in that
+encounter had made him feel sick and faint through every muscle as
+he had felt just now. As he sat in the cab he was aware that but for
+the spirits he had swallowed he would be altogether overcome, and
+he doubted even now whether he would be able to tell his story to
+Mr. Low. Luckily perhaps for him neither Mr. Low nor his wife were
+at home. They were out together, but were expected in between five
+and six. Phineas declared his purpose of waiting for them, and
+requested that Mr. Low might be asked to join him in the dining-room
+immediately on his return. In this way an hour was allowed him, and
+he endeavoured to compose himself. Still, even at the end of the
+hour, his heart was beating so violently that he could hardly control
+the motion of his own limbs. "Low, I have been shot at by a madman,"
+he said, as soon as his friend entered the room. He had determined to
+be calm, and to speak much more of the document in the editor's hands
+than of the attempt which had been made on his own life; but he had
+been utterly unable to repress the exclamation.
+
+"Shot at?"
+
+"Yes; by Robert Kennedy; the man who was Chancellor of the
+Duchy;--almost within a yard of my head." Then he sat down and burst
+out into a fit of convulsive laughter.
+
+The story about the pistol was soon told, and Mr. Low was of opinion
+that Phineas should not have left the place without calling in
+policemen and giving an account to them of the transaction. "But
+I had something else on my mind," said Phineas, "which made it
+necessary that I should see you at once;--something more important
+even than this madman's attack upon me. He has written a most
+foul-mouthed attack upon his wife, which is already in print, and
+will I fear be published to-morrow morning." Then he told the story
+of the letter. "Slide no doubt will be at the People's Banner
+office to-night, and I can see him there. Perhaps when I tell
+him what has occurred he will consent to drop the publication
+altogether."
+
+But in this view of the matter Mr. Low did not agree with his
+visitor. He argued the case with a deliberation which to Phineas in
+his present state of mind was almost painful. If the whole story of
+what had occurred were told to Quintus Slide, that worthy protector
+of morals and caterer for the amusement of the public would, Mr.
+Low thought, at once publish the letter and give a statement of the
+occurrence at Macpherson's Hotel. There would be nothing to hinder
+him from so profitable a proceeding, as he would know that no one
+would stir on behalf of Lady Laura in the matter of the libel, when
+the tragedy of Mr. Kennedy's madness should have been made known. The
+publication would be as safe as attractive. But if Phineas should
+abstain from going to him at all, the same calculation which had
+induced him to show the letter would induce him to postpone the
+publication, at any rate for another twenty-four hours. "He means
+to make capital out of his virtue; and he won't give that up for
+the sake of being a day in advance. In the meantime we will get an
+injunction from the Vice-Chancellor to stop the publication."
+
+"Can we do that in one day?"
+
+"I think we can. Chancery isn't what it used to be," said Mr. Low,
+with a sigh. "I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll go this very moment
+to Pickering." Mr. Pickering at this time was one of the three
+Vice-Chancellors. "It isn't exactly the proper thing for counsel
+to call on a judge on a Sunday afternoon with the direct intention
+of influencing his judgment for the following morning; but this
+is a case in which a point may be strained. When such a paper as
+the People's Banner gets hold of a letter from a madman, which
+if published would destroy the happiness of a whole family, one
+shouldn't stick at a trifle. Pickering is just the man to take a
+common-sense view of the matter. You'll have to make an affidavit
+in the morning, and we can get the injunction served before two or
+three o'clock. Mr. Septimus Slope, or whatever his name is, won't
+dare to publish it after that. Of course, if it comes out to-morrow
+morning, we shall have been too late; but this will be our best
+chance." So Mr. Low got his hat and umbrella, and started for the
+Vice-Chancellor's house. "And I tell you what, Phineas;--do you stay
+and dine here. You are so flurried by all this, that you are not fit
+to go anywhere else."
+
+"I am flurried."
+
+"Of course you are. Never mind about dressing. Do you go up and tell
+Georgiana all about it;--and have dinner put off half-an-hour. I must
+hunt Pickering up, if I don't find him at home." Then Phineas did
+go upstairs and tell Georgiana--otherwise Mrs. Low--the whole story.
+Mrs. Low was deeply affected, declaring her opinion very strongly as
+to the horrible condition of things, when madmen could go about with
+pistols, and without anybody to take care against them. But as to
+Lady Laura Kennedy, she seemed to think that the poor husband had
+great cause of complaint, and that Lady Laura ought to be punished.
+Wives, she thought, should never leave their husbands on any pretext;
+and, as far as she had heard the story, there had been no pretext at
+all in the case. Her sympathies were clearly with the madman, though
+she was quite ready to acknowledge that any and every step should be
+taken which might be adverse to Mr. Quintus Slide.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+MADAME GOESLER IS SENT FOR.
+
+
+When the elder Mr. Maule had sufficiently recovered from the
+perturbation of mind and body into which he had been thrown by the
+ill-timed and ill-worded proposition of his son to enable him to
+resume the accustomed tenour of his life, he arrayed himself in his
+morning winter costume, and went forth in quest of a lady. So much
+was told some few chapters back, but the name of the lady was not
+then disclosed. Starting from Victoria Street, Westminster, he walked
+slowly across St. James's Park and the Green Park till he came out in
+Piccadilly, near the bottom of Park Lane. As he went up the Lane he
+looked at his boots, at his gloves, and at his trousers, and saw that
+nothing was unduly soiled. The morning air was clear and frosty, and
+had enabled him to dispense with the costly comfort of a cab. Mr.
+Maule hated cabs in the morning,--preferring never to move beyond the
+tether of his short daily constitutional walk. A cab for going out to
+dinner was a necessity;--but his income would not stand two or three
+cabs a day. Consequently he never went north of Oxford Street, or
+east of the theatres, or beyond Eccleston Square towards the river.
+The regions of South Kensington and New Brompton were a trouble to
+him, as he found it impossible to lay down a limit in that direction
+which would not exclude him from things which he fain would not
+exclude. There are dinners given at South Kensington which such a
+man as Mr. Maule cannot afford not to eat. In Park Lane he knocked
+at the door of a very small house,--a house that might almost be
+called tiny by comparison of its dimensions with those around it, and
+then asked for Madame Goesler. Madame Goesler had that morning gone
+into the country. Mr. Maule in his blandest manner expressed some
+surprise, having understood that she had not long since returned from
+Harrington Hall. To this the servant assented, but went on to explain
+that she had been in town only a day or two when she was summoned
+down to Matching by a telegram. It was believed, the man said, that
+the Duke of Omnium was poorly. "Oh! indeed;--I am sorry to hear
+that," said Mr. Maule, with a wry face. Then, with steps perhaps a
+little less careful, he walked back across the park to his club. On
+taking up the evening paper he at once saw a paragraph stating that
+the Duke of Omnium's condition to-day was much the same as yesterday;
+but that he had passed a quiet night. That very distinguished but
+now aged physician, Sir Omicron Pie, was still staying at Matching
+Priory. "So old Omnium is going off the hooks at last," said Mr.
+Maule to a club acquaintance.
+
+The club acquaintance was in Parliament, and looked at the matter
+from a strictly parliamentary point of view. "Yes, indeed. It has
+given a deal of trouble."
+
+Mr. Maule was not parliamentary, and did not understand.
+"Why trouble,--except to himself? He'll leave his Garter and
+strawberry-leaves, and all his acres behind him."
+
+"What is Gresham to do about the Exchequer when he comes in? I don't
+know whom he's to send there. They talk of Bonteen, but Bonteen
+hasn't half weight enough. They'll offer it to Monk, but Monk 'll
+never take office again."
+
+"Ah, yes. Planty Pall was Chancellor of the Exchequer. I suppose he
+must give that up now?"
+
+The parliamentary acquaintance looked up at the unparliamentary man
+with that mingled disgust and pity which parliamentary gentlemen and
+ladies always entertain for those who have not devoted their minds
+to the constitutional forms of the country. "The Chancellor of the
+Exchequer can't very well sit in the House of Lords, and Palliser
+can't very well help becoming Duke of Omnium. I don't know whether he
+can take the decimal coinage question with him, but I fear not. They
+don't like it at all in the city."
+
+"I believe I'll go and play a rubber of whist," said Mr. Maule.
+He played his whist, and lost thirty points without showing the
+slightest displeasure, either by the tone of his voice or by any
+grimace of his countenance. And yet the money which passed from his
+hands was material to him. But he was great at such efforts as these,
+and he understood well the fluctuations of the whist table. The
+half-crowns which he had paid were only so much invested capital.
+
+He dined at his club this evening, and joined tables with another
+acquaintance who was not parliamentary. Mr. Parkinson Seymour was
+a man much of his own stamp, who cared not one straw as to any
+difficulty which the Prime Minister might feel in filling the office
+of Chancellor of the Exchequer. There were men by dozens ready and
+willing, and no doubt able,--or at any rate, one as able as the
+other,--to manage the taxes of the country. But the blue riband and
+the Lord Lieutenancy of Barsetshire were important things,--which
+would now be in the gift of Mr. Daubeny; and Lady Glencora would at
+last be a duchess,--with much effect on Society, either good or bad.
+And Planty Pall would be a duke, with very much less capability, as
+Mr. Parkinson Seymour thought, for filling that great office, than
+that which the man had displayed who was now supposed to be dying
+at Matching. "He has been a fine old fellow," said Mr. Parkinson
+Seymour.
+
+"Very much so. There ain't many of that stamp left."
+
+"I don't know one," continued the gentleman, with enthusiasm. "They
+all go in for something now, just as Jones goes in for being a bank
+clerk. They are politicians, or gamblers, or, by heaven, tradesmen,
+as some of them are. The Earl of Tydvil and Lord Merthyr are in
+partnership together working their own mines,--by the Lord, with a
+regular deed of partnership, just like two cheesemongers. The Marquis
+of Maltanops has a share in a bitter beer house at Burton. And
+the Duke of Discount, who married old Ballance's daughter, and is
+brother-in-law to young George Advance, retains his interest in the
+house in Lombard Street. I know it for a fact."
+
+"Old Omnium was above that kind of thing," said Mr. Maule.
+
+"Lord bless you;--quite another sort of man. There is nothing left
+like it now. With a princely income I don't suppose he ever put by
+a shilling in his life. I've heard it said that he couldn't afford
+to marry, living in the manner in which he chose to live. And he
+understood what dignity meant. None of them understand that now.
+Dukes are as common as dogs in the streets, and a marquis thinks no
+more of himself than a market-gardener. I'm very sorry the old duke
+should go. The nephew may be very good at figures, but he isn't fit
+to fill his uncle's shoes. As for Lady Glencora, no doubt as things
+go now she's very popular, but she's more like a dairy-maid than a
+duchess to my way of thinking."
+
+There was not a club in London, and hardly a drawing-room in which
+something was not said that day in consequence of the two bulletins
+which had appeared as to the condition of the old Duke;--and in no
+club and in no drawing-room was a verdict given against the dying
+man. It was acknowledged everywhere that he had played his part in a
+noble and even in a princely manner, that he had used with a becoming
+grace the rich things that had been given him, and that he had
+deserved well of his country. And yet, perhaps, no man who had lived
+during the same period, or any portion of the period, had done less,
+or had devoted himself more entirely to the consumption of good
+things without the slightest idea of producing anything in return!
+But he had looked like a duke, and known how to set a high price on
+his own presence.
+
+To Mr. Maule the threatened demise of this great man was not without
+a peculiar interest. His acquaintance with Madame Goesler had not
+been of long standing, nor even as yet had it reached a close
+intimacy. During the last London season he had been introduced to
+her, and had dined twice at her house. He endeavoured to make himself
+agreeable to her, and he flattered himself that he had succeeded. It
+may be said of him generally, that he had the gift of making himself
+pleasant to women. When last she had parted from him with a smile,
+repeating the last few words of some good story which he had told
+her, the idea struck him that she after all might perhaps be the
+woman. He made his inquiries, and had learned that there was not
+a shadow of a doubt as to her wealth,--or even to her power of
+disposing of that wealth as she pleased. So he wrote to her a pretty
+little note, in which he gave to her the history of that good story,
+how it originated with a certain Cardinal, and might be found in
+certain memoirs,--which did not, however, bear the best reputation in
+the world. Madame Goesler answered his note very graciously, thanking
+him for the reference, but declaring that the information given was
+already so sufficient that she need prosecute the inquiry no further.
+Mr. Maule smiled as he declared to himself that those memoirs would
+certainly be in Madame Goesler's hands before many days were over.
+Had his intimacy been a little more advanced he would have sent the
+volume to her.
+
+But he also learned that there was some romance in the lady's life
+which connected her with the Duke of Omnium. He was diligent in
+seeking information, and became assured that there could be no chance
+for himself, or for any man, as long as the Duke was alive. Some
+hinted that there had been a private marriage,--a marriage, however,
+which Madame Goesler had bound herself by solemn oaths never to
+disclose. Others surmised that she was the Duke's daughter. Hints
+were, of course, thrown out as to a connection of another kind,--but
+with no great vigour, as it was admitted on all hands that Lady
+Glencora, the Duke's niece by marriage, and the mother of the Duke's
+future heir, was Madame Goesler's great friend. That there was
+a mystery was a fact very gratifying to the world at large; and
+perhaps, upon the whole, the more gratifying in that nothing had
+occurred to throw a gleam of light upon the matter since the fact
+of the intimacy had become generally known. Mr. Maule was aware,
+however, that there could be no success for him as long as the Duke
+lived. Whatever might be the nature of the alliance, it was too
+strong to admit of any other while it lasted. But the Duke was a very
+old,--or, at least, a very infirm man. And now the Duke was dying.
+Of course it was only a chance. Mr. Maule knew the world too well
+to lay out any great portion of his hopes on a prospect so doubtful.
+But it was worth a struggle, and he would so struggle that he might
+enjoy success, should success come, without laying himself open
+to the pangs of disappointment. Mr. Maule hated to be unhappy or
+uncomfortable, and therefore never allowed any aspiration to proceed
+to such length as to be inconvenient to his feelings should it not be
+gratified.
+
+In the meantime Madame Max Goesler had been sent for, and had hurried
+off to Matching almost without a moment's preparation. As she sat in
+the train, thinking of it, tears absolutely filled her eyes. "Poor
+dear old man," she said to herself; and yet the poor dear old man had
+simply been a trouble to her, adding a most disagreeable task to her
+life, and one which she was not called on to perform by any sense of
+duty. "How is he?" she said anxiously, when she met Lady Glencora in
+the hall at Matching. The two women kissed each other as though they
+had been almost sisters since their birth. "He is a little better
+now, but he was very uneasy when we telegraphed this morning. He
+asked for you twice, and then we thought it better to send."
+
+"Oh, of course it was best," said Madame Goesler.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+"I WOULD DO IT NOW."
+
+
+Though it was rumoured all over London that the Duke of Omnium was
+dying, his Grace had been dressed and taken out of his bed-chamber
+into a sitting-room, when Madame Goesler was brought into his
+presence by Lady Glencora Palliser. He was reclining in a great
+arm-chair, with his legs propped up on cushions, and a respectable
+old lady in a black silk gown and a very smart cap was attending
+to his wants. The respectable old lady took her departure when the
+younger ladies entered the room, whispering a word of instruction
+to Lady Glencora as she went. "His Grace should have his broth at
+half-past four, my lady, and a glass and a half of champagne. His
+Grace won't drink his wine out of a tumbler, so perhaps your ladyship
+won't mind giving it him at twice."
+
+"Marie has come," said Lady Glencora.
+
+"I knew she would come," said the old man, turning his head round
+slowly on the back of his chair. "I knew she would be good to me to
+the last." And he laid his withered hand on the arm of his chair, so
+that the woman whose presence gratified him might take it within hers
+and comfort him.
+
+"Of course I have come," said Madame Goesler, standing close by him
+and putting her left arm very lightly on his shoulder. It was all
+that she could do for him, but it was in order that she might do this
+that she had been summoned from London to his side. He was wan and
+worn and pale,--a man evidently dying, the oil of whose lamp was all
+burned out; but still as he turned his eyes up to the woman's face
+there was a remnant of that look of graceful fainéant nobility which
+had always distinguished him. He had never done any good, but he
+had always carried himself like a duke, and like a duke he carried
+himself to the end.
+
+"He is decidedly better than he was this morning," said Lady
+Glencora.
+
+"It is pretty nearly all over, my dear. Sit down, Marie. Did they
+give you anything after your journey?"
+
+"I could not wait, Duke."
+
+"I'll get her some tea," said Lady Glencora. "Yes, I will. I'll do it
+myself. I know he wants to say a word to you alone." This she added
+in a whisper.
+
+But sick people hear everything, and the Duke did hear the whisper.
+"Yes, my dear;--she is quite right. I am glad to have you for a
+minute alone. Do you love me, Marie?"
+
+It was a foolish question to be asked by a dying old man of a young
+woman who was in no way connected with him, and whom he had never
+seen till some three or four years since. But it was asked with
+feverish anxiety, and it required an answer. "You know I love you,
+Duke. Why else should I be here?"
+
+"It is a pity you did not take the coronet when I offered it you."
+
+"Nay, Duke, it was no pity. Had I done so, you could not have had us
+both."
+
+"I should have wanted only you."
+
+"And I should have stood aloof,--in despair to think that I was
+separating you from those with whom your Grace is bound up so
+closely. We have ever been dear friends since that."
+
+"Yes;--we have been dear friends. But--" Then he closed his eyes, and
+put his long thin fingers across his face, and lay back awhile in
+silence, still holding her by the other hand. "Kiss me, Marie," he
+said at last; and she stooped over him and kissed his forehead. "I
+would do it now if I thought it would serve you." She only shook her
+head and pressed his hand closely. "I would; I would. Such things
+have been done, my dear."
+
+
+[Illustration: "I would; I would."]
+
+
+"Such a thing shall never be done by me, Duke."
+
+They remained seated side by side, the one holding the other by the
+hand, but without uttering another word, till Lady Glencora returned
+bringing a cup of tea and a morsel of toast in her own hand. Madame
+Goesler, as she took it, could not help thinking how it might have
+been with her had she accepted the coronet which had been offered. In
+that case she might have been a duchess herself, but assuredly she
+would not have been waited upon by a future duchess. As it was, there
+was no one in that family who had not cause to be grateful to her.
+When the Duke had sipped a spoonful of his broth, and swallowed his
+allowance of wine, they both left him, and the respectable old lady
+with the smart cap was summoned back to her position. "I suppose he
+whispered something very gracious to you," Lady Glencora said when
+they were alone.
+
+"Very gracious."
+
+"And you were gracious to him,--I hope."
+
+"I meant to be."
+
+"I'm sure you did. Poor old man! If you had done what he asked you I
+wonder whether his affection would have lasted as it has done."
+
+"Certainly not, Lady Glen. He would have known that I had injured
+him."
+
+"I declare I think you are the wisest woman I ever met, Madame Max.
+I am sure you are the most discreet. If I had always been as wise as
+you are!"
+
+"You always have been wise."
+
+"Well,--never mind. Some people fall on their feet like cats; but you
+are one of those who never fall at all. Others tumble about in the
+most unfortunate way, without any great fault of their own. Think of
+that poor Lady Laura."
+
+"Yes, indeed."
+
+"I suppose it's true about Mr. Kennedy. You've heard of it of course
+in London." But as it happened Madame Goesler had not heard the
+story. "I got it from Barrington Erle, who always writes to me if
+anything happens. Mr. Kennedy has fired a pistol at the head of
+Phineas Finn."
+
+"At Phineas Finn!"
+
+"Yes, indeed. Mr. Finn went to him at some hotel in London. No
+one knows what it was about; but Mr. Kennedy went off in a fit of
+jealousy, and fired a pistol at him."
+
+"He did not hit him?"
+
+"It seems not. Mr. Finn is one of those Irish gentlemen who always
+seem to be under some special protection. The ball went through his
+whiskers and didn't hurt him."
+
+"And what has become of Mr. Kennedy?"
+
+"Nothing, it seems. Nobody sent for the police, and he has been
+allowed to go back to Scotland,--as though a man were permitted by
+special Act of Parliament to try to murder his wife's lover. It would
+be a bad law, because it would cause such a deal of bloodshed."
+
+"But he is not Lady Laura's lover," said Madame Goesler, gravely.
+
+"That would make the law difficult, because who is to say whether a
+man is or is not a woman's lover?"
+
+"I don't think there was ever anything of that kind."
+
+"They were always together, but I dare say it was Platonic. I
+believe these kind of things generally are Platonic. And as for Lady
+Laura;--heavens and earth!--I suppose it must have been Platonic.
+What did the Duke say to you?"
+
+"He bade me kiss him."
+
+"Poor dear old man. He never ceases to speak of you when you are
+away, and I do believe he could not have gone in peace without seeing
+you. I doubt whether in all his life he ever loved any one as he
+loves you. We dine at half-past seven, dear: and you had better just
+go into his room for a moment as you come down. There isn't a soul
+here except Sir Omicron Pie, and Plantagenet, and two of the other
+nephews,--whom, by the bye, he has refused to see. Old Lady Hartletop
+wanted to come."
+
+"And you wouldn't have her?"
+
+"I couldn't have refused. I shouldn't have dared. But the Duke would
+not hear of it. He made me write to say that he was too weak to see
+any but his nearest relatives. Then he made me send for you, my
+dear;--and now he won't see the relatives. What shall we do if Lady
+Hartletop turns up? I'm living in fear of it. You'll have to be shut
+up out of sight somewhere if that should happen."
+
+During the next two or three days the Duke was neither much better
+nor much worse. Bulletins appeared in the newspapers, though no one
+at Matching knew from whence they came. Sir Omicron Pie, who, having
+retired from general practice, was enabled to devote his time to the
+"dear Duke," protested that he had no hand in sending them out. He
+declared to Lady Glencora every morning that it was only a question
+of time. "The vital spark is on the spring," said Sir Omicron, waving
+a gesture heavenward with his hand. For three days Mr. Palliser was
+at Matching, and he duly visited his uncle twice a day. But not a
+syllable was ever said between them beyond the ordinary words of
+compliments. Mr. Palliser spent his time with his private secretary,
+working out endless sums and toiling for unapproachable results in
+reference to decimal coinage. To him his uncle's death would be a
+great blow, as in his eyes to be Chancellor of the Exchequer was much
+more than to be Duke of Omnium. For herself Lady Glencora was nearly
+equally indifferent, though she did in her heart of hearts wish that
+her son should go to Eton with the title of Lord Silverbridge.
+
+On the third morning the Duke suddenly asked a question of Madame
+Goesler. The two were again sitting near to each other, and the Duke
+was again holding her hand; but Lady Glencora was also in the room.
+"Have you not been staying with Lord Chiltern?"
+
+"Yes, Duke."
+
+"He is a friend of yours."
+
+"I used to know his wife before they were married."
+
+"Why does he go on writing me letters about a wood?" This he asked in
+a wailing voice, as though he were almost weeping. "I know nothing
+of Lord Chiltern. Why does he write to me about the wood? I wish he
+wouldn't write to me."
+
+"He does not know that you are ill, Duke. By-the-bye, I promised to
+speak to Lady Glencora about it. He says that foxes are poisoned at
+Trumpeton Wood."
+
+"I don't believe a word of it," said the Duke. "No one would poison
+foxes in my wood. I wish you'd see about it, Glencora. Plantagenet
+will never attend to anything. But he shouldn't write to me. He ought
+to know better than to write letters to me. I will not have people
+writing letters to me. Why don't they write to Fothergill?" and then
+the Duke began in truth to whimper.
+
+"I'll put it all right," said Lady Glencora.
+
+"I wish you would. I don't like them to say there are no foxes; and
+Plantagenet never will attend to anything." The wife had long since
+ceased to take the husband's part when accusations such as this were
+brought against him. Nothing could make Mr. Palliser think it worth
+his while to give up any shred of his time to such a matter as the
+preservation of foxes.
+
+On the fourth day the catastrophe happened which Lady Glencora had
+feared. A fly with a pair of horses from the Matching Road station
+was driven up to the door of the Priory, and Lady Hartletop was
+announced. "I knew it," said Lady Glencora, slapping her hand down on
+the table in the room in which she was sitting with Madame Goesler.
+Unfortunately the old lady was shown into the room before Madame
+Goesler could escape, and they passed each other on the threshold.
+The Dowager Marchioness of Hartletop was a very stout old lady, now
+perhaps nearer to seventy than sixty-five years of age, who for many
+years had been the intimate friend of the Duke of Omnium. In latter
+days, during which she had seen but little of the Duke himself, she
+had heard of Madame Max Goesler, but she had never met that lady.
+Nevertheless, she knew the rival friend at a glance. Some instinct
+told her that that woman with the black brow and the dark curls was
+Madame Goesler. In these days the Marchioness was given to waddling
+rather than to walking, but she waddled past the foreign female,--as
+she had often called Madame Max,--with a dignified though duck-like
+step. Lady Hartletop was a bold woman; and it must be supposed that
+she had some heart within her or she would hardly have made such
+a journey with such a purpose. "Dear Lady Hartletop," said Lady
+Glencora, "I am so sorry that you should have had this trouble."
+
+"I must see him," said Lady Hartletop. Lady Glencora put both her
+hands together piteously, as though deprecating her visitor's wrath.
+"I must insist on seeing him."
+
+"Sir Omicron has refused permission to any one to visit him."
+
+"I shall not go till I've seen him. Who was that lady?"
+
+"A friend of mine," said Lady Glencora, drawing herself up.
+
+"She is--, Madame Goesler."
+
+"That is her name, Lady Hartletop. She is my most intimate friend."
+
+"Does she see the Duke?"
+
+Lady Glencora, when expressing her fear that the woman would come
+to Matching, had confessed that she was afraid of Lady Hartletop.
+And a feeling of dismay--almost of awe--had fallen upon her on
+hearing the Marchioness announced. But when she found herself thus
+cross-examined, she resolved that she would be bold. Nothing on
+earth should induce her to open the door of the Duke's room to Lady
+Hartletop, nor would she scruple to tell the truth about Madame
+Goesler. "Yes," she said, "Madame Goesler does see the Duke."
+
+"And I am to be excluded!"
+
+"My dear Lady Hartletop, what can I do? The Duke for some time past
+has been accustomed to the presence of my friend, and therefore her
+presence now is no disturbance. Surely that can be understood."
+
+"I should not disturb him."
+
+"He would be inexpressibly excited were he to know that you were even
+in the house. And I could not take it upon myself to tell him."
+
+Then Lady Hartletop threw herself upon a sofa, and began to weep
+piteously. "I have known him for more than forty years," she moaned,
+through her choking tears. Lady Glencora's heart was softened, and
+she was kind and womanly; but she would not give way about the Duke.
+It would, as she knew, have been useless, as the Duke had declared
+that he would see no one except his eldest nephew, his nephew's wife,
+and Madame Goesler.
+
+That evening was very dreadful to all of them at Matching,--except
+to the Duke, who was never told of Lady Hartletop's perseverance.
+The poor old woman could not be sent away on that afternoon, and was
+therefore forced to dine with Mr. Palliser. He, however, was warned
+by his wife to say nothing in the lady's presence about his uncle,
+and he received her as he would receive any other chance guest
+at his wife's table. But the presence of Madame Goesler made the
+chief difficulty. She herself was desirous of disappearing for that
+evening, but Lady Glencora would not permit it. "She has seen you,
+my dear, and asked about you. If you hide yourself, she'll say all
+sorts of things." An introduction was therefore necessary, and Lady
+Hartletop's manner was grotesquely grand. She dropped a very low
+curtsey, and made a very long face, but she did not say a word. In
+the evening the Marchioness sat close to Lady Glencora, whispering
+many things about the Duke; and condescending at last to a final
+entreaty that she might be permitted to see him on the following
+morning. "There is Sir Omicron," said Lady Glencora, turning round
+to the little doctor. But Lady Hartletop was too proud to appeal to
+Sir Omicron, who, as a matter of course, would support the orders of
+Lady Glencora. On the next morning Madame Goesler did not appear at
+the breakfast-table, and at eleven Lady Hartletop was taken back to
+the train in Lady Glencora's carriage. She had submitted herself to
+discomfort, indignity, fatigue, and disappointment; and it had all
+been done for love. With her broad face, and her double chin, and her
+heavy jowl, and the beard that was growing round her lips, she did
+not look like a romantic woman; but, in spite of appearances, romance
+and a duck-like waddle may go together. The memory of those forty
+years had been strong upon her, and her heart was heavy because she
+could not see that old man once again. Men will love to the last,
+but they love what is fresh and new. A woman's love can live on the
+recollection of the past, and cling to what is old and ugly. "What
+an episode!" said Lady Glencora, when the unwelcome visitor was
+gone;--"but it's odd how much less dreadful things are than you think
+they will be. I was frightened when I heard her name; but you see
+we've got through it without much harm."
+
+A week passed by, and still the Duke was living. But now he was too
+weak to be moved from one room to another, and Madame Goesler passed
+two hours each day sitting by his bedside. He would lie with his hand
+out upon the coverlid, and she would put hers upon it; but very few
+words passed between them. He grumbled again about the Trumpeton
+Woods, and Lord Chiltern's interference, and complained of his
+nephew's indifference. As to himself and his own condition, he seemed
+to be, at any rate, without discomfort, and was certainly free from
+fear. A clergyman attended him, and gave him the sacrament. He took
+it,--as the champagne prescribed by Sir Omicron, or the few mouthfuls
+of chicken broth which were administered to him by the old lady with
+the smart cap; but it may be doubted whether he thought much more of
+the one remedy than of the other. He knew that he had lived, and that
+the thing was done. His courage never failed him. As to the future,
+he neither feared much nor hoped much; but was, unconsciously,
+supported by a general trust in the goodness and the greatness of
+the God who had made him what he was. "It is nearly done now, Marie,"
+he said to Madame Goesler one evening. She only pressed his hand in
+answer. His condition was too well understood between them to allow
+of her speaking to him of any possible recovery. "It has been a great
+comfort to me that I have known you," he said.
+
+"Oh no!"
+
+"A great comfort;--only I wish it had been sooner. I could have
+talked to you about things which I never did talk of to any one. I
+wonder why I should have been a duke, and another man a servant."
+
+"God Almighty ordained such difference."
+
+"I'm afraid I have not done it well;--but I have tried; indeed I have
+tried." Then she told him he had ever lived as a great nobleman ought
+to live. And, after a fashion, she herself believed what she was
+saying. Nevertheless, her nature was much nobler than his; and she
+knew that no man should dare to live idly as the Duke had lived.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+THE DUKE'S WILL.
+
+
+On the ninth day after Madame Goesler's arrival the Duke died, and
+Lady Glencora Palliser became Duchess of Omnium. But the change
+probably was much greater to Mr. Palliser than to his wife. It would
+seem to be impossible to imagine a greater change than had come upon
+him. As to rank, he was raised from that of a simple commoner to the
+very top of the tree. He was made master of almost unlimited wealth,
+Garters, and lord-lieutenancies; and all the added grandeurs which
+come from high influence when joined to high rank were sure to be
+his. But he was no more moved by these things than would have been a
+god, or a block of wood. His uncle was dead; but his uncle had been
+an old man, and his grief on that score was moderate. As soon as his
+uncle's body had been laid in the family vault at Gatherum, men would
+call him Duke of Omnium; and then he could never sit again in the
+House of Commons. It was in that light, and in that light only, that
+he regarded the matter. To his uncle it had been everything to be
+Duke of Omnium. To Plantagenet Palliser it was less than nothing.
+He had lived among men and women with titles all his life, himself
+untitled, but regarded by them as one of themselves, till the thing,
+in his estimation, had come to seem almost nothing. One man walked
+out of a room before another man; and he, as Chancellor of the
+Exchequer, had, during a part of his career, walked out of most rooms
+before most men. But he cared not at all whether he walked out first
+or last,--and for him there was nothing else in it. It was a toy that
+would perhaps please his wife, but he doubted even whether she would
+not cease to be Lady Glencora with regret. In himself this thing that
+had happened had absolutely crushed him. He had won for himself by
+his own aptitudes and his own industry one special position in the
+empire,--and that position, and that alone, was incompatible with the
+rank which he was obliged to assume! His case was very hard, and he
+felt it;--but he made no complaint to human ears. "I suppose you must
+give up the Exchequer," his wife said to him. He shook his head, and
+made no reply. Even to her he could not explain his feelings.
+
+I think, too, that she did regret the change in her name, though she
+was by no means indifferent to the rank. As Lady Glencora she had
+made a reputation which might very possibly fall away from her as
+Duchess of Omnium. Fame is a skittish jade, more fickle even than
+Fortune, and apt to shy, and bolt, and plunge away on very trifling
+causes. As Lady Glencora Palliser she was known to every one, and had
+always done exactly as she had pleased. The world in which she lived
+had submitted to her fantasies, and had placed her on a pedestal from
+which, as Lady Glencora, nothing could have moved her. She was by no
+means sure that the same pedestal would be able to carry the Duchess
+of Omnium. She must begin again, and such beginnings are dangerous.
+As Lady Glencora she had almost taken upon herself to create a
+rivalry in society to certain very distinguished, and indeed
+illustrious, people. There were only two houses in London, she used
+to say, to which she never went. The "never" was not quite true;--but
+there had been something in it. She doubted whether as Duchess of
+Omnium she could go on with this. She must lay down her mischief,
+and abandon her eccentricity, and in some degree act like other
+duchesses. "The poor old man," she said to Madame Goesler; "I wish
+he could have gone on living a little longer." At this time the
+two ladies were alone together at Matching. Mr. Palliser, with the
+cousins, had gone to Gatherum, whither also had been sent all that
+remained of the late Duke, in order that fitting funeral obsequies
+might be celebrated over the great family vault.
+
+"He would hardly have wished it himself, I think."
+
+"One never knows,--and as far as one can look into futurity one has
+no idea what would be one's own feelings. I suppose he did enjoy
+life."
+
+"Hardly, for the last twelve months," said Madame Goesler.
+
+"I think he did. He was happy when you were about him; and he
+interested himself about things. Do you remember how much he used to
+think of Lady Eustace and her diamonds? When I first knew him he was
+too magnificent to care about anything."
+
+"I suppose his nature was the same."
+
+"Yes, my dear; his nature was the same, but he was strong enough to
+restrain his nature, and wise enough to know that his magnificence
+was incompatible with ordinary interests. As he got to be older he
+broke down, and took up with mere mortal gossip. But I think it must
+have made him happier."
+
+"He showed his weakness in coming to me," said Madame Goesler,
+laughing.
+
+"Of course he did;--not in liking your society, but in wanting to
+give you his name. I have often wondered what kind of things he used
+to say to that old Lady Hartletop. That was in his full grandeur,
+and he never condescended to speak much then. I used to think him so
+hard; but I suppose he was only acting his part. I used to call him
+the Grand Lama to Plantagenet when we were first married,--before
+Planty was born. I shall always call him Silverbridge now instead of
+Planty."
+
+"I would let others do that."
+
+"Of course I was joking; but others will, and he will be spoilt.
+I wonder whether he will live to be a Grand Lama or a popular
+Minister. There cannot be two positions further apart. My husband,
+no doubt, thinks a good deal of himself as a statesman and a clever
+politician,--at least I suppose he does; but he has not the slightest
+reverence for himself as a nobleman. If the dear old Duke were
+hobbling along Piccadilly, he was conscious that Piccadilly was
+graced by his presence, and never moved without being aware that
+people looked at him, and whispered to each other,--'There goes the
+Duke of Omnium.' Plantagenet considers himself inferior to a sweeper
+while on the crossing, and never feels any pride of place unless he
+is sitting on the Treasury Bench with his hat over his eyes."
+
+"He'll never sit on the Treasury Bench again."
+
+"No;--poor dear. He's an Othello now with a vengeance, for his
+occupation is gone. I spoke to him about your friend and the foxes,
+and he told me to write to Mr. Fothergill. I will as soon as it's
+decent. I fancy a new duchess shouldn't write letters about foxes
+till the old Duke is buried. I wonder what sort of a will he'll have
+made. There's nothing I care twopence for except his pearls. No man
+in England had such a collection of precious stones. They'd been
+yours, my dear, if you had consented to be Mrs. O."
+
+The Duke was buried and the will was read, and Plantagenet Palliser
+was addressed as Duke of Omnium by all the tenantry and retainers
+of the family in the great hall of Gatherum Castle. Mr. Fothergill,
+who had upon occasion in former days been driven by his duty to
+remonstrate with the heir, was all submission. Planty Pall had come
+to the throne, and half a county was ready to worship him. But he
+did not know how to endure worship, and the half county declared
+that he was stern and proud, and more haughty even than his uncle.
+At every "Grace" that was flung at him he winced and was miserable,
+and declared to himself that he should never become accustomed to
+his new life. So he sat all alone, and meditated how he might best
+reconcile the forty-eight farthings which go to a shilling with that
+thorough-going useful decimal, fifty.
+
+But his meditations did not prevent him from writing to his wife, and
+on the following morning, Lady Glencora,--as she shall be called now
+for the last time,--received a letter from him which disturbed her a
+good deal. She was in her room when it was brought to her, and for
+an hour after reading it hardly knew how to see her guest and friend,
+Madame Goesler. The passage in the letter which produced this dismay
+was as follows:--"He has left to Madame Goesler twenty thousand
+pounds and all his jewels. The money may be very well, but I think
+he has been wrong about the jewellery. As to myself I do not care a
+straw, but you will be sorry; and then people will talk. The lawyers
+will, of course, write to her, but I suppose you had better tell her.
+They seem to think that the stones are worth a great deal of money;
+but I have long learned never to believe any statement that is made
+to me. They are all here, and I suppose she will have to send some
+authorised person to have them packed. There is a regular inventory,
+of which a copy shall be sent to her by post as soon as it can be
+prepared." Now it must be owned that the duchess did begrudge her
+friend the duke's collection of pearls and diamonds.
+
+About noon they met. "My dear," she said, "you had better hear your
+good fortune at once. Read that,--just that side. Plantagenet is
+wrong in saying that I shall regret it. I don't care a bit about
+it. If I want a ring or a brooch he can buy me one. But I never did
+care about such things, and I don't now. The money is all just as it
+should be." Madame Goesler read the passage, and the blood mounted
+up into her face. She read it very slowly, and when she had finished
+reading it she was for a moment or two at a loss for her words to
+express herself. "You had better send one of Garnett's people,"
+said the Duchess, naming the house of a distinguished jeweller and
+goldsmith in London.
+
+"It will hardly need," said Madame Goesler.
+
+"You had better be careful. There is no knowing what they are worth.
+He spent half his income on them, I believe, during part of his
+life." There was a roughness about the Duchess of which she was
+herself conscious, but which she could not restrain, though she knew
+that it betrayed her chagrin.
+
+Madame Goesler came gently up to her and touched her arm caressingly.
+"Do you remember," said Madame Goesler, "a small ring with a black
+diamond,--I suppose it was a diamond,--which he always wore?"
+
+"I remember that he always did wear such a ring."
+
+"I should like to have that," said Madame Goesler.
+
+"You have them all,--everything. He makes no distinction."
+
+"I should like to have that, Lady Glen,--for the sake of the hand
+that wore it. But, as God is great above us, I will never take aught
+else that has belonged to the Duke."
+
+"Not take them!"
+
+"Not a gem; not a stone; not a shilling."
+
+"But you must."
+
+"I rather think that I can be under no such obligation," she said,
+laughing. "Will you write to Mr. Palliser,--or I should say, to the
+Duke,--to-night, and tell him that my mind is absolutely made up?"
+
+"I certainly shall not do that."
+
+"Then I must. As it is, I shall have pleasant memories of his Grace.
+According to my ability I have endeavoured to be good to him, and I
+have no stain on my conscience because of his friendship. If I took
+his money and his jewels,--or rather your money and your jewels,--do
+you think I could say as much?"
+
+"Everybody takes what anybody leaves them by will."
+
+"I will be an exception to the rule, Lady Glen. Don't you think that
+your friendship is more to me than all the diamonds in London?"
+
+"You shall have both, my dear," said the Duchess,--quite in earnest
+in her promise. Madame Goesler shook her head. "Nobody ever
+repudiates legacies. The Queen would take the jewels if they were
+left to her."
+
+"I am not the Queen. I have to be more careful what I do than any
+queen. I will take nothing under the Duke's will. I will ask a boon
+which I have already named, and if it be given me as a gift by
+the Duke's heir, I will wear it till I die. You will write to Mr.
+Palliser?"
+
+"I couldn't do it," said the Duchess.
+
+"Then I will write myself." And she did write, and of all the rich
+things which the Duke of Omnium had left to her, she took nothing but
+the little ring with the black stone which he had always worn on his
+finger.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+AN EDITOR'S WRATH.
+
+
+On that Sunday evening in London Mr. Low was successful in finding
+the Vice-Chancellor, and the great judge smiled and nodded, listened
+to the story, and acknowledged that the circumstances were very
+peculiar. He thought that an injunction to restrain the publication
+might be given at once upon Mr. Finn's affidavit; and that the
+peculiar circumstances justified the peculiarity of Mr. Low's
+application. Whether he would have said as much had the facts
+concerned the families of Mr. Joseph Smith and his son-in-law Mr.
+John Jones, instead of the Earl of Brentford and the Right Honourable
+Robert Kennedy, some readers will perhaps doubt, and may doubt also
+whether an application coming from some newly-fledged barrister would
+have been received as graciously as that made by Mr. Low, Q.C. and
+M.P.,--who would probably himself soon sit on some lofty legal bench.
+On the following morning Phineas and Mr. Low,--and no doubt also Mr.
+Vice-Chancellor Pickering,--obtained early copies of the People's
+Banner, and were delighted to find that Mr. Kennedy's letter did not
+appear in it. Mr. Low had made his calculation rightly. The editor,
+considering that he would gain more by having the young member of
+Parliament and the Standish family, as it were, in his hands than by
+the publication of a certain libellous letter, had resolved to put
+the document back for at least twenty-four hours, even though the
+young member neither came nor wrote as he had promised. The letter
+did not appear, and before ten o'clock Phineas Finn had made his
+affidavit in a dingy little room behind the Vice-Chancellor's Court.
+The injunction was at once issued, and was of such potency that
+should any editor dare to publish any paper therein prohibited, that
+editor and that editor's newspaper would assuredly be crumpled up in
+a manner very disagreeable, if not altogether destructive. Editors
+of newspapers are self-willed, arrogant, and stiff-necked, a race
+of men who believe much in themselves and little in anything else,
+with no feelings of reverence or respect for matters which are
+august enough to other men;--but an injunction from a Court of
+Chancery is a power which even an editor respects. At about noon
+Vice-Chancellor Pickering's injunction was served at the office of
+the People's Banner in Quartpot Alley, Fleet Street. It was done
+in duplicate,--or perhaps in triplicate,--so that there should be
+no evasion; and all manner of crumpling was threatened in the event
+of any touch of disobedience. All this happened on Monday, March the
+first, while the poor dying Duke was waiting impatiently for the
+arrival of his friend at Matching. Phineas was busy all the morning
+till it was time that he should go down to the House. For as soon as
+he could leave Mr. Low's chambers in Lincoln's Inn he had gone to
+Judd Street, to inquire as to the condition of the man who had tried
+to murder him. He there saw Mr. Kennedy's cousin, and received an
+assurance from that gentleman that Robert Kennedy should be taken
+down at once to Loughlinter. Up to that moment not a word had been
+said to the police as to what had been done. No more notice had been
+taken of the attempt to murder than might have been necessary had Mr.
+Kennedy thrown a clothes-brush at his visitor's head. There was the
+little hole in the post of the door with the bullet in it, just six
+feet above the ground; and there was the pistol, with five chambers
+still loaded, which Macpherson had cunningly secured on his return
+from church, and given over to the cousin that same evening. There
+was certainly no want of evidence, but nobody was disposed to use it.
+
+At noon the injunction was served in Quartpot Alley, and was put into
+Mr. Slide's hands on his arrival at the office at three o'clock. That
+gentleman's duties required his attendance from three till five in
+the afternoon, and then again from nine in the evening till any hour
+in the morning at which he might be able to complete the People's
+Banner for that day's use. He had been angry with Phineas when the
+Sunday night passed without a visit or letter at the office, as
+a promise had been made that there should be either a visit or a
+letter; but he had felt sure, as he walked into the city from his
+suburban residence at Camden Town, that he would now find some
+communication on the great subject. The matter was one of most
+serious importance. Such a letter as that which was in his possession
+would no doubt create much surprise, and receive no ordinary
+attention. A People's Banner could hardly ask for a better bit of
+good fortune than the privilege of first publishing such a letter. It
+would no doubt be copied into every London paper, and into hundreds
+of provincial papers, and every journal so copying it would be
+bound to declare that it was taken from the columns of the People's
+Banner. It was, indeed, addressed "To the Editor of the People's
+Banner" in the printed slip which Mr. Slide had shown to Phineas
+Finn, though Kennedy himself had not prefixed to it any such
+direction. And the letter, in the hands of Quintus Slide, would
+not simply have been a letter. It might have been groundwork for,
+perhaps, some half-dozen leading articles, all of a most attractive
+kind. Mr. Slide's high moral tone upon such an occasion would have
+been qualified to do good to every British matron, and to add
+virtues to the Bench of Bishops. All this he had postponed with some
+inadequately defined idea that he could do better with the property
+in his hands by putting himself into personal communication with the
+persons concerned. If he could manage to reconcile such a husband
+to such a wife,--or even to be conspicuous in an attempt to do so;
+and if he could make the old Earl and the young Member of Parliament
+feel that he had spared them by abstaining from the publication, the
+results might be very beneficial. His conception of the matter had
+been somewhat hazy, and he had certainly made a mistake. But, as
+he walked from his home to Quartpot Alley, he little dreamed of
+the treachery with which he had been treated. "Has Phineas Finn
+been here?" he asked as he took his accustomed seat within a small
+closet, that might be best described as a glass cage. Around him lay
+the debris of many past newspapers, and the germs of many future
+publications. To all the world except himself it would have been a
+chaos, but to him, with his experience, it was admirable order. No;
+Mr. Finn had not been there. And then, as he was searching among the
+letters for one from the Member for Tankerville, the injunction was
+thrust into his hands. To say that he was aghast is but a poor form
+of speech for the expression of his emotion.
+
+He had been "done"--"sold,"--absolutely robbed by that
+wretchedly-false Irishman whom he had trusted with all the confidence
+of a candid nature and an open heart! He had been most treacherously
+misused! Treachery was no adequate word for the injury inflicted
+on him. The more potent is a man, the less accustomed to endure
+injustice, and the more his power to inflict it,--the greater is the
+sting and the greater the astonishment when he himself is made to
+suffer. Newspaper editors sport daily with the names of men of whom
+they do not hesitate to publish almost the severest words that can
+be uttered;--but let an editor be himself attacked, even without
+his name, and he thinks that the thunderbolts of heaven should fall
+upon the offender. Let his manners, his truth, his judgment, his
+honesty, or even his consistency be questioned, and thunderbolts
+are forthcoming, though they may not be from heaven. There should
+certainly be a thunderbolt or two now, but Mr. Slide did not at first
+quite see how they were to be forged.
+
+He read the injunction again and again. As far as the document went
+he knew its force, and recognised the necessity of obedience. He
+might, perhaps, be able to use the information contained in the
+letter from Mr. Kennedy, so as to harass Phineas and Lady Laura and
+the Earl, but he was at once aware that it must not be published.
+An editor is bound to avoid the meshes of the law, which are always
+infinitely more costly to companies, or things, or institutions, than
+they are to individuals. Of fighting with Chancery he had no notion;
+but it should go hard with him if he did not have a fight with
+Phineas Finn. And then there arose another cause for deep sorrow. A
+paragraph was shown to him in a morning paper of that day which must,
+he thought, refer to Mr. Kennedy and Phineas Finn. "A rumour has
+reached us that a member of Parliament, calling yesterday afternoon
+upon a right honourable gentleman, a member of a late Government, at
+his hotel, was shot at by the latter in his sitting room. Whether
+the rumour be true or not we have no means of saying, and therefore
+abstain from publishing names. We are informed that the gentleman who
+used the pistol was out of his mind. The bullet did not take effect."
+How cruel it was that such information should have reached the hands
+of a rival, and not fallen in the way of the People's Banner! And
+what a pity that the bullet should have been wasted! The paragraph
+must certainly refer to Phineas Finn and Kennedy. Finn, a Member of
+Parliament, had been sent by Slide himself to call upon Kennedy, a
+member of the late Government, at Kennedy's hotel. And the paragraph
+must be true. He himself had warned Finn that there would be danger
+in the visit. He had even prophesied murder,--and murder had been
+attempted! The whole transaction had been, as it were, the very
+goods and chattels of the People's Banner, and the paper had been
+shamefully robbed of its property. Mr. Slide hardly doubted that
+Phineas Finn had himself sent the paragraph to an adverse paper,
+with the express view of adding to the injury inflicted upon the
+Banner. That day Mr. Slide hardly did his work effectively within his
+glass cage, so much was his mind affected, and at five o'clock, when
+he left his office, instead of going at once home to Mrs. Slide at
+Camden Town, he took an omnibus, and went down to Westminster. He
+would at once confront the traitor who had deceived him.
+
+It must be acknowledged on behalf of this editor that he did in truth
+believe that he had been hindered from doing good. The whole practice
+of his life had taught him to be confident that the editor of a
+newspaper must be the best possible judge,--indeed the only possible
+good judge,--whether any statement or story should or should not
+be published. Not altogether without a conscience, and intensely
+conscious of such conscience as did constrain him, Mr. Quintus
+Slide imagined that no law of libel, no injunction from any
+Vice-Chancellor, no outward power or pressure whatever was needed to
+keep his energies within their proper limits. He and his newspaper
+formed together a simply beneficent institution, any interference
+with which must of necessity be an injury to the public. Everything
+done at the office of the People's Banner was done in the interest
+of the People,--and, even though individuals might occasionally be
+made to suffer by the severity with which their names were handled
+in its columns, the general result was good. What are the sufferings
+of the few to the advantage of the many? If there be fault in
+high places, it is proper that it be exposed. If there be fraud,
+adulteries, gambling, and lasciviousness,--or even quarrels and
+indiscretions among those whose names are known, let every detail
+be laid open to the light, so that the people may have a warning.
+That such details will make a paper "pay" Mr. Slide knew also; but
+it is not only in Mr. Slide's path of life that the bias of a man's
+mind may lead him to find that virtue and profit are compatible.
+An unprofitable newspaper cannot long continue its existence, and,
+while existing, cannot be widely beneficial. It is the circulation,
+the profitable circulation,--of forty, fifty, sixty, or a hundred
+thousand copies through all the arteries and veins of the public body
+which is beneficent. And how can such circulation be effected unless
+the taste of the public be consulted? Mr. Quintus Slide, as he walked
+up Westminster Hall, in search of that wicked member of Parliament,
+did not at all doubt the goodness of his cause. He could not contest
+the Vice-Chancellor's injunction, but he was firm in his opinion
+that the Vice-Chancellor's injunction had inflicted an evil on the
+public at large, and he was unhappy within himself in that the power
+and majesty and goodness of the press should still be hampered by
+ignorance, prejudice, and favour for the great. He was quite sure
+that no injunction would have been granted in favour of Mr. Joseph
+Smith and Mr. John Jones.
+
+He went boldly up to one of the policemen who sit guarding the door
+of the lobby of our House of Commons, and asked for Mr. Finn. The
+Cerberus on the left was not sure whether Mr. Finn was in the House,
+but would send in a card if Mr. Slide would stand on one side. For
+the next quarter of an hour Mr. Slide heard no more of his message,
+and then applied again to the Cerberus. The Cerberus shook his head,
+and again desired the applicant to stand on one side. He had done all
+that in him lay. The other watchful Cerberus standing on the right,
+observing that the intruder was not accommodated with any member,
+intimated to him the propriety of standing back in one of the
+corners. Our editor turned round upon the man as though he would
+bite him;--but he did stand back, meditating an article on the
+gross want of attention to the public shown in the lobby of the
+House of Commons. Is it possible that any editor should endure any
+inconvenience without meditating an article? But the judicious editor
+thinks twice of such things. Our editor was still in his wrath when
+he saw his prey come forth from the House with a card,--no doubt his
+own card. He leaped forward in spite of the policeman, in spite of
+any Cerberus, and seized Phineas by the arm. "I want just to have a
+few words," he said. He made an effort to repress his wrath, knowing
+that the whole world would be against him should he exhibit any
+violence of indignation on that spot; but Phineas could see it all in
+the fire of his eye.
+
+"Certainly," said Phineas, retiring to the side of the lobby, with a
+conviction that the distance between him and the House was already
+sufficient.
+
+"Can't you come down into Westminster Hall?"
+
+"I should only have to come up again. You can say what you've got to
+say here."
+
+"I've got a great deal to say. I never was so badly treated in my
+life;--never." He could not quite repress his voice, and he saw that
+a policeman looked at him. Phineas saw it also.
+
+"Because we have hindered you from publishing an untrue and very
+slanderous letter about a lady!"
+
+"You promised me that you'd come to me yesterday."
+
+"I think not. I think I said that you should hear from me,--and you
+did."
+
+"You call that truth,--and honesty!"
+
+"Certainly I do. Of course it was my first duty to stop the
+publication of the letter."
+
+"You haven't done that yet."
+
+"I've done my best to stop it. If you have nothing more to say I'll
+wish you good evening."
+
+"I've a deal more to say. You were shot at, weren't you?"
+
+"I have no desire to make any communication to you on anything that
+has occurred, Mr. Slide. If I stayed with you all the afternoon I
+could tell you nothing more. Good evening."
+
+"I'll crush you," said Quintus Slide, in a stage whisper; "I will, as
+sure as my name is Slide."
+
+Phineas looked at him and retired into the House, whither Quintus
+Slide could not follow him, and the editor of the People's Banner
+was left alone in his anger.
+
+"How a cock can crow on his own dunghill!" That was Mr. Slide's
+first feeling, as with a painful sense of diminished consequence
+he retraced his steps through the outer lobbies and down into
+Westminster Hall. He had been browbeaten by Phineas Finn, simply
+because Phineas had been able to retreat within those happy doors. He
+knew that to the eyes of all the policemen and strangers assembled
+Phineas Finn had been a hero, a Parliamentary hero, and he had
+been some poor outsider,--to be ejected at once should he make
+himself disagreeable to the Members. Nevertheless, had he not all the
+columns of the People's Banner in his pocket? Was he not great in
+the Fourth Estate,--much greater than Phineas Finn in his estate?
+Could he not thunder every night so that an audience to be counted
+by hundreds of thousands should hear his thunder;--whereas this
+poor Member of Parliament must struggle night after night for an
+opportunity of speaking; and could then only speak to benches half
+deserted; or to a few Members half asleep,--unless the Press should
+choose to convert his words into thunderbolts. Who could doubt for
+a moment with which lay the greater power? And yet this wretched
+Irishman, who had wriggled himself into Parliament on a petition,
+getting the better of a good, downright English John Bull by a
+quibble, had treated him with scorn,--the wretched Irishman being for
+the moment like a cock on his own dunghill. Quintus Slide was not
+slow to tell himself that he also had an elevation of his own, from
+which he could make himself audible. In former days he had forgiven
+Phineas Finn more than once. If he ever forgave Phineas Finn again
+might his right hand forget its cunning, and never again draw blood
+or tear a scalp.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+THE FIRST THUNDERBOLT.
+
+
+It was not till after Mr. Slide had left him that Phineas wrote the
+following letter to Lady Laura:--
+
+
+   House of Commons, 1st March, 18--.
+
+   MY DEAR FRIEND,
+
+   I have a long story to tell, which I fear I shall find
+   difficult in the telling; but it is so necessary that you
+   should know the facts that I must go through with it as
+   best I may. It will give you very great pain; but the
+   result as regards your own position will not I think be
+   injurious to you.
+
+   Yesterday, Sunday, a man came to me who edits a newspaper,
+   and whom I once knew. You will remember when I used to
+   tell you in Portman Square of the amenities and angers of
+   Mr. Slide,--the man who wanted to sit for Loughton. He is
+   the editor. He brought me a long letter from Mr. Kennedy
+   himself, intended for publication, and which was already
+   printed, giving an elaborate and, I may say, a most
+   cruelly untrue account of your quarrel. I read the letter,
+   but of course cannot remember the words. Nor if I could
+   remember them should I repeat them. They contained all the
+   old charges with which you are familiar, and which your
+   unfortunate husband now desired to publish in consummation
+   of his threats. Why Mr. Slide should have brought me the
+   paper before publishing it I can hardly understand. But he
+   did so;--and told me that Mr. Kennedy was in town. We have
+   managed among us to obtain a legal warrant for preventing
+   the publication of the letter, and I think I may say that
+   it will not see the light.
+
+   When Mr. Slide left me I called on Mr. Kennedy, whom I
+   found in a miserable little hotel, in Judd Street, kept
+   by Scotch people named Macpherson. They had come from the
+   neighbourhood of Loughlinter, and knew Mr. Kennedy well.
+   This was yesterday afternoon, Sunday, and I found some
+   difficulty in making my way into his presence. My object
+   was to induce him to withdraw the letter;--for at that
+   time I doubted whether the law could interfere quickly
+   enough to prevent the publication.
+
+   I found your husband in a very sad condition. What he said
+   or what I said I forget; but he was as usual intensely
+   anxious that you should return to him. I need not hesitate
+   now to say that he is certainly mad. After a while, when I
+   expressed my assured opinion that you would not go back to
+   Loughlinter, he suddenly turned round, grasped a revolver,
+   and fired at my head. How I got out of the room I don't
+   quite remember. Had he repeated the shot, which he might
+   have done over and over again, he must have hit me. As
+   it was I escaped, and blundered down the stairs to Mrs.
+   Macpherson's room.
+
+   They whom I have consulted in the matter, namely,
+   Barrington Erle and my particular friend, Mr. Low,--to
+   whom I went for legal assistance in stopping the
+   publication,--seem to think that I should have at once
+   sent for the police, and given Mr. Kennedy in charge. But
+   I did not do so, and hitherto the police have, I believe,
+   no knowledge of what occurred. A paragraph appeared in one
+   of the morning papers to-day, giving almost an accurate
+   account of the matter, but mentioning neither the place
+   nor any of the names. No doubt it will be repeated in
+   all the papers, and the names will soon be known. But
+   the result will be simply a general conviction as to the
+   insanity of poor Mr. Kennedy,--as to which they who know
+   him have had for a long time but little doubt.
+
+   The Macphersons seem to have been very anxious to screen
+   their guest. At any other hotel no doubt the landlord
+   would have sent for the police;--but in this case the
+   attempt was kept quite secret. They did send for George
+   Kennedy, a cousin of your husband's, whom I think you
+   know, and whom I saw this morning. He assures me that
+   Robert Kennedy is quite aware of the wickedness of the
+   attempt he made, and that he is plunged in deep remorse.
+   He is to be taken down to Loughlinter to-morrow, and
+   is,--so says his cousin,--as tractable as a child. What
+   George Kennedy means to do, I cannot say; but for myself,
+   as I did not send for the police at the moment, as I am
+   told I ought to have done, I shall now do nothing. I don't
+   know that a man is subject to punishment because he does
+   not make complaint. I suppose I have a right to regard it
+   all as an accident if I please.
+
+   But for you this must be very important. That Mr. Kennedy
+   is insane there cannot now, I think, be a doubt; and
+   therefore the question of your returning to him,--as far
+   as there has been any question,--is absolutely settled.
+   None of your friends would be justified in allowing you to
+   return. He is undoubtedly mad, and has done an act which
+   is not murderous only on that conclusion. This settles the
+   question so perfectly that you could, no doubt, reside in
+   England now without danger. Mr. Kennedy himself would feel
+   that he could take no steps to enforce your return after
+   what he did yesterday. Indeed, if you could bring yourself
+   to face the publicity, you could, I imagine, obtain a
+   legal separation which would give you again the control of
+   your own fortune. I feel myself bound to mention this; but
+   I give you no advice. You will no doubt explain all the
+   circumstances to your father.
+
+   I think I have now told you everything that I need tell
+   you. The thing only happened yesterday, and I have been
+   all the morning busy, getting the injunction, and seeing
+   Mr. George Kennedy. Just before I began this letter that
+   horrible editor was with me again, threatening me with
+   all the penalties which an editor can inflict. To tell
+   the truth, I do feel confused among them all, and still
+   fancy that I hear the click of the pistol. That newspaper
+   paragraph says that the ball went through my whiskers,
+   which was certainly not the case;--but a foot or two off
+   is quite near enough for a pistol ball.
+
+   The Duke of Omnium is dying, and I have heard to-day that
+   Madame Goesler, our old friend, has been sent for to
+   Matching. She and I renewed our acquaintance the other day
+   at Harrington.
+
+   God bless you.
+
+   Your most sincere friend,
+
+   PHINEAS FINN.
+
+   Do not let my news oppress you. The firing of the pistol
+   is a thing done and over without evil results. The state
+   of Mr. Kennedy's mind is what we have long suspected; and,
+   melancholy though it be, should contain for you at any
+   rate this consolation,--that the accusations made against
+   you would not have been made had his mind been unclouded.
+
+
+Twice while Finn was writing this letter was he rung into the House
+for a division, and once it was suggested to him to say a few words
+of angry opposition to the Government on some not important subject
+under discussion. Since the beginning of the Session hardly a night
+had passed without some verbal sparring, and very frequently the
+limits of parliamentary decorum had been almost surpassed. Never
+within the memory of living politicians had political rancour been so
+sharp, and the feeling of injury so keen, both on the one side and on
+the other. The taunts thrown at the Conservatives, in reference to
+the Church, had been almost unendurable,--and the more so because the
+strong expressions of feeling from their own party throughout the
+country were against them. Their own convictions also were against
+them. And there had for a while been almost a determination through
+the party to deny their leader and disclaim the bill. But a feeling
+of duty to the party had prevailed, and this had not been done. It
+had not been done; but the not doing of it was a sore burden on the
+half-broken shoulders of many a man who sat gloomily on the benches
+behind Mr. Daubeny. Men goaded as they were, by their opponents,
+by their natural friends, and by their own consciences, could not
+bear it in silence, and very bitter things were said in return. Mr.
+Gresham was accused of a degrading lust for power. No other feeling
+could prompt him to oppose with a factious acrimony never before
+exhibited in that House,--so said some wretched Conservative with
+broken back and broken heart,--a measure which he himself would only
+be too willing to carry were he allowed the privilege of passing over
+to the other side of the House for the purpose. In these encounters,
+Phineas Finn had already exhibited his prowess, and, in spite of his
+declarations at Tankerville, had become prominent as an opponent to
+Mr. Daubeny's bill. He had, of course, himself been taunted, and held
+up in the House to the execration of his own constituents; but he had
+enjoyed his fight, and had remembered how his friend Mr. Monk had
+once told him that the pleasure lay all on the side of opposition.
+But on this evening he declined to speak. "I suppose you have hardly
+recovered from Kennedy's pistol," said Mr. Ratler, who had, of
+course, heard the whole story. "That, and the whole affair together
+have upset me," said Phineas. "Fitzgibbon will do it for you; he's in
+the House." And so it happened that on that occasion the Honourable
+Laurence Fitzgibbon made a very effective speech against the
+Government.
+
+On the next morning from the columns of the People's Banner was
+hurled the first of those thunderbolts with which it was the purpose
+of Mr. Slide absolutely to destroy the political and social life of
+Phineas Finn. He would not miss his aim as Mr. Kennedy had done. He
+would strike such blows that no constituency should ever venture to
+return Mr. Finn again to Parliament; and he thought that he could
+also so strike his blows that no mighty nobleman, no distinguished
+commoner, no lady of rank should again care to entertain the
+miscreant and feed him with the dainties of fashion. The first
+thunderbolt was as follows:--
+
+
+   We abstained yesterday from alluding to a circumstance
+   which occurred at a small hotel in Judd Street on Sunday
+   afternoon, and which, as we observe, was mentioned by one
+   of our contemporaries. The names, however, were not given,
+   although the persons implicated were indicated. We can
+   see no reason why the names should be concealed. Indeed,
+   as both the gentlemen concerned have been guilty of very
+   great criminality, we think that we are bound to tell the
+   whole story,--and this the more especially as certain
+   circumstances have in a very peculiar manner placed us in
+   possession of the facts.
+
+   It is no secret that for the last two years Lady
+   Laura Kennedy has been separated from her husband,
+   the Honourable Robert Kennedy, who, in the last
+   administration, under Mr. Mildmay, held the office of
+   Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster; and we believe as
+   little a secret that Mr. Kennedy has been very persistent
+   in endeavouring to recall his wife to her home. With equal
+   persistence she has refused to obey, and we have in our
+   hands the clearest possible evidence that Mr. Kennedy has
+   attributed her obstinate refusal to influence exercised
+   over her by Mr. Phineas Finn, who three years since was
+   her father's nominee for the then existing borough of
+   Loughton, and who lately succeeded in ousting poor Mr.
+   Browborough from his seat for Tankerville by his impetuous
+   promises to support that very measure of Church Reform
+   which he is now opposing with that venom which makes him
+   valuable to his party. Whether Mr. Phineas Finn will ever
+   sit in another Parliament we cannot, of course, say, but
+   we think we can at least assure him that he will never
+   again sit for Tankerville.
+
+   On last Sunday afternoon Mr. Finn, knowing well the
+   feeling with which he is regarded by Mr. Kennedy, outraged
+   all decency by calling upon that gentleman, whose address
+   he obtained from our office. What took place between them
+   no one knows, and, probably, no one ever will know. But
+   the interview was ended by Mr. Kennedy firing a pistol
+   at Mr. Finn's head. That he should have done so without
+   the grossest provocation no one will believe. That Mr.
+   Finn had gone to the husband to interfere with him
+   respecting his wife is an undoubted fact,--a fact which,
+   if necessary, we are in a position to prove. That such
+   interference must have been most heartrending every one
+   will admit. This intruder, who had thrust himself upon the
+   unfortunate husband on the Sabbath afternoon, was the very
+   man whom the husband accuses of having robbed him of the
+   company and comfort of his wife. But we cannot, on that
+   account, absolve Mr. Kennedy of the criminality of his
+   act. It should be for a jury to decide what view should
+   be taken of that act, and to say how far the outrageous
+   provocation offered should be allowed to palliate the
+   offence. But hitherto the matter has not reached the
+   police. Mr. Finn was not struck, and managed to escape
+   from the room. It was his manifest duty as one of
+   the community, and more especially so as a member of
+   Parliament, to have reported all the circumstances at
+   once to the police. This was not done by him, nor by the
+   persons who keep the hotel. That Mr. Finn should have
+   reasons of his own for keeping the whole affair secret,
+   and for screening the attempt at murder, is clear enough.
+   What inducements have been used with the people of the
+   house we cannot, of course, say. But we understand that
+   Mr. Kennedy has been allowed to leave London without
+   molestation.
+
+   Such is the true story of what occurred on Sunday
+   afternoon in Judd Street, and, knowing what we do, we
+   think ourselves justified in calling upon Major Mackintosh
+   to take the case into his own hands.
+
+
+Now Major Mackintosh was at this time the head of the London
+constabulary.
+
+
+   It is quite out of the question that such a transaction
+   should take place in the heart of London at three o'clock
+   on a Sunday afternoon, and be allowed to pass without
+   notice. We intend to keep as little of what we know
+   from the public as possible, and do not hesitate to
+   acknowledge that we are debarred by an injunction of
+   the Vice-Chancellor from publishing a certain document
+   which would throw the clearest light upon the whole
+   circumstance. As soon as possible after the shot was
+   fired Mr. Finn went to work, and, as we think, by
+   misrepresentations, obtained the injunction early on
+   yesterday morning. We feel sure that it would not have
+   been granted had the transaction in Judd Street been at
+   the time known to the Vice-Chancellor in all its enormity.
+   Our hands are, of course, tied. The document in question
+   is still with us, but it is sacred. When called upon to
+   show it by any proper authority we shall be ready; but,
+   knowing what we do know, we should not be justified in
+   allowing the matter to sleep. In the meantime we call upon
+   those whose duty it is to preserve the public peace to
+   take the steps necessary for bringing the delinquents to
+   justice.
+
+   The effect upon Mr. Finn, we should say, must be his
+   immediate withdrawal from public life. For the last year
+   or two he has held some subordinate but permanent place
+   in Ireland, which he has given up on the rumour that the
+   party to which he has attached himself is likely to return
+   to office. That he is a seeker after office is notorious.
+   That any possible Government should now employ him, even
+   as a tide-waiter, is quite out of the question; and it
+   is equally out of the question that he should be again
+   returned to Parliament, were he to resign his seat on
+   accepting office. As it is, we believe, notorious that
+   this gentleman cannot maintain the position which he holds
+   without being paid for his services, it is reasonable to
+   suppose that his friends will recommend him to retire, and
+   seek his living in some obscure, and, let us hope, honest
+   profession.
+
+
+Mr. Slide, when his thunderbolt was prepared, read it over with
+delight, but still with some fear as to probable results. It was
+expedient that he should avoid a prosecution for libel, and essential
+that he should not offend the majesty of the Vice-Chancellor's
+injunction. Was he sure that he was safe in each direction? As to
+the libel, he could not tell himself that he was certainly safe. He
+was saying very hard things both of Lady Laura and of Phineas Finn,
+and sailing very near the wind. But neither of those persons would
+probably be willing to prosecute; and, should he be prosecuted, he
+would then, at any rate, be able to give in Mr. Kennedy's letter as
+evidence in his own defence. He really did believe that what he was
+doing was all done in the cause of morality. It was the business of
+such a paper as that which he conducted to run some risk in defending
+morals, and exposing distinguished culprits on behalf of the
+public. And then, without some such risk, how could Phineas Finn be
+adequately punished for the atrocious treachery of which he had been
+guilty? As to the Chancellor's order, Mr. Slide thought that he had
+managed that matter very completely. No doubt he had acted in direct
+opposition to the spirit of the injunction, but legal orders are read
+by the letter, and not by the spirit. It was open to him to publish
+anything he pleased respecting Mr. Kennedy and his wife, subject,
+of course, to the general laws of the land in regard to libel.
+The Vice-Chancellor's special order to him referred simply to a
+particular document, and from that document he had not quoted a word,
+though he had contrived to repeat all the bitter things which it
+contained, with much added venom of his own. He felt secure of being
+safe from any active anger on the part of the Vice-Chancellor.
+
+The article was printed and published. The reader will perceive that
+it was full of lies. It began with a lie in that statement that "we
+abstained yesterday from alluding to circumstances" which had been
+unknown to the writer when his yesterday's paper was published.
+The indignant reference to poor Finn's want of delicacy in forcing
+himself upon Mr. Kennedy on the Sabbath afternoon, was, of course,
+a tissue of lies. The visit had been made almost at the instigation
+of the editor himself. The paper from beginning to end was full of
+falsehood and malice, and had been written with the express intention
+of creating prejudice against the man who had offended the writer.
+But Mr. Slide did not know that he was lying, and did not know that
+he was malicious. The weapon which he used was one to which his hand
+was accustomed, and he had been led by practice to believe that the
+use of such weapons by one in his position was not only fair, but
+also beneficial to the public. Had anybody suggested to him that he
+was stabbing his enemy in the dark, he would have averred that he
+was doing nothing of the kind, because the anonymous accusation of
+sinners in high rank was, on behalf of the public, the special duty
+of writers and editors attached to the public press. Mr. Slide's
+blood was running high with virtuous indignation against our hero as
+he inserted those last cruel words as to the choice of an obscure but
+honest profession.
+
+Phineas Finn read the article before he sat down to breakfast on the
+following morning, and the dagger went right into his bosom. Every
+word told upon him. With a jaunty laugh within his own sleeve he had
+assured himself that he was safe against any wound which could be
+inflicted on him from the columns of the People's Banner. He had
+been sure that he would be attacked, and thought that he was armed
+to bear it. But the thin blade penetrated every joint of his harness,
+and every particle of the poison curdled in his blood. He was hurt
+about Lady Laura; he was hurt about his borough of Tankerville; he
+was hurt by the charges against him of having outraged delicacy;
+he was hurt by being handed over to the tender mercies of Major
+Mackintosh; he was hurt by the craft with which the Vice-Chancellor's
+injunction had been evaded; but he was especially hurt by the
+allusions to his own poverty. It was necessary that he should earn
+his bread, and no doubt he was a seeker after place. But he did not
+wish to obtain wages without working for them; and he did not see why
+the work and wages of a public office should be less honourable than
+those of any other profession. To him, with his ideas, there was no
+profession so honourable, as certainly there were none which demanded
+greater sacrifices or were more precarious. And he did believe that
+such an article as that would have the effect of shutting against
+him the gates of that dangerous Paradise which he desired to enter.
+He had no great claim upon his party; and, in giving away the good
+things of office, the giver is only too prone to recognise any
+objections against an individual which may seem to relieve him from
+the necessity of bestowing aught in that direction. Phineas felt that
+he would almost be ashamed to show his face at the clubs or in the
+House. He must do so as a matter of course, but he knew that he could
+not do so without confessing by his visage that he had been deeply
+wounded by the attack in the People's Banner.
+
+He went in the first instance to Mr. Low, and was almost surprised
+that Mr. Low should not have yet even have heard that such an attack
+had been made. He had almost felt, as he walked to Lincoln's Inn,
+that everybody had looked at him, and that passers-by in the street
+had declared to each other that he was the unfortunate one who
+had been doomed by the editor of the People's Banner to seek some
+obscure way of earning his bread. Mr. Low took the paper, read, or
+probably only half read, the article, and then threw the sheet aside
+as worthless. "What ought I to do?"
+
+"Nothing at all."
+
+"One's first desire would be to beat him to a jelly."
+
+"Of all courses that would be the worst, and would most certainly
+conduce to his triumph."
+
+"Just so;--I only allude to the pleasure one would have, but which
+one has to deny oneself. I don't know whether he has laid himself
+open for libel."
+
+"I should think not. I have only just glanced at it, and therefore
+can't give an opinion; but I should think you would not dream of such
+a thing. Your object is to screen Lady Laura's name."
+
+"I have to think of that first."
+
+"It may be necessary that steps should be taken to defend her
+character. If an accusation be made with such publicity as to enforce
+belief if not denied, the denial must be made, and may probably be
+best made by an action for libel. But that must be done by her or her
+friends,--but certainly not by you."
+
+"He has laughed at the Vice-Chancellor's injunction."
+
+"I don't think that you can interfere. If, as you believe, Mr.
+Kennedy be insane, that fact will probably soon be proved, and will
+have the effect of clearing Lady Laura's character. A wife may be
+excused for leaving a mad husband."
+
+"And you think I should do nothing?"
+
+"I don't see what you can do. You have encountered a chimney sweeper,
+and of course you get some of the soot. What you do do, and what
+you do not do, must depend at any rate on the wishes of Lady Laura
+Kennedy and her father. It is a matter in which you must make
+yourself subordinate to them."
+
+Fuming and fretting, and yet recognising the truth of Mr. Low's
+words, Phineas left the chambers, and went down to his club. It was
+a Wednesday, and the House was to sit in the morning; but before
+he went to the House he put himself in the way of certain of his
+associates in order that he might hear what would be said, and learn
+if possible what was thought. Nobody seemed to treat the accusations
+in the newspaper as very serious, though all around him congratulated
+him on his escape from Mr. Kennedy's pistol. "I suppose the poor man
+really is mad," said Lord Cantrip, whom he met on the steps of one of
+the clubs.
+
+"No doubt, I should say."
+
+"I can't understand why you didn't go to the police."
+
+"I had hoped the thing would not become public," said Phineas.
+
+"Everything becomes public;--everything of that kind. It is very hard
+upon poor Lady Laura."
+
+"That is the worst of it, Lord Cantrip."
+
+"If I were her father I should bring her to England, and demand a
+separation in a regular and legal way. That is what he should do now
+in her behalf. She would then have an opportunity of clearing her
+character from imputations which, to a certain extent, will affect
+it, even though they come from a madman, and from the very scum of
+the press."
+
+"You have read that article?"
+
+"Yes;--I saw it but a minute ago."
+
+"I need not tell you that there is not the faintest ground in the
+world for the imputation made against Lady Laura there."
+
+"I am sure that there is none;--and therefore it is that I tell you
+my opinion so plainly. I think that Lord Brentford should be advised
+to bring Lady Laura to England, and to put down the charges openly in
+Court. It might be done either by an application to the Divorce Court
+for a separation, or by an action against the newspaper for libel.
+I do not know Lord Brentford quite well enough to intrude upon him
+with a letter, but I have no objection whatever to having my name
+mentioned to him. He and I and you and poor Mr. Kennedy sat together
+in the same Government, and I think that Lord Brentford would trust
+my friendship so far." Phineas thanked him, and assured him that what
+he had said should be conveyed to Lord Brentford.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+THE SPOONER CORRESPONDENCE.
+
+
+It will be remembered that Adelaide Palliser had accepted the hand of
+Mr. Maule, junior, and that she and Lady Chiltern between them had
+despatched him up to London on an embassy to his father, in which he
+failed very signally. It had been originally Lady Chiltern's idea
+that the proper home for the young couple would be the ancestral
+hall, which must be theirs some day, and in which, with exceeding
+prudence, they might be able to live as Maules of Maule Abbey upon
+the very limited income which would belong to them. How slight were
+the grounds for imputing such stern prudence to Gerard Maule both
+the ladies felt;--but it had become essential to do something; the
+young people were engaged to each other, and a manner of life must be
+suggested, discussed, and as far as possible arranged. Lady Chiltern
+was useful at such work, having a practical turn of mind, and
+understanding well the condition of life for which it was necessary
+that her friend should prepare herself. The lover was not vicious,
+he neither drank nor gambled, nor ran himself hopelessly in debt.
+He was good-humoured and tractable, and docile enough when nothing
+disagreeable was asked from him. He would have, he said, no objection
+to live at Maule Abbey if Adelaide liked it. He didn't believe much
+in farming, but would consent at Adelaide's request to be the owner
+of bullocks. He was quite ready to give up hunting, having already
+taught himself to think that the very few good runs in a season
+were hardly worth the trouble of getting up before daylight all the
+winter. He went forth, therefore, on his embassy, and we know how he
+failed. Another lover would have communicated the disastrous tidings
+at once to the lady; but Gerard Maule waited a week before he did so,
+and then told his story in half-a-dozen words. "The governor cut up
+rough about Maule Abbey, and will not hear of it. He generally does
+cut up rough."
+
+"But he must be made to hear of it," said Lady Chiltern. Two days
+afterwards the news reached Harrington of the death of the Duke of
+Omnium. A letter of an official nature reached Adelaide from Mr.
+Fothergill, in which the writer explained that he had been desired by
+Mr. Palliser to communicate to her and the relatives the sad tidings.
+"So the poor old man has gone at last," said Lady Chiltern, with that
+affectation of funereal gravity which is common to all of us.
+
+"Poor old Duke!" said Adelaide. "I have been hearing of him as a sort
+of bugbear all my life. I don't think I ever saw him but once, and
+then he gave me a kiss and a pair of earrings. He never paid any
+attention to us at all, but we were taught to think that Providence
+had been very good to us in making the Duke our uncle."
+
+"He was very rich?"
+
+"Horribly rich, I have always heard."
+
+"Won't he leave you something? It would be very nice now that you are
+engaged to find that he has given you five thousand pounds."
+
+"Very nice indeed;--but there is not a chance of it. It has always
+been known that everything is to go to the heir. Papa had his fortune
+and spent it. He and his brother were never friends, and though the
+Duke did once give me a kiss I imagine that he forgot my existence
+immediately afterwards."
+
+"So the Duke of Omnium is dead," said Lord Chiltern when he came home
+that evening.
+
+"Adelaide has had a letter to tell her so this afternoon."
+
+"Mr. Fothergill wrote to me," said Adelaide;--"the man who is so
+wicked about the foxes."
+
+"I don't care a straw about Mr. Fothergill; and now my mouth is
+closed against your uncle. But it's quite frightful to think that a
+Duke of Omnium must die like anybody else."
+
+"The Duke is dead;--long live the Duke," said Lady Chiltern. "I
+wonder how Mr. Palliser will like it."
+
+"Men always do like it, I suppose," said Adelaide.
+
+"Women do," said Lord Chiltern. "Lady Glencora will be delighted to
+reign,--though I can hardly fancy her by any other name. By the bye,
+Adelaide, I have got a letter for you."
+
+"A letter for me, Lord Chiltern!"
+
+"Well,--yes; I suppose I had better give it you. It is not addressed
+to you, but you must answer it."
+
+"What on earth is it?"
+
+"I think I can guess," said Lady Chiltern, laughing. She had guessed
+rightly, but Adelaide Palliser was still altogether in the dark when
+Lord Chiltern took a letter from his pocket and handed it to her. As
+he did so he left the room, and his wife followed him. "I shall be
+upstairs, Adelaide, if you want advice," said Lady Chiltern.
+
+The letter was from Mr. Spooner. He had left Harrington Hall after
+the uncourteous reception which had been accorded to him by Miss
+Palliser in deep disgust, resolving that he would never again speak
+to her, and almost resolving that Spoon Hall should never have a
+mistress in his time. But with his wine after dinner his courage
+came back to him, and he began to reflect once more that it is not
+the habit of young ladies to accept their lovers at the first offer.
+There was living with Mr. Spooner at this time a very attached
+friend, whom he usually consulted in all emergencies, and to whom
+on this occasion he opened his heart. Mr. Edward Spooner, commonly
+called Ned by all who knew him, and not unfrequently so addressed
+by those who did not, was a distant cousin of the Squire's, who
+unfortunately had no particular income of his own. For the last ten
+years he had lived at Spoon Hall, and had certainly earned his bread.
+The Squire had achieved a certain credit for success as a country
+gentleman. Nothing about his place was out of order. His own farming,
+which was extensive, succeeded. His bullocks and sheep won prizes.
+His horses were always useful and healthy. His tenants were solvent,
+if not satisfied, and he himself did not owe a shilling. Now many
+people in the neighbourhood attributed all this to the judicious
+care of Mr. Edward Spooner, whose eye was never off the place, and
+whose discretion was equal to his zeal. In giving the Squire his due,
+one must acknowledge that he recognised the merits of his cousin,
+and trusted him in everything. That night, as soon as the customary
+bottle of claret had succeeded the absolutely normal bottle of port
+after dinner, Mr. Spooner of Spoon Hall opened his heart to his
+cousin.
+
+"I shall have to walk, then," said Ned.
+
+"Not if I know it," said the Squire. "You don't suppose I'm going to
+let any woman have the command of Spoon Hall?"
+
+"They do command,--inside, you know."
+
+"No woman shall ever turn you out of this house, Ned."
+
+"I'm not thinking of myself, Tom," said the cousin. "Of course you'll
+marry some day, and of course I must take my chance. I don't see why
+it shouldn't be Miss Palliser as well as another."
+
+"The jade almost made me angry."
+
+"I suppose that's the way with most of 'em. 'Ludit exultim metuitque
+tangi'." For Ned Spooner had himself preserved some few tattered
+shreds of learning from his school days. "You don't remember about
+the filly?"
+
+"Yes I do; very well," said the Squire.
+
+"'Nuptiarum expers.' That's what it is, I suppose. Try it again."
+The advice on the part of the cousin was genuine and unselfish. That
+Mr. Spooner of Spoon Hall should be rejected by a young lady without
+any fortune seemed to him to be impossible. At any rate it is the
+duty of a man in such circumstances to persevere. As far as Ned knew
+the world, ladies always required to be asked a second or a third
+time. And then no harm can come from such perseverance. "She can't
+break your bones, Tom."
+
+There was much honesty displayed on this occasion. The Squire, when
+he was thus instigated to persevere, did his best to describe the
+manner in which he had been rejected. His powers of description were
+not very great, but he did not conceal anything wilfully. "She was as
+hard as nails, you know."
+
+"I don't know that that means much. Horace's filly kicked a few, no
+doubt."
+
+"She told me that if I'd go one way, she'd go the other!"
+
+"They always say about the hardest things that come to their tongues.
+They don't curse and swear as we do, or there'd be no bearing them.
+If you really like her--"
+
+"She's such a well-built creature! There's a look of blood about her
+I don't see in any of 'em. That sort of breeding is what one wants to
+get through the mud with."
+
+Then it was that the cousin recommended a letter to Lord Chiltern.
+Lord Chiltern was at the present moment to be regarded as the lady's
+guardian, and was the lover's intimate friend. A direct proposal
+had already been made to the young lady, and this should now be
+repeated to the gentleman who for the time stood in the position of
+her father. The Squire for a while hesitated, declaring that he was
+averse to make his secret known to Lord Chiltern. "One doesn't want
+every fellow in the country to know it," he said. But in answer to
+this the cousin was very explicit. There could be but little doubt
+that Lord Chiltern knew the secret already; and he would certainly
+be rather induced to keep it as a secret than to divulge it if it
+were communicated to him officially. And what other step could the
+Squire take? It would not be likely that he should be asked again to
+Harrington Hall with the express view of repeating his offer. The
+cousin was quite of opinion that a written proposition should be
+made; and on that very night the cousin himself wrote out a letter
+for the Squire to copy in the morning. On the morning the Squire
+copied the letter,--not without additions of his own, as to which he
+had very many words with his discreet cousin,--and in a formal manner
+handed it to Lord Chiltern towards the afternoon of that day, having
+devoted his whole morning to the finding of a proper opportunity
+for doing so. Lord Chiltern had read the letter, and had, as we see,
+delivered it to Adelaide Palliser. "That's another proposal from Mr.
+Spooner," Lady Chiltern said, as soon as they were alone.
+
+"Exactly that."
+
+"I knew he'd go on with it. Men are such fools."
+
+"I don't see that he's a fool at all;" said Lord Chiltern, almost in
+anger. "Why shouldn't he ask a girl to be his wife? He's a rich man,
+and she hasn't got a farthing."
+
+"You might say the same of a butcher, Oswald."
+
+"Mr. Spooner is a gentleman."
+
+"You do not mean to say that he's fit to marry such a girl as
+Adelaide Palliser?"
+
+"I don't know what makes fitness. He's got a red nose, and if she
+don't like a red nose,--that's unfitness. Gerard Maule's nose isn't
+red, and I dare say therefore he's fitter. Only, unfortunately, he
+has no money."
+
+"Adelaide Palliser would no more think of marrying Mr. Spooner than
+you would have thought of marrying the cook."
+
+"If I had liked the cook I should have asked her, and I don't see why
+Mr. Spooner shouldn't ask Miss Palliser. She needn't take him."
+
+In the meantime Miss Palliser was reading the following letter:--
+
+
+   Spoon Hall, 11th March, 18--.
+
+   MY DEAR LORD CHILTERN,--
+
+   I venture to suppose that at present you are acting as
+   the guardian of Miss Palliser, who has been staying at
+   your house all the winter. If I am wrong in this I hope
+   you will pardon me, and consent to act in that capacity
+   for this occasion. I entertain feelings of the greatest
+   admiration and warmest affection for the young lady I have
+   named, which I ventured to express when I had the pleasure
+   of staying at Harrington Hall in the early part of last
+   month. I cannot boast that I was received on that occasion
+   with much favour; but I know that I am not very good at
+   talking, and we are told in all the books that no man has
+   a right to expect to be taken at the first time of asking.
+   Perhaps Miss Palliser will allow me, through you, to
+   request her to consider my proposal with more deliberation
+   than was allowed to me before, when I spoke to her perhaps
+   with injudicious hurry.
+
+
+So far the Squire adopted his cousin's words without alteration.
+
+
+   I am the owner of my own property,--which is more than
+   everybody can say. My income is nearly £4,000 a year. I
+   shall be willing to make any proper settlement that may
+   be recommended by the lawyers,--though I am strongly of
+   opinion that an estate shouldn't be crippled for the
+   sake of the widow. As to refurnishing the old house, and
+   all that, I'll do anything that Miss Palliser may please.
+   She knows my taste about hunting, and I know hers, so that
+   there need not be any difference of opinion on that score.
+
+   Miss Palliser can't suspect me of any interested motives.
+   I come forward because I think she is the most charming
+   girl I ever saw, and because I love her with all my heart.
+   I haven't got very much to say for myself, but if she'll
+   consent to be the mistress of Spoon Hall, she shall have
+   all that the heart of a woman can desire.
+
+   Pray believe me,
+   My dear Lord Chiltern,
+   Yours very sincerely,
+
+   THOMAS PLATTER SPOONER.
+
+   As I believe that Miss Palliser is fond of books, it may
+   be well to tell her that there is an uncommon good library
+   at Spoon Hall. I shall have no objection to go abroad for
+   the honeymoon for three or four months in the summer.
+
+
+The postscript was the Squire's own, and was inserted in opposition
+to the cousin's judgment. "She won't come for the sake of the books,"
+said the cousin. But the Squire thought that the attractions should
+be piled up. "I wouldn't talk of the honeymoon till I'd got her to
+come round a little," said the cousin. The Squire thought that the
+cousin was falsely delicate, and pleaded that all girls like to be
+taken abroad when they're married. The second half of the body of the
+letter was very much disfigured by the Squire's petulance; so that
+the modesty with which he commenced was almost put to the blush by
+a touch of arrogance in the conclusion. That sentence in which the
+Squire declared that an estate ought not to be crippled for the sake
+of the widow was very much questioned by the cousin. "Such a word as
+'widow' never ought to go into such a letter as this." But the Squire
+protested that he would not be mealy-mouthed. "She can bear to think
+of it, I'll go bail; and why shouldn't she hear about what she can
+think about?" "Don't talk about furniture yet, Tom," the cousin said;
+but the Squire was obstinate, and the cousin became hopeless. That
+word about loving her with all his heart was the cousin's own, but
+what followed, as to her being mistress of Spoon Hall, was altogether
+opposed to his judgment. "She'll be proud enough of Spoon Hall if
+she comes here," said the Squire. "I'd let her come first," said the
+cousin.
+
+We all know that the phraseology of the letter was of no importance
+whatever. When it was received the lady was engaged to another
+man; and she regarded Mr. Spooner of Spoon Hall as being guilty of
+unpardonable impudence in approaching her at all.
+
+"A red-faced vulgar old man, who looks as if he did nothing but
+drink," she said to Lady Chiltern.
+
+"He does you no harm, my dear."
+
+"But he does do harm. He makes things very uncomfortable. He has no
+business to think it possible. People will suppose that I gave him
+encouragement."
+
+"I used to have lovers coming to me year after year,--the same
+people,--whom I don't think I ever encouraged; but I never felt angry
+with them."
+
+"But you didn't have Mr. Spooner."
+
+"Mr. Spooner didn't know me in those days, or there is no saying what
+might have happened." Then Lady Chiltern argued the matter on views
+directly opposite to those which she had put forward when discussing
+the matter with her husband. "I always think that any man who is
+privileged to sit down to table with you is privileged to ask.
+There are disparities of course which may make the privilege
+questionable,--disparities of age, rank, and means."
+
+"And of tastes," said Adelaide.
+
+"I don't know about that.--A poet doesn't want to marry a poetess,
+nor a philosopher a philosopheress. A man may make himself a fool
+by putting himself in the way of certain refusal; but I take it
+the broad rule is that a man may fall in love with any lady who
+habitually sits in his company."
+
+"I don't agree with you at all. What would be said if the curate at
+Long Royston were to propose to one of the FitzHoward girls?"
+
+"The Duchess would probably ask the Duke to make the young man a
+bishop out of hand, and the Duke would have to spend a morning in
+explaining to her the changes which have come over the making of
+bishops since she was young. There is no other rule that you can
+lay down, and I think that girls should understand that they have
+to fight their battles subject to that law. It's very easy to say,
+'No.'"
+
+"But a man won't take 'No.'"
+
+"And it's lucky for us sometimes that they don't," said Lady
+Chiltern, remembering certain passages in her early life.
+
+The answer was written that night by Lord Chiltern after much
+consultation. As to the nature of the answer,--that it should be a
+positive refusal,--of course there could be no doubt; but then arose
+a question whether a reason should be given, or whether the refusal
+should be simply a refusal. At last it was decided that a reason
+should be given, and the letter ran as follows:--
+
+
+   MY DEAR MR. SPOONER,
+
+   I am commissioned to inform you that Miss Palliser is
+   engaged to be married to Mr. Gerard Maule.
+
+   Yours faithfully,
+
+   CHILTERN.
+
+
+The young lady had consented to be thus explicit because it had been
+already determined that no secret should be kept as to her future
+prospects.
+
+"He is one of those poverty-stricken wheedling fellows that one meets
+about the world every day," said the Squire to his cousin--"a fellow
+that rides horses that he can't pay for, and owes some poor devil of
+a tailor for the breeches that he sits in. They eat, and drink, and
+get along heaven only knows how. But they're sure to come to smash at
+last. Girls are such fools nowadays."
+
+"I don't think there has ever been much difference in that," said the
+cousin.
+
+"Because a man greases his whiskers, and colours his hair, and paints
+his eyebrows, and wears kid gloves, by George, they'll go through
+fire and water after him. He'll never marry her."
+
+"So much the better for her."
+
+"But I hate such d---- impudence. What right has a man to come
+forward in that way who hasn't got a house over his head, or the
+means of getting one? Old Maule is so hard up that he can barely
+get a dinner at his club in London. What I wonder at is that Lady
+Chiltern shouldn't know better."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+REGRETS.
+
+
+Madame Goesler remained at Matching till after the return of Mr.
+Palliser--or, as we must now call him, the Duke of Omnium--from
+Gatherum Castle, and was therefore able to fight her own battle
+with him respecting the gems and the money which had been left her.
+He brought to her with his own hands the single ring which she had
+requested, and placed it on her finger. "The goldsmith will soon make
+that all right," she said, when it was found to be much too large for
+the largest finger on which she could wear a ring. "A bit shall be
+taken out, but I will not have it reset."
+
+"You got the lawyer's letter and the inventory, Madame Goesler?"
+
+"Yes, indeed. What surprises me is that the dear old man should never
+have spoken of so magnificent a collection of gems."
+
+"Orders have been given that they shall be packed."
+
+"They may be packed or unpacked, of course, as your Grace pleases,
+but pray do not connect me with the packing."
+
+"You must be connected with it."
+
+"But I wish not to be connected with it, Duke. I have written to the
+lawyer to renounce the legacy, and, if your Grace persists, I must
+employ a lawyer of my own to renounce them after some legal form.
+Pray do not let the case be sent to me, or there will be so much
+trouble, and we shall have another great jewel robbery. I won't take
+it in, and I won't have the money, and I will have my own way. Lady
+Glen will tell you that I can be very obstinate when I please."
+
+
+[Illustration: "Lady Glen will tell you that I can be very
+obstinate when I please."]
+
+
+Lady Glencora had told him so already. She had been quite sure that
+her friend would persist in her determination as to the legacy, and
+had thought that her husband should simply accept Madame Goesler's
+assurances to that effect. But a man who had been Chancellor of the
+Exchequer could not deal with money, or even with jewels, so lightly.
+He assured his wife that such an arrangement was quite out of the
+question. He remarked that property was property, by which he meant
+to intimate that the real owner of substantial wealth could not be
+allowed to disembarrass himself of his responsibilities or strip
+himself of his privileges by a few generous but idle words. The late
+Duke's will was a very serious thing, and it seemed to the heir that
+this abandoning of a legacy bequeathed by the Duke was a making
+light of the Duke's last act and deed. To refuse money in such
+circumstances was almost like refusing rain from heaven, or warmth
+from the sun. It could not be done. The things were her property, and
+though she might, of course, chuck them into the street, they would
+no less be hers. "But I won't have them, Duke," said Madame Goesler;
+and the late Chancellor of the Exchequer found that no proposition
+made by him in the House had ever been received with a firmer
+opposition. His wife told him that nothing he could say would be of
+any avail, and rather ridiculed his idea of the solemnity of wills.
+"You can't make a person take a thing because you write it down on a
+thick bit of paper, any more than if you gave it her across a table.
+I understand it all, of course. She means to show that she didn't
+want anything from the Duke. As she refused the name and title, she
+won't have the money and jewels. You can't make her take them, and
+I'm quite sure you can't talk her over." The young Duke was not
+persuaded, but had to give the battle up,--at any rate, for the
+present.
+
+On the 19th of March Madame Goesler returned to London, having been
+at Matching Priory for more than three weeks. On her journey back to
+Park Lane many thoughts crowded on her mind. Had she, upon the whole,
+done well in reference to the Duke of Omnium? The last three years of
+her life had been sacrificed to an old man with whom she had not in
+truth possessed aught in common. She had persuaded herself that there
+had existed a warm friendship between them;--but of what nature could
+have been a friendship with one whom she had not known till he had
+been in his dotage? What words of the Duke's speaking had she ever
+heard with pleasure, except certain terms of affection which had been
+half mawkish and half senile? She had told Phineas Finn, while riding
+home with him from Broughton Spinnies, that she had clung to the Duke
+because she loved him, but what had there been to produce such love?
+The Duke had begun his acquaintance with her by insulting her,--and
+had then offered to make her his wife. This,--which would have
+conferred upon her some tangible advantages, such as rank, and
+wealth, and a great name,--she had refused, thinking that the price
+to be paid for them was too high, and that life might even yet have
+something better in store for her. After that she had permitted
+herself to become, after a fashion, head nurse to the old man, and
+in that pursuit had wasted three years of what remained to her of
+her youth. People, at any rate, should not say of her that she had
+accepted payment for the three years' service by taking a casket of
+jewels. She would take nothing that should justify any man in saying
+that she had been enriched by her acquaintance with the Duke of
+Omnium. It might be that she had been foolish, but she would be more
+foolish still were she to accept a reward for her folly. As it was
+there had been something of romance in it,--though the romance of
+friendship at the bedside of a sick and selfish old man had hardly
+been satisfactory.
+
+Even in her close connection with the present Duchess there was
+something which was almost hollow. Had there not been a compact
+between them, never expressed, but not the less understood? Had
+not her dear friend, Lady Glen, agreed to bestow upon her support,
+fashion, and all kinds of worldly good things,--on condition that she
+never married the old Duke? She had liked Lady Glencora,--had enjoyed
+her friend's society, and been happy in her friend's company,--but
+she had always felt that Lady Glencora's attraction to herself had
+been simply on the score of the Duke. It was necessary that the Duke
+should be pampered and kept in good humour. An old man, let him be
+ever so old, can do what he likes with himself and his belongings. To
+keep the Duke out of harm's way Lady Glencora had opened her arms to
+Madame Goesler. Such, at least, was the interpretation which Madame
+Goesler chose to give to the history of the last three years. They
+had not, she thought, quite understood her. When once she had made up
+her mind not to marry the Duke, the Duke had been safe from her;--as
+his jewels and money should be safe now that he was dead.
+
+Three years had passed by, and nothing had been done of that which
+she had intended to do. Three years had passed, which to her, with
+her desires, were so important. And yet she hardly knew what were her
+desires, and had never quite defined her intentions. She told herself
+on this very journey that the time had now gone by, and that in
+losing these three years she had lost everything. As yet,--so she
+declared to herself now,--the world had done but little for her. Two
+old men had loved her; one had become her husband, and the other had
+asked to become so;--and to both she had done her duty. To both she
+had been grateful, tender, and self-sacrificing. From the former she
+had, as his widow, taken wealth which she valued greatly; but the
+wealth alone had given her no happiness. From the latter, and from
+his family, she had accepted a certain position. Some persons, high
+in repute and fashion, had known her before, but everybody knew her
+now. And yet what had all this done for her? Dukes and duchesses,
+dinner-parties and drawing-rooms,--what did they all amount to? What
+was it that she wanted?
+
+She was ashamed to tell herself that it was love. But she knew
+this,--that it was necessary for her happiness that she should devote
+herself to some one. All the elegancies and outward charms of life
+were delightful, if only they could be used as the means to some end.
+As an end themselves they were nothing. She had devoted herself to
+this old man who was now dead, and there had been moments in which
+she had thought that that sufficed. But it had not sufficed, and
+instead of being borne down by grief at the loss of her friend, she
+found herself almost rejoicing at relief from a vexatious burden.
+Had she been a hypocrite then? Was it her nature to be false? After
+that she reflected whether it might not be best for her to become
+a devotee,--it did not matter much in what branch of the Christian
+religion, so that she could assume some form of faith. The sour
+strictness of the confident Calvinist or the asceticism of St.
+Francis might suit her equally,--if she could only believe in Calvin
+or in St. Francis. She had tried to believe in the Duke of Omnium,
+but there she had failed. There had been a saint at whose shrine she
+thought she could have worshipped with a constant and happy devotion,
+but that saint had repulsed her from his altar.
+
+Mr. Maule, Senior, not understanding much of all this, but still
+understanding something, thought that he might perhaps be the
+saint. He knew well that audacity in asking is a great merit in a
+middle-aged wooer. He was a good deal older than the lady, who, in
+spite of all her experiences, was hardly yet thirty. But then he
+was,--he felt sure,--very young for his age, whereas she was old.
+She was a widow; he was a widower. She had a house in town and an
+income. He had a place in the country and an estate. She knew all the
+dukes and duchesses, and he was a man of family. She could make him
+comfortably opulent. He could make her Mrs. Maule of Maule Abbey.
+She, no doubt, was good-looking. Mr. Maule, Senior, as he tied on
+his cravat, thought that even in that respect there was no great
+disparity between them. Considering his own age, Mr. Maule, Senior,
+thought there was not perhaps a better-looking man than himself about
+Pall Mall. He was a little stiff in the joints and moved rather
+slowly, but what was wanting in suppleness was certainly made up in
+dignity.
+
+He watched his opportunity, and called in Park Lane on the day after
+Madame Goesler's return. There was already between them an amount of
+acquaintance which justified his calling, and, perhaps, there had
+been on the lady's part something of that cordiality of manner which
+is wont to lead to intimate friendship. Mr. Maule had made himself
+agreeable, and Madame Goesler had seemed to be grateful. He was
+admitted, and on such an occasion it was impossible not to begin the
+conversation about the "dear Duke." Mr. Maule could afford to talk
+about the Duke, and to lay aside for a short time his own cause,
+as he had not suggested to himself the possibility of becoming
+pressingly tender on his own behalf on this particular occasion.
+Audacity in wooing is a great virtue, but a man must measure even his
+virtues. "I heard that you had gone to Matching, as soon as the poor
+Duke was taken ill," he said.
+
+She was in mourning, and had never for a moment thought of denying
+the peculiarity of the position she had held in reference to the old
+man. She could not have been content to wear her ordinary coloured
+garments after sitting so long by the side of the dying man. A
+hired nurse may do so, but she had not been that. If there had been
+hypocrisy in her friendship the hypocrisy must be maintained to the
+end.
+
+"Poor old man! I only came back yesterday."
+
+"I never had the pleasure of knowing his Grace," said Mr. Maule. "But
+I have always heard him named as a nobleman of whom England might
+well be proud."
+
+Madame Goesler was not at the moment inclined to tell lies on the
+matter, and did not think that England had much cause to be proud of
+the Duke of Omnium. "He was a man who held a very peculiar position,"
+she said.
+
+"Most peculiar;--a man of infinite wealth, and of that special
+dignity which I am sorry to say so many men of rank among us are
+throwing aside as a garment which is too much for them. We can all
+wear coats, but it is not every one that can carry a robe. The Duke
+carried his to the last." Madame Goesler remembered how he looked
+with his nightcap on, when he had lost his temper because they would
+not let him have a glass of curaçoa. "I don't know that we have any
+one left that can be said to be his equal," continued Mr. Maule.
+
+"No one like him, perhaps. He was never married, you know."
+
+"But was once willing to marry," said Mr. Maule, "if all that we
+hear be true." Madame Goesler, without a smile and equally without a
+frown, looked as though the meaning of Mr. Maule's words had escaped
+her. "A grand old gentleman! I don't know that anybody will ever say
+as much for his heir."
+
+"The men are very different."
+
+"Very different indeed. I dare say that Mr. Palliser, as Mr.
+Palliser, has been a useful man. But so is a coal-heaver a useful
+man. The grace and beauty of life will be clean gone when we all
+become useful men."
+
+"I don't think we are near that yet."
+
+"Upon my word, Madame Goesler, I am not so sure about it. Here are
+sons of noblemen going into trade on every side of us. We have earls
+dealing in butter, and marquises sending their peaches to market.
+There was nothing of that kind about the Duke. A great fortune had
+been entrusted to him, and he knew that it was his duty to spend it.
+He did spend it, and all the world looked up to him. It must have
+been a great pleasure to you to know him so well."
+
+Madame Goesler was saved the necessity of making any answer to this
+by the announcement of another visitor. The door was opened, and
+Phineas Finn entered the room. He had not seen Madame Goesler since
+they had been together at Harrington Hall, and had never before met
+Mr. Maule. When riding home with the lady after their unsuccessful
+attempt to jump out of the wood, Phineas had promised to call in
+Park Lane whenever he should learn that Madame Goesler was not at
+Matching. Since that the Duke had died, and the bond with Matching no
+longer existed. It seemed but the other day that they were talking
+about the Duke together, and now the Duke was gone. "I see you are in
+mourning," said Phineas, as he still held her hand. "I must say one
+word to condole with you for your lost friend."
+
+"Mr. Maule and I were now speaking of him," she said, as she
+introduced the two gentlemen. "Mr. Finn and I had the pleasure of
+meeting your son at Harrington Hall a few weeks since, Mr. Maule."
+
+"I heard that he had been there. Did you know the Duke, Mr. Finn?"
+
+"After the fashion in which such a one as I would know such a one as
+the Duke, I knew him. He probably had forgotten my existence."
+
+"He never forgot any one," said Madame Goesler.
+
+"I don't know that I was ever introduced to him," continued Mr.
+Maule, "and I shall always regret it. I was telling Madame Goesler
+how profound a reverence I had for the Duke's character." Phineas
+bowed, and Madame Goesler, who was becoming tired of the Duke as a
+subject of conversation, asked some question as to what had been
+going on in the House. Mr. Maule, finding it to be improbable that he
+should be able to advance his cause on that occasion, took his leave.
+The moment he was gone Madame Goesler's manner changed altogether.
+She left her former seat and came near to Phineas, sitting on a sofa
+close to the chair he occupied; and as she did so she pushed her hair
+back from her face in a manner that he remembered well in former
+days.
+
+"I am so glad to see you," she said. "Is it not odd that he should
+have gone so soon after what we were saying but the other day?"
+
+"You thought then that he would not last long."
+
+"Long is comparative. I did not think he would be dead within six
+weeks, or I should not have been riding there. He was a burden to me,
+Mr. Finn."
+
+"I can understand that."
+
+"And yet I shall miss him sorely. He had given all the colour to my
+life which it possessed. It was not very bright, but still it was
+colour."
+
+"The house will be open to you just the same."
+
+"I shall not go there. I shall see Lady Glencora in town, of course;
+but I shall not go to Matching; and as to Gatherum Castle, I would
+not spend another week there, if they would give it me. You haven't
+heard of his will?"
+
+"No;--not a word. I hope he remembered you,--to mention your name.
+You hardly wanted more."
+
+"Just so. I wanted no more than that."
+
+"It was made, perhaps, before you knew him."
+
+"He was always making it, and always altering it. He left me money,
+and jewels of enormous value."
+
+"I am so glad to hear it."
+
+"But I have refused to take anything. Am I not right?"
+
+"I don't know why you should refuse."
+
+"There are people who will say that--I was his mistress. If a woman
+be young, a man's age never prevents such scandal. I don't know that
+I can stop it, but I can perhaps make it seem to be less probable.
+And after all that has passed, I could not bear that the Pallisers
+should think that I clung to him for what I could get. I should be
+easier this way."
+
+"Whatever is best to be done, you will do it;--I know that."
+
+"Your praise goes beyond the mark, my friend. I can be both generous
+and discreet;--but the difficulty is to be true. I did take one
+thing,--a black diamond that he always wore. I would show it you, but
+the goldsmith has it to make it fit me. When does the great affair
+come off at the House?"
+
+"The bill will be read again on Monday, the first."
+
+"What an unfortunate day!--You remember young Mr. Maule? Is he not
+like his father? And yet in manners they are as unlike as possible."
+
+"What is the father?" Phineas asked.
+
+"A battered old beau about London, selfish and civil, pleasant and
+penniless, and I should think utterly without a principle. Come again
+soon. I am so anxious to hear that you are getting on. And you have
+got to tell me all about that shooting with the pistol." Phineas as
+he walked away thought that Madame Goesler was handsomer even than
+she used to be.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+THE DUKE AND DUCHESS IN TOWN.
+
+
+At the end of March the Duchess of Omnium, never more to be called
+Lady Glencora by the world at large, came up to London. The
+Duke, though he was now banished from the House of Commons, was
+nevertheless wanted in London; and what funereal ceremonies were
+left might be accomplished as well in town as at Matching Priory. No
+old Ministry could be turned out and no new Ministry formed without
+the assistance of the young Duchess. It was a question whether she
+should not be asked to be Mistress of the Robes, though those who
+asked it knew very well that she was the last woman in England to
+hamper herself by dependence on the Court. Up to London they came;
+and, though of course they went into no society, the house in Carlton
+Gardens was continually thronged with people who had some special
+reason for breaking the ordinary rules of etiquette in their desire
+to see how Lady Glencora carried herself as Duchess of Omnium. "Do
+you think she's altered much?" said Aspasia Fitzgibbon, an elderly
+spinster, the daughter of Lord Claddagh, and sister of Laurence
+Fitzgibbon, member for one of the western Irish counties. "I don't
+think she was quite so loud as she used to be."
+
+Mrs. Bonteen was of opinion that there was a change. "She was always
+uncertain, you know, and would scratch like a cat if you offended
+her."
+
+"And won't she scratch now?" asked Miss Fitzgibbon.
+
+"I'm afraid she'll scratch oftener. It was always a trick of hers to
+pretend to think nothing of rank;--but she values her place as highly
+as any woman in England."
+
+This was Mrs. Bonteen's opinion; but Lady Baldock, who was present,
+differed. This Lady Baldock was not the mother, but the sister-in-law
+of that Augusta Boreham who had lately become Sister Veronica John.
+"I don't believe it," said Lady Baldock. "She always seems to me to
+be like a great schoolgirl who has been allowed too much of her own
+way. I think people give way to her too much, you know." As Lady
+Baldock was herself the wife of a peer, she naturally did not stand
+so much in awe of a duchess as did Mrs. Bonteen, or Miss Fitzgibbon.
+
+"Have you seen the young Duke?" asked Mr. Ratler of Barrington Erle.
+
+"Yes; I have been with him this morning."
+
+"How does he like it?"
+
+"He's bothered out of his life,--as a hen would be if you were to
+throw her into water. He's so shy, he hardly knows how to speak to
+you; and he broke down altogether when I said something about the
+Lords."
+
+"He'll not do much more."
+
+"I don't know about that," said Erle. "He'll get used to it, and go
+into harness again. He's a great deal too good to be lost."
+
+"He didn't give himself airs?"
+
+"What!--Planty Pall! If I know anything of a man he's not the man to
+do that because he's a duke. He can hold his own against all comers,
+and always could. Quiet as he always seemed, he knew who he was, and
+who other people were. I don't think you'll find much difference in
+him when he has got over the annoyance." Mr. Ratler, however, was
+of a different opinion. Mr. Ratler had known many docile members of
+the House of Commons who had become peers by the death of uncles and
+fathers, and who had lost all respect for him as soon as they were
+released from the crack of the whip. Mr. Ratler rather despised peers
+who had been members of the House of Commons, and who passed by
+inheritance from a scene of unparalleled use and influence to one of
+idle and luxurious dignity.
+
+Soon after their arrival in London the Duchess wrote the following
+very characteristic letter:--
+
+
+   DEAR LORD CHILTERN,
+
+   Mr. Palliser-- [Then having begun with a mistake, she
+   scratched the word through with her pen.] The Duke has
+   asked me to write about Trumpeton Wood, as he knows
+   nothing about it, and I know just as little. But if
+   you say what you want, it shall be done. Shall we get
+   foxes and put them there? Or ought there to be a special
+   fox-keeper? You mustn't be angry because the poor old Duke
+   was too feeble to take notice of the matter. Only speak,
+   and it shall be done.
+
+   Yours faithfully,
+
+   GLENCORA O.
+
+   Madame Goesler spoke to me about it; but at that time we
+   were in trouble.
+
+
+The answer was as characteristic:--
+
+
+   DEAR DUCHESS OF OMNIUM,
+
+   Thanks. What is wanted, is that keepers should know that
+   there are to be foxes. When keepers know that foxes are
+   really expected, there always are foxes. The men latterly
+   have known just the contrary. It is all a question of
+   shooting. I don't mean to say a word against the late
+   Duke. When he got old the thing became bad. No doubt it
+   will be right now.
+
+   Faithfully yours,
+
+   CHILTERN.
+
+   Our hounds have been poisoned in Trumpeton Wood. This
+   would never have been done had not the keepers been
+   against the hunting.
+
+
+Upon receipt of this she sent the letter to Mr. Fothergill, with a
+request that there might be no more shooting in Trumpeton Wood. "I'll
+be shot if we'll stand that, you know," said Mr. Fothergill to one of
+his underlings. "There are two hundred and fifty acres in Trumpeton
+Wood, and we're never to kill another pheasant because Lord Chiltern
+is Master of the Brake Hounds. Property won't be worth having at that
+rate."
+
+The Duke by no means intended to abandon the world of politics, or
+even the narrower sphere of ministerial work, because he had been
+ousted from the House of Commons, and from the possibility of filling
+the office which he had best liked. This was proved to the world
+by the choice of his house for a meeting of the party on the 30th
+of March. As it happened, this was the very day on which he and
+the Duchess returned to London; but nevertheless the meeting was
+held there, and he was present at it. Mr. Gresham then repeated his
+reasons for opposing Mr. Daubeny's bill; and declared that even while
+doing so he would, with the approbation of his party, pledge himself
+to bring in a bill somewhat to the same effect, should he ever again
+find himself in power. And he declared that he would do this solely
+with the view of showing how strong was his opinion that such a
+measure should not be left in the hands of the Conservative party. It
+was doubted whether such a political proposition had ever before been
+made in England. It was a simple avowal that on this occasion men
+were to be regarded, and not measures. No doubt such is the case, and
+ever has been the case, with the majority of active politicians. The
+double pleasure of pulling down an opponent, and of raising oneself,
+is the charm of a politician's life. And by practice this becomes
+extended to so many branches, that the delights,--and also the
+disappointments,--are very widespread. Great satisfaction is felt
+by us because by some lucky conjunction of affairs our man, whom we
+never saw, is made Lord-Lieutenant of a county, instead of another
+man, of whom we know as little. It is a great thing to us that Sir
+Samuel Bobwig, an excellent Liberal, is seated high on the bench of
+justice, instead of that time-serving Conservative, Sir Alexander
+McSilk. Men and not measures are, no doubt, the very life of
+politics. But then it is not the fashion to say so in public places.
+Mr. Gresham was determined to introduce that fashion on the present
+occasion. He did not think very much of Mr. Daubeny's Bill. So
+he told his friends at the Duke's house. The Bill was full of
+faults,--went too far in one direction, and not far enough in
+another. It was not difficult to pick holes in the Bill. But the
+sin of sins consisted in this,--that it was to be passed, if passed
+at all, by the aid of men who would sin against their consciences
+by each vote they gave in its favour. What but treachery could be
+expected from an army in which every officer, and every private, was
+called upon to fight against his convictions? The meeting passed
+off without dissension, and it was agreed that the House of Commons
+should be called upon to reject the Church Bill simply because it
+was proposed from that side of the House on which the minority was
+sitting. As there were more than two hundred members present on the
+occasion, by none of whom were any objections raised, it seemed
+probable that Mr. Gresham might be successful. There was still,
+however, doubt in the minds of some men. "It's all very well," said
+Mr. Ratler, "but Turnbull wasn't there, you know."
+
+But from what took place the next day but one in Park Lane it would
+almost seem that the Duchess had been there. She came at once to see
+Madame Goesler, having very firmly determined that the Duke's death
+should not have the appearance of interrupting her intimacy with her
+friend. "Was it not very disagreeable,"--asked Madame Goesler,--"just
+the day you came to town?"
+
+"We didn't think of that at all. One is not allowed to think of
+anything now. It was very improper, of course, because of the Duke's
+death;--but that had to be put on one side. And then it was quite
+contrary to etiquette that Peers and Commoners should be brought
+together. I think there was some idea of making sure of Plantagenet,
+and so they all came and wore out our carpets. There wasn't above a
+dozen peers; but they were enough to show that all the old landmarks
+have been upset. I don't think any one would have objected if I had
+opened the meeting myself, and called upon Mrs. Bonteen to second
+me."
+
+"Why Mrs. Bonteen?"
+
+"Because next to myself she's the most talkative and political woman
+we have. She was at our house yesterday, and I'm not quite sure that
+she doesn't intend to cut me out."
+
+"We must put her down, Lady Glen."
+
+"Perhaps she'll put me down now that we're half shelved. The men did
+make such a racket, and yet no one seemed to speak for two minutes
+except Mr. Gresham, who stood upon my pet footstool, and kicked it
+almost to pieces."
+
+"Was Mr. Finn there?"
+
+"Everybody was there, I suppose. What makes you ask particularly
+about Mr. Finn?"
+
+"Because he's a friend."
+
+"That's come up again, has it? He's the handsome Irishman, isn't he,
+that came to Matching, the same day that brought you there?"
+
+"He is an Irishman, and he was at Matching, that day."
+
+"He's certainly handsome. What a day that was, Marie! When one thinks
+of it all,--of all the perils and all the salvations, how strange
+it is! I wonder whether you would have liked it now if you were the
+Dowager Duchess."
+
+"I should have had some enjoyment, I suppose."
+
+
+[Illustration: "I should have had some enjoyment, I suppose."]
+
+
+"I don't know that it would have done us any harm, and yet how keen I
+was about it. We can't give you the rank now, and you won't take the
+money."
+
+"Not the money, certainly."
+
+"Plantagenet says you'll have to take it;--but it seems to me he's
+always wrong. There are so many things that one must do that one
+doesn't do. He never perceives that everything gets changed every
+five years. So Mr. Finn is the favourite again?"
+
+"He is a friend whom I like. I may be allowed to have a friend, I
+suppose."
+
+"A dozen, my dear;--and all of them good-looking. Good-bye, dear.
+Pray come to us. Don't stand off and make yourself disagreeable.
+We shan't be giving dinner parties, but you can come whenever you
+please. Tell me at once;--do you mean to be disagreeable?"
+
+Then Madame Goesler was obliged to promise that she would not be more
+disagreeable than her nature had made her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+THE WORLD BECOMES COLD.
+
+
+A great deal was said by very many persons in London as to the
+murderous attack which had been made by Mr. Kennedy on Phineas Finn
+in Judd Street, but the advice given by Mr. Slide in The People's
+Banner to the police was not taken. No public or official inquiry
+was made into the circumstance. Mr. Kennedy, under the care of his
+cousin, retreated to Scotland; and, as it seemed, there was to be
+an end of it. Throughout the month of March various smaller bolts
+were thrust both at Phineas and at the police by the editor of
+the above-named newspaper, but they seemed to fall without much
+effect. No one was put in prison; nor was any one ever examined. But,
+nevertheless, these missiles had their effect. Everybody knew that
+there had been a "row" between Mr. Kennedy and Phineas Finn, and that
+the "row" had been made about Mr. Kennedy's wife. Everybody knew
+that a pistol had been fired at Finn's head; and a great many people
+thought that there had been some cause for the assault. It was
+alleged at one club that the present member for Tankerville had spent
+the greater part of the last two years at Dresden, and at another
+that he had called on Mr. Kennedy twice, once down in Scotland,
+and once at the hotel in Judd Street, with a view of inducing that
+gentleman to concede to a divorce. There was also a very romantic
+story afloat as to an engagement which had existed between Lady Laura
+and Phineas Finn before the lady had been induced by her father to
+marry the richer suitor. Various details were given in corroboration
+of these stories. Was it not known that the Earl had purchased the
+submission of Phineas Finn by a seat for his borough of Loughton?
+Was it not known that Lord Chiltern, the brother of Lady Laura, had
+fought a duel with Phineas Finn? Was it not known that Mr. Kennedy
+himself had been as it were coerced into quiescence by the singular
+fact that he had been saved from garotters in the street by the
+opportune interference of Phineas Finn? It was even suggested that
+the scene with the garotters had been cunningly planned by Phineas
+Finn, that he might in this way be able to restrain the anger of
+the husband of the lady whom he loved. All these stories were very
+pretty; but as the reader, it is hoped, knows, they were all untrue.
+Phineas had made but one short visit to Dresden in his life. Lady
+Laura had been engaged to Mr. Kennedy before Phineas had ever spoken
+to her of his love. The duel with Lord Chiltern had been about
+another lady, and the seat at Loughton had been conferred upon
+Phineas chiefly on account of his prowess in extricating Mr. Kennedy
+from the garotters,--respecting which circumstance it may be said
+that as the meeting in the street was fortuitous, the reward was
+greater than the occasion seemed to require.
+
+While all these things were being said Phineas became something of a
+hero. A man who is supposed to have caused a disturbance between two
+married people, in a certain rank of life, does generally receive a
+certain meed of admiration. A man who was asked out to dinner twice
+a week before such rumours were afloat, would probably receive double
+that number of invitations afterwards. And then to have been shot
+at by a madman in a room, and to be the subject of the venom of a
+People's Banner, tends also to Fame. Other ladies besides Madame
+Goesler were anxious to have the story from the very lips of the
+hero, and in this way Phineas Finn became a conspicuous man. But
+Fame begets envy, and there were some who said that the member for
+Tankerville had injured his prospects with his party. It may be very
+well to give a dinner to a man who has caused the wife of a late
+Cabinet Minister to quarrel with her husband; but it can hardly be
+expected that he should be placed in office by the head of the party
+to which that late Cabinet Minister belonged. "I never saw such a
+fellow as you are," said Barrington Erle to him. "You are always
+getting into a mess."
+
+"Nobody ought to know better than you how false all these calumnies
+are." This he said because Erle and Lady Laura were cousins.
+
+"Of course they are calumnies; but you had heard them before, and
+what made you go poking your head into the lion's mouth?"
+
+Mr. Bonteen was very much harder upon him than was Barrington Erle.
+"I never liked him from the first, and always knew he would not run
+straight. No Irishman ever does." This was said to Viscount Fawn, a
+distinguished member of the Liberal party, who had but lately been
+married, and was known to have very strict notions as to the bonds of
+matrimony. He had been heard to say that any man who had interfered
+with the happiness of a married couple should be held to have
+committed a capital offence.
+
+"I don't know whether the story about Lady Laura is true."
+
+"Of course it's true. All the world knows it to be true. He was
+always there; at Loughlinter, and at Saulsby, and in Portman
+Square after she had left her husband. The mischief he has done is
+incalculable. There's a Conservative sitting in poor Kennedy's seat
+for Dunross-shire."
+
+"That might have been the case anyway."
+
+"Nothing could have turned Kennedy out. Don't you remember how he
+behaved about the Irish Land Question? I hate such fellows."
+
+"If I thought it true about Lady Laura--"
+
+Lord Fawn was again about to express his opinion in regard to
+matrimony, but Mr. Bonteen was too impetuous to listen to him. "It's
+out of the question that he should come in again. At any rate if he
+does, I won't. I shall tell Gresham so very plainly. The women will
+do all that they can for him. They always do for a fellow of that
+kind."
+
+Phineas heard of it;--not exactly by any repetition of the words
+that were spoken, but by chance phrases, and from the looks of men.
+Lord Cantrip, who was his best friend among those who were certain
+to hold high office in a Liberal Government, did not talk to him
+cheerily,--did not speak as though he, Phineas, would as a matter
+of course have some place assigned to him. And he thought that Mr.
+Gresham was hardly as cordial to him as he might be when they met
+in the closer intercourse of the House. There was always a word
+or two spoken, and sometimes a shaking of hands. He had no right
+to complain. But yet he knew that something was wanting. We can
+generally read a man's purpose towards us in his manner, if his
+purposes are of much moment to us.
+
+Phineas had written to Lady Laura, giving her an account of the
+occurrence in Judd Street on the 1st of March, and had received from
+her a short answer by return of post. It contained hardly more than
+a thanksgiving that his life had not been sacrificed, and in a day or
+two she had written again, letting him know that she had determined
+to consult her father. Then on the last day of the month he received
+the following letter:--
+
+
+   Dresden, March 27th, 18--.
+
+   MY DEAR FRIEND,--
+
+   At last we have resolved that we will go back to
+   England,--almost at once. Things have gone so rapidly
+   that I hardly know how to explain them all, but that is
+   Papa's resolution. His lawyer, Mr. Forster, tells him
+   that it will be best, and goes so far as to say that it
+   is imperative on my behalf that some steps should be taken
+   to put an end to the present state of things. I will
+   not scruple to tell you that he is actuated chiefly by
+   considerations as to money. It is astonishing to me that
+   a man who has all his life been so liberal should now in
+   his old age think so much about it. It is, however, in no
+   degree for himself. It is all for me. He cannot bear to
+   think that my fortune should be withheld from me by Mr.
+   Kennedy while I have done nothing wrong. I was obliged to
+   show him your letter, and what you said about the control
+   of money took hold of his mind at once. He thinks that
+   if my unfortunate husband be insane, there can be no
+   difficulty in my obtaining a separation on terms which
+   would oblige him or his friends to restore this horrid
+   money.
+
+   Of course I could stay if I chose. Papa would not refuse
+   to find a home for me here. But I do agree with Mr.
+   Forster that something should be done to stop the tongues
+   of ill-conditioned people. The idea of having my name
+   dragged through the newspapers is dreadful to me; but if
+   this must be done one way or the other, it will be better
+   that it should be done with truth. There is nothing that
+   I need fear,--as you know so well.
+
+   I cannot look forward to happiness anywhere. If the
+   question of separation were once settled, I do not know
+   whether I would not prefer returning here to remaining in
+   London. Papa has got tired of the place, and wants, he
+   says, to see Saulsby once again before he dies. What can
+   I say in answer to this, but that I will go? We have sent
+   to have the house in Portman Square got ready for us, and
+   I suppose we shall be there about the 15th of next month.
+   Papa has instructed Mr. Forster to tell Mr. Kennedy's
+   lawyer that we are coming, and he is to find out, if he
+   can, whether any interference in the management of the
+   property has been as yet made by the family. Perhaps I
+   ought to tell you that Mr. Forster has expressed surprise
+   that you did not call on the police when the shot was
+   fired. Of course I can understand it all. God bless you.
+
+   Your affectionate friend,
+
+   L. K.
+
+
+Phineas was obliged to console himself by reflecting that if she
+understood him of course that was everything. His first and great
+duty in the matter had been to her. If in performing that duty he had
+sacrificed himself, he must bear his undeserved punishment like a
+man. That he was to be punished he began to perceive too clearly. The
+conviction that Mr. Daubeny must recede from the Treasury Bench after
+the coming debate became every day stronger, and within the little
+inner circles of the Liberal party the usual discussions were made
+as to the Ministry which Mr. Gresham would, as a matter of course,
+be called upon to form. But in these discussions Phineas Finn did
+not find himself taking an assured and comfortable part. Laurence
+Fitzgibbon, his countryman,--who in the way of work had never been
+worth his salt,--was eager, happy, and without a doubt. Others of the
+old stagers, men who had been going in and out ever since they had
+been able to get seats in Parliament, stood about in clubs, and in
+lobbies, and chambers of the House, with all that busy, magpie air
+which is worn only by those who have high hopes of good things to
+come speedily. Lord Mount Thistle was more sublime and ponderous
+than ever, though they who best understood the party declared that
+he would never again be invited to undergo the cares of office. His
+lordship was one of those terrible political burdens, engendered
+originally by private friendship or family considerations, which
+one Minister leaves to another. Sir Gregory Grogram, the great Whig
+lawyer, showed plainly by his manner that he thought himself at last
+secure of reaching the reward for which he had been struggling all
+his life; for it was understood by all men who knew anything that
+Lord Weazeling was not to be asked again to sit on the Woolsack.
+No better advocate or effective politician ever lived; but it was
+supposed that he lacked dignity for the office of first judge in
+the land. That most of the old lot would come back was a matter of
+course.
+
+There would be the Duke,--the Duke of St. Bungay, who had for years
+past been "the Duke" when Liberal administrations were discussed, and
+the second Duke, whom we know so well; and Sir Harry Coldfoot, and
+Legge Wilson, Lord Cantrip, Lord Thrift, and the rest of them. There
+would of course be Lord Fawn, Mr. Ratler, and Mr. Erle. The thing was
+so thoroughly settled that one was almost tempted to think that the
+Prime Minister himself would have no voice in the selections to be
+made. As to one office it was acknowledged on all sides that a doubt
+existed which would at last be found to be very injurious,--as some
+thought altogether crushing,--to the party. To whom would Mr. Gresham
+entrust the financial affairs of the country? Who would be the new
+Chancellor of the Exchequer? There were not a few who inferred that
+Mr. Bonteen would be promoted to that high office. During the last
+two years he had devoted himself to decimal coinage with a zeal only
+second to that displayed by Plantagenet Palliser, and was accustomed
+to say of himself that he had almost perished under his exertions. It
+was supposed that he would have the support of the present Duke of
+Omnium,--and that Mr. Gresham, who disliked the man, would be coerced
+by the fact that there was no other competitor. That Mr. Bonteen
+should go into the Cabinet would be gall and wormwood to many brother
+Liberals; but gall and wormwood such as this have to be swallowed.
+The rising in life of our familiar friends is, perhaps, the bitterest
+morsel of the bitter bread which we are called upon to eat in life.
+But we do eat it; and after a while it becomes food to us,--when we
+find ourselves able to use, on behalf, perhaps, of our children, the
+influence of those whom we had once hoped to leave behind in the race
+of life. When a man suddenly shoots up into power few suffer from it
+very acutely. The rise of a Pitt can have caused no heart-burning.
+But Mr. Bonteen had been a hack among the hacks, had filled the usual
+half-dozen places, had been a junior Lord, a Vice-President, a Deputy
+Controller, a Chief Commissioner, and a Joint Secretary. His hopes
+had been raised or abased among the places of £1,000, £1,200, or
+£1,500 a year. He had hitherto culminated at £2,000, and had been
+supposed with diligence to have worked himself up to the top of
+the ladder, as far as the ladder was accessible to him. And now he
+was spoken of in connection with one of the highest offices of the
+State! Of course this created much uneasiness, and gave rise to
+many prophecies of failure. But in the midst of it all no office
+was assigned to Phineas Finn; and there was a general feeling, not
+expressed, but understood, that his affair with Mr. Kennedy stood in
+his way.
+
+Quintus Slide had undertaken to crush him! Could it be possible that
+so mean a man should be able to make good so monstrous a threat?
+The man was very mean, and the threat had been absurd as well as
+monstrous; and yet it seemed that it might be realised. Phineas was
+too proud to ask questions, even of Barrington Erle, but he felt
+that he was being "left out in the cold," because the editor of The
+People's Banner had said that no government could employ him; and at
+this moment, on the very morning of the day which was to usher in the
+great debate, which was to be so fatal to Mr. Daubeny and his Church
+Reform, another thunderbolt was hurled. The "we" of The People's
+Banner had learned that the very painful matter, to which they had
+been compelled by a sense of duty to call the public attention in
+reference to the late member for Dunross-shire and the present member
+for Tankerville, would be brought before one of the tribunals of the
+country, in reference to the matrimonial differences between Mr.
+Kennedy and his wife. It would be in the remembrance of their readers
+that the unfortunate gentleman had been provoked to fire a pistol
+at the head of the member for Tankerville,--a circumstance which,
+though publicly known, had never been brought under the notice of
+the police. There was reason to hope that the mystery might now
+be cleared up, and that the ends of justice would demand that a
+certain document should be produced, which they,--the "we,"--had been
+vexatiously restrained from giving to their readers, although it had
+been most carefully prepared for publication in the columns of The
+People's Banner. Then the thunderbolt went on to say that there was
+evidently a great move among the members of the so-called Liberal
+party, who seemed to think that it was only necessary that they
+should open their mouths wide enough in order that the sweets of
+office should fall into them. The "we" were quite of a different
+opinion. The "we" believed that no Minister for many a long day had
+been so firmly fixed on the Treasury Bench as was Mr. Daubeny at the
+present moment. But this at any rate might be inferred;--that should
+Mr. Gresham by any unhappy combination of circumstances be called
+upon to form a Ministry, it would be quite impossible for him to
+include within it the name of the member for Tankerville. This was
+the second great thunderbolt that fell,--and so did the work of
+crushing our poor friend proceed.
+
+There was a great injustice in all this; at least so Phineas
+thought;--injustice, not only from the hands of Mr. Slide, who was
+unjust as a matter of course, but also from those who ought to have
+been his staunch friends. He had been enticed over to England almost
+with a promise of office, and he was sure that he had done nothing
+which deserved punishment, or even censure. He could not condescend
+to complain,--nor indeed as yet could he say that there was ground
+for complaint. Nothing had been done to him. Not a word had been
+spoken,--except those lying words in the newspapers which he was too
+proud to notice. On one matter, however, he was determined to be
+firm. When Barrington Erle had absolutely insisted that he should
+vote upon the Church Bill in opposition to all that he had said upon
+the subject at Tankerville, he had stipulated that he should have an
+opportunity in the great debate which would certainly take place of
+explaining his conduct,--or, in other words, that the privilege of
+making a speech should be accorded to him at a time in which very
+many members would no doubt attempt to speak and would attempt in
+vain. It may be imagined,--probably still is imagined by a great
+many,--that no such pledge as this could be given, that the right
+to speak depends simply on the Speaker's eye, and that energy at
+the moment in attracting attention would alone be of account to an
+eager orator. But Phineas knew the House too well to trust to such
+a theory. That some preliminary assistance would be given to the
+travelling of the Speaker's eye, in so important a debate, he knew
+very well; and he knew also that a promise from Barrington Erle or
+from Mr. Ratler would be his best security. "That will be all right,
+of course," said Barrington Erle to him on the evening the day before
+the debate: "We have quite counted on your speaking." There had been
+a certain sullenness in the tone with which Phineas had asked his
+question as though he had been labouring under a grievance, and he
+felt himself rebuked by the cordiality of the reply. "I suppose we
+had better fix it for Monday or Tuesday," said the other. "We hope
+to get it over by Tuesday, but there is no knowing. At any rate you
+shan't be thrown over." It was almost on his tongue,--the entire
+story of his grievance, the expression of his feeling that he was not
+being treated as one of the chosen; but he restrained himself. He
+liked Barrington Erle well enough, but not so well as to justify him
+in asking for sympathy.
+
+Nor had it been his wont in any of the troubles of his life to ask
+for sympathy from a man. He had always gone to some woman;--in old
+days to Lady Laura, or to Violet Effingham, or to Madame Goesler. By
+them he could endure to be petted, praised, or upon occasion even
+pitied. But pity or praise from any man had been distasteful to him.
+On the morning of the 1st of April he again went to Park Lane, not
+with any formed plan of telling the lady of his wrongs, but driven by
+a feeling that he wanted comfort, which might perhaps be found there.
+The lady received him very kindly, and at once inquired as to the
+great political tournament which was about to be commenced. "Yes; we
+begin to-day," said Phineas. "Mr. Daubeny will speak, I should say,
+from half-past four till seven. I wonder you don't go and hear him."
+
+"What a pleasure! To hear a man speak for two hours and a half about
+the Church of England. One must be very hard driven for amusement!
+Will you tell me that you like it?"
+
+"I like to hear a good speech."
+
+"But you have the excitement before you of making a good speech in
+answer. You are in the fight. A poor woman, shut up in a cage, feels
+there more acutely than anywhere else how insignificant a position
+she fills in the world."
+
+"You don't advocate the rights of women, Madame Goesler?"
+
+"Oh, no. Knowing our inferiority I submit without a grumble; but I am
+not sure that I care to go and listen to the squabbles of my masters.
+You may arrange it all among you, and I will accept what you do,
+whether it be good or bad,--as I must; but I cannot take so much
+interest in the proceeding as to spend my time in listening where I
+cannot speak, and in looking when I cannot be seen. You will speak?"
+
+"Yes; I think so."
+
+"I shall read your speech, which is more than I shall do for most of
+the others. And when it is all over, will your turn come?"
+
+"Not mine individually, Madame Goesler."
+
+"But it will be yours individually;--will it not?" she asked with
+energy. Then gradually, with half-pronounced sentences, he explained
+to her that even in the event of the formation of a Liberal
+Government, he did not expect that any place would be offered to him.
+"And why not? We have been all speaking of it as a certainty."
+
+He longed to inquire who were the all of whom she spoke, but he could
+not do it without an egotism which would be distasteful to him. "I
+can hardly tell;--but I don't think I shall be asked to join them."
+
+"You would wish it?"
+
+"Yes;--talking to you I do not see why I should hesitate to say so."
+
+"Talking to me, why should you hesitate to say anything about
+yourself that is true? I can hold my tongue. I do not gossip about my
+friends. Whose doing is it?"
+
+"I do not know that it is any man's doing."
+
+"But it must be. Everybody said that you were to be one of them if
+you could get the other people out. Is it Mr. Bonteen?"
+
+"Likely enough. Not that I know anything of the kind; but as I hate
+him from the bottom of my heart, it is natural to suppose that he has
+the same feeling in regard to me."
+
+"I agree with you there."
+
+"But I don't know that it comes from any feeling of that kind."
+
+"What does it come from?"
+
+"You have heard all the calumny about Lady Laura Kennedy."
+
+"You do not mean to say that a story such as that has affected your
+position."
+
+"I fancy it has. But you must not suppose, Madame Goesler, that I
+mean to complain. A man must take these things as they come. No one
+has received more kindness from friends than I have, and few perhaps
+more favours from fortune. All this about Mr. Kennedy has been
+unlucky,--but it cannot be helped."
+
+"Do you mean to say that the morals of your party will be offended?"
+said Madame Goesler, almost laughing.
+
+"Lord Fawn, you know, is very particular. In sober earnest one cannot
+tell how these things operate; but they do operate gradually. One's
+friends are sometimes very glad of an excuse for not befriending
+one."
+
+"Lady Laura is coming home?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"That will put an end to it."
+
+"There is nothing to put an end to except the foul-mouthed malice of
+a lying newspaper. Nobody believes anything against Lady Laura."
+
+"I'm not so sure of that. I believe nothing against her."
+
+"I'm sure you do not, Madame Goesler. Nor do I think that anybody
+does. It is too absurd for belief from beginning to end. Good-bye.
+Perhaps I shall see you when the debate is over."
+
+"Of course you will. Good-bye, and success to your oratory." Then
+Madame Goesler resolved that she would say a few judicious words to
+her friend, the Duchess, respecting Phineas Finn.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+THE TWO GLADIATORS.
+
+
+The great debate was commenced with all the solemnities which are
+customary on such occasions, and which make men think for the day
+that no moment of greater excitement has ever blessed or cursed the
+country. Upon the present occasion London was full of clergymen.
+The specially clerical clubs,--the Oxford and Cambridge, the Old
+University, and the Athenaeum,--were black with them. The bishops and
+deans, as usual, were pleasant in their manner and happy-looking, in
+spite of adverse circumstances. When one sees a bishop in the hours
+of the distress of the Church, one always thinks of the just and
+firm man who will stand fearless while the ruins of the world are
+falling about his ears. But the parsons from the country were a sorry
+sight to see. They were in earnest with all their hearts, and did
+believe,--not that the crack of doom was coming, which they could
+have borne with equanimity if convinced that their influence would
+last to the end,--but that the Evil One was to be made welcome
+upon the earth by Act of Parliament. It is out of nature that any
+man should think it good that his own order should be repressed,
+curtailed, and deprived of its power. If we go among cab-drivers
+or letter-carriers, among butlers or gamekeepers, among tailors or
+butchers, among farmers or graziers, among doctors or attorneys, we
+shall find in each set of men a conviction that the welfare of the
+community depends upon the firmness with which they,--especially
+they,--hold their own. This is so manifestly true with the Bar that
+no barrister in practice scruples to avow that barristers in practice
+are the salt of the earth. The personal confidence of a judge in his
+own position is beautiful, being salutary to the country, though not
+unfrequently damaging to the character of the man. But if this be so
+with men who are conscious of no higher influence than that exercised
+over the bodies and minds of their fellow creatures, how much
+stronger must be the feeling when the influence affects the soul! To
+the outsider, or layman, who simply uses a cab, or receives a letter,
+or goes to law, or has to be tried, these pretensions are ridiculous
+or annoying, according to the ascendancy of the pretender at the
+moment. But as the clerical pretensions are more exacting than
+all others, being put forward with an assertion that no answer is
+possible without breach of duty and sin, so are they more galling.
+The fight has been going on since the idea of a mitre first entered
+the heart of a priest,--since dominion in this world has found itself
+capable of sustentation by the exercise of fear as to the world to
+come. We do believe,--the majority among us does so,--that if we live
+and die in sin we shall after some fashion come to great punishment,
+and we believe also that by having pastors among us who shall be
+men of God, we may best aid ourselves and our children in avoiding
+this bitter end. But then the pastors and men of God can only be
+human,--cannot be altogether men of God; and so they have oppressed
+us, and burned us, and tortured us, and hence come to love palaces,
+and fine linen, and purple, and, alas, sometimes, mere luxury and
+idleness. The torturing and the burning, as also to speak truth the
+luxury and the idleness, have, among us, been already conquered, but
+the idea of ascendancy remains. What is a thoughtful man to do who
+acknowledges the danger of his soul, but cannot swallow his parson
+whole simply because he has been sent to him from some source in
+which he has no special confidence, perhaps by some distant lord,
+perhaps by a Lord Chancellor whose political friend has had a son
+with a tutor? What is he to do when, in spite of some fine linen
+and purple left among us, the provision for the man of God in his
+parish or district is so poor that no man of God fitted to teach
+him will come and take it? In no spirit of animosity to religion he
+begins to tell himself that Church and State together was a monkish
+combination, fit perhaps for monkish days, but no longer having
+fitness, and not much longer capable of existence in this country.
+But to the parson himself,--to the honest, hardworking, conscientious
+priest who does in his heart of hearts believe that no diminution in
+the general influence of his order can be made without ruin to the
+souls of men,--this opinion, when it becomes dominant, is as though
+the world were in truth breaking to pieces over his head. The world
+has been broken to pieces in the same way often;--but extreme Chaos
+does not come. The cabman and the letter-carrier always expect that
+Chaos will very nearly come when they are disturbed. The barristers
+are sure of Chaos when the sanctity of Benchers is in question. What
+utter Chaos would be promised to us could any one with impunity
+contemn the majesty of the House of Commons! But of all these
+Chaoses there can be no Chaos equal to that which in the mind of a
+zealous Oxford-bred constitutional country parson must attend that
+annihilation of his special condition which will be produced by
+the disestablishment of the Church. Of all good fellows he is the
+best good fellow. He is genial, hospitable, well-educated, and
+always has either a pretty wife or pretty daughters. But he has so
+extreme a belief in himself that he cannot endure to be told that
+absolute Chaos will not come at once if he be disturbed. And now
+disturbances,--ay, and utter dislocation and ruin were to come from
+the hands of a friend! Was it wonderful that parsons should be seen
+about Westminster in flocks with _"Et tu, Brute"_ written on their
+faces as plainly as the law on the brows of a Pharisee?
+
+The Speaker had been harassed for orders. The powers and prowess
+of every individual member had been put to the test. The galleries
+were crowded. Ladies' places had been ballotted for with desperate
+enthusiasm, in spite of the sarcasm against the House which Madame
+Goesler had expressed. Two royal princes and a royal duke were
+accommodated within the House in an irregular manner. Peers swarmed
+in the passages, and were too happy to find standing room. Bishops
+jostled against lay barons with no other preference than that
+afforded to them by their broader shoulders. Men, and especially
+clergymen, came to the galleries loaded with sandwiches and flasks,
+prepared to hear all there was to be heard should the debate last
+from 4 P.M. to the same hour on the following morning. At two in the
+afternoon the entrances to the House were barred, and men of all
+ranks,--deans, prebends, peers' sons, and baronets,--stood there
+patiently waiting till some powerful nobleman should let them
+through. The very ventilating chambers under the House were filled
+with courteous listeners, who had all pledged themselves that under
+no possible provocation would they even cough during the debate.
+
+A few minutes after four, in a House from which hardly more than a
+dozen members were absent, Mr. Daubeny took his seat with that air of
+affected indifference to things around him which is peculiar to him.
+He entered slowly, amidst cheers from his side of the House, which
+no doubt were loud in proportion to the dismay of the cheerers as to
+the matter in hand. Gentlemen lacking substantial sympathy with their
+leader found it to be comfortable to deceive themselves, and raise
+their hearts at the same time by the easy enthusiasm of noise. Mr.
+Daubeny having sat down and covered his head just raised his hat from
+his brows, and then tried to look as though he were no more than any
+other gentleman present. But the peculiar consciousness of the man
+displayed itself even in his constrained absence of motion. You could
+see that he felt himself to be the beheld of all beholders, and that
+he enjoyed the position,--with some slight inward trepidation lest
+the effort to be made should not equal the greatness of the occasion.
+Immediately after him Mr. Gresham bustled up the centre of the House
+amidst a roar of good-humoured welcome. We have had many Ministers
+who have been personally dearer to their individual adherents in the
+House than the present leader of the Opposition and late Premier,
+but none, perhaps, who has been more generally respected by his
+party for earnestness and sincerity. On the present occasion there
+was a fierceness, almost a ferocity, in his very countenance, to
+the fire of which friends and enemies were equally anxious to add
+fuel,--the friends in order that so might these recreant Tories be
+more thoroughly annihilated, and the enemies, that their enemy's
+indiscretion might act back upon himself to his confusion. For,
+indeed, it never could be denied that as a Prime Minister Mr. Gresham
+could be very indiscreet.
+
+A certain small amount of ordinary business was done, to the disgust
+of expectant strangers, which was as trivial as possible in its
+nature,--so arranged, apparently, that the importance of what was to
+follow might be enhanced by the force of contrast. And, to make the
+dismay of the novice stranger more thorough, questions were asked
+and answers were given in so low a voice, and Mr. Speaker uttered a
+word or two in so quick and shambling a fashion, that he, the novice
+stranger, began to fear that no word of the debate would reach him
+up there in his crowded back seat. All this, however, occupied but a
+few minutes, and at twenty minutes past four Mr. Daubeny was on his
+legs. Then the novice stranger found that, though he could not see Mr.
+Daubeny without the aid of an opera glass, he could hear every word
+that fell from his lips.
+
+Mr. Daubeny began by regretting the hardness of his position, in that
+he must, with what thoroughness he might be able to achieve, apply
+himself to two great subjects, whereas the right honourable gentleman
+opposite had already declared, with all the formality which could be
+made to attach itself to a combined meeting of peers and commoners,
+that he would confine himself strictly to one. The subject selected
+by the right honourable gentleman opposite on the present occasion
+was not the question of Church Reform. The right honourable gentleman
+had pledged himself with an almost sacred enthusiasm to ignore that
+subject altogether. No doubt it was the question before the House,
+and he, himself,--the present speaker,--must unfortunately discuss
+it at some length. The right honourable gentleman opposite would not,
+on this great occasion, trouble himself with anything of so little
+moment. And it might be presumed that the political followers of the
+right honourable gentleman would be equally reticent, as they were
+understood to have accepted his tactics without a dissentient voice.
+He, Mr. Daubeny, was the last man in England to deny the importance
+of the question which the right honourable gentleman would select
+for discussions in preference to that of the condition of the
+Church. That question was a very simple one, and might be put to
+the House in a very few words. Coming from the mouth of the right
+honourable gentleman, the proposition would probably be made in this
+form:--"That this House does think that I ought to be Prime Minister
+now, and as long as I may possess a seat in this House." It was
+impossible to deny the importance of that question; but perhaps he,
+Mr. Daubeny, might be justified in demurring to the preference given
+to it over every other matter, let that matter be of what importance
+it might be to the material welfare of the country.
+
+He made his point well; but he made it too often. And an attack of
+that kind, personal and savage in its nature, loses its effect when
+it is evident that the words have been prepared. A good deal may be
+done in dispute by calling a man an ass or a knave,--but the resolve
+to use the words should have been made only at the moment, and they
+should come hot from the heart. There was much neatness and some
+acuteness in Mr. Daubeny's satire, but there was no heat, and it was
+prolix. It had, however, the effect of irritating Mr. Gresham,--as
+was evident from the manner in which he moved his hat and shuffled
+his feet.
+
+A man destined to sit conspicuously on our Treasury Bench, or on the
+seat opposite to it, should ask the gods for a thick skin as a first
+gift. The need of this in our national assembly is greater than
+elsewhere, because the differences between the men opposed to each
+other are smaller. When two foes meet together in the same Chamber,
+one of whom advocates the personal government of an individual ruler,
+and the other that form of State, which has come to be called a Red
+Republic, they deal, no doubt, weighty blows of oratory at each
+other, but blows which never hurt at the moment. They may cut each
+other's throats if they can find an opportunity; but they do not bite
+each other like dogs over a bone. But when opponents are almost in
+accord, as is always the case with our parliamentary gladiators,
+they are ever striving to give maddening little wounds through
+the joints of the harness. What is there with us to create the
+divergence necessary for debate but the pride of personal skill in
+the encounter? Who desires among us to put down the Queen, or to
+repudiate the National Debt, or to destroy religious worship, or even
+to disturb the ranks of society? When some small measure of reform
+has thoroughly recommended itself to the country,--so thoroughly that
+all men know that the country will have it,--then the question arises
+whether its details shall be arranged by the political party which
+calls itself Liberal,--or by that which is termed Conservative. The
+men are so near to each other in all their convictions and theories
+of life that nothing is left to them but personal competition for the
+doing of the thing that is to be done. It is the same in religion.
+The apostle of Christianity and the infidel can meet without a chance
+of a quarrel; but it is never safe to bring together two men who
+differ about a saint or a surplice.
+
+Mr. Daubeny, having thus attacked and wounded his enemy, rushed
+boldly into the question of Church Reform, taking no little pride
+to himself and to his party that so great a blessing should be
+bestowed upon the country from so unexpected a source. "See what we
+Conservatives can do. In fact we will conserve nothing when we find
+that you do not desire to have it conserved any longer. 'Quod minime
+reris Graiâ pandetur ab urbe.'" It was exactly the reverse of the
+complaint which Mr. Gresham was about to make. On the subject of
+the Church itself he was rather misty but very profound. He went
+into the question of very early Churches indeed, and spoke of the
+misappropriation of endowments in the time of Eli. The establishment
+of the Levites had been no doubt complete; but changes had been
+effected as circumstances required. He was presumed to have alluded
+to the order of Melchisedek, but he abstained from any mention of the
+name. He roamed very wide, and gave many of his hearers an idea that
+his erudition had carried him into regions in which it was impossible
+to follow him. The gist of his argument was to show that audacity in
+Reform was the very backbone of Conservatism. By a clearly pronounced
+disunion of Church and State the theocracy of Thomas à Becket would
+be restored, and the people of England would soon again become the
+faithful flocks of faithful shepherds. By taking away the endowments
+from the parishes, and giving them back in some complicated way to
+the country, the parishes would be better able than ever to support
+their clergymen. Bishops would be bishops indeed, when they were no
+longer the creatures of a Minister's breath. As to the deans, not
+seeing a clear way to satisfy aspirants for future vacancies in the
+deaneries, he became more than usually vague, but seemed to imply
+that the Bill which was now with the leave of the House to be read
+a second time, contained no clause forbidding the appointment of
+deans, though the special stipend of the office must be matter of
+consideration with the new Church Synod.
+
+The details of this part of his speech were felt to be dull by the
+strangers. As long as he would abuse Mr. Gresham, men could listen
+with pleasure; and could keep their attention fixed while he referred
+to the general Conservatism of the party which he had the honour
+of leading. There was a raciness in the promise of so much Church
+destruction from the chosen leader of the Church party, which was
+assisted by a conviction in the minds of most men that it was
+impossible for unfortunate Conservatives to refuse to follow this
+leader, let him lead where he might. There was a gratification in
+feeling that the country party was bound to follow, even should he
+take them into the very bowels of a mountain, as the pied piper did
+the children of Hamelin;--and this made listening pleasant. But when
+Mr. Daubeny stated the effect of his different clauses, explaining
+what was to be taken and what left,--with a fervent assurance that
+what was to be left would, under the altered circumstances, go much
+further than the whole had gone before,--then the audience became
+weary, and began to think that it was time that some other gentleman
+should be upon his legs. But at the end of the Minister's speech
+there was another touch of invective which went far to redeem him.
+He returned to that personal question to which his adversary had
+undertaken to confine himself, and expressed a holy horror at
+the political doctrine which was implied. He, during a prolonged
+Parliamentary experience, had encountered much factious opposition.
+He would even acknowledge that he had seen it exercised on both sides
+of the House, though he had always striven to keep himself free from
+its baneful influence. But never till now had he known a statesman
+proclaim his intention of depending upon faction, and upon faction
+alone, for the result which he desired to achieve. Let the right
+honourable gentleman raise a contest on either the principles or
+the details of the measure, and he would be quite content to abide
+the decision of the House; but he should regard such a raid as that
+threatened against him and his friends by the right honourable
+gentleman as unconstitutional, revolutionary, and tyrannical. He felt
+sure that an opposition so based, and so maintained, even if it be
+enabled by the heated feelings of the moment to obtain an unfortunate
+success in the House, would not be encouraged by the sympathy
+and support of the country at large. By these last words he was
+understood to signify that should he be beaten on the second reading,
+not in reference to the merits of the Bill, but simply on the issue
+as proposed by Mr. Gresham, he would again dissolve the House before
+he would resign. Now it was very well understood that there were
+Liberal members in the House who would prefer even the success of Mr.
+Daubeny to a speedy reappearance before their constituents.
+
+Mr. Daubeny spoke till nearly eight, and it was surmised at the time
+that he had craftily arranged his oratory so as to embarrass his
+opponent. The House had met at four, and was to sit continuously till
+it was adjourned for the night. When this is the case, gentlemen
+who speak about eight o'clock are too frequently obliged to address
+themselves to empty benches. On the present occasion it was Mr.
+Gresham's intention to follow his opponent at once, instead of
+waiting, as is usual with a leader of his party, to the close of the
+debate. It was understood that Mr. Gresham would follow Mr. Daubeny,
+with the object of making a distinct charge against Ministers, so
+that the vote on this second reading of the Church Bill might in
+truth be a vote of want of confidence. But to commence his speech at
+eight o'clock when the House was hungry and uneasy, would be a trial.
+Had Mr. Daubeny closed an hour sooner there would, with a little
+stretching of the favoured hours, have been time enough. Members
+would not have objected to postpone their dinner till half-past
+eight, or perhaps nine, when their favourite orator was on his legs.
+But with Mr. Gresham beginning a great speech at eight, dinner would
+altogether become doubtful, and the disaster might be serious. It was
+not probable that Mr. Daubeny had even among his friends proclaimed
+any such strategy; but it was thought by the political speculators of
+the day that such an idea had been present to his mind.
+
+But Mr. Gresham was not to be turned from his purpose. He waited for
+a few moments, and then rose and addressed the Speaker. A few members
+left the House;--gentlemen, doubtless, whose constitutions, weakened
+by previous service, could not endure prolonged fasting. Some who had
+nearly reached the door returned to their seats, mindful of Messrs.
+Roby and Ratler. But for the bulk of those assembled the interest
+of the moment was greater even than the love of dinner. Some of the
+peers departed, and it was observed that a bishop or two left the
+House; but among the strangers in the gallery, hardly a foot of space
+was gained. He who gave up his seat then, gave it up for the night.
+
+Mr. Gresham began with a calmness of tone which seemed almost to be
+affected, but which arose from a struggle on his own part to repress
+that superabundant energy of which he was only too conscious. But the
+calmness soon gave place to warmth, which heated itself into violence
+before he had been a quarter of an hour upon his legs. He soon became
+even ferocious in his invective, and said things so bitter that
+he had himself no conception of their bitterness. There was this
+difference between the two men,--that whereas Mr. Daubeny hit always
+as hard as he knew how to hit, having premeditated each blow, and
+weighed its results beforehand, having calculated his power even to
+the effect of a blow repeated on a wound already given, Mr. Gresham
+struck right and left and straightforward with a readiness engendered
+by practice, and in his fury might have murdered his antagonist
+before he was aware that he had drawn blood. He began by refusing
+absolutely to discuss the merits of the bill. The right honourable
+gentleman had prided himself on his generosity as a Greek. He would
+remind the right honourable gentleman that presents from Greeks had
+ever been considered dangerous. "It is their gifts, and only their
+gifts, that we fear," he said. The political gifts of the right
+honourable gentleman, extracted by him from his unwilling colleagues
+and followers, had always been more bitter to the taste than Dead
+Sea apples. That such gifts should not be bestowed on the country
+by unwilling hands, that reform should not come from those who
+themselves felt the necessity of no reform, he believed to be
+the wish not only of that House, but of the country at large.
+Would any gentleman on that bench, excepting the right honourable
+gentleman himself,--and he pointed to the crowded phalanx of the
+Government,--get up and declare that this measure of Church Reform,
+this severance of Church and State, was brought forward in consonance
+with his own long-cherished political conviction? He accused that
+party of being so bound to the chariot wheels of the right honourable
+gentleman, as to be unable to abide by their own convictions. And as
+to the right honourable gentleman himself, he would appeal to his
+followers opposite to say whether the right honourable gentleman was
+possessed of any one strong political conviction.
+
+He had been accused of being unconstitutional, revolutionary, and
+tyrannical. If the House would allow him he would very shortly
+explain his idea of constitutional government as carried on in this
+country. It was based and built on majorities in that House, and
+supported solely by that power. There could be no constitutional
+government in this country that was not so maintained. Any other
+government must be both revolutionary and tyrannical. Any other
+government was a usurpation; and he would make bold to tell the
+right honourable gentleman that a Minister in this country who should
+recommend Her Majesty to trust herself to advisers not supported by a
+majority of the House of Commons, would plainly be guilty of usurping
+the powers of the State. He threw from him with disdain the charge
+which had been brought against himself of hankering after the sweets
+of office. He indulged and gloried in indulging the highest ambition
+of an English subject. But he gloried much more in the privileges and
+power of that House, within the walls of which was centred all that
+was salutary, all that was efficacious, all that was stable in the
+political constitution of his country. It had been his pride to have
+acted during nearly all his political life with that party which had
+commanded a majority, but he would defy his most bitter adversary, he
+would defy the right honourable gentleman himself, to point to any
+period of his career in which he had been unwilling to succumb to a
+majority when he himself had belonged to the minority.
+
+He himself would regard the vote on this occasion as a vote of want
+of confidence. He took the line he was now taking because he desired
+to bring the House to a decision on that question. He himself had not
+that confidence in the right honourable gentleman which would justify
+him in accepting a measure on so important a subject as the union or
+severance of Church and State from his hands. Should the majority of
+the House differ from him and support the second reading of the Bill,
+he would at once so far succumb as to give his best attention to
+the clauses of the bill, and endeavour with the assistance of those
+gentlemen who acted with him to make it suitable to the wants of the
+country by omissions and additions as the clauses should pass through
+Committee. But before doing that he would ask the House to decide
+with all its solemnity and all its weight whether it was willing to
+accept from the hands of the right honourable gentleman any measure
+of reform on a matter so important as this now before them. It was
+nearly ten when he sat down; and then the stomach of the House could
+stand it no longer, and an adjournment at once took place.
+
+On the next morning it was generally considered that Mr. Daubeny had
+been too long and Mr. Gresham too passionate. There were some who
+declared that Mr. Gresham had never been finer than when he described
+the privileges of the House of Commons; and others who thought that
+Mr. Daubeny's lucidity had been marvellous; but in this case, as in
+most others, the speeches of the day were generally thought to have
+been very inferior to the great efforts of the past.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+THE UNIVERSE.
+
+
+Before the House met again the quidnuncs about the clubs, on both
+sides of the question, had determined that Mr. Gresham's speech,
+whether good or not as an effort of oratory, would serve its intended
+purpose. He would be backed by a majority of votes, and it might
+have been very doubtful whether such would have been the case had
+he attempted to throw out the Bill on its merits. Mr. Ratler, by
+the time that prayers had been read, had become almost certain of
+success. There were very few Liberals in the House who were not
+anxious to declare by their votes that they had no confidence in Mr.
+Daubeny. Mr. Turnbull, the great Radical, and, perhaps, some two
+dozen with him, would support the second reading, declaring that they
+could not reconcile it with their consciences to record a vote in
+favour of a union of Church and State. On all such occasions as the
+present Mr. Turnbull was sure to make himself disagreeable to those
+who sat near to him in the House. He was a man who thought that so
+much was demanded of him in order that his independence might be
+doubted by none. It was nothing to him, he was wont to say, who
+called himself Prime Minister, or Secretary here, or President there.
+But then there would be quite as much of this independence on the
+Conservative as on the Liberal side of the House. Surely there would
+be more than two dozen gentlemen who would be true enough to the
+cherished principles of their whole lives to vote against such a Bill
+as this! It was the fact that there were so very few so true which
+added such a length to the faces of the country parsons. Six months
+ago not a country gentleman in England would have listened to such a
+proposition without loud protests as to its revolutionary wickedness.
+And now, under the sole pressure of one man's authority, the subject
+had become so common that men were assured that the thing would be
+done even though of all things that could be done it were the worst.
+"It is no good any longer having any opinion upon anything," one
+parson said to another, as they sat together at their club with
+their newspapers in their hands. "Nothing frightens any one,--no
+infidelity, no wickedness, no revolution. All reverence is at an end,
+and the Holy of Holies is no more even to the worshipper than the
+threshold of the Temple." Though it became known that the Bill would
+be lost, what comfort was there in that, when the battle was to be
+won, not by the chosen Israelites to whom the Church with all its
+appurtenances ought to be dear, but by a crew of Philistines who
+would certainly follow the lead of their opponents in destroying the
+holy structure?
+
+On the Friday the debate was continued with much life on the
+Ministerial side of the House. It was very easy for them to cry
+Faction! Faction! and hardly necessary for them to do more. A few
+parrot words had been learned as to the expediency of fitting the
+great and increasing Church of England to the growing necessity of
+the age. That the CHURCH OF ENGLAND would still be the CHURCH OF
+ENGLAND was repeated till weary listeners were sick of the unmeaning
+words. But the zeal of the combatants was displayed on that other
+question. Faction was now the avowed weapon of the leaders of
+the so-called Liberal side of the House, and it was very easy to
+denounce the new doctrine. Every word that Mr. Gresham had spoken
+was picked in pieces, and the enormity of his theory was exhibited.
+He had boldly declared to them that they were to regard men and not
+measures, and they were to show by their votes whether they were
+prepared to accept such teaching. The speeches were, of course, made
+by alternate orators, but the firing from the Conservative benches
+was on this evening much the louder.
+
+It would have seemed that with such an issue between them they might
+almost have consented to divide after the completion of the two great
+speeches. The course on which they were to run had been explained
+to them, and it was not probable that any member's intention as to
+his running would now be altered by anything that he might hear. Mr.
+Turnbull's two dozen defaulters were all known, and the two dozen and
+four true Conservatives were known also. But, nevertheless, a great
+many members were anxious to speak. It would be the great debate
+of the Session, and the subject to be handled,--that, namely, of
+the general merits and demerits of the two political parties,--was
+wide and very easy. On that night it was past one o'clock when Mr.
+Turnbull adjourned the House.
+
+"I'm afraid we must put you off till Tuesday," Mr. Ratler said on the
+Sunday afternoon to Phineas Finn.
+
+"I have no objection at all, so long as I get a fair place on that
+day."
+
+"There shan't be a doubt about that. Gresham particularly wants you
+to speak, because you are pledged to a measure of disestablishment.
+You can insist on his own views,--that even should such a measure be
+essentially necessary--"
+
+"Which I think it is," said Phineas.
+
+"Still it should not be accepted from the old Church-and-State
+party."
+
+There was something pleasant in this to Phineas Finn,--something that
+made him feel for the moment that he had perhaps mistaken the bearing
+of his friend towards him. "We are sure of a majority, I suppose," he
+said.
+
+"Absolutely sure," said Ratler. "I begin to think it will amount to
+half a hundred,--perhaps more."
+
+"What will Daubeny do?"
+
+"Go out. He can't do anything else. His pluck is certainly wonderful,
+but even with his pluck he can't dissolve again. His Church Bill has
+given him a six months' run, and six months is something."
+
+"Is it true that Grogram is to be Chancellor?" Phineas asked the
+question, not from any particular solicitude as to the prospects
+of Sir Gregory Grogram, but because he was anxious to hear whether
+Mr. Ratler would speak to him with anything of the cordiality of
+fellowship respecting the new Government. But Mr. Ratler became at
+once discreet and close, and said that he did not think that anything
+as yet was known as to the Woolsack. Then Phineas retreated again
+within his shell, with a certainty that nothing would be done for
+him.
+
+And yet to whom could this question of place be of such vital
+importance as it was to him? He had come back to his old haunts from
+Ireland, abandoning altogether the pleasant safety of an assured
+income, buoyed by the hope of office. He had, after a fashion, made
+his calculations. In the present disposition of the country it was,
+he thought, certain that the Liberal party must, for the next twenty
+years, have longer periods of power than their opponents; and he had
+thought also that were he in the House, some place would eventually
+be given to him. He had been in office before, and had been
+especially successful. He knew that it had been said of him that of
+the young debutants of latter years he had been the best. He had left
+his party by opposing them; but he had done so without creating any
+ill-will among the leaders of his party,--in a manner that had been
+regarded as highly honourable to him, and on departing had received
+expressions of deep regret from Mr. Gresham himself. When Barrington
+Erle had wanted him to return to his old work, his own chief doubt
+had been about the seat. But he had been bold and had adventured all,
+and had succeeded. There had been some little trouble about those
+pledges given at Tankerville, but he would be able to turn them even
+to the use of his party. It was quite true that nothing had been
+promised him; but Erle, when he had written, bidding him to come over
+from Ireland, must have intended him to understand that he would be
+again enrolled in the favoured regiment, should he be able to show
+himself as the possessor of a seat in the House. And yet,--yet he
+felt convinced that when the day should come it would be to him a
+day of disappointment, and that when the list should appear his name
+would not be on it. Madame Goesler had suggested to him that Mr.
+Bonteen might be his enemy, and he had replied by stating that he
+himself hated Mr. Bonteen. He now remembered that Mr. Bonteen had
+hardly spoken to him since his return to London, though there had not
+in fact been any quarrel between them. In this condition of mind he
+longed to speak openly to Barrington Erle, but he was restrained by
+a feeling of pride, and a still existing idea that no candidate for
+office, let his claim be what it might, should ask for a place. On
+that Sunday evening he saw Bonteen at the club. Men were going in and
+out with that feverish excitement which always prevails on the eve of
+a great parliamentary change. A large majority against the Government
+was considered to be certain; but there was an idea abroad that
+Mr. Daubeny had some scheme in his head by which to confute the
+immediate purport of his enemies. There was nothing to which the
+audacity of the man was not equal. Some said that he would dissolve
+the House,--which had hardly as yet been six months sitting.
+Others were of opinion that he would simply resolve not to vacate
+his place,--thus defying the majority of the House and all the
+ministerial traditions of the country. Words had fallen from him
+which made some men certain that such was his intention. That it
+should succeed ultimately was impossible. The whole country would
+rise against him. Supplies would be refused. In every detail of
+Government he would be impeded. But then,--such was the temper of
+the man,--it was thought that all these horrors would not deter him.
+There would be a blaze and a confusion, in which timid men would
+doubt whether the constitution would be burned to tinder or only
+illuminated; but that blaze and that confusion would be dear to
+Mr. Daubeny if he could stand as the centre figure,--the great
+pyrotechnist who did it all, red from head to foot with the glare of
+the squibs with which his own hands were filling all the spaces. The
+anticipation that some such display might take place made men busy
+and eager; so that on that Sunday evening they roamed about from
+one place of meeting to another, instead of sitting at home with
+their wives and daughters. There was at this time existing a small
+club,--so called though unlike other clubs,--which had entitled
+itself the Universe. The name was supposed to be a joke, as it was
+limited to ninety-nine members. It was domiciled in one simple and
+somewhat mean apartment. It was kept open only one hour before and
+one hour after midnight, and that only on two nights of the week,
+and that only when Parliament was sitting. Its attractions were not
+numerous, consisting chiefly of tobacco and tea. The conversation was
+generally listless and often desultory; and occasionally there would
+arise the great and terrible evil of a punster whom every one hated
+but no one had life enough to put down. But the thing had been a
+success, and men liked to be members of the Universe. Mr. Bonteen was
+a member, and so was Phineas Finn. On this Sunday evening the club
+was open, and Phineas, as he entered the room, perceived that his
+enemy was seated alone on a corner of a sofa. Mr. Bonteen was not a
+man who loved to be alone in public places, and was apt rather to
+make one of congregations, affecting popularity, and always at work
+increasing his influence. But on this occasion his own greatness had
+probably isolated him. If it were true that he was to be the new
+Chancellor of the Exchequer,--to ascend from demi-godhead to the
+perfect divinity of the Cabinet,--and to do so by a leap which would
+make him high even among first-class gods, it might be well for
+himself to look to himself and choose new congregations. Or, at
+least, it would be becoming that he should be chosen now instead of
+being a chooser. He was one who could weigh to the last ounce the
+importance of his position, and make most accurate calculations as
+to the effect of his intimacies. On that very morning Mr. Gresham
+had suggested to him that in the event of a Liberal Government being
+formed, he should hold the high office in question. This, perhaps,
+had not been done in the most flattering manner, as Mr. Gresham had
+deeply bewailed the loss of Mr. Palliser, and had almost demanded a
+pledge from Mr. Bonteen that he would walk exactly in Mr. Palliser's
+footsteps;--but the offer had been made, and could not be retracted;
+and Mr. Bonteen already felt the warmth of the halo of perfect
+divinity.
+
+There are some men who seem to have been born to be Cabinet
+Ministers,--dukes mostly, or earls, or the younger sons of such,--who
+have been trained to it from their very cradles, and of whom we may
+imagine that they are subject to no special awe when they first
+enter into that august assembly, and feel but little personal
+elevation. But to the political aspirant not born in the purple of
+public life, this entrance upon the counsels of the higher deities
+must be accompanied by a feeling of supreme triumph, dashed by
+considerable misgivings. Perhaps Mr. Bonteen was revelling in his
+triumph;--perhaps he was anticipating his misgivings. Phineas, though
+disinclined to make any inquiries of a friend which might seem to
+refer to his own condition, felt no such reluctance in regard to
+one who certainly could not suspect him of asking a favour. He was
+presumed to be on terms of intimacy with the man, and he took his
+seat beside him, asking some question as to the debate. Now Mr.
+Bonteen had more than once expressed an opinion among his friends
+that Phineas Finn would throw his party over, and vote with the
+Government. The Ratlers and Erles and Fitzgibbons all knew that
+Phineas was safe, but Mr. Bonteen was still in doubt. It suited him
+to affect something more than doubt on the present occasion. "I
+wonder that you should ask me," said Mr. Bonteen.
+
+"What do you mean by that?"
+
+"I presume that you, as usual, will vote against us."
+
+"I never voted against my party but once," said Phineas, "and then I
+did it with the approbation of every man in it for whose good opinion
+I cared a straw." There was insult in his tone as he said this, and
+something near akin to insult in his words.
+
+"You must do it again now, or break every promise that you made at
+Tankerville."
+
+"Do you know what promise I made at Tankerville? I shall break no
+promise."
+
+"You must allow me to say, Mr. Finn, that the kind of independence
+which is practised by you and Mr. Monk, grand as it may be on the
+part of men who avowedly abstain from office, is a little dangerous
+when it is now and again adopted by men who have taken place. I like
+to be sure that the men who are in the same boat with me won't take
+it into their heads that their duty requires them to scuttle the
+ship." Having so spoken, Mr. Bonteen, with nearly all the grace of a
+full-fledged Cabinet Minister, rose from his seat on the corner of
+the sofa and joined a small congregation.
+
+Phineas felt that his ears were tingling and that his face was red.
+He looked round to ascertain from the countenances of others whether
+they had heard what had been said. Nobody had been close to them, and
+he thought that the conversation had been unnoticed. He knew now that
+he had been imprudent in addressing himself to Mr. Bonteen, though
+the question that he had first asked had been quite commonplace. As
+it was, the man, he thought, had been determined to affront him,
+and had made a charge against him which he could not allow to pass
+unnoticed. And then there was all the additional bitterness in it
+which arose from the conviction that Bonteen had spoken the opinion
+of other men as well as his own, and that he had plainly indicated
+that the gates of the official paradise were to be closed against the
+presumed offender. Phineas had before believed that it was to be so,
+but that belief had now become assurance. He got up in his misery to
+leave the room, but as he did so he met Laurence Fitzgibbon. "You
+have heard the news about Bonteen?" said Laurence.
+
+"What news?"
+
+"He's to be pitchforked up to the Exchequer. They say it's quite
+settled. The higher a monkey climbs--; you know the proverb." So
+saying Laurence Fitzgibbon passed into the room, and Phineas Finn
+took his departure in solitude.
+
+And so the man with whom he had managed to quarrel utterly was to be
+one in the Cabinet, a man whose voice would probably be potential in
+the selection of minor members of the Government. It seemed to him to
+be almost incredible that such a one as Mr. Bonteen should be chosen
+for such an office. He had despised almost as soon as he had known
+Mr. Bonteen, and had rarely heard the future manager of the finance
+of the country spoken of with either respect or regard. He had
+regarded Mr. Bonteen as a useful, dull, unscrupulous politician, well
+accustomed to Parliament, acquainted with the bye-paths and back
+doors of official life,--and therefore certain of employment when
+the Liberals were in power; but there was no one in the party he had
+thought less likely to be selected for high place. And yet this man
+was to be made Chancellor of the Exchequer, while he, Phineas Finn,
+very probably at this man's instance, was to be left out in the cold.
+
+He knew himself to be superior to the man he hated, to have higher
+ideas of political life, and to be capable of greater political
+sacrifices. He himself had sat shoulder to shoulder with many men
+on the Treasury Bench whose political principles he had not greatly
+valued; but of none of them had he thought so little as he had done
+of Mr. Bonteen. And yet this Mr. Bonteen was to be the new Chancellor
+of the Exchequer! He walked home to his lodgings in Marlborough
+Street, wretched because of his own failure;--doubly wretched because
+of the other man's success.
+
+He laid awake half the night thinking of the words that had been
+spoken to him, and after breakfast on the following morning he wrote
+the following note to his enemy:--
+
+
+   House of Commons, 5th April, 18--.
+
+   DEAR MR. BONTEEN,
+
+   It is matter of extreme regret to me that last night at
+   the Universe I should have asked you some chance question
+   about the coming division. Had I guessed to what it might
+   have led, I should not have addressed you. But as it is
+   I can hardly abstain from noticing what appeared to me
+   to be a personal charge made against myself with a great
+   want of the courtesy which is supposed to prevail among
+   men who have acted together. Had we never done so my
+   original question to you might perhaps have been deemed
+   an impertinence.
+
+   As it was, you accused me of having been dishonest to my
+   party, and of having "scuttled the ship." On the occasion
+   to which you alluded I acted with much consideration,
+   greatly to the detriment of my own prospects,--and as I
+   believed with the approbation of all who knew anything of
+   the subject. If you will make inquiry of Mr. Gresham, or
+   Lord Cantrip who was then my chief, I think that either
+   will tell you that my conduct on that occasion was not
+   such as to lay me open to reproach. If you will do this,
+   I think that you cannot fail afterwards to express regret
+   for what you said to me last night.
+
+   Yours sincerely,
+
+   PHINEAS FINN.
+
+   Thos. Bonteen, Esq., M.P.
+
+
+He did not like the letter when he had written it, but he did not
+know how to improve it, and he sent it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+POLITICAL VENOM.
+
+
+On the Monday Mr. Turnbull opened the ball by declaring his reasons
+for going into the same lobby with Mr. Daubeny. This he did at great
+length. To him all the mighty pomp and all the little squabbles of
+office were, he said, as nothing. He would never allow himself to
+regard the person of the Prime Minister. The measure before the House
+ever had been and ever should be all in all to him. If the public
+weal were more regarded in that House, and the quarrels of men less
+considered, he thought that the service of the country would be
+better done. He was answered by Mr. Monk, who was sitting near him,
+and who intended to support Mr. Gresham. Mr. Monk was rather happy
+in pulling his old friend, Mr. Turnbull, to pieces, expressing his
+opinion that a difference in men meant a difference in measures. The
+characters of men whose principles were known were guarantees for the
+measures they would advocate. To him,--Mr. Monk,--it was matter of
+very great moment who was Prime Minister of England. He was always
+selfish enough to wish for a Minister with whom he himself could
+agree on the main questions of the day. As he certainly could not say
+that he had political confidence in the present Ministry, he should
+certainly vote against them on this occasion.
+
+In the course of the evening Phineas found a letter addressed to
+himself from Mr. Bonteen. It was as follows:--
+
+
+   House of Commons, April 5th, 18--.
+
+   DEAR MR. FINN,
+
+   I never accused you of dishonesty. You must have misheard
+   or misunderstood me if you thought so. I did say that you
+   had scuttled the ship;--and as you most undoubtedly did
+   scuttle it,--you and Mr. Monk between you,--I cannot
+   retract my words.
+
+   I do not want to go to any one for testimony as to your
+   merits on the occasion. I accused you of having done
+   nothing dishonourable or disgraceful. I think I said that
+   there was danger in the practice of scuttling. I think
+   so still, though I know that many fancy that those who
+   scuttle do a fine thing. I don't deny that it's fine, and
+   therefore you can have no cause of complaint against me.
+
+   Yours truly,
+
+   J. BONTEEN.
+
+
+He had brought a copy of his own letter in his pocket to the House,
+and he showed the correspondence to Mr. Monk. "I would not have
+noticed it, had I been you," said he.
+
+"You can have no idea of the offensive nature of the remark when it
+was made."
+
+"It's as offensive to me as to you, but I should not think of moving
+in such a matter. When a man annoys you, keep out of his way. It is
+generally the best thing you can do."
+
+"If a man were to call you a liar?"
+
+"But men don't call each other liars. Bonteen understands the world
+much too well to commit himself by using any word which common
+opinion would force him to retract. He says we scuttled the ship.
+Well;--we did. Of all the political acts of my life it is the one
+of which I am most proud. The manner in which you helped me has
+entitled you to my affectionate esteem. But we did scuttle the ship.
+Before you can quarrel with Bonteen you must be able to show that a
+metaphorical scuttling of a ship must necessarily be a disgraceful
+act. You see how he at once retreats behind the fact that it need not
+be so."
+
+"You wouldn't answer his letter."
+
+"I think not. You can do yourself no good by a correspondence in
+which you cannot get a hold of him. And if you did get a hold of him
+you would injure yourself much more than him. Just drop it." This
+added much to our friend's misery, and made him feel that the weight
+of it was almost more than he could bear. His enemy had got the
+better of him at every turn. He had now rushed into a correspondence
+as to which he would have to own by his silence that he had been
+confuted. And yet he was sure that Mr. Bonteen had at the club
+insulted him most unjustifiably, and that if the actual truth were
+known, no man, certainly not Mr. Monk, would hesitate to say that
+reparation was due to him. And yet what could he do? He thought that
+he would consult Lord Cantrip, and endeavour to get from his late
+Chief some advice more palatable than that which had been tendered to
+him by Mr. Monk.
+
+In the meantime animosities in the House were waxing very furious;
+and, as it happened, the debate took a turn that was peculiarly
+injurious to Phineas Finn in his present state of mind. The rumour as
+to the future promotion of Mr. Bonteen, which had been conveyed by
+Laurence Fitzgibbon to Phineas at the Universe, had, as was natural,
+spread far and wide, and had reached the ears of those who still
+sat on the Ministerial benches. Now it is quite understood among
+politicians in this country that no man should presume that he will
+have imposed upon him the task of forming a Ministry until he has
+been called upon by the Crown to undertake that great duty. Let the
+Gresham or the Daubeny of the day be ever so sure that the reins of
+the State chariot must come into his hands, he should not visibly
+prepare himself for the seat on the box till he has actually been
+summoned to place himself there. At this moment it was alleged that
+Mr. Gresham had departed from the reticence and modesty usual in
+such a position as his, by taking steps towards the formation of a
+Cabinet, while it was as yet quite possible that he might never be
+called upon to form any Cabinet. Late on this Monday night, when the
+House was quite full, one of Mr. Daubeny's leading lieutenants, a
+Secretary of State, Sir Orlando Drought by name,--a gentleman who if
+he had any heart in the matter must have hated this Church Bill from
+the very bottom of his heart, and who on that account was the more
+bitter against opponents who had not ceased to throw in his teeth his
+own political tergiversation,--fell foul of Mr. Gresham as to this
+rumoured appointment to the Chancellorship of the Exchequer. The
+reader will easily imagine the things that were said. Sir Orlando
+had heard, and had been much surprised at hearing, that a certain
+honourable member of that House, who had long been known to them as
+a tenant of the Ministerial bench, had already been appointed to a
+high office. He, Sir Orlando, had not been aware that the office had
+been vacant, or that if vacant it would have been at the disposal of
+the right honourable gentleman; but he believed that there was no
+doubt that the place in question, with a seat in the Cabinet, had
+been tendered to, and accepted by, the honourable member to whom he
+alluded. Such was the rabid haste with which the right honourable
+gentleman opposite, and his colleagues, were attempting, he would not
+say to climb, but to rush into office, by opposing a great measure of
+Reform, the wisdom of which, as was notorious to all the world, they
+themselves did not dare to deny. Much more of the same kind was said,
+during which Mr. Gresham pulled about his hat, shuffled his feet,
+showed his annoyance to all the House, and at last jumped upon his
+legs.
+
+"If," said Sir Orlando Drought,--"if the right honourable gentleman
+wishes to deny the accuracy of any statements that I have made, I
+will give way to him for the moment, that he may do so."
+
+"I deny utterly, not only the accuracy, but every detail of the
+statement made by the right honourable gentleman opposite," said
+Mr. Gresham, still standing and holding his hat in his hand as he
+completed his denial.
+
+"Does the right honourable gentleman mean to assure me that he has
+not selected his future Chancellor of the Exchequer?"
+
+"The right honourable gentleman is too acute not to be aware that we
+on this side of the House may have made such selection, and that yet
+every detail of the statement which he has been rash enough to make
+to the House may be--unfounded. The word, sir, is weak; but I would
+fain avoid the use of any words which, justifiable though they might
+be, would offend the feelings of the House. I will explain to the
+House exactly what has been done."
+
+Then there was a great hubbub--cries of "Order," "Gresham," "Spoke,"
+"Hear, hear," and the like,--during which Sir Orlando Drought and Mr.
+Gresham both stood on their legs. So powerful was Mr. Gresham's voice
+that, through it all, every word that he said was audible to the
+reporters. His opponent hardly attempted to speak, but stood relying
+upon his right. Mr. Gresham said he understood that it was the desire
+of the House that he should explain the circumstances in reference
+to the charge that had been made against him, and it would certainly
+be for the convenience of the House that this should be done at
+the moment. The Speaker of course ruled that Sir Orlando was in
+possession of the floor, but suggested that it might be convenient
+that he should yield to the right honourable gentleman on the
+other side for a few minutes. Mr. Gresham, as a matter of course,
+succeeded. Rights and rules, which are bonds of iron to a little man,
+are packthread to a giant. No one in all that assembly knew the House
+better than did Mr. Gresham, was better able to take it by storm, or
+more obdurate in perseverance. He did make his speech, though clearly
+he had no right to do so. The House, he said, was aware, that by the
+most unfortunate demise of the late Duke of Omnium, a gentleman had
+been removed from this House to another place, whose absence from
+their counsels would long be felt as a very grievous loss. Then he
+pronounced a eulogy on Plantagenet Palliser, so graceful and well
+arranged, that even the bitterness of the existing opposition was
+unable to demur to it. The House was well aware of the nature of the
+labours which now for some years past had occupied the mind of the
+noble duke; and the paramount importance which the country attached
+to their conclusion. The noble duke no doubt was not absolutely
+debarred from a continuance of his work by the change which had
+fallen upon him; but it was essential that some gentleman, belonging
+to the same party with the noble duke, versed in office, and having a
+seat in that House, should endeavour to devote himself to the great
+measure which had occupied so much of the attention of the late
+Chancellor of the Exchequer. No doubt it must be fitting that the
+gentleman so selected should be at the Exchequer, in the event of
+their party coming into office. The honourable gentleman to whom
+allusion had been made had acted throughout with the present noble
+duke in arranging the details of the measure in question; and the
+probability of his being able to fill the shoes left vacant by
+the accession to the peerage of the noble duke had, indeed, been
+discussed;--but the discussion had been made in reference to the
+measure, and only incidentally in regard to the office. He, Mr.
+Gresham, held that he had done nothing that was indiscreet,--nothing
+that his duty did not demand. If right honourable gentlemen opposite
+were of a different opinion, he thought that that difference came
+from the fact that they were less intimately acquainted than he
+unfortunately had been with the burdens and responsibilities of
+legislation.
+
+There was very little in the dispute which seemed to be worthy of
+the place in which it occurred, or of the vigour with which it was
+conducted; but it served to show the temper of the parties, and to
+express the bitterness of the political feelings of the day. It was
+said at the time, that never within the memory of living politicians
+had so violent an animosity displayed itself in the House as had
+been witnessed on this night. While Mr. Gresham was giving his
+explanation, Mr. Daubeny had arisen, and with a mock solemnity that
+was peculiar to him on occasions such as these, had appealed to the
+Speaker whether the right honourable gentleman opposite should not be
+called upon to resume his seat. Mr. Gresham had put him down with a
+wave of his hand. An affected stateliness cannot support itself but
+for a moment; and Mr. Daubeny had been forced to sit down when the
+Speaker did not at once support his appeal. But he did not forget
+that wave of the hand, nor did he forgive it. He was a man who in
+public life rarely forgot, and never forgave. They used to say
+of him that "at home" he was kindly and forbearing, simple and
+unostentatious. It may be so. Who does not remember that horrible
+Turk, Jacob Asdrubal, the Old Bailey barrister, the terror of
+witnesses, the bane of judges,--who was gall and wormwood to all
+opponents. It was said of him that "at home" his docile amiability
+was the marvel of his friends, and delight of his wife and daughters.
+"At home," perhaps, Mr. Daubeny might have been waved at, and have
+forgiven it; but men who saw the scene in the House of Commons knew
+that he would never forgive Mr. Gresham. As for Mr. Gresham himself,
+he triumphed at the moment, and exulted in his triumph.
+
+Phineas Finn heard it all, and was disgusted to find that his enemy
+thus became the hero of the hour. It was, indeed, the opinion
+generally of the Liberal party that Mr. Gresham had not said much to
+flatter his new Chancellor of the Exchequer. In praise of Plantagenet
+Palliser he had been very loud, and he had no doubt said that which
+implied the capability of Mr. Bonteen, who, as it happened, was
+sitting next to him at the time; but he had implied also that the
+mantle which was to be transferred from Mr. Palliser to Mr. Bonteen
+would be carried by its new wearer with grace very inferior to that
+which had marked all the steps of his predecessor. Ratler, and
+Erle, and Fitzgibbon, and others had laughed in their sleeves at
+the expression, understood by them, of Mr. Gresham's doubt as to
+the qualifications of his new assistant, and Sir Orlando Drought,
+in continuing his speech, remarked that the warmth of the right
+honourable gentleman had been so completely expended in abusing his
+enemies that he had had none left for the defence of his friend.
+But to Phineas it seemed that this Bonteen, who had so grievously
+injured him, and whom he so thoroughly despised, was carrying off
+all the glories of the fight. A certain amount of consolation was,
+however, afforded to him. Between one and two o'clock he was told
+by Mr. Ratler that he might enjoy the privilege of adjourning the
+debate,--by which would accrue to him the right of commencing on the
+morrow,--and this he did at a few minutes before three.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+SEVENTY-TWO.
+
+
+On the next morning Phineas, with his speech before him, was obliged
+for a while to forget, or at least to postpone, Mr. Bonteen and his
+injuries. He could not now go to Lord Cantrip, as the hours were
+too precious to him, and, as he felt, too short. Though he had been
+thinking what he would say ever since the debate had become imminent,
+and knew accurately the line which he would take, he had not as yet
+prepared a word of his speech. But he had resolved that he would
+not prepare a word otherwise than he might do by arranging certain
+phrases in his memory. There should be nothing written; he had tried
+that before in old days, and had broken down with the effort. He
+would load himself with no burden of words in itself so heavy that
+the carrying of it would incapacitate him for any other effort.
+
+After a late breakfast he walked out far away, into the Regent's
+Park, and there, wandering among the uninteresting paths, he devised
+triumphs of oratory for himself. Let him resolve as he would to
+forget Mr. Bonteen, and that charge of having been untrue to his
+companions, he could not restrain himself from efforts to fit the
+matter after some fashion into his speech. Dim ideas of a definition
+of political honesty crossed his brain, bringing with him, however,
+a conviction that his thought must be much more clearly worked out
+than it could be on that day before he might venture to give it birth
+in the House of Commons. He knew that he had been honest two years
+ago in separating himself from his colleagues. He knew that he would
+be honest now in voting with them, apparently in opposition to the
+pledges he had given at Tankerville. But he knew also that it would
+behove him to abstain from speaking of himself unless he could do so
+in close reference to some point specially in dispute between the two
+parties. When he returned to eat a mutton chop at Great Marlborough
+Street at three o'clock he was painfully conscious that all his
+morning had been wasted. He had allowed his mind to run revel,
+instead of tying it down to the formation of sentences and
+construction of arguments.
+
+He entered the House with the Speaker at four o'clock, and took his
+seat without uttering a word to any man. He seemed to be more than
+ever disjoined from his party. Hitherto, since he had been seated
+by the Judge's order, the former companions of his Parliamentary
+life,--the old men whom he had used to know,--had to a certain degree
+admitted him among them. Many of them sat on the front Opposition
+bench, whereas he, as a matter of course, had seated himself behind.
+But he had very frequently found himself next to some man who had
+held office and was living in the hope of holding it again, and
+had felt himself to be in some sort recognised as an aspirant. Now
+it seemed to him that it was otherwise. He did not doubt but that
+Bonteen had shown the correspondence to his friends, and that the
+Ratlers and Erles had conceded that he, Phineas, was put out of
+court by it. He sat doggedly still, at the end of a bench behind
+Mr. Gresham, and close to the gangway. When Mr. Gresham entered the
+House he was received with much cheering; but Phineas did not join in
+the cheer. He was studious to avoid any personal recognition of the
+future giver-away of places, though they two were close together; and
+he then fancied that Mr. Gresham had specially and most ungraciously
+abstained from any recognition of him. Mr. Monk, who sat near him,
+spoke a kind word to him. "I shan't be very long," said Phineas; "not
+above twenty minutes, I should think." He was able to assume an air
+of indifference, and yet at the moment he heartily wished himself
+back in Dublin. It was not now that he feared the task immediately
+before him, but that he was overcome by the feeling of general
+failure which had come upon him. Of what use was it to him or to any
+one else that he should be there in that assembly, with the privilege
+of making a speech that would influence no human being, unless his
+being there could be made a step to something beyond? While the usual
+preliminary work was being done, he looked round the House, and saw
+Lord Cantrip in the Peers' gallery. Alas! of what avail was that? He
+had always been able to bind to him individuals with whom he had been
+brought into close contact; but more than that was wanted in this
+most precarious of professions, in which now, for a second time, he
+was attempting to earn his bread.
+
+At half-past four he was on his legs in the midst of a crowded House.
+The chance,--perhaps the hope,--of some such encounter as that of the
+former day, brought members into their seats, and filled the gallery
+with strangers. We may say, perhaps, that the highest duty imposed
+upon us as a nation is the management of India; and we may also
+say that in a great national assembly personal squabbling among
+its members is the least dignified work in which it can employ
+itself. But the prospect of an explanation,--or otherwise of a
+fight,--between two leading politicians will fill the House; and any
+allusion to our Eastern Empire will certainly empty it. An aptitude
+for such encounters is almost a necessary qualification for a popular
+leader in Parliament, as is a capacity for speaking for three
+hours to the reporters, and to the reporters only,--a necessary
+qualification for an Under-Secretary of State for India.
+
+Phineas had the advantage of the temper of the moment in a House
+thoroughly crowded, and he enjoyed it. Let a man doubt ever so much
+his own capacity for some public exhibition which he has undertaken;
+yet he will always prefer to fail,--if fail he must,--before a large
+audience. But on this occasion there was no failure. That sense of
+awe from the surrounding circumstances of the moment, which had once
+been heavy on him, and which he still well remembered, had been
+overcome, and had never returned to him. He felt now that he should
+not lack words to pour out his own individual grievances were it not
+that he was prevented by a sense of the indiscretion of doing so. As
+it was, he did succeed in alluding to his own condition in a manner
+that brought upon him no reproach. He began by saying that he should
+not have added to the difficulty of the debate,--which was one simply
+of length,--were it not that he had been accused in advance of voting
+against a measure as to which he had pledged himself at the hustings
+to do all that he could to further it. No man was more anxious than
+he, an Irish Roman Catholic, to abolish that which he thought to be
+the anomaly of a State Church, and he did not in the least doubt that
+he should now be doing the best in his power with that object in
+voting against the second reading of the present bill. That such a
+measure should be carried by the gentlemen opposite, in their own
+teeth, at the bidding of the right honourable gentleman who led
+them, he thought to be impossible. Upon this he was hooted at from
+the other side with many gestures of indignant denial, and was, of
+course, equally cheered by those around him. Such interruptions are
+new breath to the nostrils of all orators, and Phineas enjoyed the
+noise. He repeated his assertion that it would be an evil thing for
+the country that the measure should be carried by men who in their
+hearts condemned it, and was vehemently called to order for this
+assertion about the hearts of gentlemen. But a speaker who can
+certainly be made amenable to authority for vilipending in debate
+the heart of any specified opponent, may with safety attribute all
+manner of ill to the agglomerated hearts of a party. To have told any
+individual Conservative,--Sir Orlando Drought for instance,--that
+he was abandoning all the convictions of his life, because he was a
+creature at the command of Mr. Daubeny, would have been an insult
+that would have moved even the Speaker from his serenity; but you can
+hardly be personal to a whole bench of Conservatives,--to bench above
+bench of Conservatives. The charge had been made and repeated over
+and over again, till all the Orlando Droughts were ready to cut some
+man's throat,--whether their own, or Mr. Daubeny's, or Mr. Gresham's,
+they hardly knew. It might probably have been Mr. Daubeny's for
+choice, had any real cutting of a throat been possible. It was now
+made again by Phineas Finn,--with the ostensible object of defending
+himself,--and he for the moment became the target for Conservative
+wrath. Some one asked him in fury by what right he took upon himself
+to judge of the motives of gentlemen on that side of the House of
+whom personally he knew nothing. Phineas replied that he did not
+at all doubt the motives of the honourable gentleman who asked
+the question, which he was sure were noble and patriotic. But
+unfortunately the whole country was convinced that the Conservative
+party as a body was supporting this measure, unwillingly, and at the
+bidding of one man;--and, for himself, he was bound to say that he
+agreed with the country. And so the row was renewed and prolonged,
+and the gentlemen assembled, members and strangers together, passed a
+pleasant evening.
+
+Before he sat down, Phineas made one allusion to that former
+scuttling of the ship,--an accusation as to which had been made
+against him so injuriously by Mr. Bonteen. He himself, he said, had
+been called impractical, and perhaps he might allude to a vote which
+he had given in that House when last he had the honour of sitting
+there, and on giving which he resigned the office which he had then
+held. He had the gratification of knowing that he had been so far
+practical as to have then foreseen the necessity of a measure which
+had since been passed. And he did not doubt that he would hereafter
+be found to have been equally practical in the view that he had
+expressed on the hustings at Tankerville, for he was convinced that
+before long the anomaly of which he had spoken would cease to exist
+under the influence of a Government that would really believe in the
+work it was doing.
+
+There was no doubt as to the success of his speech. The vehemence
+with which his insolence was abused by one after another of those who
+spoke later from the other side was ample evidence of its success.
+But nothing occurred then or at the conclusion of the debate to make
+him think that he had won his way back to Elysium. During the whole
+evening he exchanged not a syllable with Mr. Gresham,--who indeed
+was not much given to converse with those around him in the House.
+Erle said a few good-natured words to him, and Mr. Monk praised him
+highly. But in reading the general barometer of the party as regarded
+himself, he did not find that the mercury went up. He was wretchedly
+anxious, and angry with himself for his own anxiety. He scorned to
+say a word that should sound like an entreaty; and yet he had placed
+his whole heart on a thing which seemed to be slipping from him
+for the want of asking. In a day or two it would be known whether
+the present Ministry would or would not go out. That they must be
+out of office before a month was over seemed to him the opinion
+of everybody. His fate,--and what a fate it was!--would then be
+absolutely in the hands of Mr. Gresham. Yet he could not speak a
+word of his hopes and fears even to Mr. Gresham. He had given up
+everything in the world with the view of getting into office; and now
+that the opportunity had come,--an opportunity which if allowed to
+slip could hardly return again in time to be of service to him,--the
+prize was to elude his grasp!
+
+But yet he did not say a word to any one on the subject that was
+so near his heart, although in the course of the night he spoke to
+Lord Cantrip in the gallery of the House. He told his friend that a
+correspondence had taken place between himself and Mr. Bonteen, in
+which he thought that he had been ill-used, and as to which he was
+quite anxious to ask His Lordship's advice. "I heard that you and he
+had been tilting at each other," said Lord Cantrip, smiling.
+
+"Have you seen the letters?"
+
+"No;--but I was told of them by Lord Fawn, who has seen them."
+
+"I knew he would show them to every newsmonger about the clubs," said
+Phineas angrily.
+
+"You can't quarrel with Bonteen for showing them to Fawn, if you
+intend to show them to me."
+
+"He may publish them at Charing Cross if he likes."
+
+"Exactly. I am sure that there will have been nothing in them
+prejudicial to you. What I mean is that if you think it necessary,
+with a view to your own character, to show them to me or to another
+friend, you cannot complain that he should do the same."
+
+An appointment was made at Lord Cantrip's house for the next morning,
+and Phineas could but acknowledge to himself that the man's manner to
+himself had been kind and constant. Nevertheless, the whole affair
+was going against him. Lord Cantrip had not said a word prejudicial
+to that wretch Bonteen; much less had he hinted at any future
+arrangements which would be comfortable to poor Phineas. They two,
+Lord Cantrip and Phineas, had at one period been on most intimate
+terms together;--had worked in the same office, and had thoroughly
+trusted each other. The elder of the two,--for Lord Cantrip was about
+ten years senior to Phineas,--had frequently expressed the most
+lively interest in the prospects of the other; and Phineas had felt
+that in any emergency he could tell his friend all his hopes and
+fears. But now he did not say a word of his position, nor did Lord
+Cantrip allude to it. They were to meet on the morrow in order that
+Lord Cantrip might read the correspondence;--but Phineas was sure
+that no word would be said about the Government.
+
+At five o'clock in the morning the division took place, and the
+Government was beaten by a majority of 72. This was much higher
+than any man had expected. When the parties were marshalled in the
+opposite lobbies it was found that in the last moment the number of
+those Conservatives who dared to rebel against their Conservative
+leaders was swelled by the course which the debate had taken. There
+were certain men who could not endure to be twitted with having
+deserted the principles of their lives, when it was clear that
+nothing was to be gained by the party by such desertion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+THE CONSPIRACY.
+
+
+On the morning following the great division Phineas was with his
+friend, Lord Cantrip, by eleven o'clock; and Lord Cantrip, when
+he had read the two letters in which were comprised the whole
+correspondence, made to our unhappy hero the following little speech.
+"I do not think that you can do anything. Indeed, I am sure that Mr.
+Monk is quite right. I don't quite see what it is that you wish to
+do. Privately,--between our two selves,--I do not hesitate to say
+that Mr. Bonteen has intended to be ill-natured. I fancy that he is
+an ill-natured--or at any rate a jealous--man; and that he would be
+willing to run down a competitor in the race who had made his running
+after a fashion different from his own. Bonteen has been a useful
+man,--a very useful man; and the more so perhaps because he has not
+entertained any high political theory of his own. You have chosen to
+do so,--and undoubtedly when you and Monk left us, to our very great
+regret, you did scuttle the ship."
+
+"We had no intention of that kind."
+
+"Do not suppose that I blame you. That which was odious to the eyes
+of Mr. Bonteen was to my thinking high and honourable conduct. I
+have known the same thing done by members of a Government perhaps
+half-a-dozen times, and the men by whom it has been done have been
+the best and noblest of our modern statesmen. There has generally
+been a hard contest in the man's breast between loyalty to his
+party and strong personal convictions, the result of which has been
+an inability on the part of the struggler to give even a silent
+support to a measure which he has disapproved. That inability is no
+doubt troublesome at the time to the colleagues of the seceder, and
+constitutes an offence hardly to be pardoned by such gentlemen as Mr.
+Bonteen."
+
+"For Mr. Bonteen personally I care nothing."
+
+"But of course you must endure the ill-effects of his influence,--be
+they what they may. When you seceded from our Government you looked
+for certain adverse consequences. If you did not, where was your
+self-sacrifice? That such men as Mr. Bonteen should feel that you had
+scuttled the ship, and be unable to forgive you for doing so,--that
+is exactly the evil which you knew you must face. You have to
+face it now, and surely you can do so without showing your teeth.
+Hereafter, when men more thoughtful than Mr. Bonteen shall have come
+to acknowledge the high principle by which your conduct has been
+governed, you will receive your reward. I suppose Mr. Daubeny must
+resign now."
+
+"Everybody says so."
+
+"I am by no means sure that he will. Any other Minister since Lord
+North's time would have done so, with such a majority against him on
+a vital measure; but he is a man who delights in striking out some
+wonderful course for himself."
+
+"A prime minister so beaten surely can't go on."
+
+"Not for long, one would think. And yet how are you to turn him out?
+It depends very much on a man's power of endurance."
+
+"His colleagues will resign, I should think."
+
+"Probably;--and then he must go. I should say that that will be the
+way in which the matter will settle itself. Good morning, Finn;--and
+take my word for it, you had better not answer Mr. Bonteen's letter."
+
+Not a word had fallen from Lord Cantrip's friendly lips as to the
+probability of Phineas being invited to join the future Government.
+An attempt had been made to console him with the hazy promise of
+some future reward,--which however was to consist rather of the good
+opinion of good men than of anything tangible and useful. But even
+this would never come to him. What would good men know of him and of
+his self-sacrifice when he should have been driven out of the world
+by poverty, and forced probably to go to some New Zealand or back
+Canadian settlement to look for his bread? How easy, thought Phineas,
+must be the sacrifices of rich men, who can stay their time, and
+wait in perfect security for their rewards! But for such a one as he,
+truth to a principle was political annihilation. Two or three years
+ago he had done what he knew to be a noble thing;--and now, because
+he had done that noble thing, he was to be regarded as unfit for that
+very employment for which he was peculiarly fitted. But Bonteen and
+Co. had not been his only enemies. His luck had been against him
+throughout. Mr. Quintus Slide, with his People's Banner, and the
+story of that wretched affair in Judd Street, had been as strong
+against him probably as Mr. Bonteen's ill-word. Then he thought of
+Lady Laura, and her love for him. His gratitude to Lady Laura was
+boundless. There was nothing he would not do for Lady Laura,--were it
+in his power to do anything. But no circumstance in his career had
+been so unfortunate for him as this affection. A wretched charge had
+been made against him which, though wholly untrue, was as it were
+so strangely connected with the truth, that slanderers might not
+improbably be able almost to substantiate their calumnies. She would
+be in London soon, and he must devote himself to her service. But
+every act of friendship that he might do for her would be used as
+proof of the accusation that had been made against him. As he thought
+of all this he was walking towards Park Lane in order that he might
+call upon Madame Goesler according to his promise. As he went up to
+the drawing-room he met old Mr. Maule coming down, and the two bowed
+to each other on the stairs. In the drawing-room, sitting with Madame
+Goesler, he found Mrs. Bonteen. Now Mrs. Bonteen was almost as odious
+to him as was her husband.
+
+"Did you ever know anything more shameful, Mr. Finn," said Mrs.
+Bonteen, "than the attack made upon Mr. Bonteen the night before
+last?" Phineas could see a smile on Madame Goesler's face as the
+question was asked;--for she knew, and he knew that she knew, how
+great was the antipathy between him and the Bonteens.
+
+"The attack was upon Mr. Gresham, I thought," said Phineas.
+
+"Oh, yes; nominally. But of course everybody knows what was meant.
+Upon my word there is twice more jealousy among men than among women.
+Is there not, Madame Goesler?"
+
+"I don't think any man could be more jealous than I am myself," said
+Madame Goesler.
+
+"Then you're fit to be a member of a Government, that's all. I don't
+suppose that there is a man in England has worked harder for his
+party than Mr. Bonteen."
+
+"I don't think there is," said Phineas.
+
+"Or made himself more useful in Parliament. As for work, only that
+his constitution is so strong, he would have killed himself."
+
+"He should take Thorley's mixture,--twice a day," said Madame
+Goesler.
+
+"Take!--he never has time to take anything. He breakfasts in his
+dressing-room, carries his lunch in his pocket, and dines with the
+division bell ringing him up between his fish and his mutton chop.
+Now he has got their decimal coinage in hand, and has not a moment to
+himself, even on Sundays!"
+
+"He'll be sure to go to Heaven for it,--that's one comfort."
+
+"And because they are absolutely obliged to make him Chancellor of
+the Exchequer,--just as if he had not earned it,--everybody is so
+jealous that they are ready to tear him to pieces!"
+
+"Who is everybody?" asked Phineas.
+
+"Oh! I know. It wasn't only Sir Orlando Drought. Who told Sir
+Orlando? Never mind, Mr. Finn."
+
+"I don't in the least, Mrs. Bonteen."
+
+"I should have thought you would have been so triumphant," said
+Madame Goesler.
+
+"Not in the least, Madame Goesler. Why should I be triumphant? Of
+course the position is very high,--very high indeed. But it's no more
+than what I have always expected. If a man give up his life to a
+pursuit he ought to succeed. As for ambition, I have less of it than
+any woman. Only I do hate jealousy, Mr. Finn." Then Mrs. Bonteen took
+her leave, kissing her dear friend, Madame Goesler, and simply bowing
+to Phineas.
+
+"What a detestable woman!" said Phineas.
+
+"I know of old that you don't love her."
+
+"I don't believe that you love her a bit better than I do, and yet
+you kiss her."
+
+"Hardly that, Mr. Finn. There has come up a fashion for ladies to
+pretend to be very loving, and so they put their faces together. Two
+hundred years ago ladies and gentlemen did the same thing with just
+as little regard for each other. Fashions change, you know."
+
+"That was a change for the worse, certainly, Madame Goesler."
+
+"It wasn't of my doing. So you've had a great victory."
+
+"Yes;--greater than we expected."
+
+"According to Mrs. Bonteen, the chief result to the country will be
+that the taxes will be so very safe in her husband's hands! I am sure
+she believes that all Parliament has been at work in order that he
+might be made a Cabinet Minister. I rather like her for it."
+
+"I don't like her, or her husband."
+
+"I do like a woman that can thoroughly enjoy her husband's success.
+When she is talking of his carrying about his food in his pocket she
+is completely happy. I don't think Lady Glencora ever cared in the
+least about her husband being Chancellor of the Exchequer."
+
+"Because it added nothing to her own standing."
+
+"That's very ill-natured, Mr. Finn; and I find that you are becoming
+generally ill-natured. You used to be the best-humoured of men."
+
+"I hadn't so much to try my temper as I have now, and then you
+must remember, Madame Goesler, that I regard these people as being
+especially my enemies."
+
+"Lady Glencora was never your enemy."
+
+"Nor my friend,--especially."
+
+"Then you wrong her. If I tell you something you must be discreet."
+
+"Am I not always discreet?"
+
+"She does not love Mr. Bonteen. She has had too much of him at
+Matching. And as for his wife, she is quite as unwilling to be kissed
+by her as you can be. Her Grace is determined to fight your battle
+for you."
+
+"I want her to do nothing of the kind, Madame Goesler."
+
+"You will know nothing about it. We have put our heads to work, and
+Mr. Palliser,--that is, the new Duke,--is to be made to tell Mr.
+Gresham that you are to have a place. It is no good you being angry,
+for the thing is done. If you have enemies behind your back, you must
+have friends behind your back also. Lady Cantrip is to do the same
+thing."
+
+"For Heaven's sake, not."
+
+"It's all arranged. You'll be called the ladies' pet, but you mustn't
+mind that. Lady Laura will be here before it's arranged, and she will
+get hold of Mr. Erle."
+
+"You are laughing at me, I know."
+
+"Let them laugh that win. We thought of besieging Lord Fawn through
+Lady Chiltern, but we are not sure that anybody cares for Lord
+Fawn. The man we specially want now is the other Duke. We're afraid
+of attacking him through the Duchess because we think that he is
+inhumanly indifferent to anything that his wife says to him."
+
+"If that kind of thing is done I shall not accept place even if it
+is offered me."
+
+"Why not? Are you going to let a man like Mr. Bonteen bowl you over?
+Did you ever know Lady Glen fail in anything that she attempted?
+She is preparing a secret with the express object of making Mr.
+Ratler her confidant. Lord Mount Thistle is her slave, but then I
+fear Lord Mount Thistle is not of much use. She'll do anything and
+everything,--except flatter Mr. Bonteen."
+
+"Heaven forbid that anybody should do that for my sake."
+
+"The truth is that he made himself so disagreeable at Matching that
+Lady Glen is broken-hearted at finding that he is to seem to owe his
+promotion to her husband's favour. Now you know all about it."
+
+"You have been very wrong to tell me."
+
+"Perhaps I have, Mr. Finn. But I thought it better that you should
+know that you have friends at work for you. We believe,--or rather,
+the Duchess believes,--that falsehoods have been used which are as
+disparaging to Lady Laura Kennedy as they are injurious to you, and
+she is determined to put it right. Some one has told Mr. Gresham that
+you have been the means of breaking the hearts both of Lord Brentford
+and Mr. Kennedy,--two members of the late Cabinet,--and he must be
+made to understand that this is untrue. If only for Lady Laura's sake
+you must submit."
+
+"Lord Brentford and I are the best friends in the world."
+
+"And Mr. Kennedy is a madman,--absolutely in custody of his friends,
+as everybody knows; and yet the story has been made to work."
+
+"And you do not feel that all this is derogatory to me?"
+
+Madame Goesler was silent for a moment, and then she answered boldly,
+"Not a whit. Why should it be derogatory? It is not done with
+the object of obtaining an improper appointment on behalf of an
+unimportant man. When falsehoods of that kind are told you can't meet
+them in a straightforward way. I suppose I know with fair accuracy
+the sort of connection there has been between you and Lady Laura."
+Phineas very much doubted whether she had any such knowledge; but he
+said nothing, though the lady paused a few moments for reply. "You
+can't go and tell Mr. Gresham all that; nor can any friend do so on
+your behalf. It would be absurd."
+
+"Most absurd."
+
+"And yet it is essential to your interests that he should know it.
+When your enemies are undermining you, you must countermine or you'll
+be blown up."
+
+"I'd rather fight above ground."
+
+"That's all very well, but your enemies won't stay above ground.
+Is that newspaper man above ground? And for a little job of clever
+mining, believe me, that there is not a better engineer going than
+Lady Glen;--not but what I've known her to be very nearly 'hoist with
+her own petard,'"--added Madame Goesler, as she remembered a certain
+circumstance in their joint lives.
+
+All that Madame Goesler said was true. A conspiracy had been formed,
+in the first place at the instance of Madame Goesler, but altogether
+by the influence of the young Duchess, for forcing upon the future
+Premier the necessity of admitting Phineas Finn into his Government.
+On the Wednesday following the conclusion of the debate,--the day on
+the morning of which the division was to take place,--there was no
+House. On the Thursday, the last day on which the House was to sit
+before the Easter holidays, Mr. Daubeny announced his intention
+of postponing the declaration of his intentions till after the
+adjournment. The House would meet, he said, on that day week, and
+then he would make his official statement. This communication he made
+very curtly, and in a manner that was thought by some to be almost
+insolent to the House. It was known that he had been grievously
+disappointed by the result of the debate,--not probably having
+expected a majority since his adversary's strategy had been declared,
+but always hoping that the deserters from his own standard would be
+very few. The deserters had been very many, and Mr. Daubeny was
+majestic in his wrath.
+
+Nothing, however, could be done till after Easter. The Ratlers of
+the Liberal party were very angry at the delay, declaring that it
+would have been much to the advantage of the country at large that
+the vacation week should have been used for constructing a Liberal
+Cabinet. This work of construction always takes time, and delays the
+business of the country. No one can have known better than did Mr.
+Daubeny how great was the injury of delay, and how advantageously the
+short holiday might have been used. With a majority of seventy-two
+against him, there could be no reason why he should not have at once
+resigned, and advised the Queen to send for Mr. Gresham. Nothing
+could be worse than his conduct. So said the Liberals, thirsting
+for office. Mr. Gresham himself did not open his mouth when the
+announcement was made;--nor did any man, marked for future office,
+rise to denounce the beaten statesman. But one or two independent
+Members expressed their great regret at the unnecessary delay which
+was to take place before they were informed who was to be the
+Minister of the Crown. But Mr. Daubeny, as soon as he had made his
+statement, stalked out of the House, and no reply whatever was made
+to the independent Members. Some few sublime and hot-headed gentlemen
+muttered the word "impeachment." Others, who were more practical and
+less dignified, suggested that the Prime Minister "ought to have his
+head punched."
+
+It thus happened that all the world went out of town that week,--so
+that the Duchess of Omnium was down at Matching when Phineas called
+at the Duke's house in Carlton Terrace on Friday. With what object he
+had called he hardly knew himself; but he thought that he intended to
+assure the Duchess that he was not a candidate for office, and that
+he must deprecate her interference. Luckily,--or unluckily,--he did
+not see her, and he felt that it would be impossible to convey his
+wishes in a letter. The whole subject was one which would have defied
+him to find words sufficiently discreet for his object.
+
+The Duke and Duchess of St. Bungay were at Matching for the
+Easter,--as also was Barrington Erle, and also that dreadful Mr.
+Bonteen, from whose presence the poor Duchess of Omnium could in
+these days never altogether deliver herself. "Duke," she said, "you
+know Mr. Finn?"
+
+"Certainly. It was not very long ago that I was talking to him."
+
+"He used to be in office, you remember."
+
+"Oh yes;--and a very good beginner he was. Is he a friend of Your
+Grace's?"
+
+"A great friend. I'll tell you what I want you to do. You must have
+some place found for him."
+
+"My dear Duchess, I never interfere."
+
+"Why, Duke, you've made more Cabinets than any man living."
+
+"I fear, indeed, that I have been at the construction of more
+Governments than most men. It's forty years ago since Lord Melbourne
+first did me the honour of consulting me. When asked for advice, my
+dear, I have very often given it. It has occasionally been my duty to
+say that I could not myself give my slender assistance to a Ministry
+unless I were supported by the presence of this or that political
+friend. But never in my life have I asked for an appointment as a
+personal favour; and I am sure you won't be angry with me if I say
+that I cannot begin to do so now."
+
+"But Mr. Finn ought to be there. He did so well before."
+
+"If so, let us presume that he will be there. I can only say, from
+what little I know of him, that I shall be happy to see him in any
+office to which the future Prime Minister may consider it to be
+his duty to appoint him." "To think," said the Duchess of Omnium
+afterwards to her friend Madame Goesler,--"to think that I should
+have had that stupid old woman a week in the house, and all for
+nothing!"
+
+"Upon my word, Duchess," said Barrington Erle, "I don't know why it
+is, but Gresham seems to have taken a dislike to him."
+
+"It's Bonteen's doing."
+
+"Very probably."
+
+"Surely you can get the better of that?"
+
+"I look upon Phineas Finn, Duchess, almost as a child of my own. He
+has come back to Parliament altogether at my instigation."
+
+"Then you ought to help him."
+
+"And so I would if I could. Remember I am not the man I used to be
+when dear old Mr. Mildmay reigned. The truth is, I never interfere
+now unless I'm asked."
+
+"I believe that every one of you is afraid of Mr. Gresham."
+
+"Perhaps we are."
+
+"I'll tell you what. If he's passed over I'll make such a row that
+some of you shall hear it."
+
+"How fond all you women are of Phineas Finn."
+
+"I don't care that for him," said the Duchess, snapping her
+fingers--"more than I do, that is, for any other mere acquaintance.
+The man is very well, as most men are."
+
+"Not all."
+
+"No, not all. Some are as little and jealous as a girl in her tenth
+season. He is a decently good fellow, and he is to be thrown over,
+because--"
+
+"Because of what?"
+
+"I don't choose to name any one. You ought to know all about it, and
+I do not doubt but you do. Lady Laura Kennedy is your own cousin."
+
+"There is not a spark of truth in all that."
+
+"Of course there is not; and yet he is to be punished. I know very
+well, Mr. Erle, that if you choose to put your shoulder to the wheel
+you can manage it; and I shall expect to have it managed."
+
+"Plantagenet," she said the next day to her husband, "I want you to
+do something for me."
+
+"To do something! What am I to do? It's very seldom you want anything
+in my line."
+
+"This isn't in your line at all, and yet I want you to do it."
+
+"Ten to one it's beyond my means."
+
+"No, it isn't. I know you can if you like. I suppose you are all sure
+to be in office within ten days or a fortnight?"
+
+"I can't say, my dear. I have promised Mr. Gresham to be of use to
+him if I can."
+
+"Everybody knows all that. You're going to be Privy Seal, and to work
+just the same as ever at those horrible two farthings."
+
+"And what is it you want, Glencora?"
+
+"I want you to say that you won't take any office unless you are
+allowed to bring in one or two friends with you."
+
+"Why should I do that? I shall not doubt any Cabinet chosen by Mr.
+Gresham."
+
+"I'm not speaking of the Cabinet; I allude to men in lower offices,
+lords, and Under-Secretaries, and Vice-people. You know what I mean."
+
+"I never interfere."
+
+"But you must. Other men do continually. It's quite a common thing
+for a man to insist that one or two others should come in with him."
+
+"Yes. If a man feels that he cannot sustain his own position without
+support, he declines to join the Government without it. But that
+isn't my case. The friends who are necessary to me in the Cabinet are
+the very men who will certainly be there. I would join no Government
+without the Duke; but--"
+
+"Oh, the Duke--the Duke! I hate dukes--and duchesses too. I'm not
+talking about a duke. I want you to oblige me by making a point with
+Mr. Gresham that Mr. Finn shall have an office."
+
+"Mr. Finn!"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Finn. I'll explain it all if you wish it."
+
+"My dear Glencora, I never interfere."
+
+"Who does interfere? Everybody says the same. Somebody interferes,
+I suppose. Mr. Gresham can't know everybody so well as to be able
+to fit all the pegs into all the holes without saying a word to
+anybody."
+
+"He would probably speak to Mr. Bonteen."
+
+"Then he would speak to a very disagreeable man, and one I'm as sick
+of as I ever was of any man I ever knew. If you can't manage this for
+me, Plantagenet, I shall take it very ill. It's a little thing, and
+I'm sure you could have it done. I don't very often trouble you by
+asking for anything."
+
+The Duke in his quiet way was an affectionate man, and an indulgent
+husband. On the following morning he was closeted with Mr. Bonteen,
+two private secretaries, and a leading clerk from the Treasury for
+four hours, during which they were endeavouring to ascertain whether
+the commercial world of Great Britain would be ruined or enriched
+if twelve pennies were declared to contain fifty farthings. The
+discussion had been grievously burdensome to the minds of the Duke's
+assistants in it, but he himself had remembered his wife through it
+all. "By the way," he said, whispering into Mr. Bonteen's private ear
+as he led that gentleman away to lunch, "if we do come in--"
+
+"Oh, we must come in."
+
+"If we do, I suppose something will be done for that Mr. Finn. He
+spoke well the other night."
+
+Mr. Bonteen's face became very long. "He helped to upset the coach
+when he was with us before."
+
+"I don't think that that is much against him."
+
+"Is he--a personal friend of Your Grace's?"
+
+"No--not particularly. I never care about such things for myself; but
+Lady Glencora--"
+
+"I think the Duchess can hardly know what has been his conduct to
+poor Kennedy. There was a most disreputable row at a public-house in
+London, and I am told that he behaved--very badly."
+
+"I never heard a word about it," said the Duke.
+
+"I'll tell you just the truth," said Mr. Bonteen. "I've been asked
+about him, and I've been obliged to say that he would weaken any
+Government that would give him office."
+
+"Oh, indeed!"
+
+That evening the Duke told the Duchess nearly all that he had heard,
+and the Duchess swore that she wasn't going to be beaten by Mr.
+Bonteen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+ONCE AGAIN IN PORTMAN SQUARE.
+
+
+On the Wednesday in Easter week Lord Brentford and Lady Laura Kennedy
+reached Portman Square from Dresden, and Phineas, who had remained in
+town, was summoned thither by a note written at Dover. "We arrived
+here to-day, and shall be in town to-morrow afternoon, between four
+and five. Papa wants to see you especially. Can you manage to be with
+us in the Square at about eight? I know it will be inconvenient, but
+you will put up with inconvenience. I don't like to keep Papa up
+late; and if he is tired he won't speak to you as he would if you
+came early.--L. K." Phineas was engaged to dine with Lord Cantrip;
+but he wrote to excuse himself,--telling the simple truth. He had
+been asked to see Lord Brentford on business, and must obey the
+summons.
+
+He was shown into a sitting-room on the ground floor, which he
+had always known as the Earl's own room, and there he found Lord
+Brentford alone. The last time he had been there he had come to
+plead with the Earl on behalf of Lord Chiltern, and the Earl had then
+been a stern self-willed man, vigorous from a sense of power, and
+very able to maintain and to express his own feelings. Now he was a
+broken-down old man,--whose mind had been, as it were, unbooted and
+put into moral slippers for the remainder of its term of existence
+upon earth. He half shuffled up out of his chair as Phineas came
+up to him, and spoke as though every calamity in the world were
+oppressing him. "Such a passage! Oh, very bad, indeed! I thought it
+would have been the death of me. Laura thought it better to come on."
+The fact, however, had been that the Earl had so many objections to
+staying at Calais, that his daughter had felt herself obliged to
+yield to him.
+
+"You must be glad at any rate to have got home," said Phineas.
+
+"Home! I don't know what you call home. I don't suppose I shall ever
+feel any place to be home again."
+
+"You'll go to Saulsby;--will you not?"
+
+"How can I tell? If Chiltern would have kept the house up, of course
+I should have gone there. But he never would do anything like anybody
+else. Violet wants me to go to that place they've got there, but I
+shan't do that."
+
+"It's a comfortable house."
+
+"I hate horses and dogs, and I won't go."
+
+There was nothing more to be said on that point. "I hope Lady Laura
+is well."
+
+"No, she's not. How should she be well? She's anything but well.
+She'll be in directly, but she thought I ought to see you first. I
+suppose this wretched man is really mad."
+
+"I am told so."
+
+"He never was anything else since I knew him. What are we to do now?
+Forster says it won't look well to ask for a separation only because
+he's insane. He tried to shoot you?"
+
+"And very nearly succeeded."
+
+"Forster says that if we do anything, all that must come out."
+
+"There need not be the slightest hesitation as far as I am concerned,
+Lord Brentford."
+
+"You know he keeps all her money."
+
+"At present I suppose he couldn't give it up."
+
+"Why not? Why shouldn't he give it up? God bless my soul! Forty
+thousand pounds and all for nothing. When he married he declared that
+he didn't care about it! Money was nothing to him! So she lent it to
+Chiltern."
+
+"I remember."
+
+"But they hadn't been together a year before he asked for it. Now
+there it is;--and if she were to die to-morrow it would be lost to
+the family. Something must be done, you know. I can't let her money
+go in that way."
+
+"You'll do what Mr. Forster suggests, no doubt."
+
+"But he won't suggest anything. They never do. He doesn't care what
+becomes of the money. It never ought to have been given up as it
+was."
+
+"It was settled, I suppose."
+
+"Yes;--if there were children. And it will come back to her if he
+dies first. But mad people never do die. That's a well-known fact.
+They've nothing to trouble them, and they live for ever. It'll all go
+to some cousin of his that nobody ever saw."
+
+"Not as long as Lady Laura lives."
+
+"But she does not get a penny of the income;--not a penny. There
+never was anything so cruel. He has published all manner of
+accusations against her."
+
+"Nobody believes a word of that, my lord."
+
+"And then when she is dragged forward by the necessity of vindicating
+her character, he goes mad and keeps all her money! There never was
+anything so cruel since the world began."
+
+This continued for half-an-hour, and then Lady Laura came in. Nothing
+had come, or could have come, from the consultation with the Earl.
+Had it gone on for another hour, he would simply have continued
+to grumble, and have persevered in insisting upon the hardships
+he endured. Lady Laura was in black, and looked sad, and old, and
+careworn; but she did not seem to be ill. Phineas could not but think
+at the moment how entirely her youth had passed away from her. She
+came and sat close by him, and began at once to speak of the late
+debate. "Of course they'll go out," she said.
+
+"I presume they will."
+
+"And our party will come in."
+
+"Oh, yes;--Mr. Gresham, and the two dukes, and Lord Cantrip,--with
+Legge Wilson, Sir Harry Coldfoot, and the rest of them."
+
+"And you?"
+
+Phineas smiled, and tried to smile pleasantly, as he answered, "I
+don't know that they'll put themselves out by doing very much for
+me."
+
+"They'll do something."
+
+"I fancy not. Indeed, Lady Laura, to tell the truth at once, I know
+that they don't mean to offer me anything."
+
+"After making you give up your place in Ireland?"
+
+"They didn't make me give it up. I should never dream of using such
+an argument to any one. Of course I had to judge for myself. There is
+nothing to be said about it;--only it is so." As he told her this he
+strove to look light-hearted, and so to speak that she should not see
+the depth of his disappointment;--but he failed altogether. She knew
+him too well not to read his whole heart in the matter.
+
+"Who has said it?" she asked.
+
+"Nobody says things of that kind, and yet one knows."
+
+"And why is it?"
+
+"How can I say? There are various reasons,--and, perhaps, very good
+reasons. What I did before makes men think that they can't depend on
+me. At any rate it is so."
+
+"Shall you not speak to Mr. Gresham?"
+
+"Certainly not."
+
+"What do you say, Papa?"
+
+"How can I understand it, my dear? There used to be a kind of honour
+in these things, but that's all old-fashioned now. Ministers used to
+think of their political friends; but in these days they only regard
+their political enemies. If you can make a Minister afraid of you,
+then it becomes worth his while to buy you up. Most of the young
+men rise now by making themselves thoroughly disagreeable. Abuse a
+Minister every night for half a session, and you may be sure to be in
+office the other half,--if you care about it."
+
+"May I speak to Barrington Erle?" asked Lady Laura.
+
+"I had rather you did not. Of course I must take it as it comes."
+
+"But, my dear Mr. Finn, people do make efforts in such cases. I don't
+doubt but that at this moment there are a dozen men moving heaven and
+earth to secure something. No one has more friends than you have."
+
+Had not her father been present he would have told her what his
+friends were doing for him, and how unhappy such interferences made
+him; but he could not explain all this before the Earl. "I would so
+much rather hear about yourself," he said, again smiling.
+
+"There is but little to say about us. I suppose Papa has told you?"
+
+But the Earl had told him nothing, and indeed, there was nothing
+to tell. The lawyer had advised that Mr. Kennedy's friends should
+be informed that Lady Laura now intended to live in England, and
+that they should be invited to make to her some statement as to
+Mr. Kennedy's condition. If necessary he, on her behalf, would
+justify her departure from her husband's roof by a reference to the
+outrageous conduct of which Mr. Kennedy had since been guilty. In
+regard to Lady Laura's fortune, Mr. Forster said that she could no
+doubt apply for alimony, and that if the application were pressed at
+law she would probably obtain it;--but he could not recommend such a
+step at the present moment. As to the accusation which had been made
+against her character, and which had become public through the malice
+of the editor of The People's Banner, Mr. Forster thought that the
+best refutation would be found in her return to England. At any
+rate he would advise no further step at the present moment. Should
+any further libel appear in the columns of the newspaper, then the
+question might be again considered. Mr. Forster had already been in
+Portman Square, and this had been the result of the conference.
+
+"There is not much comfort in it all,--is there?" said Lady Laura.
+
+"There is no comfort in anything," said the Earl.
+
+When Phineas took his leave Lady Laura followed him out into
+the hall, and they went together into the large, gloomy
+dining-room,--gloomy and silent now, but which in former days he
+had known to be brilliant with many lights, and cheerful with eager
+voices. "I must have one word with you," she said, standing close
+to him against the table, and putting her hand upon his arm. "Amidst
+all my sorrow, I have been so thankful that he did not--kill you."
+
+
+[Illustration: "I must have one word with you."]
+
+
+"I almost wish he had."
+
+"Oh, Phineas!--how can you say words so wicked! Would you have had
+him a murderer?"
+
+"A madman is responsible for nothing."
+
+"Where should I have been? What should I have done? But of course you
+do not mean it. You have everything in life before you. Say some word
+to me more comfortable than that. You cannot think how I have looked
+forward to meeting you again. It has robbed the last month of half
+its sadness." He put his arm round her waist and pressed her to his
+side, but he said nothing. "It was so good of you to go to him as you
+did. How was he looking?"
+
+"Twenty years older than when you saw him last."
+
+"But how in health?"
+
+"He was thin and haggard."
+
+"Was he pale?"
+
+"No; flushed and red. He had not shaved himself for days; nor, as I
+believe, had he been out of his room since he came up to London. I
+fancy that he will not live long."
+
+"Poor fellow;--unhappy man! I was very wrong to marry him, Phineas."
+
+"I have never said so;--nor, indeed, thought so."
+
+"But I have thought so; and I say it also,--to you. I owe him any
+reparation that I can make him; but I could not have lived with him.
+I had no idea, before, that the nature of two human beings could be
+so unlike. I so often remember what you told me of him,--here; in
+this house, when I first brought you together. Alas, how sad it has
+been!"
+
+"Sad, indeed."
+
+"But can this be true that you tell me of yourself?
+
+"It is quite true. I could not say so before your father, but it is
+Mr. Bonteen's doing. There is no remedy. I am sure of that. I am only
+afraid that people are interfering for me in a manner that will be as
+disagreeable to me as it will be useless."
+
+"What friends?" she asked.
+
+He was still standing with his arm round her waist, and he did not
+like to mention the name of Madame Goesler.
+
+"The Duchess of Omnium,--whom you remember as Lady Glencora
+Palliser."
+
+"Is she a friend of yours?"
+
+"No;--not particularly. But she is an indiscreet woman, and hates
+Bonteen, and has taken it into her stupid head to interest herself in
+my concerns. It is no doing of mine, and yet I cannot help it."
+
+"She will succeed."
+
+"I don't want assistance from such a quarter; and I feel sure that
+she will not succeed."
+
+"What will you do, Phineas?"
+
+"What shall I do? Carry on the battle as long as I can without
+getting into debt, and then--vanish."
+
+"You vanished once before,--did you not,--with a wife?"
+
+"And now I shall vanish alone. My poor little wife! It seems all like
+a dream. She was so good, so pure, so pretty, so loving!"
+
+"Loving! A man's love is so easily transferred;--as easily as a
+woman's hand;--is it not, Phineas? Say the word, for it is what you
+are thinking."
+
+"I was thinking of no such thing."
+
+"You must think it--You need not be afraid to reproach me. I could
+bear it from you. What could I not bear from you? Oh, Phineas;--if I
+had only known myself then, as I do now!"
+
+"It is too late for regrets," he said. There was something in the
+words which grated on her feelings, and induced her at length to
+withdraw herself from his arm. Too late for regrets! She had never
+told herself that it was not too late. She was the wife of another
+man, and therefore, surely it was too late. But still the word coming
+from his mouth was painful to her. It seemed to signify that for him
+at least the game was all over.
+
+"Yes, indeed," she said,--"if our regrets and remorse were at our own
+disposal! You might as well say that it is too late for unhappiness,
+too late for weariness, too late for all the misery that comes from a
+life's disappointment."
+
+"I should have said that indulgence in regrets is vain."
+
+"That is a scrap of philosophy which I have heard so often before!
+But we will not quarrel, will we, on the first day of my return?"
+
+"I hope not."
+
+"And I may speak to Barrington?"
+
+"No; certainly not."
+
+"But I shall. How can I help it? He will be here to-morrow, and will
+be full of the coming changes. How should I not mention your name? He
+knows--not all that has passed, but too much not to be aware of my
+anxiety. Of course your name will come up?"
+
+"What I request,--what I demand is, that you ask no favour for me.
+Your father will miss you,--will he not? I had better go now."
+
+"Good night, Phineas."
+
+"Good night, dear friend."
+
+"Dearest, dearest friend," she said. Then he left her, and without
+assistance, let himself out into the square. In her intercourse with
+him there was a passion the expression of which caused him sorrow and
+almost dismay. He did not say so even to himself, but he felt that a
+time might come in which she would resent the coldness of demeanour
+which it would be imperative upon him to adopt in his intercourse
+with her. He knew how imprudent he had been to stand there with his
+arm round her waist.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+CAGLIOSTRO.
+
+
+It had been settled that Parliament should meet on the Thursday in
+Easter week, and it was known to the world at large that Cabinet
+Councils were held on the Friday previous, on the Monday, and on the
+Tuesday; but nobody knew what took place at those meetings. Cabinet
+Councils are, of course, very secret. What kind of oath the members
+take not to divulge any tittle of the proceedings at these awful
+conferences, the general public does not know; but it is presumed
+that oaths are taken very solemn, and it is known that they are very
+binding. Nevertheless, it is not an uncommon thing to hear openly
+at the clubs an account of what has been settled; and, as we all
+know, not a council is held as to which the editor of The People's
+Banner does not inform its readers next day exactly what took
+place. But as to these three Cabinet Councils there was an increased
+mystery abroad. Statements, indeed, were made, very definite and
+circumstantial, but then they were various,--and directly opposed
+one to another. According to The People's Banner, Mr. Daubeny
+had resolved, with that enduring courage which was his peculiar
+characteristic, that he would not be overcome by faction, but would
+continue to exercise all the functions of Prime Minister until he had
+had an opportunity of learning whether his great measure had been
+opposed by the sense of the country, or only by the tactics of an
+angry and greedy party. Other journals declared that the Ministry as
+a whole had decided on resigning. But the clubs were in a state of
+agonising doubt. At the great stronghold of conservative policy in
+Pall Mall men were silent, embarrassed, and unhappy. The party was
+at heart divorced from its leaders,--and a party without leaders is
+powerless. To these gentlemen there could be no triumph, whether Mr.
+Daubeny went out or remained in office. They had been betrayed;--but
+as a body were unable even to accuse the traitor. As regarded most
+of them they had accepted the treachery and bowed their heads
+beneath it, by means of their votes. And as to the few who had been
+staunch,--they also were cowed by a feeling that they had been
+instrumental in destroying their own power by endeavouring to protect
+a doomed institution. Many a thriving county member in those days
+expressed a wish among his friends that he had never meddled with
+the affairs of public life, and hinted at the Chiltern Hundreds. On
+the other side, there was undoubtedly something of a rabid desire
+for immediate triumph, which almost deserved that epithet of greedy
+which was then commonly used by Conservatives in speaking of their
+opponents. With the Liberal leaders,--such men as Mr. Gresham and
+the two dukes,--the anxiety displayed was, no doubt, on behalf
+of the country. It is right, according to our constitution, that
+the Government should be entrusted to the hands of those whom the
+constituencies of the country have most trusted. And, on behalf of
+the country, it behoves the men in whom the country has placed its
+trust to do battle in season and out of season,--to carry on war
+internecine,--till the demands of the country are obeyed. A sound
+political instinct had induced Mr. Gresham on this occasion to attack
+his opponent simply on the ground of his being the leader only of
+a minority in the House of Commons. But from among Mr. Gresham's
+friends there had arisen a noise which sounded very like a clamour
+for place, and this noise of course became aggravated in the ears
+of those who were to be displaced. Now, during Easter week, the
+clamour became very loud. Could it be possible that the archfiend of
+a Minister would dare to remain in office till the end of a hurried
+Session, and then again dissolve Parliament? Men talked of rows in
+London,--even of revolution, and there were meetings in open places
+both by day and night. Petitions were to be prepared, and the country
+was to be made to express itself.
+
+When, however, Thursday afternoon came, Mr. Daubeny "threw up the
+sponge." Up to the last moment the course which he intended to pursue
+was not known to the country at large. He entered the House very
+slowly,--almost with a languid air, as though indifferent to its
+performances, and took his seat at about half-past four. Every man
+there felt that there was insolence in his demeanour,--and yet
+there was nothing on which it was possible to fasten in the way of
+expressed complaint. There was a faint attempt at a cheer,--for good
+soldiers acknowledge the importance of supporting even an unpopular
+general. But Mr. Daubeny's soldiers on this occasion were not very
+good. When he had been seated about five minutes he rose, still very
+languidly, and began his statement. He and his colleagues, he said,
+in their attempt to legislate for the good of their country had been
+beaten in regard to a very great measure by a large majority, and in
+compliance with what he acknowledged to be the expressed opinion of
+the House, he had considered it to be his duty--as his colleagues had
+considered it to be theirs--to place their joint resignations in the
+hands of Her Majesty. This statement was received with considerable
+surprise, as it was not generally known that Mr. Daubeny had as
+yet even seen the Queen. But the feeling most predominant in the
+House was one almost of dismay at the man's quiescence. He and his
+colleagues had resigned, and he had recommended Her Majesty to
+send for Mr. Gresham. He spoke in so low a voice as to be hardly
+audible to the House at large, and then paused,--ceasing to speak,
+as though his work were done. He even made some gesture, as though
+stepping back to his seat;--deceived by which Mr. Gresham, at the
+other side of the table, rose to his legs. "Perhaps," said Mr.
+Daubeny,--"Perhaps the right honourable gentleman would pardon him,
+and the House would pardon him, if still, for a moment, he interposed
+between the House and the right honourable gentleman. He could well
+understand the impatience of the right honourable gentleman,--who
+no doubt was anxious to reassume that authority among them, the
+temporary loss of which he had not perhaps borne with all the
+equanimity which might have been expected from him. He would promise
+the House and the right honourable gentleman that he would not detain
+them long." Mr. Gresham threw himself back into his seat, evidently
+not without annoyance, and his enemy stood for a moment looking at
+him. Unless they were angels these two men must at that moment have
+hated each other;--and it is supposed that they were no more than
+human. It was afterwards said that the little ruse of pretending to
+resume his seat had been deliberately planned by Mr. Daubeny with the
+view of seducing Mr. Gresham into an act of seeming impatience, and
+that these words about his opponent's failing equanimity had been
+carefully prepared.
+
+Mr. Daubeny stood for a minute silent, and then began to pour forth
+that which was really his speech on the occasion. Those flaccid
+half-pronounced syllables in which he had declared that he had
+resigned,--had been studiously careless, purposely flaccid. It
+was his duty to let the House know the fact, and he did his duty.
+But now he had a word to say in which he himself could take some
+little interest. Mr. Daubeny could be fiery or flaccid as it suited
+himself;--and now it suited him to be fiery. He had a prophecy
+to make, and prophets have ever been energetic men. Mr. Daubeny
+conceived it to be his duty to inform the House, and through the
+House the country, that now, at last, had the day of ruin come upon
+the British Empire, because it had bowed itself to the dominion of an
+unscrupulous and greedy faction. It cannot be said that the language
+which he used was unmeasured, because no word that he uttered would
+have warranted the Speaker in calling him to order; but, within the
+very wide bounds of parliamentary etiquette, there was no limit to
+the reproach and reprobation which he heaped on the House of Commons
+for its late vote. And his audacity equalled his insolence. In
+announcing his resignation, he had condescended to speak of himself
+and his colleagues; but now he dropped his colleagues as though they
+were unworthy of his notice, and spoke only of his own doings,--of
+his own efforts to save the country, which was indeed willing to be
+saved, but unable to select fitting instruments of salvation. "He
+had been twitted," he said, "with inconsistency to his principles
+by men who were simply unable to understand the meaning of the word
+Conservatism. These gentlemen seemed to think that any man who did
+not set himself up as an apostle of constant change must therefore
+be bound always to stand still and see his country perish from
+stagnation. It might be that there were gentlemen in that House whose
+timid natures could not face the dangers of any movement; but for
+himself he would say that no word had ever fallen from his lips which
+justified either his friends or his adversaries in classing him among
+the number. If a man be anxious to keep his fire alight, does he
+refuse to touch the sacred coals as in the course of nature they are
+consumed? Or does he move them with the salutary poker and add fresh
+fuel from the basket? They all knew that enemy to the comfort of the
+domestic hearth, who could not keep his hands for a moment from the
+fire-irons. Perhaps he might be justified if he said that they had
+been very much troubled of late in that House by gentlemen who could
+not keep their fingers from poker and tongs. But there had now fallen
+upon them a trouble of a nature much more serious in its effects than
+any that had come or could come from would-be reformers. A spirit of
+personal ambition, a wretched thirst for office, a hankering after
+the power and privileges of ruling, had not only actuated men,--as,
+alas, had been the case since first the need for men to govern others
+had arisen in the world,--but had been openly avowed and put forward
+as an adequate and sufficient reason for opposing a measure in
+disapprobation of which no single argument had been used! The right
+honourable gentleman's proposition to the House had been simply
+this;--'I shall oppose this measure, be it good or bad, because I
+desire, myself, to be Prime Minister, and I call upon those whom I
+lead in politics to assist me in doing so, in order that they may
+share the good things on which we may thus be enabled to lay our
+hands!'"
+
+Then there arose a great row in the House, and there seemed to be a
+doubt whether the still existing Minister of the day would be allowed
+to continue his statement. Mr. Gresham rose to his feet, but sat down
+again instantly, without having spoken a word that was audible. Two
+or three voices were heard calling upon the Speaker for protection.
+It was, however, asserted afterwards that nothing had been said
+which demanded the Speaker's interference. But all moderate voices
+were soon lost in the enraged clamour of members on each side. The
+insolence showered upon those who generally supported Mr. Daubeny had
+equalled that with which he had exasperated those opposed to him;
+and as the words had fallen from his lips, there had been no purpose
+of cheering him from the conservative benches. But noise creates
+noise, and shouting is a ready and easy mode of contest. For a while
+it seemed as though the right side of the Speaker's chair was only
+beaten by the majority of lungs on the left side;--and in the midst
+of it all Mr. Daubeny still stood, firm on his feet, till gentlemen
+had shouted themselves silent,--and then he resumed his speech.
+
+The remainder of what he said was profound, prophetic, and
+unintelligible. The gist of it, so far as it could be understood
+when the bran was bolted from it, consisted in an assurance that the
+country had now reached that period of its life in which rapid decay
+was inevitable, and that, as the mortal disease had already shown
+itself in its worst form, national decrepitude was imminent, and
+natural death could not long be postponed. They who attempted to
+read the prophecy with accuracy were of opinion that the prophet had
+intimated that had the nation, even in this its crisis, consented
+to take him, the prophet, as its sole physician and to obey his
+prescription with childlike docility, health might not only have been
+re-established, but a new juvenescence absolutely created. The nature
+of the medicine that should have been taken was even supposed to
+have been indicated in some very vague terms. Had he been allowed to
+operate he would have cut the tap-roots of the national cancer, have
+introduced fresh blood into the national veins, and resuscitated
+the national digestion, and he seemed to think that the nation,
+as a nation, was willing enough to undergo the operation, and be
+treated as he should choose to treat it;--but that the incubus of Mr.
+Gresham, backed by an unworthy House of Commons, had prevented, and
+was preventing, the nation from having its own way. Therefore the
+nation must be destroyed. Mr. Daubeny as soon as he had completed his
+speech took up his hat and stalked out of the House.
+
+It was supposed at the time that the retiring Prime Minister had
+intended, when he rose to his legs, not only to denounce his
+opponents, but also to separate himself from his own unworthy
+associates. Men said that he had become disgusted with politics,
+disappointed, and altogether demoralized by defeat, and great
+curiosity existed as to the steps which might be taken at the time by
+the party of which he had hitherto been the leader. On that evening,
+at any rate, nothing was done. When Mr. Daubeny was gone, Mr. Gresham
+rose and said that in the present temper of the House he thought
+it best to postpone any statement from himself. He had received
+Her Majesty's commands only as he had entered that House, and in
+obedience to those commands, he should wait upon Her Majesty early
+to-morrow. He hoped to be able to inform the House at the afternoon
+sitting, what was the nature of the commands with which Her Majesty
+might honour him.
+
+"What do you think of that?" Phineas asked Mr. Monk as they left the
+House together.
+
+"I think that our Chatham of to-day is but a very poor copy of him
+who misbehaved a century ago."
+
+"Does not the whole thing distress you?"
+
+"Not particularly. I have always felt that there has been a mistake
+about Mr. Daubeny. By many he has been accounted as a statesman,
+whereas to me he has always been a political Cagliostro. Now a
+conjuror is I think a very pleasant fellow to have among us, if we
+know that he is a conjuror;--but a conjuror who is believed to do his
+tricks without sleight of hand is a dangerous man. It is essential
+that such a one should be found out and known to be a conjuror,--and
+I hope that such knowledge may have been communicated to some men
+this afternoon."
+
+"He was very great," said Ratler to Bonteen. "Did you not think so?"
+
+"Yes, I did,--very powerful indeed. But the party is broken up to
+atoms."
+
+"Atoms soon come together again in politics," said Ratler. "They
+can't do without him. They haven't got anybody else. I wonder what he
+did when he got home."
+
+"Had some gruel and went to bed," said Bonteen. "They say these
+scenes in the House never disturb him at home." From which
+conversations it may be inferred that Mr. Monk and Messrs. Ratler and
+Bonteen did not agree in their ideas respecting political conjurors.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+THE PRIME MINISTER IS HARD PRESSED.
+
+
+It can never be a very easy thing to form a Ministry. The one chosen
+chief is readily selected. Circumstances, indeed, have probably left
+no choice in the matter. Every man in the country who has at all
+turned his thoughts that way knows very well who will be the next
+Prime Minister when it comes to pass that a change is imminent.
+In these days the occupant of the throne can have no difficulty.
+Mr. Gresham recommends Her Majesty to send for Mr. Daubeny, or Mr.
+Daubeny for Mr. Gresham,--as some ten or a dozen years since Mr.
+Mildmay told her to send for Lord de Terrier, or Lord de Terrier
+for Mr. Mildmay. The Prime Minister is elected by the nation, but
+the nation, except in rare cases, cannot go below that in arranging
+details, and the man for whom the Queen sends is burdened with the
+necessity of selecting his colleagues. It may be,--probably must
+always be the case,--that this, that, and the other colleagues are
+clearly indicated to his mind, but then each of these colleagues
+may want his own inferior coadjutors, and so the difficulty begins,
+increases, and at length culminates. On the present occasion it was
+known at the end of a week that Mr. Gresham had not filled all his
+offices, and that there were difficulties. It was announced that the
+Duke of St. Bungay could not quite agree on certain points with Mr.
+Gresham, and that the Duke of Omnium would do nothing without the
+other Duke. The Duke of St. Bungay was very powerful, as there were
+three or four of the old adherents of Mr. Mildmay who would join
+no Government unless he was with them. Sir Harry Coldfoot and Lord
+Plinlimmon would not accept office without the Duke. The Duke was
+essential, and now, though the Duke's character was essentially
+that of a practical man who never raised unnecessary trouble, men
+said that the Duke was at the bottom of it all. The Duke did not
+approve of Mr. Bonteen. Mr. Gresham, so it was said, insisted on Mr.
+Bonteen,--appealing to the other Duke. But that other Duke, our own
+special Duke, Planty Pall that was, instead of standing up for Mr.
+Bonteen, was cold and unsympathetic. He could not join the Ministry
+without his friend, the Duke of St. Bungay, and as to Mr. Bonteen, he
+thought that perhaps a better selection might be made.
+
+Such were the club rumours which took place as to the difficulties
+of the day, and, as is generally the case, they were not far from
+the truth. Neither of the dukes had absolutely put a veto on poor Mr.
+Bonteen's elevation, but they had expressed themselves dissatisfied
+with the appointment, and the younger duke had found himself
+called upon to explain that although he had been thrown much into
+communication with Mr. Bonteen he had never himself suggested that
+that gentleman should follow him at the Exchequer. This was one of
+the many difficulties which beset the Prime Minister elect in the
+performance of his arduous duty.
+
+Lady Glencora, as people would still persist in calling her, was at
+the bottom of it all. She had sworn an oath inimical to Mr. Bonteen,
+and did not leave a stone unturned in her endeavours to accomplish
+it. If Phineas Finn might find acceptance, then Mr. Bonteen might be
+allowed to enter Elysium. A second Juno, she would allow the Romulus
+she hated to sit in the seats of the blessed, to be fed with nectar,
+and to have his name printed in the lists of unruffled Cabinet
+meetings,--but only on conditions. Phineas Finn must be allowed a
+seat also, and a little nectar,--though it were at the second table
+of the gods. For this she struggled, speaking her mind boldly to this
+and that member of her husband's party, but she struggled in vain.
+She could obtain no assurance on behalf of Phineas Finn. The Duke of
+St. Bungay would do nothing for her. Barrington Erle had declared
+himself powerless. Her husband had condescended to speak to Mr.
+Bonteen himself, and Mr. Bonteen's insolent answer had been reported
+to her. Then she went sedulously to work, and before a couple of days
+were over she did make her husband believe that Mr. Bonteen was not
+fit to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. This took place before Mr.
+Daubeny's statement, while the Duke and Duchess of St. Bungay were
+still at Matching,--while Mr. Bonteen, unconscious of what was being
+done, was still in the House. Before the two days were over, the Duke
+of St. Bungay had a very low opinion of Mr. Bonteen, but was quite
+ignorant of any connection between that low opinion and the fortunes
+of Phineas Finn.
+
+"Plantagenet, of all your men that are coming up, your Mr. Bonteen
+is the worst. I often think that you are going down hill, both in
+character and intellect, but if you go as low as that I shall prefer
+to cross the water, and live in America." This she said in the
+presence of the two dukes.
+
+"What has Mr. Bonteen done?" asked the elder, laughing.
+
+"He was boasting this morning openly of whom he intended to bring
+with him into the Cabinet." Truth demands that the chronicler should
+say that this was a positive fib. Mr. Bonteen, no doubt, had talked
+largely and with indiscretion, but had made no such boast as that of
+which the Duchess accused him. "Mr. Gresham will get astray if he
+doesn't allow some one to tell him the truth."
+
+She did not press the matter any further then, but what she had said
+was not thrown away. "Your wife is almost right about that man," the
+elder Duke said to the younger.
+
+"It's Mr. Gresham's doing,--not mine," said the younger.
+
+"She is right about Gresham, too," said the elder. "With all his
+immense intellect and capacity for business no man wants more looking
+after."
+
+That evening Mr. Bonteen was singled out by the Duchess for her
+special attention, and in the presence of all who were there
+assembled he made himself an ass. He could not save himself from
+talking about himself when he was encouraged. On this occasion he
+offended all those feelings of official discretion and personal
+reticence which had been endeared to the old duke by the lessons
+which he had learned from former statesmen and by the experience of
+his own life. To be quiet, unassuming, almost affectedly modest in
+any mention of himself, low-voiced, reflecting always more than he
+resolved, and resolving always more than he said, had been his aim.
+Conscious of his high rank, and thinking, no doubt, much of the
+advantages in public life which his birth and position had given him,
+still he would never have ventured to speak of his own services as
+necessary to any Government. That he had really been indispensable to
+many he must have known, but not to his closest friend would he have
+said so in plain language. To such a man the arrogance of Mr. Bonteen
+was intolerable.
+
+There is probably more of the flavour of political aristocracy to
+be found still remaining among our liberal leading statesmen than
+among their opponents. A conservative Cabinet is, doubtless, never
+deficient in dukes and lords, and the sons of such; but conservative
+dukes and lords are recruited here and there, and as recruits, are
+new to the business, whereas among the old Whigs a halo of statecraft
+has, for ages past, so strongly pervaded and enveloped certain great
+families, that the power in the world of politics thus produced
+still remains, and is even yet efficacious in creating a feeling of
+exclusiveness. They say that "misfortune makes men acquainted with
+strange bedfellows." The old hereditary Whig Cabinet ministers must,
+no doubt, by this time have learned to feel themselves at home with
+strange neighbours at their elbows. But still with them something of
+the feeling of high blood, of rank, and of living in a park with deer
+about it, remains. They still entertain a pride in their Cabinets,
+and have, at any rate, not as yet submitted themselves to a conjuror.
+The Charles James Fox element of liberality still holds its own, and
+the fragrance of Cavendish is essential. With no man was this feeling
+stronger than with the Duke of St. Bungay, though he well knew
+how to keep it in abeyance,--even to the extent of self-sacrifice.
+Bonteens must creep into the holy places. The faces which he loved to
+see,--born chiefly of other faces he had loved when young,--could not
+cluster around the sacred table without others which were much less
+welcome to him. He was wise enough to know that exclusiveness did not
+suit the nation, though human enough to feel that it must have been
+pleasant to himself. There must be Bonteens;--but when any Bonteen
+came up, who loomed before his eyes as specially disagreeable, it
+seemed to him to be a duty to close the door against such a one, if
+it could be closed without violence. A constant, gentle pressure
+against the door would tend to keep down the number of the Bonteens.
+
+"I am not sure that you are not going a little too quick in regard
+to Mr. Bonteen," said the elder duke to Mr. Gresham before he had
+finally assented to a proposition originated by himself,--that he
+should sit in the Cabinet without a portfolio.
+
+"Palliser wishes it," said Mr. Gresham, shortly.
+
+"He and I think that there has been some mistake about that. You
+suggested the appointment to him, and he felt unwilling to raise an
+objection without giving the matter very mature consideration. You
+can understand that."
+
+"Upon my word I thought that the selection would be peculiarly
+agreeable to him." Then the duke made a suggestion. "Could not some
+special office at the Treasury be constructed for Mr. Bonteen's
+acceptance, having special reference to the question of decimal
+coinage?"
+
+"But how about the salary?" asked Mr. Gresham. "I couldn't propose a
+new office with a salary above £2,000."
+
+"Couldn't we make it permanent," suggested the duke;--"with
+permission to hold a seat if he can get one?"
+
+"I fear not," said Mr. Gresham.
+
+"He got into a very unpleasant scrape when he was Financial
+Secretary," said the Duke.
+
+   But whither would'st thou, Muse? Unmeet
+      For jocund lyre are themes like these.
+   Shalt thou the talk of Gods repeat,
+   Debasing by thy strains effete
+      Such lofty mysteries?
+
+The absolute words of a conversation so lofty shall no longer be
+attempted, but it may be said that Mr. Gresham was too wise to
+treat as of no account the objections of such a one as the Duke
+of St. Bungay. He saw Mr. Bonteen, and he saw the other duke, and
+difficulties arose. Mr. Bonteen made himself very disagreeable
+indeed. As Mr. Bonteen had never absolutely been as yet more than a
+demigod, our Muse, light as she is, may venture to report that he
+told Mr. Ratler that "he'd be d---- if he'd stand it. If he were to
+be thrown over now, he'd make such a row, and would take such care
+that the fat should be in the fire, that his enemies, whoever they
+were, should wish that they had kept their fingers off him. He knew
+who was doing it." If he did not know, his guess was right. In his
+heart he accused the young duchess, though he mentioned her name
+to no one. And it was the young duchess. Then there was made an
+insidious proposition to Mr. Gresham,--which reached him at last
+through Barrington Erle,--that matters would go quieter if Phineas
+Finn were placed in his old office at the Colonies instead of Lord
+Fawn, whose name had been suggested, and for whom,--as Barrington
+Erle declared,--no one cared a brass farthing. Mr. Gresham, when he
+heard this, thought that he began to smell a rat, and was determined
+to be on his guard. Why should the appointment of Mr. Phineas Finn
+make things go easier in regard to Mr. Bonteen? There must be some
+woman's fingers in the pie. Now Mr. Gresham was firmly resolved that
+no woman's fingers should have anything to do with his pie.
+
+How the thing went from bad to worse, it would be bootless here
+to tell. Neither of the two dukes absolutely refused to join the
+Ministry; but they were persistent in their objection to Mr. Bonteen,
+and were joined in it by Lord Plinlimmon and Sir Harry Coldfoot. It
+was in vain that Mr. Gresham urged that he had no other man ready
+and fit to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. That excuse could not be
+accepted. There was Legge Wilson, who twelve years since had been
+at the Treasury, and would do very well. Now Mr. Gresham had always
+personally hated Legge Wilson,--and had, therefore, offered him the
+Board of Trade. Legge Wilson had disgusted him by accepting it, and
+the name had already been published in connection with the office.
+But in the lists which had appeared towards the end of the week, no
+name was connected with the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer,
+and no office was connected with the name of Mr. Bonteen. The editor
+of The People's Banner, however, expressed the gratification of
+that journal that even Mr. Gresham had not dared to propose Mr.
+Phineas Finn for any place under the Crown.
+
+At last Mr. Bonteen was absolutely told that he could not be
+Chancellor of the Exchequer. If he would consent to give his very
+valuable services to the country with the view of carrying through
+Parliament the great measure of decimal coinage he should be
+President of the Board of Trade,--but without a seat in the Cabinet.
+He would thus become the Right Honourable Bonteen, which, no doubt,
+would be a great thing for him,--and, not busy in the Cabinet,
+must be able to devote his time exclusively to the great measure
+above-named. What was to become of "Trade" generally, was not
+specially explained; but, as we all know, there would be a
+Vice-President to attend to details.
+
+The proposition very nearly broke the man's heart. With a voice
+stopped by agitation, with anger flashing from his eyes, almost in a
+convulsion of mixed feelings, he reminded his chief of what had been
+said about his appointment in the House. Mr. Gresham had already
+absolutely defended it. After that did Mr. Gresham mean to withdraw
+a promise that had so formally been made? But Mr. Gresham was not to
+be caught in that way. He had made no promise;--had not even stated
+to the House that such appointment was to be made. A very improper
+question had been asked as to a rumour,--in answering which he
+had been forced to justify himself by explaining that discussions
+respecting the office had been necessary. "Mr. Bonteen," said
+Mr. Gresham, "no one knows better than you the difficulties of a
+Minister. If you can act with us I shall be very grateful to you. If
+you cannot, I shall regret the loss of your services." Mr. Bonteen
+took twenty-four hours to consider, and was then appointed President
+of the Board of Trade without a seat in the Cabinet. Mr. Legge Wilson
+became Chancellor of the Exchequer. When the lists were completed,
+no office whatever was assigned to Phineas Finn. "I haven't done
+with Mr. Bonteen yet," said the young duchess to her friend Madame
+Goesler.
+
+The secrets of the world are very marvellous, but they are not
+themselves half so wonderful as the way in which they become known to
+the world. There could be no doubt that Mr. Bonteen's high ambition
+had foundered, and that he had been degraded through the secret
+enmity of the Duchess of Omnium. It was equally certain that his
+secret enmity to Phineas Finn had brought this punishment on his
+head. But before the Ministry had been a week in office almost
+everybody knew that it was so. The rumours were full of falsehood,
+but yet they contained the truth. The duchess had done it. The
+duchess was the bosom friend of Lady Laura Kennedy, who was in love
+with Phineas Finn. She had gone on her knees to Mr. Gresham to get
+a place for her friend's favourite, and Mr. Gresham had refused.
+Consequently, at her bidding, half-a-dozen embryo Ministers--her
+husband among the number--had refused to be amenable to Mr. Gresham.
+Mr. Gresham had at last consented to sacrifice Mr. Bonteen, who had
+originally instigated him to reject the claims of Phineas Finn. That
+the degradation of the one man had been caused by the exclusion of
+the other all the world knew.
+
+"It shuts the door to me for ever and ever," said Phineas to Madame
+Goesler.
+
+"I don't see that."
+
+"Of course it does. Such an affair places a mark against a man's name
+which will never be forgotten."
+
+"Is your heart set upon holding some trifling appointment under a
+Minister?"
+
+"To tell you the truth, it is;--or rather it was. The prospect of
+office to me was more than perhaps to any other expectant. Even this
+man, Bonteen, has some fortune of his own, and can live if he be
+excluded. I have given up everything for the chance of something in
+this line."
+
+"Other lines are open."
+
+"Not to me, Madame Goesler. I do not mean to defend myself. I have
+been very foolish, very sanguine, and am now very unhappy."
+
+"What shall I say to you?"
+
+"The truth."
+
+"In truth, then, I do not sympathise with you. The thing lost is too
+small, too mean to justify unhappiness."
+
+"But, Madame Goesler, you are a rich woman."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"If you were to lose it all, would you not be unhappy? It has been
+my ambition to live here in London as one of a special set which
+dominates all other sets in our English world. To do so a man
+should have means of his own. I have none; and yet I have tried
+it,--thinking that I could earn my bread at it as men do at other
+professions. I acknowledge that I should not have thought so. No man
+should attempt what I have attempted without means, at any rate to
+live on if he fail; but I am not the less unhappy because I have been
+silly."
+
+"What will you do?"
+
+"Ah,--what? Another friend asked me that the other day, and I told
+her that I should vanish."
+
+"Who was that friend?"
+
+"Lady Laura."
+
+"She is in London again now?"
+
+"Yes; she and her father are in Portman Square."
+
+"She has been an injurious friend to you."
+
+"No, by heaven," exclaimed Phineas. "But for her I should never have
+been here at all, never have had a seat in Parliament, never have
+been in office, never have known you."
+
+"And might have been the better without any of these things."
+
+"No man ever had a better friend than Lady Laura has been to me.
+Malice, wicked and false as the devil, has lately joined our names
+together to the incredible injury of both of us; but it has not been
+her fault."
+
+"You are energetic in defending her."
+
+"And so would she be in defending me. Circumstances threw us together
+and made us friends. Her father and her brother were my friends.
+I happened to be of service to her husband. We belonged to the
+same party. And therefore--because she has been unfortunate in her
+marriage--people tell lies of her."
+
+"It is a pity he should--not die, and leave her," said Madame Goesler
+slowly.
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"Because then you might justify yourself in defending her by making
+her your wife." She paused, but he made no answer to this. "You are
+in love with her," she said.
+
+"It is untrue."
+
+"Mr. Finn!"
+
+"Well, what would you have? I am not in love with her. To me she is
+no more than my sister. Were she as free as air I should not ask her
+to be my wife. Can a man and woman feel no friendship without being
+in love with each other?"
+
+"I hope they may," said Madame Goesler. Had he been lynx-eyed he
+might have seen that she blushed; but it required quick eyes to
+discover a blush on Madame Goesler's face. "You and I are friends."
+
+"Indeed we are," he said, grasping her hand as he took his leave.
+
+
+
+
+VOLUME II.
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+
+"I HOPE I'M NOT DISTRUSTED."
+
+
+Gerard Maule, as the reader has been informed, wrote three lines to
+his dearest Adelaide to inform her that his father would not assent
+to the suggestion respecting Maule Abbey which had been made by
+Lady Chiltern, and then took no further steps in the matter. In the
+fortnight next after the receipt of his letter nothing was heard of
+him at Harrington Hall, and Adelaide, though she made no complaint,
+was unhappy. Then came the letter from Mr. Spooner,--with all its
+rich offers, and Adelaide's mind was for a while occupied with
+wrath against her second suitor. But as the egregious folly of Mr.
+Spooner,--for to her thinking the aspirations of Mr. Spooner were
+egregiously foolish,--died out of her mind, her thoughts reverted to
+her engagement. Why did not the man come to her, or why did he not
+write?
+
+She had received from Lady Chiltern an invitation to remain with
+them,--the Chilterns,--till her marriage. "But, dear Lady Chiltern,
+who knows when it will be?" Adelaide had said. Lady Chiltern had
+good-naturedly replied that the longer it was put off the better
+for herself. "But you'll be going to London or abroad before that
+day comes." Lady Chiltern declared that she looked forward to
+no festivities which could under any circumstances remove her
+four-and-twenty hours travelling distance from the kennels. Probably
+she might go up to London for a couple of months as soon as the
+hunting was over, and the hounds had been drafted, and the horses had
+been coddled, and every covert had been visited. From the month of
+May till the middle of July she might, perhaps, be allowed to be in
+town, as communications by telegram could now be made day and night.
+After that, preparations for cub-hunting would be imminent, and,
+as a matter of course, it would be necessary that she should be at
+Harrington Hall at so important a period of the year. During those
+couple of months she would be very happy to have the companionship of
+her friend, and she hinted that Gerard Maule would certainly be in
+town. "I begin to think it would have been better that I should never
+have seen Gerard Maule," said Adelaide Palliser.
+
+This happened about the middle of March, while hunting was still in
+force. Gerard's horses were standing in the neighbourhood, but Gerard
+himself was not there. Mr. Spooner, since that short, disheartening
+note had been sent to him by Lord Chiltern, had not been seen at
+Harrington. There was a Harrington Lawn Meet on one occasion, but
+he had not appeared till the hounds were at the neighbouring covert
+side. Nevertheless he had declared that he did not intend to give
+up the pursuit, and had even muttered something of the sort to Lord
+Chiltern. "I am one of those fellows who stick to a thing, you know,"
+he said.
+
+"I am afraid you had better give up sticking to her, because she's
+going to marry somebody else."
+
+"I've heard all about that, my lord. He's a very nice sort of young
+man, but I'm told he hasn't got his house ready yet for a family."
+All which Lord Chiltern repeated to his wife. Neither of them spoke
+to Adelaide again about Mr. Spooner; but this did cause a feeling in
+Lady Chiltern's mind that perhaps this engagement with young Maule
+was a foolish thing, and that, if so, she was in a great measure
+responsible for the folly.
+
+"Don't you think you'd better write to him?" she said, one morning.
+
+"Why does he not write to me?"
+
+"But he did,--when he wrote you that his father would not consent to
+give up the house. You did not answer him then."
+
+"It was two lines,--without a date. I don't even know where he
+lives."
+
+"You know his club?"
+
+"Yes,--I know his club. I do feel, Lady Chiltern, that I have become
+engaged to marry a man as to whom I am altogether in the dark. I
+don't like writing to him at his club."
+
+"You have seen more of him here and in Italy than most girls see of
+their future husbands."
+
+"So I have,--but I have seen no one belonging to him. Don't you
+understand what I mean? I feel all at sea about him. I am sure he
+does not mean any harm."
+
+"Certainly he does not."
+
+"But then he hardly means any good."
+
+"I never saw a man more earnestly in love," said Lady Chiltern.
+
+"Oh yes,--he's quite enough in love. But--"
+
+"But what?"
+
+"He'll just remain up in London thinking about it, and never tell
+himself that there's anything to be done. And then, down here, what
+is my best hope? Not that he'll come to see me, but that he'll come
+to see his horse, and that so, perhaps, I may get a word with him."
+Then Lady Chiltern suggested, with a laugh, that perhaps it might
+have been better that she should have accepted Mr. Spooner. There
+would have been no doubt as to Mr. Spooner's energy and purpose.
+"Only that if there was not another man in the world I wouldn't marry
+him, and that I never saw any other man except Gerard Maule whom I
+even fancied I could marry."
+
+About a fortnight after this, when the hunting was all over, in the
+beginning of April, she did write to him as follows, and did direct
+her letter to his club. In the meantime Lord Chiltern had intimated
+to his wife that if Gerard Maule behaved badly he should consider
+himself to be standing in the place of Adelaide's father or brother.
+His wife pointed out to him that were he her father or her brother he
+could do nothing,--that in these days let a man behave ever so badly,
+no means of punishing was within reach of the lady's friends. But
+Lord Chiltern would not assent to this. He muttered something about
+a horsewhip, and seemed to suggest that one man could, if he were so
+minded, always have it out with another, if not in this way, then in
+that. Lady Chiltern protested, and declared that horsewhips could not
+under any circumstances be efficacious. "He had better mind what he
+is about," said Lord Chiltern. It was after this that Adelaide wrote
+her letter:--
+
+
+   Harrington Hall, 5th April.
+
+   DEAR GERARD,--
+
+   I have been thinking that I should hear from you, and have
+   been surprised,--I may say unhappy,--because I have not
+   done so. Perhaps you thought I ought to have answered the
+   three words which you wrote to me about your father; if
+   so, I will apologise; only they did not seem to give me
+   anything to say. I was very sorry that your father should
+   have "cut up rough," as you call it, but you must remember
+   that we both expected that he would refuse, and that
+   we are only therefore where we thought we should be.
+   I suppose we shall have to wait till Providence does
+   something for us,--only, if so, it would be pleasanter to
+   me to hear your own opinion about it.
+
+   The Chilterns are surprised that you shouldn't have come
+   back, and seen the end of the season. There were some very
+   good runs just at last;--particularly one on last Monday.
+   But on Wednesday Trumpeton Wood was again blank, and there
+   was some row about wires. I can't explain it all; but you
+   must come, and Lord Chiltern will tell you. I have gone
+   down to see the horses ever so often;--but I don't care to
+   go now as you never write to me. They are all three quite
+   well, and Fan looks as silken and as soft as any lady need
+   do.
+
+   Lady Chiltern has been kinder than I can tell you. I go
+   up to town with her in May, and shall remain with her
+   while she is there. So far I have decided. After that
+   my future home must, sir, depend on the resolution and
+   determination, or perhaps on the vagaries and caprices, of
+   him who is to be my future master. Joking apart, I must
+   know to what I am to look forward before I can make up my
+   mind whether I will or will not go back to Italy towards
+   the end of the summer. If I do, I fear I must do so just
+   in the hottest time of the year; but I shall not like
+   to come down here again after leaving London,--unless
+   something by that time has been settled.
+
+   I shall send this to your club, and I hope that it will
+   reach you. I suppose that you are in London.
+
+   Good-bye, dearest Gerard.
+
+   Yours most affectionately,
+
+   ADELAIDE.
+
+   If there is anything that troubles you, pray tell me. I
+   ask you because I think it would be better for you that I
+   should know. I sometimes think that you would have written
+   if there had not been some misfortune. God bless you.
+
+
+Gerard was in London, and sent the following note by return of
+post:--
+
+
+   ---- Club, Tuesday.
+
+   DEAREST ADELAIDE,
+
+   All right. If Chiltern can take me for a couple of nights,
+   I'll come down next week, and settle about the horses, and
+   will arrange everything.
+
+   Ever your own, with all my heart,
+
+   G. M.
+
+
+"He will settle about his horses, and arrange everything," said
+Adelaide, as she showed the letter to Lady Chiltern. "The horses
+first, and everything afterwards. The everything, of course, includes
+all my future happiness, the day of my marriage, whether to-morrow or
+in ten years' time, and the place where we shall live."
+
+"At any rate, he's coming."
+
+"Yes;--but when? He says next week, but he does not name any day. Did
+you ever hear or see anything so unsatisfactory?"
+
+"I thought you would be glad to see him."
+
+"So I should be,--if there was any sense in him. I shall be glad, and
+shall kiss him."
+
+"I dare say you will."
+
+"And let him put his arm round my waist and be happy. He will be
+happy because he will think of nothing beyond. But what is to be the
+end of it?"
+
+"He says that he will settle everything."
+
+"But he will have thought of nothing. What must I settle? That is
+the question. When he was told to go to his father, he went to his
+father. When he failed there the work was done, and the trouble was
+off his mind. I know him so well."
+
+"If you think so ill of him why did you consent to get into his
+boat?" said Lady Chiltern, seriously.
+
+"I don't think ill of him. Why do you say that I think ill of him?
+I think better of him than of anybody else in the world;--but I know
+his fault, and, as it happens, it is a fault so very prejudicial to
+my happiness. You ask me why I got into his boat. Why does any girl
+get into a man's boat? Why did you get into Lord Chiltern's?"
+
+"I promised to marry him when I was seven years old;--so he says."
+
+"But you wouldn't have done it, if you hadn't had a sort of feeling
+that you were born to be his wife. I haven't got into this man's boat
+yet; but I never can be happy unless I do, simply because--"
+
+"You love him."
+
+"Yes;--just that. I have a feeling that I should like to be in his
+boat, and I shouldn't like to be anywhere else. After you have come
+to feel like that about a man I don't suppose it makes any difference
+whether you think him perfect or imperfect. He's just my own,--at
+least I hope so;--the one thing that I've got. If I wear a stuff
+frock, I'm not going to despise it because it's not silk."
+
+"Mr. Spooner would be the stuff frock."
+
+"No;--Mr. Spooner is shoddy, and very bad shoddy, too."
+
+On the Saturday in the following week Gerard Maule did arrive at
+Harrington Hall,--and was welcomed as only accepted lovers are
+welcomed. Not a word of reproach was uttered as to his delinquencies.
+No doubt he got the kiss with which Adelaide had herself suggested
+that his coming would be rewarded. He was allowed to stand on the rug
+before the fire with his arm round her waist. Lady Chiltern smiled on
+him. His horses had been specially visited that morning, and a lively
+report as to their condition was made to him. Not a word was said on
+that occasion which could distress him. Even Lord Chiltern when he
+came in was gracious to him. "Well, old fellow," he said, "you've
+missed your hunting."
+
+"Yes; indeed. Things kept me in town."
+
+"We had some uncommonly good runs."
+
+"Have the horses stood pretty well?" asked Gerard.
+
+"I felt uncommonly tempted to borrow yours; and should have done so
+once or twice if I hadn't known that I should have been betrayed."
+
+"I wish you had, with all my heart," said Gerard. And then they went
+to dress for dinner.
+
+In the evening, when the ladies had gone to bed, Lord Chiltern took
+his friend off to the smoking-room. At Harrington Hall it was not
+unusual for the ladies and gentlemen to descend together into the
+very comfortable Pandemonium which was so called, when,--as was the
+case at present,--the terms of intimacy between them were sufficient
+to warrant such a proceeding. But on this occasion Lady Chiltern
+went very discreetly upstairs, and Adelaide, with equal discretion,
+followed her. It had been arranged beforehand that Lord Chiltern
+should say a salutary word or two to the young man. Maule began about
+the hunting, asking questions about this and that, but his host
+stopped him at once. Lord Chiltern, when he had a task on hand, was
+always inclined to get through it at once,--perhaps with an energy
+that was too sudden in its effects. "Maule," he said, "you ought to
+make up your mind what you mean to do about that girl."
+
+"Do about her! How?"
+
+"You and she are engaged, I suppose?"
+
+"Of course we are. There isn't any doubt about it."
+
+"Just so. But when things come to be like that, all delays are good
+fun to the man, but they're the very devil to the girl."
+
+"I thought it was always the other way up, and that girls wanted
+delay?"
+
+"That's only a theoretical delicacy which never means much. When a
+girl is engaged she likes to have the day fixed. When there's a long
+interval the man can do pretty much as he pleases, while the girl can
+do nothing except think about him. Then it sometimes turns out that
+when he's wanted, he's not there."
+
+"I hope I'm not distrusted," said Gerard, with an air that showed
+that he was almost disposed to be offended.
+
+"Not in the least. The women here think you the finest paladin in the
+world, and Miss Palliser would fly at my throat if she thought that
+I said a word against you. But she's in my house, you see; and I'm
+bound to do exactly as I should if she were my sister."
+
+"And if she were your sister?"
+
+"I should tell you that I couldn't approve of the engagement unless
+you were prepared to fix the time of your marriage. And I should ask
+you where you intended to live."
+
+"Wherever she pleases. I can't go to Maule Abbey while my father
+lives, without his sanction."
+
+"And he may live for the next twenty years."
+
+"Or thirty."
+
+"Then you are bound to decide upon something else. It's no use saying
+that you leave it to her. You can't leave it to her. What I mean
+is this, that now you are here, I think you are bound to settle
+something with her. Good-night, old fellow."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+
+BOULOGNE.
+
+
+Gerard Maule, as he sat upstairs half undressed in his bedroom that
+night didn't like it. He hardly knew what it was that he did not
+like,--but he felt that there was something wrong. He thought that
+Lord Chiltern had not been warranted in speaking to him with a tone
+of authority, and in talking of a brother's position,--and the rest
+of it. He had lacked the presence of mind for saying anything at the
+moment; but he must say something sooner or later. He wasn't going to
+be driven by Lord Chiltern. When he looked back at his own conduct he
+thought that it had been more than noble,--almost romantic. He had
+fallen in love with Miss Palliser, and spoken his love out freely,
+without any reference to money. He didn't know what more any fellow
+could have done. As to his marrying out of hand, the day after his
+engagement, as a man of fortune can do, everybody must have known
+that that was out of the question. Adelaide of course had known it.
+It had been suggested to him that he should consult his father as to
+living at Maule Abbey. Now if there was one thing he hated more than
+another, it was consulting his father; and yet he had done it. He had
+asked for a loan of the old house in perfect faith, and it was not
+his fault that it had been refused. He could not make a house to live
+in, nor could he coin a fortune. He had £800 a-year of his own, but
+of course he owed a little money. Men with such incomes always do
+owe a little money. It was almost impossible that he should marry
+quite at once. It was not his fault that Adelaide had no fortune of
+her own. When he fell in love with her he had been a great deal too
+generous to think of fortune, and that ought to be remembered now to
+his credit. Such was the sum of his thoughts, and his anger spread
+itself from Lord Chiltern even on to Adelaide herself. Chiltern would
+hardly have spoken in that way unless she had complained. She, no
+doubt, had been speaking to Lady Chiltern, and Lady Chiltern had
+passed it on to her husband. He would have it out with Adelaide on
+the next morning,--quite decidedly. And he would make Lord Chiltern
+understand that he would not endure interference. He was quite ready
+to leave Harrington Hall at a moment's notice if he were ill-treated.
+This was the humour in which Gerard Maule put himself to bed that
+night.
+
+On the following morning he was very late at breakfast,--so late that
+Lord Chiltern had gone over to the kennels. As he was dressing he had
+resolved that it would be fitting that he should speak again to his
+host before he said anything to Adelaide that might appear to impute
+blame to her. He would ask Chiltern whether anything was meant by
+what had been said over-night. But, as it happened, Adelaide had been
+left alone to pour out his tea for him, and,--as the reader will
+understand to have been certain on such an occasion,--they were left
+together for an hour in the breakfast parlour. It was impossible that
+such an hour should be passed without some reference to the grievance
+which was lying heavy on his heart. "Late; I should think you are,"
+said Adelaide laughing. "It is nearly eleven. Lord Chiltern has been
+out an hour. I suppose you never get up early except for hunting."
+
+"People always think it is so wonderfully virtuous to get up. What's
+the use of it?"
+
+"Your breakfast is so cold."
+
+"I don't care about that. I suppose they can boil me an egg. I was
+very seedy when I went to bed."
+
+"You smoked too many cigars, sir."
+
+"No, I didn't; but Chiltern was saying things that I didn't like."
+Adelaide's face at once became very serious. "Yes, a good deal of
+sugar, please. I don't care about toast, and anything does for me. He
+has gone to the kennels, has he?"
+
+"He said he should. What was he saying last night?"
+
+"Nothing particular. He has a way of blowing up, you know; and he
+looks at one just as if he expected that everybody was to do just
+what he chooses."
+
+"You didn't quarrel?"
+
+"Not at all; I went off to bed without saying a word. I hate jaws.
+I shall just put it right this morning; that's all."
+
+"Was it about me, Gerard?"
+
+"It doesn't signify the least."
+
+"But it does signify. If you and he were to quarrel would it not
+signify to me very much? How could I stay here with them, or go up
+to London with them, if you and he had really quarrelled? You must
+tell me. I know that it was about me." Then she came and sat close to
+him. "Gerard," she continued, "I don't think you understand how much
+everything is to me that concerns you."
+
+When he began to reflect, he could not quite recollect what it was
+that Lord Chiltern had said to him. He did remember that something
+had been suggested about a brother and sister which had implied that
+Adelaide might want protection, but there was nothing unnatural or
+other than kind in the position which Lord Chiltern had declared
+that he would assume. "He seemed to think that I wasn't treating you
+well," said he, turning round from the breakfast-table to the fire,
+"and that is a sort of thing I can't stand."
+
+"I have never said so, Gerard."
+
+"I don't know what it is that he expects, or why he should interfere
+at all. I can't bear to be interfered with. What does he know about
+it? He has had somebody to pay everything for him half-a-dozen times,
+but I have to look out for myself."
+
+"What does all this mean?"
+
+"You would ask me, you know. I am bothered out of my life by ever so
+many things, and now he comes and adds his botheration."
+
+"What bothers you, Gerard? If anything bothers you, surely you will
+tell me. If there has been anything to trouble you since you saw your
+father why have you not written and told me? Is your trouble about
+me?"
+
+"Well, of course it is, in a sort of way."
+
+"I will not be a trouble to you."
+
+"Now you are going to misunderstand me! Of course, you are not a
+trouble to me. You know that I love you better than anything in the
+world."
+
+"I hope so."
+
+"Of course I do." Then he put his arm round her waist and pressed her
+to his bosom. "But what can a man do? When Lady Chiltern recommended
+that I should go to my father and tell him, I did it. I knew that no
+good could come of it. He wouldn't lift his hand to do anything for
+me."
+
+"How horrid that is!"
+
+"He thinks it a shame that I should have my uncle's money, though he
+never had any more right to it than that man out there. He is always
+saying that I am better off than he is."
+
+"I suppose you are."
+
+"I am very badly off, I know that. People seem to think that £800 is
+ever so much, but I find it to be very little."
+
+"And it will be much less if you are married," said Adelaide gravely.
+
+"Of course, everything must be changed. I must sell my horses, and we
+must cut and run, and go and live at Boulogne, I suppose. But a man
+can't do that kind of thing all in a moment. Then Chiltern comes and
+talks as though he were Virtue personified. What business is it of
+his?"
+
+Then Adelaide became still more grave. She had now removed herself
+from his embrace, and was standing a little apart from him on the
+rug. She did not answer him at first; and when she did so, she spoke
+very slowly. "We have been rash, I fear; and have done what we have
+done without sufficient thought."
+
+"I don't say that at all."
+
+"But I do. It does seem now that we have been imprudent." Then she
+smiled as she completed her speech. "There had better be no
+engagement between us."
+
+"Why do you say that?"
+
+"Because it is quite clear that it has been a trouble to you rather
+than a happiness."
+
+"I wouldn't give it up for all the world."
+
+"But it will be better. I had not thought about it as I should have
+done. I did not understand that the prospect of marrying would make
+you--so very poor. I see it now. You had better tell Lord Chiltern
+that it is--done with, and I will tell her the same. It will be
+better; and I will go back to Italy at once."
+
+"Certainly not. It is not done with, and it shall not be done with."
+
+"Do you think I will marry the man I love when he tells me that
+by--marrying--me, he will be--banished to--Bou--logne? You had better
+see Lord Chiltern; indeed you had." And then she walked out of the
+room.
+
+Then came upon him at once a feeling that he had behaved badly; and
+yet he had been so generous, so full of intentions to be devoted and
+true! He had never for a moment thought of breaking off the match,
+and would not think of it now. He loved her better than ever, and
+would live only with the intention of making her his wife. But he
+certainly should not have talked to her of his poverty, nor should he
+have mentioned Boulogne. And yet what should he have done? She would
+cross-question him about Lord Chiltern, and it was so essentially
+necessary that he should make her understand his real condition. It
+had all come from that man's unjustifiable interference,--as he would
+at once go and tell him. Of course he would marry Adelaide, but the
+marriage must be delayed. Everybody waits twelve months before they
+are married; and why should she not wait? He was miserable because he
+knew that he had made her unhappy;--but the fault had been with Lord
+Chiltern. He would speak his mind frankly to Chiltern, and then would
+explain with loving tenderness to his Adelaide that they would still
+be all in all to each other, but that a short year must elapse before
+he could put his house in order for her. After that he would sell his
+horses. That resolve was in itself so great that he did not think
+it necessary at the present moment to invent any more plans for the
+future. So he went out into the hall, took his hat, and marched off
+to the kennels.
+
+At the kennels he found Lord Chiltern surrounded by the denizens of
+the hunt. His huntsman, with the kennelman and feeder, and two whips,
+and old Doggett were all there, and the Master of the Hounds was in
+the middle of his business. The dogs were divided by ages, as well
+as by sex, and were being brought out and examined. Old Doggett was
+giving advice,--differing almost always from Cox, the huntsman, as
+to the propriety of keeping this hound or of cashiering that. Nose,
+pace, strength, and docility were all questioned with an eagerness
+hardly known in any other business; and on each question Lord
+Chiltern listened to everybody, and then decided with a single word.
+When he had once resolved, nothing further urged by any man then
+could avail anything. Jove never was so autocratic, and certainly
+never so much in earnest. From the look of Lord Chiltern's brow it
+almost seemed as though this weight of empire must be too much for
+any mere man. Very little notice was taken of Gerard Maule when he
+joined the conclave, though it was felt in reference to him that he
+was sufficiently staunch a friend to the hunt to be trusted with
+the secrets of the kennel. Lord Chiltern merely muttered some words
+of greeting, and Cox lifted the old hunting-cap which he wore. For
+another hour the conference was held. Those who have attended such
+meetings know well that a morning on the flags is apt to be a long
+affair. Old Doggett, who had privileges, smoked a pipe, and Gerard
+Maule lit one cigar after another. But Lord Chiltern had become too
+thorough a man of business to smoke when so employed. At last the
+last order was given,--Doggett snarled his last snarl,--and Cox
+uttered his last "My lord." Then Gerard Maule and the Master left the
+hounds and walked home together.
+
+The affair had been so long that Gerard had almost forgotten his
+grievance. But now as they got out together upon the park, he
+remembered the tone of Adelaide's voice as she left him, and
+remembered also that, as matters stood at present, it was essentially
+necessary that something should be said. "I suppose I shall have to
+go and see that woman," said Lord Chiltern.
+
+"Do you mean Adelaide?" asked Maule, in a tone of infinite surprise.
+
+"I mean this new Duchess, who I'm told is to manage everything
+herself. That man Fothergill is going on with just the old game at
+Trumpeton."
+
+"Is he, indeed? I was thinking of something else just at that moment.
+You remember what you were saying about Miss Palliser last night."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well;--I don't think, you know, you had a right to speak as you
+did."
+
+Lord Chiltern almost flew at his companion, as he replied, "I said
+nothing. I do say that when a man becomes engaged to a girl, he
+should let her hear from him, so that they may know what each other
+is about."
+
+"You hinted something about being her brother."
+
+"Of course I did. If you mean well by her, as I hope you do, it can't
+fret you to think that she has got somebody to look after her till
+you come in and take possession. It is the commonest thing in the
+world when a girl is left all alone as she is."
+
+"You seemed to make out that I wasn't treating her well."
+
+"I said nothing of the kind, Maule; but if you ask me--"
+
+"I don't ask you anything."
+
+"Yes, you do. You come and find fault with me for speaking last night
+in the most good-natured way in the world. And, therefore, I tell you
+now that you will be behaving very badly indeed, unless you make some
+arrangement at once as to what you mean to do."
+
+"That's your opinion," said Gerard Maule.
+
+"Yes, it is; and you'll find it to be the opinion of any man or woman
+that you may ask who knows anything about such things. And I'll tell
+you what, Master Maule, if you think you're going to face me down
+you'll find yourself mistaken. Stop a moment, and just listen to me.
+You haven't a much better friend than I am, and I'm sure she hasn't a
+better friend than my wife. All this has taken place under our roof,
+and I mean to speak my mind plainly. What do you propose to do about
+your marriage?"
+
+"I don't propose to tell you what I mean to do."
+
+"Will you tell Miss Palliser,--or my wife?"
+
+"That is just as I may think fit."
+
+"Then I must tell you that you cannot meet her at my house."
+
+"I'll leave it to-day."
+
+"You needn't do that either. You sleep on it, and then make up your
+mind. You can't suppose that I have any curiosity about it. The girl
+is fond of you, and I suppose that you are fond of her. Don't quarrel
+for nothing. If I have offended you, speak to Lady Chiltern about
+it."
+
+"Very well;--I will speak to Lady Chiltern."
+
+When they reached the house it was clear that something was wrong.
+Miss Palliser was not seen again before dinner, and Lady Chiltern was
+grave and very cold in her manner to Gerard Maule. He was left alone
+all the afternoon, which he passed with his horses and groom, smoking
+more cigars,--but thinking all the time of Adelaide Palliser's last
+words, of Lord Chiltern's frown, and of Lady Chiltern's manner to
+him. When he came into the drawing-room before dinner, Lady Chiltern
+and Adelaide were both there, and Adelaide immediately began to ask
+questions about the kennel and the huntsmen. But she studiously
+kept at a distance from him, and he himself felt that it would be
+impossible to resume at present the footing on which he stood with
+them both on the previous evening. Presently Lord Chiltern came in,
+and another man and his wife who had come to stay at Harrington.
+Nothing could be more dull than the whole evening. At least so Gerard
+found it. He did take Adelaide in to dinner, but he did not sit next
+to her at table, for which, however, there was an excuse, as, had
+he done so, the new-comer must have been placed by his wife. He was
+cross, and would not make an attempt to speak to his neighbour, and,
+though he tried once or twice to talk to Lady Chiltern--than whom,
+as a rule, no woman was ever more easy in conversation--he failed
+altogether. Now and again he strove to catch Adelaide's eye, but even
+in that he could not succeed. When the ladies left the room Chiltern
+and the new-comer--who was not a sporting man, and therefore did not
+understand the question--became lost in the mazes of Trumpeton Wood.
+But Gerard Maule did not put in a word; nor was a word addressed to
+him by Lord Chiltern. As he sat there sipping his wine, he made up
+his mind that he would leave Harrington Hall the next morning. When
+he was again in the drawing-room, things were conducted in just the
+same way. He spoke to Adelaide, and she answered him; but there
+was no word of encouragement--not a tone of comfort in her voice.
+He found himself driven to attempt conversation with the strange
+lady, and at last was made to play whist with Lady Chiltern and the
+two new-comers. Later on in the evening, when Adelaide had gone
+to her own chamber, he was invited by Lady Chiltern into her own
+sitting-room upstairs, and there the whole thing was explained to
+him. Miss Palliser had declared that the match should be broken off.
+
+"Do you mean altogether, Lady Chiltern?"
+
+"Certainly I do. Such a resolve cannot be a half-and-half
+arrangement."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"I think you must know why, Mr. Maule."
+
+"I don't in the least. I won't have it broken off. I have as much
+right to have a voice in the matter as she has, and I don't in the
+least believe it's her doing."
+
+"Mr. Maule!"
+
+"I do not care; I must speak out. Why does she not tell me so
+herself?"
+
+"She did tell you so."
+
+"No, she didn't. She said something, but not that. I don't suppose
+a man was ever so used before; and it's all Lord Chiltern;--just
+because I told him that he had no right to interfere with me. And he
+has no right."
+
+"You and Oswald were away together when she told me that she had made
+up her mind. Oswald has hardly spoken to her since you have been in
+the house. He certainly has not spoken to her about you since you
+came to us."
+
+"What is the meaning of it, then?"
+
+"You told her that your engagement had overwhelmed you with
+troubles."
+
+"Of course; there must be troubles."
+
+"And that--you would have to be banished to Boulogne when you were
+married."
+
+"I didn't mean her to take that literally."
+
+"It wasn't a nice way, Mr. Maule, to speak of your future life to the
+girl to whom you were engaged. Of course it was her hope to make your
+life happier, not less happy. And when you made her understand--as
+you did very plainly--that your married prospects filled you with
+dismay, of course she had no other alternative but to retreat from
+her engagement."
+
+"I wasn't dismayed."
+
+"It is not my doing, Mr. Maule."
+
+"I suppose she'll see me?"
+
+"If you insist upon it she will; but she would rather not."
+
+Gerard, however, did insist, and Adelaide was brought to him there
+into that room before he went to bed. She was very gentle with him,
+and spoke to him in a tone very different from that which Lady
+Chiltern had used; but he found himself utterly powerless to change
+her. That unfortunate allusion to a miserable exile at Boulogne had
+completed the work which the former plaints had commenced, and had
+driven her to a resolution to separate herself from him altogether.
+
+"Mr. Maule," she said, "when I perceived that our proposed marriage
+was looked upon by you as a misfortune, I could do nothing but put
+an end to our engagement."
+
+"But I didn't think it a misfortune."
+
+"You made me think that it would be unfortunate for you, and that is
+quite as strong a reason. I hope we shall part as friends."
+
+"I won't part at all," he said, standing his ground with his back to
+the fire. "I don't understand it, by heaven I don't. Because I said
+some stupid thing about Boulogne, all in joke--"
+
+"It was not in joke when you said that troubles had come heavy on you
+since you were engaged."
+
+"A man may be allowed to know, himself, whether he was in joke or
+not. I suppose the truth is you don't care about me?"
+
+"I hope, Mr. Maule, that in time it may come--not quite to that."
+
+"I think that you are--using me very badly. I think that you
+are--behaving--falsely to me. I think that I am--very--shamefully
+treated--among you. Of course I shall go. Of course I shall not stay
+in this house. A man can't make a girl keep her promise. No--I won't
+shake hands. I won't even say good-bye to you. Of course I shall go."
+So saying he slammed the door behind him.
+
+"If he cares for you he'll come back to you," Lady Chiltern said to
+Adelaide that night, who at the moment was lying on her bed in a sad
+condition, frantic with headache.
+
+"I don't want him to come back; I will never make him go to
+Boulogne."
+
+"Don't think of it, dear."
+
+"Not think of it! how can I help thinking of it? I shall always think
+of it. But I never want to see him again--never! How can I want to
+marry a man who tells me that I shall be a trouble to him? He shall
+never,--never have to go to Boulogne for me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII.
+
+THE SECOND THUNDERBOLT.
+
+
+The quarrel between Phineas Finn and Mr. Bonteen had now become the
+talk of the town, and had taken many various phases. The political
+phase, though it was perhaps the best understood, was not the most
+engrossing. There was the personal phase,--which had reference to the
+direct altercation that had taken place between the two gentlemen,
+and to the correspondence between them which had followed, as to
+which phase it may be said that though there were many rumours
+abroad, very little was known. It was reported in some circles that
+the two aspirants for office had been within an ace of striking
+each other; in some, again, that a blow had passed,--and in others,
+further removed probably from the House of Commons and the Universe
+Club, that the Irishman had struck the Englishman, and that the
+Englishman had given the Irishman a thrashing. This was a phase
+that was very disagreeable to Phineas Finn. And there was a third,
+--which may perhaps be called the general social phase, and which
+unfortunately dealt with the name of Lady Laura Kennedy. They all,
+of course, worked into each other, and were enlivened and made
+interesting with the names of a great many big persons. Mr. Gresham,
+the Prime Minister, was supposed to be very much concerned in this
+matter. He, it was said, had found himself compelled to exclude
+Phineas Finn from the Government, because of the unfortunate alliance
+between him and the wife of one of his late colleagues, and had also
+thought it expedient to dismiss Mr. Bonteen from his Cabinet,--for
+it had amounted almost to dismissal,--because Mr. Bonteen had made
+indiscreet official allusion to that alliance. In consequence of this
+working in of the first and third phase, Mr. Gresham encountered
+hard usage from some friends and from many enemies. Then, of course,
+the scene at Macpherson's Hotel was commented on very generally. An
+idea prevailed that Mr. Kennedy, driven to madness by his wife's
+infidelity, which had become known to him through the quarrel between
+Phineas and Mr. Bonteen,--had endeavoured to murder his wife's lover,
+who had with the utmost effrontery invaded the injured husband's
+presence with a view of deterring him by threats from a publication
+of his wrongs. This murder had been nearly accomplished in the centre
+of the metropolis,--by daylight, as if that made it worse,--on a
+Sunday, which added infinitely to the delightful horror of the
+catastrophe; and yet no public notice had been taken of it! The
+would-be murderer had been a Cabinet Minister, and the lover who was
+so nearly murdered had been an Under-Secretary of State, and was even
+now a member of Parliament. And then it was positively known that the
+lady's father, who had always been held in the highest respect as
+a nobleman, favoured his daughter's lover, and not his daughter's
+husband. All which things together filled the public with dismay, and
+caused a delightful excitement, giving quite a feature of its own to
+the season.
+
+No doubt general opinion was adverse to poor Phineas Finn, but he was
+not without his party in the matter. To oblige a friend by inflicting
+an injury on his enemy is often more easy than to confer a benefit on
+the friend himself. We have already seen how the young Duchess failed
+in her attempt to obtain an appointment for Phineas, and also how
+she succeeded in destroying the high hopes of Mr. Bonteen. Having
+done so much, of course she clung heartily to the side which she
+had adopted;--and, equally of course, Madame Goesler did the same.
+Between these two ladies there was a slight difference of opinion as
+to the nature of the alliance between Lady Laura and their hero. The
+Duchess was of opinion that young men are upon the whole averse to
+innocent alliances, and that, as Lady Laura and her husband certainly
+had long been separated, there was probably--something in it. "Lord
+bless you, my dear," the Duchess said, "they were known to be
+lovers when they were at Loughlinter together before she married Mr.
+Kennedy. It has been the most romantic affair! She made her father
+give him a seat for his borough."
+
+"He saved Mr. Kennedy's life," said Madame Goesler.
+
+"That was one of the most singular things that ever happened.
+Laurence Fitzgibbon says that it was all planned,--that the garotters
+were hired, but unfortunately two policemen turned up at the moment,
+so the men were taken. I believe there is no doubt they were pardoned
+by Sir Henry Coldfoot, who was at the Home Office, and was Lord
+Brentford's great friend. I don't quite believe it all,--it would be
+too delicious; but a great many do." Madame Goesler, however, was
+strong in her opinion that the report in reference to Lady Laura was
+scandalous. She did not believe a word of it, and was almost angry
+with the Duchess for her credulity.
+
+It is probable that very many ladies shared the opinion of the
+Duchess; but not the less on that account did they take part with
+Phineas Finn. They could not understand why he should be shut out
+of office because a lady had been in love with him, and by no means
+seemed to approve the stern virtue of the Prime Minister. It was
+an interference with things which did not belong to him. And many
+asserted that Mr. Gresham was much given to such interference. Lady
+Cantrip, though her husband was Mr. Gresham's most intimate friend,
+was altogether of this party, as was also the Duchess of St. Bungay,
+who understood nothing at all about it, but who had once fancied
+herself to be rudely treated by Mrs. Bonteen. The young Duchess was
+a woman very strong in getting up a party; and the old Duchess, with
+many other matrons of high rank, was made to believe that it was
+incumbent on her to be a Phineas Finnite. One result of this was,
+that though Phineas was excluded from the Liberal Government, all
+Liberal drawing-rooms were open to him, and that he was a lion.
+
+Additional zest was given to all this by the very indiscreet conduct
+of Mr. Bonteen. He did accept the inferior office of President of
+the Board of Trade, an office inferior at least to that for which
+he had been designated, and agreed to fill it without a seat in the
+Cabinet. But having done so he could not bring himself to bear his
+disappointment quietly. He could not work and wait and make himself
+agreeable to those around him, holding his vexation within his own
+bosom. He was dark and sullen to his chief, and almost insolent to
+the Duke of Omnium. Our old friend Plantagenet Palliser was a man who
+hardly knew insolence when he met it. There was such an absence about
+him of all self-consciousness, he was so little given to think of his
+own personal demeanour and outward trappings,--that he never brought
+himself to question the manners of others to him. Contradiction he
+would take for simple argument. Strong difference of opinion even on
+the part of subordinates recommended itself to him. He could put up
+with apparent rudeness without seeing it, and always gave men credit
+for good intentions. And with it all he had an assurance in his own
+position,--a knowledge of the strength derived from his intellect,
+his industry, his rank, and his wealth,--which made him altogether
+fearless of others. When the little dog snarls, the big dog does
+not connect the snarl with himself, simply fancying that the little
+dog must be uncomfortable. Mr. Bonteen snarled a good deal, and the
+new Lord Privy Seal thought that the new President of the Board of
+Trade was not comfortable within himself. But at last the little
+dog took the big dog by the ear, and then the big dog put out his
+paw and knocked the little dog over. Mr. Bonteen was told that he
+had--forgotten himself; and there arose new rumours. It was soon
+reported that the Lord Privy Seal had refused to work out decimal
+coinage under the management, in the House of Commons, of the
+President of the Board of Trade.
+
+Mr. Bonteen, in his troubled spirit, certainly did misbehave himself.
+Among his closer friends he declared very loudly that he didn't mean
+to stand it. He had not chosen to throw Mr. Gresham over at once, or
+to make difficulties at the moment;--but he would not continue to
+hold his present position or to support the Government without a seat
+in the Cabinet. Palliser had become quite useless,--so Mr. Bonteen
+said,--since his accession to the dukedom, and was quite unfit to
+deal with decimal coinage. It was a burden to kill any man, and he
+was not going to kill himself,--at any rate without the reward for
+which he had been working all his life, and to which he was fully
+entitled, namely, a seat in the Cabinet. Now there were Bonteenites
+in those days as well as Phineas Finnites. The latter tribe was for
+the most part feminine; but the former consisted of some half-dozen
+members of Parliament, who thought they saw their way in encouraging
+the forlorn hope of the unhappy financier.
+
+A leader of a party is nothing without an organ, and an organ came
+forward to support Mr. Bonteen,--not very creditable to him as a
+Liberal, being a Conservative organ,--but not the less gratifying to
+his spirit, inasmuch as the organ not only supported him, but exerted
+its very loudest pipes in abusing the man whom of all men he hated
+the most. The People's Banner was the organ, and Mr. Quintus Slide
+was, of course, the organist. The following was one of the tunes he
+played, and was supposed by himself to be a second thunderbolt, and
+probably a conclusively crushing missile. This thunderbolt fell on
+Monday, the 3rd of May:--
+
+
+   Early in last March we found it to be our duty to bring
+   under public notice the conduct of the member for
+   Tankerville in reference to a transaction which took place
+   at a small hotel in Judd Street, and as to which we then
+   ventured to call for the interference of the police. An
+   attempt to murder the member for Tankerville had been made
+   by a gentleman once well known in the political world,
+   who,--as it is supposed,--had been driven to madness by
+   wrongs inflicted on him in his dearest and nearest family
+   relations. That the unfortunate gentleman is now insane we
+   believe we may state as a fact. It had become our special
+   duty to refer to this most discreditable transaction,
+   from the fact that a paper, still in our hands, had been
+   confided to us for publication by the wretched husband
+   before his senses had become impaired,--which, however, we
+   were debarred from giving to the public by an injunction
+   served upon us in sudden haste by the Vice-Chancellor. We
+   are far from imputing evil motives, or even indiscretion,
+   to that functionary; but we are of opinion that the moral
+   feeling of the country would have been served by the
+   publication, and we are sure that undue steps were taken
+   by the member for Tankerville to procure that injunction.
+
+   No inquiries whatever were made by the police in reference
+   to that attempt at murder, and we do expect that some
+   member will ask a question on the subject in the House.
+   Would such culpable quiescence have been allowed had
+   not the unfortunate lady whose name we are unwilling to
+   mention been the daughter of one of the colleagues of our
+   present Prime Minister, the gentleman who fired the pistol
+   another of them, and the presumed lover, who was fired at,
+   also another? We think that we need hardly answer that
+   question.
+
+   One piece of advice which we ventured to give Mr. Gresham
+   in our former article he has been wise enough to follow.
+   We took upon ourselves to tell him that if, after what has
+   occurred, he ventured to place the member for Tankerville
+   again in office, the country would not stand it;--and he
+   has abstained. The jaunty footsteps of Mr. Phineas Finn
+   are not heard ascending the stairs of any office at about
+   two in the afternoon, as used to be the case in one of
+   those blessed Downing Street abodes about three years
+   since. That scandal is, we think, over,--and for ever. The
+   good-looking Irish member of Parliament who had been put
+   in possession of a handsome salary by feminine influences,
+   will not, we think, after what we have already said, again
+   become a burden on the public purse. But we cannot say
+   that we are as yet satisfied in this matter, or that we
+   believe that the public has got to the bottom of it,--as
+   it has a right to do in reference to all matters affecting
+   the public service. We have never yet learned why it is
+   that Mr. Bonteen, after having been nominated Chancellor
+   of the Exchequer,--for the appointment to that office
+   was declared in the House of Commons by the head of his
+   party,--was afterwards excluded from the Cabinet, and
+   placed in an office made peculiarly subordinate by the
+   fact of that exclusion. We have never yet been told why
+   this was done;--but we believe that we are justified in
+   saying that it was managed through the influence of the
+   member for Tankerville; and we are quite sure that the
+   public service of the country has thereby been subjected
+   to grievous injury.
+
+   It is hardly our duty to praise any of that very awkward
+   team of horses which Mr. Gresham drives with an audacity
+   which may atone for his incapacity if no fearful accident
+   should be the consequence; but if there be one among them
+   whom we could trust for steady work up hill, it is Mr.
+   Bonteen. We were astounded at Mr. Gresham's indiscretion
+   in announcing the appointment of his new Chancellor of the
+   Exchequer some weeks before he had succeeded in driving
+   Mr. Daubeny from office;--but we were not the less glad to
+   find that the finances of the country were to be entrusted
+   to the hands of the most competent gentleman whom
+   Mr. Gresham has induced to follow his fortunes. But
+   Mr. Phineas Finn, with his female forces, has again
+   interfered, and Mr. Bonteen has been relegated to the
+   Board of Trade, without a seat in the Cabinet. We should
+   not be at all surprised if, as the result of this
+   disgraceful manoeuvring, Mr. Bonteen found himself at
+   the head of the Liberal party before the Session be over.
+   If so, evil would have worked to good. But, be that as
+   it may, we cannot but feel that it is a disgrace to the
+   Government, a disgrace to Parliament, and a disgrace to
+   the country that such results should come from the private
+   scandals of two or three people among us by no means of
+   the best class.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV.
+
+THE BROWBOROUGH TRIAL.
+
+
+There was another matter of public interest going on at this time
+which created a great excitement. And this, too, added to the
+importance of Phineas Finn, though Phineas was not the hero of the
+piece. Mr. Browborough, the late member for Tankerville, was tried
+for bribery. It will be remembered that when Phineas contested the
+borough in the autumn, this gentleman was returned. He was afterwards
+unseated, as the result of a petition before the judge, and Phineas
+was declared to be the true member. The judge who had so decided had
+reported to the Speaker that further inquiry before a commission into
+the practices of the late and former elections at Tankerville would
+be expedient, and such commission had sat in the months of January
+and February. Half the voters in Tankerville had been examined, and
+many who were not voters. The commissioners swept very clean, being
+new brooms, and in their report recommended that Mr. Browborough,
+whom they had themselves declined to examine, should be prosecuted.
+That report was made about the end of March, when Mr. Daubeny's
+great bill was impending. Then there arose a double feeling about
+Mr. Browborough, who had been regarded by many as a model member of
+Parliament, a man who never spoke, constant in his attendance, who
+wanted nothing, who had plenty of money, who gave dinners, to whom a
+seat in Parliament was the be-all and the end-all of life. It could
+not be the wish of any gentleman, who had been accustomed to his slow
+step in the lobbies, and his burly form always quiescent on one of
+the upper seats just below the gangway on the Conservative side of
+the House, that such a man should really be punished. When the new
+laws regarding bribery came to take that shape the hearts of members
+revolted from the cruelty,--the hearts even of members on the other
+side of the House. As long as a seat was in question the battle
+should of course be fought to the nail. Every kind of accusation
+might then be lavished without restraint, and every evil practice
+imputed. It had been known to all the world,--known as a thing that
+was a matter of course,--that at every election Mr. Browborough had
+bought his seat. How should a Browborough get a seat without buying
+it,--a man who could not say ten words, of no family, with no natural
+following in any constituency, distinguished by no zeal in politics,
+entertaining no special convictions of his own? How should such a
+one recommend himself to any borough unless he went there with money
+in his hand? Of course, he had gone to Tankerville with money in
+his hand, with plenty of money, and had spent it--like a gentleman.
+Collectively the House of Commons had determined to put down
+bribery with a very strong hand. Nobody had spoken against bribery
+with more fervour than Sir Gregory Grogram, who had himself, as
+Attorney-General, forged the chains for fettering future bribers. He
+was now again Attorney-General, much to his disgust, as Mr. Gresham
+had at the last moment found it wise to restore Lord Weazeling to the
+woolsack; and to his hands was to be entrusted the prosecution of Mr.
+Browborough. But it was observed by many that the job was not much to
+his taste. The House had been very hot against bribery,--and certain
+members of the existing Government, when the late Bill had been
+passed, had expressed themselves with almost burning indignation
+against the crime. But, through it all, there had been a slight
+undercurrent of ridicule attaching itself to the question of which
+only they who were behind the scenes were conscious. The House was
+bound to let the outside world know that all corrupt practices at
+elections were held to be abominable by the House; but Members of the
+House, as individuals, knew very well what had taken place at their
+own elections, and were aware of the cheques which they had drawn.
+Public-houses had been kept open as a matter of course, and nowhere
+perhaps had more beer been drunk than at Clovelly, the borough
+for which Sir Gregory Grogram sat. When it came to be a matter of
+individual prosecution against one whom they had all known, and
+who, as a member, had been inconspicuous and therefore inoffensive,
+against a heavy, rich, useful man who had been in nobody's way, many
+thought that it would amount to persecution. The idea of putting
+old Browborough into prison for conduct which habit had made second
+nature to a large proportion of the House was distressing to Members
+of Parliament generally. The recommendation for this prosecution was
+made to the House when Mr. Daubeny was in the first agonies of his
+great Bill, and he at once resolved to ignore the matter altogether,
+at any rate for the present. If he was to be driven out of power
+there could be no reason why his Attorney-General should prosecute
+his own ally and follower,--a poor, faithful creature, who had never
+in his life voted against his party, and who had always been willing
+to accept as his natural leader any one whom his party might select.
+But there were many who had felt that as Mr. Browborough must
+certainly now be prosecuted sooner or later,--for there could be no
+final neglecting of the Commissioners' report,--it would be better
+that he should be dealt with by natural friends than by natural
+enemies. The newspapers, therefore, had endeavoured to hurry the
+matter on, and it had been decided that the trial should take place
+at the Durham Spring Assizes, in the first week of May. Sir Gregory
+Grogram became Attorney-General in the middle of April, and he
+undertook the task upon compulsion. Mr. Browborough's own friends,
+and Mr. Browborough himself, declared very loudly that there would
+be the greatest possible cruelty in postponing the trial. His
+lawyers thought that his best chance lay in bustling the thing on,
+and were therefore able to show that the cruelty of delay would
+be extreme,--nay, that any postponement in such a matter would be
+unconstitutional, if not illegal. It would, of course, have been just
+as easy to show that hurry on the part of the prosecutor was cruel,
+and illegal, and unconstitutional, had it been considered that the
+best chance of acquittal lay in postponement.
+
+And so the trial was forced forward, and Sir Gregory himself was to
+appear on behalf of the prosecuting House of Commons. There could be
+no doubt that the sympathies of the public generally were with Mr.
+Browborough, though there was as little doubt that he was guilty.
+When the evidence taken by the Commissioners had just appeared in
+the newspapers,--when first the facts of this and other elections at
+Tankerville were made public, and the world was shown how common it
+had been for Mr. Browborough to buy votes,--how clearly the knowledge
+of the corruption had been brought home to himself,--there had for
+a short week or so been a feeling against him. Two or three London
+papers had printed leading articles, giving in detail the salient
+points of the old sinner's criminality, and expressing a conviction
+that now, at least, would the real criminal be punished. But this
+had died away, and the anger against Mr. Browborough, even on
+the part of the most virtuous of the public press, had become no
+more than lukewarm. Some papers boldly defended him, ridiculed
+the Commissioners, and declared that the trial was altogether
+an absurdity. The People's Banner, setting at defiance with an
+admirable audacity all the facts as given in the Commissioners'
+report, declared that there was not one tittle of evidence against
+Mr. Browborough, and hinted that the trial had been got up by
+the malign influence of that doer of all evil, Phineas Finn. But
+men who knew better what was going on in the world than did Mr.
+Quintus Slide, were well aware that such assertions as these were
+both unavailing and unnecessary. Mr. Browborough was believed
+to be quite safe; but his safety lay in the indifference of his
+prosecutors,--certainly not in his innocence. Any one prominent in
+affairs can always see when a man may steal a horse and when a man
+may not look over a hedge. Mr. Browborough had stolen his horse, and
+had repeated the theft over and over again. The evidence of it all
+was forthcoming,--had, indeed, been already sifted. But Sir Gregory
+Grogram, who was prominent in affairs, knew that the theft might be
+condoned.
+
+Nevertheless, the case came on at the Durham Assizes. Within the
+last two months Browborough had become quite a hero at Tankerville.
+The Church party had forgotten his broken pledges, and the Radicals
+remembered only his generosity. Could he have stood for the seat
+again on the day on which the judges entered Durham, he might have
+been returned without bribery. Throughout the whole county the
+prosecution was unpopular. During no portion of his Parliamentary
+career had Mr. Browborough's name been treated with so much respect
+in the grandly ecclesiastical city as now. He dined with the Dean on
+the day before the trial, and on the Sunday was shown by the head
+verger into the stall next to the Chancellor of the Diocese, with a
+reverence which seemed to imply that he was almost as graceful as
+a martyr. When he took his seat in the Court next to his attorney,
+everybody shook hands with him. When Sir Gregory got up to open his
+case, not one of the listeners then supposed that Mr. Browborough
+was about to suffer any punishment. He was arraigned before Mr.
+Baron Boultby, who had himself sat for a borough in his younger
+days, and who knew well how things were done. We are all aware how
+impassionately grand are the minds of judges, when men accused of
+crimes are brought before them for trial; but judges after all are
+men, and Mr. Baron Boultby, as he looked at Mr. Browborough, could
+not but have thought of the old days.
+
+It was nevertheless necessary that the prosecution should be
+conducted in a properly formal manner, and that all the evidence
+should be given. There was a cloud of witnesses over from
+Tankerville,--miners, colliers, and the like,--having a very good
+turn of it at the expense of the poor borough. All these men must be
+examined, and their evidence would no doubt be the same now as when
+it was given with so damnable an effect before those clean-sweeping
+Commissioners. Sir Gregory's opening speech was quite worthy of Sir
+Gregory. It was essentially necessary, he said, that the atmosphere
+of our boroughs should be cleansed and purified from the taint of
+corruption. The voice of the country had spoken very plainly on the
+subject, and a verdict had gone forth that there should be no more
+bribery at elections. At the last election at Tankerville, and, as he
+feared, at some former elections, there had been manifest bribery. It
+would be for the jury to decide whether Mr. Browborough himself had
+been so connected with the acts of his agents as to be himself within
+the reach of the law. If it were found that he had brought himself
+within the reach of the law, the jury would no doubt say so, and in
+such case would do great service to the cause of purity; but if Mr.
+Browborough had not been personally cognisant of what his agents
+had done, then the jury would be bound to acquit him. A man was not
+necessarily guilty of bribery in the eye of the law because bribery
+had been committed, even though the bribery so committed had been
+sufficiently proved to deprive him of the seat which he would
+otherwise have enjoyed. Nothing could be clearer than the manner in
+which Sir Gregory explained it all to the jury; nothing more eloquent
+than his denunciations against bribery in general; nothing more mild
+than his allegations against Mr. Browborough individually.
+
+In regard to the evidence Sir Gregory, with his two assistants, went
+through his work manfully. The evidence was given,--not to the same
+length as at Tankerville before the Commissioners,--but really to
+the same effect. But yet the record of the evidence as given in the
+newspapers seemed to be altogether different. At Tankerville there
+had been an indignant and sometimes an indiscreet zeal which had
+communicated itself to the whole proceedings. The general flavour
+of the trial at Durham was one of good-humoured raillery. Mr.
+Browborough's counsel in cross-examining the witnesses for the
+prosecution displayed none of that righteous wrath,--wrath righteous
+on behalf of injured innocence,--which is so common with gentlemen
+employed in the defence of criminals; but bowed and simpered, and
+nodded at Sir Gregory in a manner that was quite pleasant to behold.
+Nobody scolded anybody. There was no roaring of barristers, no
+clenching of fists and kicking up of dust, no threats, no allusions
+to witnesses' oaths. A considerable amount of gentle fun was poked
+at the witnesses by the defending counsel, but not in a manner to
+give any pain. Gentlemen who acknowledged to have received seventeen
+shillings and sixpence for their votes at the last election were
+asked how they had invested their money. Allusions were made to their
+wives, and a large amount of good-humoured sparring was allowed, in
+which the witnesses thought that they had the best of it. The men
+of Tankerville long remembered this trial, and hoped anxiously that
+there might soon be another. The only man treated with severity was
+poor Phineas Finn, and luckily for himself he was not present. His
+qualifications as member of Parliament for Tankerville were somewhat
+roughly treated. Each witness there, when he was asked what candidate
+would probably be returned for Tankerville at the next election,
+readily answered that Mr. Browborough would certainly carry the seat.
+Mr. Browborough sat in the Court throughout it all, and was the hero
+of the day.
+
+The judge's summing up was very short, and seemed to have been given
+almost with indolence. The one point on which he insisted was the
+difference between such evidence of bribery as would deprive a man
+of his seat, and that which would make him subject to the criminal
+law. By the criminal law a man could not be punished for the acts
+of another. Punishment must follow a man's own act. If a man were
+to instigate another to murder he would be punished, not for the
+murder, but for the instigation. They were now administering the
+criminal law, and they were bound to give their verdict for an
+acquittal unless they were convinced that the man on his trial had
+himself,--wilfully and wittingly,--been guilty of the crime imputed.
+He went through the evidence, which was in itself clear against the
+old sinner, and which had been in no instance validly contradicted,
+and then left the matter to the jury. The men in the box put their
+heads together, and returned a verdict of acquittal without one
+moment's delay. Sir Gregory Grogram and his assistants collected
+their papers together. The judge addressed three or four words almost
+of compliment to Mr. Browborough, and the affair was over, to the
+manifest contentment of every one there present. Sir Gregory Grogram
+was by no means disappointed, and everybody, on his own side in
+Parliament and on the other, thought that he had done his duty very
+well. The clean-sweeping Commissioners, who had been animated with
+wonderful zeal by the nature and novelty of their work, probably felt
+that they had been betrayed, but it may be doubted whether any one
+else was disconcerted by the result of the trial, unless it might be
+some poor innocents here and there about the country who had been
+induced to believe that bribery and corruption were in truth to be
+banished from the purlieus of Westminster.
+
+Mr. Roby and Mr. Ratler, who filled the same office each for his own
+party, in and out, were both acquainted with each other, and apt to
+discuss parliamentary questions in the library and smoking-room of
+the House, where such discussions could be held on most matters.
+"I was very glad that the case went as it did at Durham," said Mr.
+Ratler.
+
+"And so am I," said Mr. Roby. "Browborough was always a good fellow."
+
+"Not a doubt about it; and no good could have come from a conviction.
+I suppose there has been a little money spent at Tankerville."
+
+"And at other places one could mention," said Mr. Roby.
+
+"Of course there has;--and money will be spent again. Nobody dislikes
+bribery more than I do. The House, of course, dislikes it. But if a
+man loses his seat, surely that is punishment enough."
+
+"It's better to have to draw a cheque sometimes than to be out in the
+cold."
+
+"Nevertheless, members would prefer that their seats should not cost
+them so much," continued Mr. Ratler. "But the thing can't be done all
+at once. That idea of pouncing upon one man and making a victim of
+him is very disagreeable to me. I should have been sorry to have seen
+a verdict against Browborough. You must acknowledge that there was no
+bitterness in the way in which Grogram did it."
+
+"We all feel that," said Mr. Roby,--who was, perhaps, by nature a
+little more candid than his rival,--"and when the time comes no doubt
+we shall return the compliment."
+
+The matter was discussed in quite a different spirit between two
+other politicians. "So Sir Gregory has failed at Durham," said Lord
+Cantrip to his friend, Mr. Gresham.
+
+"I was sure he would."
+
+"And why?"
+
+"Ah;--why? How am I to answer such a question? Did you think that Mr.
+Browborough would be convicted of bribery by a jury?"
+
+"No, indeed," answered Lord Cantrip.
+
+"And can you tell me why?"
+
+"Because there was no earnestness in the matter,--either with the
+Attorney-General or with any one else."
+
+"And yet," said Mr. Gresham, "Grogram is a very earnest man when he
+believes in his case. No member of Parliament will ever be punished
+for bribery as for a crime till members of Parliament generally look
+upon bribery as a crime. We are very far from that as yet. I should
+have thought a conviction to be a great misfortune."
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"Because it would have created ill blood, and our own hands in this
+matter are not a bit cleaner than those of our adversaries. We
+can't afford to pull their houses to pieces before we have put our
+own in order. The thing will be done; but it must, I fear, be done
+slowly,--as is the case with all reforms from within."
+
+Phineas Finn, who was very sore and unhappy at this time, and who
+consequently was much in love with purity and anxious for severity,
+felt himself personally aggrieved by the acquittal. It was almost
+tantamount to a verdict against himself. And then he knew so well
+that bribery had been committed, and was so confident that such a one
+as Mr. Browborough could have been returned to Parliament by none
+other than corrupt means! In his present mood he would have been
+almost glad to see Mr. Browborough at the treadmill, and would have
+thought six months' solitary confinement quite inadequate to the
+offence. "I never read anything in my life that disgusted me so
+much," he said to his friend, Mr. Monk.
+
+"I can't go along with you there."
+
+"If any man ever was guilty of bribery, he was guilty!"
+
+"I don't doubt it for a moment."
+
+"And yet Grogram did not try to get a verdict."
+
+"Had he tried ever so much he would have failed. In a matter such as
+that,--political and not social in its nature,--a jury is sure to
+be guided by what it has, perhaps unconsciously, learned to be the
+feeling of the country. No disgrace is attached to their verdict, and
+yet everybody knows that Mr. Browborough had bribed, and all those
+who have looked into it know, too, that the evidence was conclusive."
+
+"Then are the jury all perjured," said Phineas.
+
+"I have nothing to say to that. No stain of perjury clings to them.
+They are better received in Durham to-day than they would have been
+had they found Mr. Browborough guilty. In business, as in private
+life, they will be held to be as trustworthy as before;--and they
+will be, for aught that we know, quite trustworthy. There are still
+circumstances in which a man, though on his oath, may be untrue with
+no more stain of falsehood than falls upon him when he denies himself
+at his front door though he happen to be at home."
+
+"What must we think of such a condition of things, Mr. Monk?"
+
+"That it's capable of improvement. I do not know that we can think
+anything else. As for Sir Gregory Grogram and Baron Boultby and the
+jury, it would be waste of power to execrate them. In political
+matters it is very hard for a man in office to be purer than his
+neighbours,--and, when he is so, he becomes troublesome. I have found
+that out before to-day."
+
+With Lady Laura Kennedy, Phineas did find some sympathy;--but then
+she would have sympathised with him on any subject under the sun. If
+he would only come to her and sit with her she would fool him to the
+top of his bent. He had resolved that he would go to Portman Square
+as little as possible, and had been confirmed in that resolution
+by the scandal which had now spread everywhere about the town in
+reference to himself and herself. But still he went. He never left
+her till some promise of returning at some stated time had been
+extracted from him. He had even told her of his own scruples and of
+her danger,--and they had discussed together that last thunderbolt
+which had fallen from the Jove of The People's Banner. But she had
+laughed his caution to scorn. Did she not know herself and her own
+innocence? Was she not living in her father's house, and with her
+father? Should she quail beneath the stings and venom of such a
+reptile as Quintus Slide? "Oh, Phineas," she said, "let us be braver
+than that." He would much prefer to have stayed away,--but still he
+went to her. He was conscious of her dangerous love for him. He knew
+well that it was not returned. He was aware that it would be best for
+both that he should be apart. But yet he could not bring himself to
+wound her by his absence. "I do not see why you should feel it so
+much," she said, speaking of the trial at Durham.
+
+"We were both on our trial,--he and I."
+
+"Everybody knows that he bribed and that you did not."
+
+"Yes;--and everybody despises me and pats him on the back. I am sick
+of the whole thing. There is no honesty in the life we lead."
+
+"You got your seat at any rate."
+
+"I wish with all my heart that I had never seen the dirty wretched
+place," said he.
+
+"Oh, Phineas, do not say that."
+
+"But I do say it. Of what use is the seat to me? If I could only feel
+that any one knew--"
+
+"Knew what, Phineas?"
+
+"It doesn't matter."
+
+"I understand. I know that you have meant to be honest, while this
+man has always meant to be dishonest. I know that you have intended
+to serve your country, and have wished to work for it. But you cannot
+expect that it should all be roses."
+
+"Roses! The nosegays which are worn down at Westminster are made of
+garlick and dandelions!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV.
+
+SOME PASSAGES IN THE LIFE OF MR. EMILIUS.
+
+
+The writer of this chronicle is not allowed to imagine that any of
+his readers have read the wonderful and vexatious adventures of Lady
+Eustace, a lady of good birth, of high rank, and of large fortune,
+who, but a year or two since, became almost a martyr to a diamond
+necklace which was stolen from her. With her history the present
+reader has but small concern, but it may be necessary that he should
+know that the lady in question, who had been a widow with many
+suitors, at last gave her hand and her fortune to a clergyman whose
+name was Joseph Emilius. Mr. Emilius, though not an Englishman by
+birth,--and, as was supposed, a Bohemian Jew in the earlier days of
+his career,--had obtained some reputation as a preacher in London,
+and had moved,--if not in fashionable circles,--at any rate in
+circles so near to fashion as to be brought within the reach of Lady
+Eustace's charms. They were married, and for some few months Mr.
+Emilius enjoyed a halcyon existence, the delights of which were,
+perhaps, not materially marred by the necessity which he felt of
+subjecting his young wife to marital authority. "My dear," he would
+say, "you will know me better soon, and then things will be smooth."
+In the meantime he drew more largely upon her money than was pleasing
+to her and to her friends, and appeared to have requirements for
+cash which were both secret and unlimited. At the end of twelve
+months Lady Eustace had run away from him, and Mr. Emilius had made
+overtures, by accepting which his wife would be enabled to purchase
+his absence at the cost of half her income. The arrangement was not
+regarded as being in every respect satisfactory, but Lady Eustace
+declared passionately that any possible sacrifice would be preferable
+to the company of Mr. Emilius. There had, however, been a rumour
+before her marriage that there was still living in his old country a
+Mrs. Emilius when he married Lady Eustace; and, though it had been
+supposed by those who were most nearly concerned with Lady Eustace
+that this report had been unfounded and malicious, nevertheless, when
+the man's claims became so exorbitant, reference was again made to
+the charge of bigamy. If it could be proved that Mr. Emilius had a
+wife living in Bohemia, a cheaper mode of escape would be found for
+the persecuted lady than that which he himself had suggested.
+
+It had happened that, since her marriage with Mr. Emilius, Lady
+Eustace had become intimate with our Mr. Bonteen and his wife. She
+had been at one time engaged to marry Lord Fawn, one of Mr. Bonteen's
+colleagues, and during the various circumstances which had led to the
+disruption of that engagement, this friendship had been formed. It
+must be understood that Lady Eustace had a most desirable residence
+of her own in the country,--Portray Castle in Scotland,--and that
+it was thought expedient by many to cultivate her acquaintance.
+She was rich, beautiful, and clever; and, though her marriage with
+Mr. Emilius had never been looked upon as a success, still, in the
+estimation of some people, it added an interest to her career. The
+Bonteens had taken her up, and now both Mr. and Mrs. Bonteen were
+hot in pursuit of evidence which might prove Mr. Emilius to be a
+bigamist.
+
+When the disruption of conjugal relations was commenced, Lady Eustace
+succeeded in obtaining refuge at Portray Castle without the presence
+of her husband. She fled from London during a visit he made to
+Brighton with the object of preaching to a congregation by which his
+eloquence was held in great esteem. He left London in one direction
+by the 5 P.M. express train on Saturday, and she in the other by the
+limited mail at 8.45. A telegram, informing him of what had taken
+place, reached him the next morning at Brighton while he was at
+breakfast. He preached his sermon, charming the congregation by the
+graces of his extempore eloquence,--moving every woman there to
+tears,--and then was after his wife before the ladies had taken their
+first glass of sherry at luncheon. But her ladyship had twenty-four
+hours' start of him,--although he did his best; and when he reached
+Portray Castle the door was shut in his face. He endeavoured to
+obtain the aid of blacksmiths to open, as he said, his own hall
+door,--to obtain the aid of constables to compel the blacksmiths, of
+magistrates to compel the constables,--and even of a judge to compel
+the magistrates; but he was met on every side by a statement that
+the lady of the castle declared that she was not his wife, and that
+therefore he had no right whatever to demand that the door should
+be opened. Some other woman,--so he was informed that the lady
+said,--out in a strange country was really his wife. It was her
+intention to prove him to be a bigamist, and to have him locked up.
+In the meantime she chose to lock herself up in her own mansion. Such
+was the nature of the message that was delivered to him through the
+bars of the lady's castle.
+
+How poor Lady Eustace was protected, and, at the same time, made
+miserable by the energy and unrestrained language of one of her
+own servants, Andrew Gowran by name, it hardly concerns us now to
+inquire. Mr. Emilius did not succeed in effecting an entrance; but he
+remained for some time in the neighbourhood, and had notices served
+on the tenants in regard to the rents, which puzzled the poor folk
+round Portray Castle very much. After a while Lady Eustace, finding
+that her peace and comfort imperatively demanded that she should
+prove the allegations which she had made, fled again from Portray
+Castle to London, and threw herself into the hands of the Bonteens.
+This took place just as Mr. Bonteen's hopes in regard to the
+Chancellorship of the Exchequer were beginning to soar high, and when
+his hands were very full of business. But with that energy for which
+he was so conspicuous, Mr. Bonteen had made a visit to Bohemia during
+his short Christmas holidays, and had there set people to work. When
+at Prague he had, he thought, very nearly unravelled the secret
+himself. He had found the woman whom he believed to be Mrs. Emilius,
+and who was now living somewhat merrily in Prague under another name.
+She acknowledged that in old days, when they were both young, she
+had been acquainted with a certain Yosef Mealyus, at a time in
+which he had been in the employment of a Jewish moneylender in the
+city; but,--as she declared,--she had never been married to him.
+Mr. Bonteen learned also that the gentleman now known as Mr. Joseph
+Emilius of the London Chapel had been known in his own country as
+Yosef Mealyus, the name which had been borne by the very respectable
+Jew who was his father. Then Mr. Bonteen had returned home, and, as
+we all know, had become engaged in matters of deeper import than even
+the deliverance of Lady Eustace from her thraldom.
+
+Mr. Emilius made no attempt to obtain the person of his wife while
+she was under Mr. Bonteen's custody, but he did renew his offer
+to compromise. If the estate could not afford to give him the two
+thousand a year which he had first demanded, he would take fifteen
+hundred. He explained all this personally to Mr. Bonteen, who
+condescended to see him. He was very eager to make Mr. Bonteen
+understand how bad even then would be his condition. Mr. Bonteen was,
+of course, aware that he would have to pay very heavily for insuring
+his wife's life. He was piteous, argumentative, and at first gentle;
+but when Mr. Bonteen somewhat rashly told him that the evidence
+of a former marriage and of the present existence of the former
+wife would certainly be forthcoming, he defied Mr. Bonteen and his
+evidence,--and swore that if his claims were not satisfied, he would
+make use of the power which the English law gave him for the recovery
+of his wife's person. And as to her property,--it was his, not hers.
+From this time forward if she wanted to separate herself from him she
+must ask him for an allowance. Now, it certainly was the case that
+Lady Eustace had married the man without any sufficient precaution as
+to keeping her money in her own hands, and Mr. Emilius had insisted
+that the rents of the property which was hers for her life should
+be paid to him, and on his receipt only. The poor tenants had been
+noticed this way and noticed that till they had begun to doubt
+whether their safest course would not be to keep their rents in their
+own hands. But lately the lawyers of the Eustace family,--who were
+not, indeed, very fond of Lady Eustace personally,--came forward for
+the sake of the property, and guaranteed the tenants against all
+proceedings until the question of the legality of the marriage should
+be settled. So Mr. Emilius,--or the Reverend Mealyus, as everybody
+now called him,--went to law; and Lady Eustace went to law; and the
+Eustace family went to law;--but still, as yet, no evidence was
+forthcoming sufficient to enable Mr. Bonteen, as the lady's friend,
+to put the gentleman into prison.
+
+It was said for a while that Mealyus had absconded. After his
+interview with Mr. Bonteen he certainly did leave England and made
+a journey to Prague. It was thought that he would not return, and
+that Lady Eustace would be obliged to carry on the trial, which was
+to liberate her and her property, in his absence. She was told that
+the very fact of his absence would go far with a jury, and she was
+glad to be freed from his presence in England. But he did return,
+declaring aloud that he would have his rights. His wife should be
+made to put herself into his hands, and he would obtain possession
+of the income which was his own. People then began to doubt. It was
+known that a very clever lawyer's clerk had been sent to Prague to
+complete the work there which Mr. Bonteen had commenced. But the
+clerk did not come back as soon as was expected, and news arrived
+that he had been taken ill. There was a rumour that he had been
+poisoned at his hotel; but, as the man was not said to be dead,
+people hardly believed the rumour. It became necessary, however, to
+send another lawyer's clerk, and the matter was gradually progressing
+to a very interesting complication.
+
+Mr. Bonteen, to tell the truth, was becoming sick of it. When
+Emilius, or Mealyus, was supposed to have absconded, Lady Eustace
+left Mr. Bonteen's house, and located herself at one of the large
+London hotels; but when the man came back, bolder than ever, she
+again betook herself to the shelter of Mr. Bonteen's roof. She
+expressed the most lavish affection for Mrs. Bonteen, and professed
+to regard Mr. Bonteen as almost a political god, declaring her
+conviction that he, and he alone, as Prime Minister, could save the
+country, and became very loud in her wrath when he was robbed of his
+seat in the Cabinet. Lizzie Eustace, as her ladyship had always been
+called, was a clever, pretty, coaxing little woman, who knew how to
+make the most of her advantages. She had not been very wise in her
+life, having lost the friends who would have been truest to her, and
+confided in persons who had greatly injured her. She was neither
+true of heart or tongue, nor affectionate, nor even honest. But she
+was engaging; she could flatter; and could assume a reverential
+admiration which was very foreign to her real character. In these
+days she almost worshipped Mr. Bonteen, and could never be happy
+except in the presence of her dearest darling friend Mrs. Bonteen.
+Mr. Bonteen was tired of her, and Mrs. Bonteen was becoming almost
+sick of the constant kisses with which she was greeted; but Lizzie
+Eustace had got hold of them, and they could not turn her off.
+
+"You saw The People's Banner, Mrs. Bonteen, on Monday?" Lady
+Eustace had been reading the paper in her friend's drawing-room.
+"They seem to think that Mr. Bonteen must be Prime Minister before
+long."
+
+
+[Illustration: "They seem to think that Mr. Bonteen must be
+Prime Minister."]
+
+
+"I don't think he expects that, my dear."
+
+"Why not? Everybody says The People's Banner is the cleverest paper
+we have now. I always hated the very name of that Phineas Finn."
+
+"Did you know him?"
+
+"Not exactly. He was gone before my time; but poor Lord Fawn used to
+talk of him. He was one of those conceited Irish upstarts that are
+never good for anything."
+
+"Very handsome, you know," said Mrs. Bonteen.
+
+"Was he? I have heard it said that a good many ladies admired him."
+
+"It was quite absurd; with Lady Laura Kennedy it was worse than
+absurd. And there was Lady Glencora, and Violet Effingham, who
+married Lady Laura's brother, and that Madame Goesler, whom I
+hate,--and ever so many others."
+
+"And is it true that it was he who got Mr. Bonteen so shamefully
+used?"
+
+"It was his faction."
+
+"I do so hate that kind of thing," said Lady Eustace, with righteous
+indignation; "I used to hear a great deal about Government and all
+that when the affair was on between me and poor Lord Fawn, and that
+kind of dishonesty always disgusted me. I don't know that I think so
+much of Mr. Gresham after all."
+
+"He is a very weak man."
+
+"His conduct to Mr. Bonteen has been outrageous; and if he has done
+it just because that Duchess of Omnium has told him, I really do
+think that he is not fit to rule the nation. As for Mr. Phineas Finn,
+it is dreadful to think that a creature like that should be able to
+interfere with such a man as Mr. Bonteen."
+
+This was on Wednesday afternoon,--the day on which members of
+Parliament dine out,--and at that moment Mr. Bonteen entered the
+drawing-room, having left the House for his half-holiday at six
+o'clock. Lady Eustace got up, and gave him her hand, and smiled upon
+him as though he were indeed her god. "You look so tired and so
+worried, Mr. Bonteen."
+
+"Worried;--I should think so."
+
+"Is there anything fresh?" asked his wife.
+
+"That fellow Finn is spreading all manner of lies about me."
+
+"What lies, Mr. Bonteen?" asked Lady Eustace. "Not new lies, I hope."
+
+"It all comes from Carlton Terrace." The reader may perhaps remember
+that the young Duchess of Omnium lived in Carlton Terrace. "I can
+trace it all there. I won't stand it if it goes on like this. A
+clique of stupid women to take up the cudgels for a coal-heaving
+sort of fellow like that, and sting one like a lot of hornets! Would
+you believe it?--the Duke almost refused to speak to me just now--a
+man for whom I have been working like a slave for the last twelve
+months!"
+
+"I would not stand it," said Lady Eustace.
+
+"By the bye, Lady Eustace, we have had news from Prague."
+
+"What news?" said she, clasping her hands.
+
+"That fellow Pratt we sent out is dead."
+
+"No!"
+
+"Not a doubt but what he was poisoned; but they seem to think that
+nothing can be proved. Coulson is on his way out, and I shouldn't
+wonder if they served him the same."
+
+"And it might have been you!" said Lady Eustace, taking hold of her
+friend's arm with almost frantic affection.
+
+Yes, indeed. It might have been the lot of Mr. Bonteen to have died
+at Prague--to have been poisoned by the machinations of the former
+Mrs. Mealyus, if such really had been the fortune of the unfortunate
+Mr. Pratt. For he had been quite as busy at Prague as his successor
+in the work. He had found out much, though not everything. It
+certainly had been believed that Yosef Mealyus was a married man,
+but he had brought the woman with him to Prague, and had certainly
+not married her in the city. She was believed to have come from
+Cracow, and Mr. Bonteen's zeal on behalf of his friend had not been
+sufficient to carry him so far East. But he had learned from various
+sources that the man and woman had been supposed to be married,--that
+she had borne the man's name, and that he had taken upon himself
+authority as her husband. There had been written communications with
+Cracow, and information was received that a man of the name of Yosef
+Mealyus had been married to a Jewess in that town. But this had
+been twenty years ago, and Mr. Emilius professed himself to be only
+thirty-five years old, and had in his possession a document from his
+synagogue professing to give a record of his birth, proving such to
+be his age. It was also ascertained that Mealyus was a name common
+at Cracow, and that there were very many of the family in Galicia.
+Altogether the case was full of difficulty, but it was thought that
+Mr. Bonteen's evidence would be sufficient to save the property from
+the hands of the cormorant, at any rate till such time as better
+evidence of the first marriage could be obtained. It had been hoped
+that when the man went away he would not return; but he had returned,
+and it was now resolved that no terms should be kept with him and no
+payment offered to him. The house at Portray was kept barred, and the
+servants were ordered not to admit him. No money was to be paid to
+him, and he was to be left to take any proceedings at law which he
+might please,--while his adversaries were proceeding against him with
+all the weapons at their disposal. In the meantime his chapel was of
+course deserted, and the unfortunate man was left penniless in the
+world.
+
+Various opinions prevailed as to Mr. Bonteen's conduct in the matter.
+Some people remembered that during the last autumn he and his wife
+had stayed three months at Portray Castle, and declared that the
+friendship between them and Lady Eustace had been very useful. Of
+these malicious people it seemed to be, moreover, the opinion that
+the connection might become even more useful if Mr. Emilius could be
+discharged. It was true that Mrs. Bonteen had borrowed a little money
+from Lady Eustace, but of this her husband knew nothing till the Jew
+in his wrath made the thing public. After all it had only been a
+poor £25, and the money had been repaid before Mr. Bonteen took his
+journey to Prague. Mr. Bonteen was, however, unable to deny that the
+cost of that journey was defrayed by Lady Eustace, and it was thought
+mean in a man aspiring to be Chancellor of the Exchequer to have his
+travelling expenses paid for him by a lady. Many, however, were of
+opinion that Mr. Bonteen had been almost romantic in his friendship,
+and that the bright eyes of Lady Eustace had produced upon this
+dragon of business the wonderful effect that was noticed. Be that as
+it may, now, in the terrible distress of his mind at the political
+aspect of the times, he had become almost sick of Lady Eustace, and
+would gladly have sent her away from his house had he known how to do
+so without incurring censure.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI.
+
+THE QUARREL.
+
+
+On that Wednesday evening Phineas Finn was at The Universe. He dined
+at the house of Madame Goesler, and went from thence to the club in
+better spirits than he had known for some weeks past. The Duke and
+Duchess had been at Madame Goesler's, and Lord and Lady Chiltern,
+who were now up in town, with Barrington Erle, and,--as it had
+happened,--old Mr. Maule. The dinner had been very pleasant, and two
+or three words had been spoken which had tended to raise the heart of
+our hero. In the first place Barrington Erle had expressed a regret
+that Phineas was not at his old post at the Colonies, and the young
+Duke had re-echoed it. Phineas thought that the manner of his old
+friend Erle was more cordial to him than it had been lately, and
+even that comforted him. Then it was a delight to him to meet the
+Chilterns, who were always gracious to him. But perhaps his greatest
+pleasure came from the reception which was accorded by his hostess to
+Mr. Maule, which was of a nature not easy to describe. It had become
+evident to Phineas that Mr. Maule was constant in his attentions to
+Madame Goesler; and, though he had no purpose of his own in reference
+to the lady,--though he was aware that former circumstances,
+circumstances of that previous life to which he was accustomed to
+look back as to another existence, made it impossible that he should
+have any such purpose,--still he viewed Mr. Maule with dislike. He
+had once ventured to ask her whether she really liked "that old
+padded dandy." She had answered that she did like the old dandy. Old
+dandies, she thought, were preferable to old men who did not care how
+they looked;--and as for the padding, that was his affair, not hers.
+She did not know why a man should not have a pad in his coat, as well
+as a woman one at the back of her head. But Phineas had known that
+this was her gentle raillery, and now he was delighted to find that
+she continued it, after a still more gentle fashion, before the man's
+face. Mr. Maule's manner was certainly peculiar. He was more than
+ordinarily polite,--and was afterwards declared by the Duchess to
+have made love like an old gander. But Madame Goesler, who knew
+exactly how to receive such attentions, turned a glance now and then
+upon Phineas Finn, which he could now read with absolute precision.
+"You see how I can dispose of a padded old dandy directly he goes an
+inch too far." No words could have said that to him more plainly than
+did these one or two glances;--and, as he had learned to dislike Mr.
+Maule, he was gratified.
+
+Of course they all talked about Lady Eustace and Mr. Emilius. "Do
+you remember how intensely interested the dear old Duke used to be
+when we none of us knew what had become of the diamonds?" said the
+Duchess.
+
+"And how you took her part," said Madame Goesler.
+
+"So did you,--just as much as I; and why not? She was a most
+interesting young woman, and I sincerely hope we have not got to the
+end of her yet. The worst of it is that she has got into such--very
+bad hands. The Bonteens have taken her up altogether. Do you know
+her, Mr. Finn?"
+
+"No, Duchess;--and am hardly likely to make her acquaintance while
+she remains where she is now." The Duchess laughed and nodded her
+head. All the world knew by this time that she had declared herself
+to be the sworn enemy of the Bonteens.
+
+And there had been some conversation on that terribly difficult
+question respecting the foxes in Trumpeton Wood. "The fact is, Lord
+Chiltern," said the Duke, "I'm as ignorant as a child. I would do
+right if I knew how. What ought I to do? Shall I import some foxes?"
+
+"I don't suppose, Duke, that in all England there is a spot in which
+foxes are more prone to breed."
+
+"Indeed. I'm very glad of that. But something goes wrong afterwards,
+I fear."
+
+"The nurseries are not well managed, perhaps," said the Duchess.
+
+"Gipsy kidnappers are allowed about the place," said Madame Goesler.
+
+"Gipsies!" exclaimed the Duke.
+
+"Poachers!" said Lord Chiltern. "But it isn't that we mind. We could
+deal with that ourselves if the woods were properly managed. A head
+of game and foxes can be reared together very well, if--"
+
+"I don't care a straw for a head of game, Lord Chiltern. As far as
+my own tastes go, I would wish that there was neither a pheasant
+nor a partridge nor a hare on any property that I own. I think that
+sheep and barn-door fowls do better for everybody in the long run,
+and that men who cannot live without shooting should go beyond
+thickly-populated regions to find it. And, indeed, for myself, I must
+say the same about foxes. They do not interest me, and I fancy that
+they will gradually be exterminated."
+
+"God forbid!" exclaimed Lord Chiltern.
+
+"But I do not find myself called upon to exterminate them myself,"
+continued the Duke. "The number of men who amuse themselves by riding
+after one fox is too great for me to wish to interfere with them. And
+I know that my neighbours in the country conceive it to be my duty to
+have foxes for them. I will oblige them, Lord Chiltern, as far as I
+can without detriment to other duties."
+
+"You leave it to me," said the Duchess to her neighbour, Lord
+Chiltern. "I'll speak to Mr. Fothergill myself, and have it put
+right." It unfortunately happened, however, that Lord Chiltern got
+a letter the very next morning from old Doggett telling him that a
+litter of young cubs had been destroyed that week in Trumpeton Wood.
+
+Barrington Erle and Phineas went off to The Universe together, and
+as they went the old terms of intimacy seemed to be re-established
+between them. "Nobody can be so sorry as I am," said Barrington, "at
+the manner in which things have gone. When I wrote to you, of course,
+I thought it certain that, if we came in, you would come with us."
+
+"Do not let that fret you."
+
+"But it does fret me,--very much. There are so many slips that of
+course no one can answer for anything."
+
+"Of course not. I know who has been my friend."
+
+"The joke of it is, that he himself is at present so utterly
+friendless. The Duke will hardly speak to him. I know that as a fact.
+And Gresham has begun to find something is wrong. We all hoped that
+he would refuse to come in without a seat in the Cabinet;--but that
+was too good to be true. They say he talks of resigning. I shall
+believe it when I see it. He'd better not play any tricks, for if he
+did resign, it would be accepted at once." Phineas, when he heard
+this, could not help thinking how glorious it would be if Mr. Bonteen
+were to resign, and if the place so vacated, or some vacancy so
+occasioned, were to be filled by him!
+
+They reached the club together, and as they went up the stairs, they
+heard the hum of many voices in the room. "All the world and his wife
+are here to-night," said Phineas. They overtook a couple of men at
+the door, so that there was something of the bustle of a crowd as
+they entered. There was a difficulty in finding places in which to
+put their coats and hats,--for the accommodation of The Universe is
+not great. There was a knot of men talking not far from them, and
+among the voices Phineas could clearly hear that of Mr. Bonteen.
+Ratler's he had heard before, and also Fitzgibbon's, though he
+had not distinguished any words from them. But those spoken by Mr.
+Bonteen he did distinguish very plainly. "Mr. Phineas Finn, or some
+such fellow as that, would be after her at once," said Mr. Bonteen.
+Then Phineas walked immediately among the knot of men and showed
+himself. As soon as he heard his name mentioned, he doubted for a
+moment what he would do. Mr. Bonteen when speaking had not known of
+his presence, and it might be his duty not to seem to have listened.
+But the speech had been made aloud, in the open room,--so that those
+who chose might listen;--and Phineas could not but have heard it. In
+that moment he resolved that he was bound to take notice of what he
+had heard. "What is it, Mr. Bonteen, that Phineas Finn will do?" he
+asked.
+
+Mr. Bonteen had been--dining. He was not a man by any means
+habitually intemperate, and now any one saying that he was tipsy
+would have maligned him. But he was flushed with much wine, and
+he was a man whose arrogance in that condition was apt to become
+extreme. _"In vino veritas!"_ The sober devil can hide his cloven
+hoof; but when the devil drinks he loses his cunning and grows
+honest. Mr. Bonteen looked Phineas full in the face a second or two
+before he answered, and then said,--quite aloud--"You have crept upon
+us unawares, sir."
+
+"What do you mean by that, sir?" said Phineas. "I have come in as any
+other man comes."
+
+"Listeners at any rate never hear any good of themselves."
+
+Then there were present among those assembled clear indications of
+disapproval of Bonteen's conduct. In these days,--when no palpable
+and immediate punishment is at hand for personal insolence from man
+to man,--personal insolence to one man in a company seems almost
+to constitute an insult to every one present. When men could fight
+readily, an arrogant word or two between two known to be hostile to
+each other was only an invitation to a duel, and the angry man was
+doing that for which it was known that he could be made to pay. There
+was, or it was often thought that there was, a real spirit in the
+angry man's conduct, and they who were his friends before became
+perhaps more his friends when he had thus shown that he had an enemy.
+But a different feeling prevails at present;--a feeling so different,
+that we may almost say that a man in general society cannot speak
+even roughly to any but his intimate comrades without giving offence
+to all around him. Men have learned to hate the nuisance of a row,
+and to feel that their comfort is endangered if a man prone to rows
+gets among them. Of all candidates at a club a known quarreller is
+more sure of blackballs now than even in the times when such a one
+provoked duels. Of all bores he is the worst; and there is always
+an unexpressed feeling that such a one exacts more from his company
+than his share of attention. This is so strong, that too often the
+man quarrelled with, though he be as innocent as was Phineas on the
+present occasion, is made subject to the general aversion which is
+felt for men who misbehave themselves.
+
+"I wish to hear no good of myself from you," said Phineas, following
+him to his seat. "Who is it that you said,--I should be after?" The
+room was full, and every one there, even they who had come in with
+Phineas, knew that Lady Eustace was the woman. Everybody at present
+was talking about Lady Eustace.
+
+"Never mind," said Barrington Erle, taking him by the arm. "What's
+the use of a row?"
+
+"No use at all;--but if you heard your name mentioned in such a
+manner you would find it impossible to pass it over. There is Mr.
+Monk;--ask him."
+
+Mr. Monk was sitting very quietly in a corner of the room with
+another gentleman of his own age by him,--one devoted to literary
+pursuits and a constant attendant at The Universe. As he said
+afterwards, he had never known any unpleasantness of that sort in
+the club before. There were many men of note in the room. There was
+a foreign minister, a member of the Cabinet, two ex-members of the
+Cabinet, a great poet, an exceedingly able editor, two earls, two
+members of the Royal Academy, the president of a learned society, a
+celebrated professor,--and it was expected that Royalty might come
+in at any minute, speak a few benign words, and blow a few clouds of
+smoke. It was abominable that the harmony of such a meeting should be
+interrupted by the vinous insolence of Mr. Bonteen, and the useless
+wrath of Phineas Finn. "Really, Mr. Finn, if I were you I would let
+it drop," said the gentleman devoted to literary pursuits.
+
+Phineas did not much affect the literary gentleman, but in such a
+matter would prefer the advice of Mr. Monk to that of any man living.
+He again appealed to his friend. "You heard what was said?"
+
+"I heard Mr. Bonteen remark that you or somebody like you would in
+certain circumstances be after a certain lady. I thought it to be
+an ill-judged speech, and as your particular friend I heard it with
+great regret."
+
+"What a row about nothing!" said Mr. Bonteen, rising from his seat.
+"We were speaking of a very pretty woman, and I was saying that some
+young fellow generally supposed to be fond of pretty women would soon
+be after her. If that offends your morals you must have become very
+strict of late."
+
+There was something in the explanation which, though very bad and
+vulgar, it was almost impossible not to accept. Such at least was the
+feeling of those who stood around Phineas Finn. He himself knew that
+Mr. Bonteen had intended to assert that he would be after the woman's
+money and not her beauty; but he had taste enough to perceive that he
+could not descend to any such detail as that. "There are reasons, Mr.
+Bonteen," he said, "why I think you should abstain from mentioning
+my name in public. Your playful references should be made to your
+friends, and not to those who, to say the least of it, are not your
+friends."
+
+When the matter was discussed afterwards it was thought that Phineas
+Finn should have abstained from making the last speech. It was
+certainly evidence of great anger on his part. And he was very angry.
+He knew that he had been insulted,--and insulted by the man whom of
+all men he would feel most disposed to punish for any offence. He
+could not allow Mr. Bonteen to have the last word, especially as a
+certain amount of success had seemed to attend them. Fate at the
+moment was so far propitious to Phineas that outward circumstances
+saved him from any immediate reply, and thus left him in some degree
+triumphant. Expected Royalty arrived, and cast its salutary oil
+upon the troubled waters. The Prince, with some well-known popular
+attendant, entered the room, and for a moment every gentleman rose
+from his chair. It was but for a moment, and then the Prince became
+as any other gentleman, talking to his friends. One or two there
+present, who had perhaps peculiarly royal instincts, had crept up
+towards him so as to make him the centre of a little knot, but,
+otherwise, conversation went on much as it had done before the
+unfortunate arrival of Phineas. That quarrel, however, had been very
+distinctly trodden under foot by the Prince, for Mr. Bonteen had
+found himself quite incapacitated from throwing back any missile in
+reply to the last that had been hurled at him.
+
+Phineas took a vacant seat next to Mr. Monk,--who was deficient
+perhaps in royal instincts,--and asked him in a whisper his opinion
+of what had taken place. "Do not think any more of it," said Mr.
+Monk.
+
+"That is so much more easily said than done. How am I not to think of
+it?"
+
+"Of course I mean that you are to act as though you had forgotten
+it."
+
+"Did you ever know a more gratuitous insult? Of course he was talking
+of that Lady Eustace."
+
+"I had not been listening to him before, but no doubt he was. I
+need not tell you now what I think of Mr. Bonteen. He is not more
+gracious in my eyes than he is in yours. To-night I fancy he has
+been drinking, which has not improved him. You may be sure of this,
+Phineas,--that the less of resentful anger you show in such a
+wretched affair as took place just now, the more will be the blame
+attached to him and the less to you."
+
+"Why should any blame be attached to me?"
+
+"I don't say that any will unless you allow yourself to become loud
+and resentful. The thing is not worth your anger."
+
+"I am angry."
+
+"Then go to bed at once, and sleep it off. Come with me, and we'll
+walk home together."
+
+"It isn't the proper thing, I fancy, to leave the room while the
+Prince is here."
+
+"Then I must do the improper thing," said Mr. Monk. "I haven't a key,
+and I musn't keep my servant up any longer. A quiet man like me can
+creep out without notice. Good night, Phineas, and take my advice
+about this. If you can't forget it, act and speak and look as though
+you had forgotten it." Then Mr. Monk, without much creeping, left the
+room.
+
+The club was very full, and there was a clatter of voices, and the
+clatter round the Prince was the noisiest and merriest. Mr. Bonteen
+was there, of course, and Phineas as he sat alone could hear him as
+he edged his words in upon the royal ears. Every now and again there
+was a royal joke, and then Mr. Bonteen's laughter was conspicuous. As
+far as Phineas could distinguish the sounds no special amount of the
+royal attention was devoted to Mr. Bonteen. That very able editor,
+and one of the Academicians, and the poet, seemed to be the most
+honoured, and when the Prince went,--which he did when his cigar was
+finished,--Phineas observed with inward satisfaction that the royal
+hand, which was given to the poet, to the editor, and to the painter,
+was not extended to the President of the Board of Trade. And then,
+having taken delight in this, he accused himself of meanness in
+having even observed a matter so trivial. Soon after this a ruck of
+men left the club, and then Phineas rose to go. As he went down the
+stairs Barrington Erle followed him with Laurence Fitzgibbon, and the
+three stood for a moment at the door in the street talking to each
+other. Finn's way lay eastward from the club, whereas both Erle and
+Fitzgibbon would go westwards towards their homes. "How well the
+Prince behaves at these sort of places!" said Erle.
+
+"Princes ought to behave well," said Phineas.
+
+"Somebody else didn't behave very well,--eh, Finn, my boy?" said
+Laurence.
+
+"Somebody else, as you call him," replied Phineas, "is very unlike a
+Prince, and never does behave well. To-night, however, he surpassed
+himself."
+
+"Don't bother your mind about it, old fellow," said Barrington.
+
+"I tell you what it is, Erle," said Phineas. "I don't think that I'm
+a vindictive man by nature, but with that man I mean to make it even
+some of these days. You know as well as I do what it is he has done
+to me, and you know also whether I have deserved it. Wretched reptile
+that he is! He has pretty nearly been able to ruin me,--and all from
+some petty feeling of jealousy."
+
+"Finn, me boy, don't talk like that," said Laurence.
+
+"You shouldn't show your hand," said Barrington.
+
+"I know what you mean, and it's all very well. After your different
+fashions you two have been true to me, and I don't care how much you
+see of my hand. That man's insolence angers me to such an extent that
+I cannot refrain from speaking out. He hasn't spirit enough to go out
+with me, or I would shoot him."
+
+"Blankenberg, eh!" said Laurence, alluding to the now notorious duel
+which had once been fought in that place between Phineas and Lord
+Chiltern.
+
+"I would," continued the angry man. "There are times in which one is
+driven to regret that there has come an end to duelling, and there is
+left to one no immediate means of resenting an injury."
+
+As they were speaking Mr. Bonteen came out from the front door
+alone, and seeing the three men standing, passed on towards the left,
+eastwards. "Good night, Erle," he said. "Good night, Fitzgibbon."
+The two men answered him, and Phineas stood back in the gloom. It
+was about one o'clock and the night was very dark. "By George, I
+do dislike that man," said Phineas. Then, with a laugh, he took a
+life-preserver out of his pocket, and made an action with it as
+though he were striking some enemy over the head. In those days there
+had been much garotting in the streets, and writers in the Press had
+advised those who walked about at night to go armed with sticks.
+Phineas Finn had himself been once engaged with garotters,--as has
+been told in a former chronicle,--and had since armed himself,
+thinking more probably of the thing which he had happened to see
+than men do who had only heard of it. As soon as he had spoken, he
+followed Mr. Bonteen down the street, at the distance of perhaps a
+couple of hundred yards.
+
+"They won't have a row,--will they?" said Erle.
+
+"Oh, dear, no; Finn won't think of speaking to him; and you may be
+sure that Bonteen won't say a word to Finn. Between you and me,
+Barrington, I wish Master Phineas would give him a thorough good
+hiding."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII.
+
+WHAT CAME OF THE QUARREL.
+
+
+On the next morning at seven o'clock a superintendent of police
+called at the house of Mr. Gresham and informed the Prime Minister
+that Mr. Bonteen, the President of the Board of Trade, had been
+murdered during the night. There was no doubt of the fact. The
+body had been recognised, and information had been taken to the
+unfortunate widow at the house Mr. Bonteen had occupied in St.
+James's Place. The superintendent had already found out that Mr.
+Bonteen had been attacked as he was returning from his club late at
+night,--or rather, early in the morning, and expressed no doubt that
+he had been murdered close to the spot on which his body was found.
+There is a dark, uncanny-looking passage running from the end of
+Bolton Row, in May Fair, between the gardens of two great noblemen,
+coming out among the mews in Berkeley Street, at the corner of
+Berkeley Square, just opposite to the bottom of Hay Hill. It was on
+the steps leading up from the passage to the level of the ground
+above that the body was found. The passage was almost as near a way
+as any from the club to Mr. Bonteen's house in St. James's Place;
+but the superintendent declared that gentlemen but seldom used the
+passage after dark, and he was disposed to think that the unfortunate
+man must have been forced down the steps by the ruffian who had
+attacked him from the level above. The murderer, so thought the
+superintendent, must have been cognizant of the way usually taken
+by Mr. Bonteen, and must have lain in wait for him in the darkness
+of the mouth of the passage. The superintendent had been at work on
+his inquiries since four in the morning, and had heard from Lady
+Eustace,--and from Mrs. Bonteen, as far as that poor distracted
+woman had been able to tell her story,--some account of the cause
+of quarrel between the respective husbands of those two ladies. The
+officer, who had not as yet heard a word of the late disturbance
+between Mr. Bonteen and Phineas Finn, was strongly of opinion that
+the Reverend Mr. Emilius had been the murderer. Mr. Gresham, of
+course, coincided in that opinion. What steps had been taken as to
+the arrest of Mr. Emilius? The superintendent was of opinion that Mr.
+Emilius was already in custody. He was known to be lodging close to
+the Marylebone Workhouse, in Northumberland Street, having removed to
+that somewhat obscure neighbourhood as soon as his house in Lowndes
+Square had been broken up by the running away of his wife and his
+consequent want of means. Such was the story as told to the Prime
+Minister at seven o'clock in the morning.
+
+At eleven o'clock, at his private room at the Treasury Chambers, Mr.
+Gresham heard much more. At that time there were present with him two
+officers of the police force, his colleagues in the Cabinet, Lord
+Cantrip and the Duke of Omnium, three of his junior colleagues in the
+Government, Lord Fawn, Barrington Erle, and Laurence Fitzgibbon,--and
+Major Mackintosh, the chief of the London police. It was not exactly
+part of the duty of Mr. Gresham to investigate the circumstances of
+this murder; but there was so much in it that brought it closely home
+to him and his Government, that it became impossible for him not to
+concern himself in the business. There had been so much talk about
+Mr. Bonteen lately, his name had been so common in the newspapers,
+the ill-usage which he had been supposed by some to have suffered
+had been so freely discussed, and his quarrel, not only with Phineas
+Finn, but subsequently with the Duke of Omnium, had been so widely
+known,--that his sudden death created more momentary excitement than
+might probably have followed that of a greater man. And now, too, the
+facts of the past night, as they became known, seemed to make the
+crime more wonderful, more exciting, more momentous than it would
+have been had it been brought clearly home to such a wretch as the
+Bohemian Jew, Yosef Mealyus, who had contrived to cheat that wretched
+Lizzie Eustace into marrying him.
+
+As regarded Yosef Mealyus the story now told respecting him was this.
+He was already in custody. He had been found in bed at his lodgings
+between seven and eight, and had, of course, given himself up without
+difficulty. He had seemed to be horror-struck when he heard of the
+man's death,--but had openly expressed his joy. "He has endeavoured
+to ruin me, and has done me a world of harm. Why should I sorrow for
+him?"--he said to the policeman when rebuked for his inhumanity. But
+nothing had been found tending to implicate him in the crime. The
+servant declared that he had gone to bed before eleven o'clock, to
+her knowledge,--for she had seen him there,--and that he had not
+left the house afterwards. Was he in possession of a latch-key? It
+appeared that he did usually carry a latch-key, but that it was often
+borrowed from him by members of the family when it was known that
+he would not want it himself,--and that it had been so lent on this
+night. It was considered certain by those in the house that he had
+not gone out after he went to bed. Nobody in fact had left the house
+after ten; but in accordance with his usual custom Mr. Emilius had
+sent down the key as soon as he had found that he would not want
+it, and it had been all night in the custody of the mistress of the
+establishment. Nevertheless his clothes were examined minutely, but
+without affording any evidence against him. That Mr. Bonteen had been
+killed with some blunt weapon, such as a life-preserver, was assumed
+by the police, but no such weapon was in the possession of Mr.
+Emilius, nor had any such weapon yet been found. He was, however, in
+custody, with no evidence against him except that which was afforded
+by his known and acknowledged enmity to Mr. Bonteen.
+
+So far, Major Mackintosh and the two officers had told their story.
+Then came the united story of the other gentlemen assembled,--from
+hearing which, however, the two police officers were debarred. The
+Duke and Barrington Erle had both dined in company with Phineas
+Finn at Madame Goesler's, and the Duke was undoubtedly aware that
+ill blood had existed between Finn and Mr. Bonteen. Both Erle and
+Fitzgibbon described the quarrel at the club, and described also the
+anger which Finn had expressed against the wretched man as he stood
+talking at the club door. His gesture of vengeance was remembered and
+repeated, though both the men who heard it expressed their strongest
+conviction that the murder had not been committed by him. As Erle
+remarked, the very expression of such a threat was almost proof that
+he had not at that moment any intention on his mind of doing such a
+deed as had been done. But they told also of the life-preserver which
+Finn had shown them, as he took it from the pocket of his outside
+coat, and they marvelled at the coincidences of the night. Then Lord
+Fawn gave further evidence, which seemed to tell very hardly upon
+Phineas Finn. He also had been at the club, and had left it just
+before Finn and the two other men had clustered at the door. He had
+walked very slowly, having turned down to Curzon Street and Bolton
+Row, from whence he made his way into Piccadilly by Clarges Street.
+He had seen nothing of Mr. Bonteen; but as he crossed over to Clarges
+Street he was passed at a very rapid pace by a man muffled in a top
+coat, who made his way straight along Bolton Row towards the passage
+which has been described. At the moment he had not connected the
+person of the man who passed him with any acquaintance of his own;
+but he now felt sure,--after what he had heard,--that the man was Mr.
+Finn. As he passed out of the club Finn was putting on his overcoat,
+and Lord Fawn had observed the peculiarity of the grey colour. It was
+exactly a similar coat, only with its collar raised, that had passed
+him in the street. The man, too, was of Mr. Finn's height and build.
+He had known Mr. Finn well, and the man stepped with Mr. Finn's
+step. Major Mackintosh thought that Lord Fawn's evidence was--"very
+unfortunate as regarded Mr. Finn."
+
+"I'm d---- if that idiot won't hang poor Phinny," said Fitzgibbon
+afterwards to Erle. "And yet I don't believe a word of it."
+
+"Fawn wouldn't lie for the sake of hanging Phineas Finn," said Erle.
+
+"No;--I don't suppose he's given to lying at all. He believes it
+all. But he's such a muddle-headed fellow that he can get himself
+to believe anything. He's one of those men who always unconsciously
+exaggerate what they have to say for the sake of the importance it
+gives them." It might be possible that a jury would look at Lord
+Fawn's evidence in this light; otherwise it would bear very heavily,
+indeed, against Phineas Finn.
+
+Then a question arose as to the road which Mr. Bonteen usually took
+from the club. All the members who were there present had walked
+home with him at various times,--and by various routes, but never by
+the way through the passage. It was supposed that on this occasion
+he must have gone by Berkeley Square, because he had certainly not
+turned down by the first street to the right, which he would have
+taken had he intended to avoid the square. He had been seen by
+Barrington Erle and Fitzgibbon to pass that turning. Otherwise they
+would have made no remark as to the possibility of a renewed quarrel
+between him and Phineas, should Phineas chance to overtake him;--for
+Phineas would certainly go by the square unless taken out of his way
+by some special purpose. The most direct way of all for Mr. Bonteen
+would have been that followed by Lord Fawn; but as he had not turned
+down this street, and had not been seen by Lord Fawn, who was known
+to walk very slowly, and had often been seen to go by Berkeley
+Square,--it was presumed that he had now taken that road. In this
+case he would certainly pass the end of the passage towards which
+Lord Fawn declared that he had seen the man hurrying whom he now
+supposed to have been Phineas Finn. Finn's direct road home would,
+as has been already said, have been through the square, cutting
+off the corner of the square, towards Bruton Street, and thence
+across Bond Street by Conduit Street to Regent Street, and so to
+Great Marlborough Street, where he lived. But it had been, no doubt,
+possible for him to have been on the spot on which Lord Fawn had seen
+the man; for, although in his natural course thither from the club he
+would have at once gone down the street to the right,--a course which
+both Erle and Fitzgibbon were able to say that he did not take, as
+they had seen him go beyond the turning,--nevertheless there had been
+ample time for him to have retraced his steps to it in time to have
+caught Lord Fawn, and thus to have deceived Fitzgibbon and Erle as to
+the route he had taken.
+
+When they had got thus far Lord Cantrip was standing close to the
+window of the room at Mr. Gresham's elbow. "Don't allow yourself to
+be hurried into believing it," said Lord Cantrip.
+
+"I do not know that we need believe it, or the reverse. It is a case
+for the police."
+
+"Of course it is;--but your belief and mine will have a weight.
+Nothing that I have heard makes me for a moment think it possible.
+I know the man."
+
+"He was very angry."
+
+"Had he struck him in the club I should not have been much surprised;
+but he never attacked his enemy with a bludgeon in a dark alley. I
+know him well."
+
+"What do you think of Fawn's story?"
+
+"He was mistaken in his man. Remember;--it was a dark night."
+
+"I do not see that you and I can do anything," said Mr. Gresham. "I
+shall have to say something in the House as to the poor fellow's
+death, but I certainly shall not express a suspicion. Why should I?"
+
+Up to this moment nothing had been done as to Phineas Finn. It was
+known that he would in his natural course of business be in his place
+in Parliament at four, and Major Mackintosh was of opinion that he
+certainly should be taken before a magistrate in time to prevent the
+necessity of arresting him in the House. It was decided that Lord
+Fawn, with Fitzgibbon and Erle, should accompany the police officer
+to Bow Street, and that a magistrate should be applied to for a
+warrant if he thought the evidence was sufficient. Major Mackintosh
+was of opinion that, although by no possibility could the two
+men suspected have been jointly guilty of the murder, still the
+circumstances were such as to justify the immediate arrest of both.
+Were Yosef Mealyus really guilty and to be allowed to slip from
+their hands, no doubt it might be very difficult to catch him. Facts
+did not at present seem to prevail against him; but, as the Major
+observed, facts are apt to alter considerably when they are minutely
+sifted. His character was half sufficient to condemn him;--and then
+with him there was an adequate motive, and what Lord Cantrip regarded
+as "a possibility." It was not to be conceived that from mere rage
+Phineas Finn would lay a plot for murdering a man in the street. "It
+is on the cards, my lord," said the Major, "that he may have chosen
+to attack Mr. Bonteen without intending to murder him. The murder may
+afterwards have been an accident."
+
+It was impossible after this for even a Prime Minister and two
+Cabinet Ministers to go about their work calmly. The men concerned
+had been too well known to them to allow their minds to become clear
+of the subject. When Major Mackintosh went off to Bow Street with
+Erle and Laurence, it was certainly the opinion of the majority of
+those who had been present that the blow had been struck by the hand
+of Phineas Finn. And perhaps the worst aspect of it all was that
+there had been not simply a blow,--but blows. The constables had
+declared that the murdered man had been struck thrice about the head,
+and that the fatal stroke had been given on the side of his head
+after the man's hat had been knocked off. That Finn should have
+followed his enemy through the street, after such words as he had
+spoken, with the view of having the quarrel out in some shape,
+did not seem to be very improbable to any of them except Lord
+Cantrip;--and then had there been a scuffle, out in the open path, at
+the spot at which the angry man might have overtaken his adversary,
+it was not incredible to them that he should have drawn even such a
+weapon as a life-preserver from his pocket. But, in the case as it
+had occurred, a spot peculiarly traitorous had been selected, and the
+attack had too probably been made from behind. As yet there was no
+evidence that the murderer had himself encountered any ill-usage. And
+Finn, if he was the murderer, must, from the time he was standing
+at the club door, have contemplated a traitorous, dastardly attack.
+He must have counted his moments;--have returned slyly in the dark
+to the corner of the street which he had once passed;--have muffled
+his face in his coat;--and have then laid wait in a spot to which an
+honest man at night would hardly trust himself with honest purposes.
+"I look upon it as quite out of the question," said Lord Cantrip,
+when the three Ministers were left alone. Now Lord Cantrip had served
+for many months in the same office as Phineas Finn.
+
+"You are simply putting your own opinion of the man against the
+facts," said Mr. Gresham. "But facts always convince, and another
+man's opinion rarely convinces."
+
+"I'm not sure that we know the facts yet," said the Duke.
+
+"Of course we are speaking of them as far as they have been told to
+us. As far as they go,--unless they can be upset and shown not to be
+facts,--I fear they would be conclusive to me on a jury."
+
+"Do you mean that you have heard enough to condemn him?" asked Lord
+Cantrip.
+
+"Remember what we have heard. The murdered man had two enemies."
+
+"He may have had a third."
+
+"Or ten; but we have heard of but two."
+
+"He may have been attacked for his money," said the Duke.
+
+"But neither his money nor his watch were touched," continued Mr.
+Gresham. "Anger, or the desire of putting the man out of the way, has
+caused the murder. Of the two enemies one,--according to the facts as
+we now have them,--could not have been there. Nor is it probable that
+he could have known that his enemy would be on that spot. The other
+not only could have been there, but was certainly near the place
+at the moment,--so near that did he not do the deed himself, it
+is almost wonderful that it should not have been interrupted in
+its doing by his nearness. He certainly knew that the victim would
+be there. He was burning with anger against him at the moment. He
+had just threatened him. He had with him such an instrument as was
+afterwards used. A man believed to be him is seen hurrying to the
+spot by a witness whose credibility is beyond doubt. These are the
+facts such as we have them at present. Unless they can be upset, I
+fear they would convince a jury,--as they have already convinced
+those officers of the police."
+
+"Officers of the police always believe men to be guilty," said Lord
+Cantrip.
+
+"They don't believe the Jew clergyman to be guilty," said Mr.
+Gresham.
+
+"I fear that there will be enough to send Mr. Finn to a trial," said
+the Duke.
+
+"Not a doubt of it," said Mr. Gresham.
+
+"And yet I feel as convinced of his innocence as I do of my own,"
+said Lord Cantrip.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII.
+
+MR. MAULE'S ATTEMPT.
+
+
+About three o'clock in the day the first tidings of what had taken
+place reached Madame Goesler in the following perturbed note from her
+friend the Duchess:--"Have you heard what took place last night? Good
+God! Mr. Bonteen was murdered as he came home from his club, and they
+say that it was done by Phineas Finn. Plantagenet has just come in
+from Downing Street, where everybody is talking about it. I can't get
+from him what he believes. One never can get anything from him. But
+I never will believe it;--nor will you, I'm sure. I vote we stick to
+him to the last. He is to be put in prison and tried. I can hardly
+believe that Mr. Bonteen has been murdered, though I don't know why
+he shouldn't as well as anybody else. Plantagenet talks about the
+great loss; I know which would be the greatest loss, and so do you.
+I'm going out now to try and find out something. Barrington Erle was
+there, and if I can find him he will tell me. I shall be home by
+half-past five. Do come, there's a dear woman; there is no one else
+I can talk to about it. If I'm not back, go in all the same, and tell
+them to bring you tea.
+
+"Only think of Lady Laura,--with one mad and the other in Newgate!
+G. P."
+
+This letter gave Madame Goesler such a blow that for a few minutes
+it altogether knocked her down. After reading it once she hardly
+knew what it contained beyond a statement that Phineas Finn was in
+Newgate. She sat for a while with it in her hands, almost swooning;
+and then with an effort she recovered herself, and read the letter
+again. Mr. Bonteen murdered, and Phineas Finn,--who had dined with
+her only yesterday evening, with whom she had been talking of all the
+sins of the murdered man, who was her special friend, of whom she
+thought more than of any other human being, of whom she could not
+bring herself to cease to think,--accused of the murder! Believe
+it! The Duchess had declared with that sort of enthusiasm which was
+common to her, that she never would believe it. No, indeed! What
+judge of character would any one be who could believe that Phineas
+Finn could be guilty of a midnight murder? "I vote we stick to him."
+"Stick to him!" Madame Goesler said, repeating the words to herself.
+"What is the use of sticking to a man who does not want you?" How
+can a woman cling to a man who, having said that he did not want her,
+yet comes again within her influence, but does not unsay what he had
+said before? Nevertheless, if it should be that the man was in real
+distress,--in absolutely dire sorrow,--she would cling to him with a
+constancy which, as she thought, her friend the Duchess would hardly
+understand. Though they should hang him, she would bathe his body
+with her tears, and live as a woman should live who had loved a
+murderer to the last.
+
+
+[Illustration: "What is the use of sticking to a man who
+does not want you?"]
+
+
+But she swore to herself that she would not believe it. Nay, she did
+not believe it. Believe it, indeed! It was simply impossible. That he
+might have killed the wretch in some struggle brought on by the man's
+own fault was possible. Had the man attacked Phineas Finn it was only
+too probable that there might have been such result. But murder,
+secret midnight murder, could not have been committed by the man
+she had chosen as her friend. And yet, through it all, there was a
+resolve that even though he should have committed murder she would
+be true to him. If it should come to the very worst, then would she
+declare the intensity of the affection with which she regarded the
+murderer. As to Mr. Bonteen, what the Duchess said was true enough;
+why should not he be killed as well as another? In her present frame
+of mind she felt very little pity for Mr. Bonteen. After a fashion a
+verdict of "served him right" crossed her mind, as it had doubtless
+crossed that of the Duchess when she was writing her letter. The man
+had made himself so obnoxious that it was well that he should be out
+of the way. But not on that account would she believe that Phineas
+Finn had murdered him.
+
+Could it be true that the man after all was dead? Marvellous reports,
+and reports marvellously false, do spread themselves about the world
+every day. But this report had come from the Duke, and he was not
+a man given to absurd rumours. He had heard the story in Downing
+Street, and if so it must be true. Of course she would go down to the
+Duchess at the hour fixed. It was now a little after three, and she
+ordered the carriage to be ready for her at a quarter past five. Then
+she told the servant, at first to admit no one who might call, and
+then to come up and let her know, if any one should come, without
+sending the visitor away. It might be that some one would come to her
+expressly from Phineas, or at least with tidings about this affair.
+
+Then she read the letter again, and those few last words in it stuck
+to her thoughts like a burr. "Think of Lady Laura, with one mad and
+the other in Newgate." Was this man,--the only man whom she had ever
+loved,--more to Lady Laura Kennedy than to her; or rather, was Lady
+Laura more to him than was she herself? If so, why should she fret
+herself for his sake? She was ready enough to own that she could
+sacrifice everything for him, even though he should be standing as a
+murderer in the dock, if such sacrifice would be valued by him. He
+had himself told her that his feelings towards Lady Laura were simply
+those of an affectionate friend; but how could she believe that
+statement when all the world were saying the reverse? Lady Laura was
+a married woman,--a woman whose husband was still living,--and of
+course he was bound to make such an assertion when he and she were
+named together. And then it was certain,--Madame Goesler believed it
+to be certain,--that there had been a time in which Phineas had asked
+for the love of Lady Laura Standish. But he had never asked for her
+love. It had been tendered to him, and he had rejected it! And now
+the Duchess,--who, with all her inaccuracies, had that sharpness of
+vision which enables some men and women to see into facts,--spoke as
+though Lady Laura were to be pitied more than all others, because of
+the evil that had befallen Phineas Finn! Had not Lady Laura chosen
+her own husband; and was not the man, let him be ever so mad, still
+her husband? Madame Goesler was sore of heart, as well as broken down
+with sorrow, till at last, hiding her face on the pillow of the sofa,
+still holding the Duchess's letter in her hand, she burst into a fit
+of hysteric sobs.
+
+Few of those who knew Madame Max Goesler well, as she lived in town
+and in country, would have believed that such could have been the
+effect upon her of the news which she had heard. Credit was given to
+her everywhere for good nature, discretion, affability, and a certain
+grace of demeanour which always made her charming. She was known to
+be generous, wise, and of high spirit. Something of her conduct to
+the old Duke had crept into general notice, and had been told, here
+and there, to her honour. She had conquered the good opinion of many,
+and was a popular woman. But there was not one among her friends
+who supposed her capable of becoming a victim to a strong passion,
+or would have suspected her of reckless weeping for any sorrow.
+The Duchess, who thought that she knew Madame Goesler well, would
+not have believed it to be true, even if she had seen it. "You like
+people, but I don't think you ever love any one," the Duchess had
+once said to her. Madame Goesler had smiled, and had seemed to
+assent. To enjoy the world,--and to know that the best enjoyment must
+come from witnessing the satisfaction of others, had apparently been
+her philosophy. But now she was prostrate because this man was in
+trouble, and because she had been told that his trouble was more than
+another woman could bear!
+
+She was still sobbing and crushing the letter in her hand when the
+servant came up to tell her that Mr. Maule had called. He was below,
+waiting to know whether she would see him. She remembered at once
+that Mr. Maule had met Phineas at her table on the previous evening,
+and, thinking that he must have come with tidings respecting this
+great event, desired that he might be shown up to her. But, as it
+happened, Mr. Maule had not yet heard of the death of Mr. Bonteen. He
+had remained at home till nearly four, having a great object in view,
+which made him deem it expedient that he should go direct from his
+own rooms to Madame Goesler's house, and had not even looked in at
+his club. The reader will, perhaps, divine the great object. On this
+day he proposed to ask Madame Goesler to make him the happiest of
+men,--as he certainly would have thought himself for a time, had
+she consented to put him in possession of her large income. He had
+therefore padded himself with more than ordinary care,--reduced but
+not obliterated the greyness of his locks,--looked carefully to the
+fitting of his trousers, and spared himself those ordinary labours of
+the morning which might have robbed him of any remaining spark of his
+juvenility.
+
+Madame Goesler met him more than half across the room as he entered
+it. "What have you heard?" said she. Mr. Maule wore his sweetest
+smile, but he had heard nothing. He could only press her hand, and
+look blank,--understanding that there was something which he ought to
+have heard. She thought nothing of the pressure of her hand. Apt as
+she was to be conscious at an instant of all that was going on around
+her, she thought of nothing now but that man's peril, and of the
+truth or falsehood of the story that had been sent to her. "You have
+heard nothing of Mr. Finn?"
+
+"Not a word," said Mr. Maule, withdrawing his hand. "What has
+happened to Mr. Finn?" Had Mr. Finn broken his neck it would have
+been nothing to Mr. Maule. But the lady's solicitude was something to
+him.
+
+"Mr. Bonteen has been--murdered!"
+
+"Mr. Bonteen!"
+
+"So I hear. I thought you had come to tell me of it."
+
+"Mr. Bonteen murdered! No;--I have heard nothing. I do not know the
+gentleman. I thought you said--Mr. Finn."
+
+"It is not known about London, then?"
+
+"I cannot say, Madame Goesler. I have just come from home, and have
+not been out all the morning. Who has--murdered him?"
+
+"Ah! I do not know. That is what I wanted you to tell me."
+
+"But what of Mr. Finn?"
+
+"I also have not been out, Mr. Maule, and can give you no
+information. I thought you had called because you knew that Mr. Finn
+had dined here."
+
+"Has Mr. Finn been murdered?"
+
+"Mr. Bonteen! I said that the report was that Mr. Bonteen had been
+murdered." Madame Goesler was now waxing angry,--most unreasonably.
+"But I know nothing about it, and am just going out to make inquiry.
+The carriage is ordered." Then she stood, expecting him to go; and
+he knew that he was expected to go. It was at any rate clear to him
+that he could not carry out his great design on the present occasion.
+"This has so upset me that I can think of nothing else at present,
+and you must, if you please, excuse me. I would not have let you take
+the trouble of coming up, had not I thought that you were the bearer
+of some news." Then she bowed, and Mr. Maule bowed; and as he left
+the room she forgot to ring the bell.
+
+"What the deuce can she have meant about that fellow Finn?" he said
+to himself. "They cannot both have been murdered." He went to his
+club, and there he soon learned the truth. The information was given
+to him with clear and undoubting words. Phineas Finn and Mr. Bonteen
+had quarrelled at The Universe. Mr. Bonteen, as far as words went,
+had got the best of his adversary. This had taken place in the
+presence of the Prince, who had expressed himself as greatly annoyed
+by Mr. Finn's conduct. And afterwards Phineas Finn had waylaid Mr.
+Bonteen in the passage between Bolton Row and Berkeley Street, and
+had there--murdered him. As it happened, no one who had been at The
+Universe was at that moment present; but the whole affair was now
+quite well known, and was spoken of without a doubt.
+
+"I hope he'll be hung, with all my heart," said Mr. Maule, who
+thought that he could read the riddle which had been so
+unintelligible in Park Lane.
+
+When Madame Goesler reached Carlton Terrace, which she did before the
+time named by the Duchess, her friend had not yet returned. But she
+went upstairs, as she had been desired, and they brought her tea. But
+the teapot remained untouched till past six o'clock, and then the
+Duchess returned. "Oh, my dear, I am so sorry for being late. Why
+haven't you had tea?"
+
+"What is the truth of it all?" said Madame Goesler, standing up with
+her fists clenched as they hung by her side.
+
+"I don't seem to know nearly as much as I did when I wrote to you."
+
+"Has the man been--murdered?"
+
+"Oh dear, yes. There's no doubt about that. I was quite sure of that
+when I sent the letter. I have had such a hunt. But at last I went up
+to the door of the House of Commons, and got Barrington Erle to come
+out to me."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Two men have been arrested."
+
+"Not Phineas Finn?"
+
+"Yes; Mr. Finn is one of them. Is it not awful? So much more dreadful
+to me than the other poor man's death! One oughtn't to say so, of
+course."
+
+"And who is the other man? Of course he did it."
+
+"That horrid Jew preaching man that married Lizzie Eustace. Mr.
+Bonteen had been persecuting him, and making out that he had another
+wife at home in Hungary, or Bohemia, or somewhere."
+
+"Of course he did it."
+
+"That's what I say. Of course the Jew did it. But then all the
+evidence goes to show that he didn't do it. He was in bed at the
+time; and the door of the house was locked up so that he couldn't get
+out; and the man who did the murder hadn't got on his coat, but had
+got on Phineas Finn's coat."
+
+"Was there--blood?" asked Madame Goesler, shaking from head to foot.
+
+"Not that I know. I don't suppose they've looked yet. But Lord Fawn
+saw the man, and swears to the coat."
+
+"Lord Fawn! How I have always hated that man! I wouldn't believe a
+word he would say."
+
+"Barrington doesn't think so much of the coat. But Phineas had a club
+in his pocket, and the man was killed by a club. There hasn't been
+any other club found, but Phineas Finn took his home with him."
+
+"A murderer would not have done that."
+
+"Barrington says that the head policeman says that it is just what a
+very clever murderer would do."
+
+"Do you believe it, Duchess?"
+
+"Certainly not;--not though Lord Fawn swore that he had seen it. I
+never will believe what I don't like to believe, and nothing shall
+ever make me."
+
+"He couldn't have done it."
+
+"Well;--for the matter of that, I suppose he could."
+
+"No, Duchess, he could not have done it."
+
+"He is strong enough,--and brave enough."
+
+"But not enough of a coward. There is nothing cowardly about him.
+If Phineas Finn could have struck an enemy with a club, in a dark
+passage, behind his back, I will never care to speak to any man
+again. Nothing shall make me believe it. If I did, I could never
+again believe in any one. If they told you that your husband had
+murdered a man, what would you say?"
+
+"But he isn't your husband, Madame Max."
+
+"No;--certainly not. I cannot fly at them, when they say so, as you
+would do. But I can be just as sure. If twenty Lord Fawns swore that
+they had seen it, I would not believe them. Oh, God, what will they
+do with him!"
+
+The Duchess behaved very well to her friend, saying not a single word
+to twit her with the love which she betrayed. She seemed to take
+it as a matter of course that Madame Goesler's interest in Phineas
+Finn should be as it was. The Duke, she said, could not come home
+to dinner, and Madame Goesler should stay with her. Both Houses
+were in such a ferment about the murder, that nobody liked to be
+away. Everybody had been struck with amazement, not simply,--not
+chiefly,--by the fact of the murder, but by the double destruction of
+the two men whose ill-will to each other had been of late so often
+the subject of conversation. So Madame Goesler remained at Carlton
+Terrace till late in the evening, and during the whole visit there
+was nothing mentioned but the murder of Mr. Bonteen and the peril of
+Phineas Finn. "Some one will go and see him, I suppose," said Madame
+Goesler.
+
+"Lord Cantrip has been already,--and Mr. Monk."
+
+"Could not I go?"
+
+"Well, it would be rather strong."
+
+"If we both went together?" suggested Madame Goesler. And before she
+left Carlton Terrace she had almost extracted a promise from the
+Duchess that they would together proceed to the prison and endeavour
+to see Phineas Finn.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX.
+
+SHOWING WHAT MRS. BUNCE SAID TO THE POLICEMAN.
+
+
+"We have left Adelaide Palliser down at the Hall. We are up here
+only for a couple of days to see Laura, and try to find out what had
+better be done about Kennedy." This was said to Phineas Finn in his
+own room in Great Marlborough Street by Lord Chiltern, on the morning
+after the murder, between ten and eleven o'clock. Phineas had not
+as yet heard of the death of the man with whom he had quarrelled.
+Lord Chiltern had now come to him with some proposition which he as
+yet did not understand, and which Lord Chiltern certainly did not
+know how to explain. Looked at simply, the proposition was one for
+providing Phineas Finn with an income out of the wealth belonging,
+or that would belong, to the Standish family. Lady Laura's fortune
+would, it was thought, soon be at her own disposal. They who acted
+for her husband had assured the Earl that the yearly interest of the
+money should be at her ladyship's command as soon as the law would
+allow them so to plan it. Of Robert Kennedy's inability to act for
+himself there was no longer any doubt whatever, and there was, they
+said, no desire to embarrass the estate with so small a disputed
+matter as the income derived from £40,000. There was great pride
+of purse in the manner in which the information was conveyed;--but
+not the less on that account was it satisfactory to the Earl. Lady
+Laura's first thought about it referred to the imminent wants of
+Phineas Finn. How might it be possible for her to place a portion of
+her income at the command of the man she loved so that he should not
+feel disgraced by receiving it from her hand? She conceived some plan
+as to a loan to be made nominally by her brother,--a plan as to which
+it may at once be said that it could not be made to hold water for a
+minute. But she did succeed in inducing her brother to undertake the
+embassy, with the view of explaining to Phineas that there would be
+money for him when he wanted it. "If I make it over to Papa, Papa can
+leave it him in his will; and if he wants it at once there can be no
+harm in your advancing to him what he must have at Papa's death."
+Her brother had frowned angrily and had shaken his head. "Think how
+he has been thrown over by all the party," said Lady Laura. Lord
+Chiltern had disliked the whole affair,--had felt with dismay that
+his sister's name would become subject to reproach if it should be
+known that this young man was supported by her bounty. She, however,
+had persisted, and he had consented to see the young man, feeling
+sure that Phineas would refuse to bear the burden of the obligation.
+
+But he had not touched the disagreeable subject when they were
+interrupted. A knocking of the door had been heard, and now Mrs.
+Bunce came upstairs, bringing Mr. Low with her. Mrs. Bunce had
+not heard of the tragedy, but she had at once perceived from the
+barrister's manner that there was some serious matter forward,--some
+matter that was probably not only serious, but also calamitous. The
+expression of her countenance announced as much to the two men, and
+the countenance of Mr. Low when he followed her into the room told
+the same story still more plainly. "Is anything the matter?" said
+Phineas, jumping up.
+
+"Indeed, yes," said Mr. Low, who then looked at Lord Chiltern and was
+silent.
+
+"Shall I go?" said Lord Chiltern. Mr. Low did not know him, and of
+course was still silent.
+
+"This is my friend, Mr. Low. This is my friend, Lord Chiltern," said
+Phineas, aware that each was well acquainted with the other's name.
+"I do not know of any reason why you should go. What is it, Low?"
+
+Lord Chiltern had come there about money, and it occurred to him
+that the impecunious young barrister might already be in some scrape
+on that head. In nineteen cases out of twenty, when a man is in a
+scrape, he simply wants money. "Perhaps I can be of help," he said.
+
+"Have you heard, my Lord, what happened last night?" said Mr. Low,
+with his eyes fixed on Phineas Finn.
+
+"I have heard nothing," said Lord Chiltern.
+
+"What has happened?" asked Phineas, looking aghast. He knew Mr. Low
+well enough to be sure that the thing referred to was of great and
+distressing moment.
+
+"You, too, have heard nothing?"
+
+"Not a word--that I know of."
+
+"You were at The Universe last night?"
+
+"Certainly I was."
+
+"Did anything occur?"
+
+"The Prince was there."
+
+"Nothing has happened to the Prince?" said Chiltern.
+
+"His name has not been mentioned to me," said Mr. Low. "Was there not
+a quarrel?"
+
+"Yes;"--said Phineas. "I quarrelled with Mr. Bonteen."
+
+"What then?"
+
+"He behaved like a brute;--as he always does. Thrashing a brute
+hardly answers nowadays, but if ever a man deserved a thrashing he
+does."
+
+"He has been murdered," said Mr. Low.
+
+
+[Illustration: "He has been murdered," said Mr. Low.]
+
+
+The reader need hardly be told that, as regards this great offence,
+Phineas Finn was as white as snow. The maintenance of any doubt on
+that matter,--were it even desirable to maintain a doubt,--would be
+altogether beyond the power of the present writer. The reader has
+probably perceived, from the first moment of the discovery of the
+body on the steps at the end of the passage, that Mr. Bonteen had
+been killed by that ingenious gentleman, the Rev. Mr. Emilius, who
+found it to be worth his while to take the step with the view of
+suppressing his enemy's evidence as to his former marriage. But Mr.
+Low, when he entered the room, had been inclined to think that his
+friend had done the deed. Laurence Fitzgibbon, who had been one of
+the first to hear the story, and who had summoned Erle to go with him
+and Major Mackintosh to Downing Street, had, in the first place, gone
+to the house in Carey Street, in which Bunce was wont to work, and
+had sent him to Mr. Low. He, Fitzgibbon, had not thought it safe that
+he himself should warn his countryman, but he could not bear to think
+that the hare should be knocked over on its form, or that his friend
+should be taken by policemen without notice. So he had sent Bunce to
+Mr. Low, and Mr. Low had now come with his tidings.
+
+"Murdered!" exclaimed Phineas.
+
+"Who has murdered him?" said Lord Chiltern, looking first at Mr. Low
+and then at Phineas.
+
+"That is what the police are now endeavouring to find out." Then
+there was a pause, and Phineas stood up with his hand on his
+forehead, looking savagely from one to the other. A glimmer of an
+idea of the truth was beginning to cross his brain. Mr. Low was there
+with the object of asking him whether he had murdered the man! "Mr.
+Fitzgibbon was with you last night," continued Mr. Low.
+
+"Of course he was."
+
+"It was he who has sent me to you."
+
+"What does it all mean?" asked Lord Chiltern. "I suppose they do not
+intend to say that--our friend, here--murdered the man."
+
+"I begin to suppose that is what they intend to say," rejoined
+Phineas, scornfully.
+
+Mr. Low had entered the room, doubting indeed, but still inclined
+to believe,--as Bunce had very clearly believed,--that the hands of
+Phineas Finn were red with the blood of this man who had been killed.
+And, had he been questioned on such a matter, when no special case
+was before his mind, he would have declared of himself that a few
+tones from the voice, or a few glances from the eye, of a suspected
+man would certainly not suffice to eradicate suspicion. But now he
+was quite sure,--almost quite sure,--that Phineas was as innocent as
+himself. To Lord Chiltern, who had heard none of the details, the
+suspicion was so monstrous as to fill him with wrath. "You don't mean
+to tell us, Mr. Low, that any one says that Finn killed the man?"
+
+"I have come as his friend," said Low, "to put him on his guard. The
+accusation will be made against him."
+
+To Phineas, not clearly looking at it, not knowing very accurately
+what had happened, not being in truth quite sure that Mr. Bonteen was
+actually dead, this seemed to be a continuation of the persecution
+which he believed himself to have suffered from that man's hand. "I
+can believe anything from that quarter," he said.
+
+"From what quarter?" asked Lord Chiltern. "We had better let Mr. Low
+tell us what really has happened."
+
+Then Mr. Low told the story, as well as he knew it, describing the
+spot on which the body had been found. "Often as I go to the club,"
+said Phineas, "I never was through that passage in my life." Mr. Low
+went on with his tale, telling how the man had been killed with some
+short bludgeon. "I had that in my pocket," said Finn, producing the
+life-preserver. "I have almost always had something of the kind when
+I have been in London, since that affair of Kennedy's." Mr. Low cast
+one glance at it,--to see whether it had been washed or scraped, or
+in any way cleansed. Phineas saw the glance, and was angry. "There it
+is, as it is. You can make the most of it. I shall not touch it again
+till the policeman comes. Don't put your hand on it, Chiltern. Leave
+it there." And the instrument was left lying on the table, untouched.
+Mr. Low went on with his story. He had heard nothing of Yosef Mealyus
+as connected with the murder, but some indistinct reference to Lord
+Fawn and the top-coat had been made to him. "There is the coat, too,"
+said Phineas, taking it from the sofa on which he had flung it when
+he came home the previous night. It was a very light coat,--fitted
+for May use,--lined with silk, and by no means suited for enveloping
+the face or person. But it had a collar which might be made to stand
+up. "That at any rate was the coat I wore," said Finn, in answer to
+some observation from the barrister. "The man that Lord Fawn saw,"
+said Mr. Low, "was, as I understand, enveloped in a heavy great
+coat." "So Fawn has got his finger in the pie!" said Lord Chiltern.
+
+Mr. Low had been there an hour, Lord Chiltern remaining also in
+the room, when there came three men belonging to the police,--a
+superintendent and with him two constables. When the men were shown
+up into the room neither the bludgeon or the coat had been moved
+from the small table as Phineas had himself placed them there. Both
+Phineas and Chiltern had lit cigars, and they were all there sitting
+in silence. Phineas had entertained the idea that Mr. Low believed
+the charge, and that the barrister was therefore an enemy. Mr. Low
+had perceived this, but had not felt it to be his duty to declare his
+opinion of his friend's innocence. What he could do for his friend
+he would do; but, as he thought, he could serve him better now by
+silent observation than by protestation. Lord Chiltern, who had
+been implored by Phineas not to leave him, continued to pour forth
+unabating execrations on the monstrous malignity of the accusers.
+"I do not know that there are any accusers," said Mr. Low, "except
+the circumstances which the police must, of course, investigate."
+Then the men came, and the nature of their duty was soon explained.
+They must request Mr. Finn to go with them to Bow Street. They took
+possession of many articles besides the two which had been prepared
+for them,--the dress coat and shirt which Phineas had worn, and the
+boots. He had gone out to dinner with a Gibus hat, and they took
+that. They took his umbrella and his latch-key. They asked, even, as
+to his purse and money;--but abstained from taking the purse when
+Mr. Low suggested that they could have no concern with that. As it
+happened, Phineas was at the moment wearing the shirt in which he
+had dined out on the previous day, and the men asked him whether
+he had any objection to change it in their presence,--as it might
+be necessary, after the examination, that it should be detained
+as evidence. He did so, in the presence of all the men assembled;
+but the humiliation of doing it almost broke his heart. Then they
+searched among his linen, clean and dirty, and asked questions of
+Mrs. Bunce in audible whispers behind the door. Whatever Mrs. Bunce
+could do to injure the cause of her favourite lodger by severity
+of manner, snubbing the policeman, and determination to give no
+information, she did do. "Had a shirt washed? How do you suppose a
+gentleman's shirts are washed? You were brought up near enough to
+a washtub yourself to know more than I can tell you!" But the very
+respectable constable did not seem to be in the least annoyed by the
+landlady's amenities.
+
+He was taken to Bow Street, going thither in a cab with the two
+policemen, and the superintendent followed them with Lord Chiltern
+and Mr. Low. "You don't mean to say that you believe it?" said Lord
+Chiltern to the officer. "We never believe and we never disbelieve
+anything, my Lord," replied the man. Nevertheless, the superintendent
+did most firmly believe that Phineas Finn had murdered Mr. Bonteen.
+
+At the police-office Phineas was met by Lord Cantrip and Barrington
+Erle, and soon became aware that both Lord Fawn and Fitzgibbon were
+present. It seemed that everything else was made to give way to this
+inquiry, as he was at once confronted by the magistrate. Everybody
+was personally very civil to him, and he was asked whether he would
+not wish to have professional advice while the charge was being made
+against him. But this he declined. He would tell the magistrate,
+he said, all he knew, but, at any rate for the present, he would
+have no need of advice. He was, at last, allowed to tell his own
+story,--after repeated cautions. There had been some words between
+him and Mr. Bonteen in the club; after which, standing at the door of
+the club with his friends, Mr. Erle and Mr. Fitzgibbon, who were now
+in court, he had seen Mr. Bonteen walk away towards Berkeley Square.
+He had soon followed, but had never overtaken Mr. Bonteen. When
+reaching the Square he had crossed over to the fountain standing
+there on the south side, and from thence had taken the shortest way
+up Bruton Street. He had seen Mr. Bonteen for the last time dimly,
+by the gaslight, at the corner of the Square. As far as he could
+remember, he himself had at the moment passed the fountain. He had
+not heard the sound of any struggle, or of words, round the corner
+towards Piccadilly. By the time that Mr. Bonteen would have reached
+the head of the steps leading into the passage, he would have been
+near Bruton Street, with his back completely turned to the scene of
+the murder. He had walked faster than Mr. Bonteen, having gradually
+drawn near to him; but he had determined in his own mind that he
+would not pass the man, or get so near him as to attract attention.
+Nor had he done so. He had certainly worn the grey coat which was
+now produced. The collar of it had not been turned up. The coat was
+nearly new, and to the best of his belief the collar had never been
+turned up. He had carried the life-preserver now produced with him
+because it had once before been necessary for him to attack garotters
+in the street. The life-preserver had never been used, and, as it
+happened, was quite new. It had been bought about a month since,--in
+consequence of some commotion about garotters which had just then
+taken place. But before the purchase of the life-preserver he had
+been accustomed to carry some stick or bludgeon at night. Undoubtedly
+he had quarrelled with Mr. Bonteen before this occasion, and had
+bought this instrument since the commencement of the quarrel. He had
+not seen any one on his way from the Square to his own house with
+sufficient observation to enable him to describe such person. He
+could not remember that he had passed a policeman on his way home.
+
+This took place after the hearing of such evidence as was then given.
+The statements made both by Erle and Fitzgibbon as to what had taken
+place in the club, and afterwards at the door, tallied exactly with
+that afterwards given by Phineas. An accurate measurement of the
+streets and ways concerned was already furnished. Taking the duration
+of time as surmised by Erle and Fitzgibbon to have passed after they
+had turned their back upon Phineas, a constable proved that the
+prisoner would have had time to hurry back to the corner of the
+street he had passed, and to be in the place where Lord Fawn saw the
+man,--supposing that Lord Fawn had walked at the rate of three miles
+an hour, and that Phineas had walked or run at twice that pace. Lord
+Fawn stated that he was walking very slow,--less he thought than
+three miles an hour, and that the man was hurrying very fast,--not
+absolutely running, but going as he thought at quite double his own
+pace. The two coats were shown to his lordship. Finn knew nothing
+of the other coat,--which had, in truth, been taken from the Rev.
+Mr. Emilius,--a rough, thick, brown coat, which had belonged to the
+preacher for the last two years. Finn's coat was grey in colour. Lord
+Fawn looked at the coats very attentively, and then said that the man
+he had seen had certainly not worn the brown coat. The night had been
+dark, but still he was sure that the coat had been grey. The collar
+had certainly been turned up. Then a tailor was produced who gave it
+as his opinion that Finn's coat had been lately worn with the collar
+raised.
+
+It was considered that the evidence given was sufficient to make a
+remand imperative, and Phineas Finn was committed to Newgate. He was
+assured that every attention should be paid to his comfort, and was
+treated with great consideration. Lord Cantrip, who still believed in
+him, discussed the subject both with the magistrate and with Major
+Mackintosh. Of course the strictest search would be made for a second
+life-preserver, or any such weapon as might have been used. Search
+had already been made, and no such weapon had been as yet found.
+Emilius had never been seen with any such weapon. No one about Curzon
+Street or Mayfair could be found who had seen the man with the
+quick step and raised collar, who doubtless had been the murderer,
+except Lord Fawn,--so that no evidence was forthcoming tending to
+show that Phineas Finn could not have been that man. The evidence
+adduced to prove that Mr. Emilius,--or Mealyus, as he was henceforth
+called,--could not have been on the spot was so very strong, that the
+magistrate told the constables that that man must be released on the
+next examination unless something could be adduced against him.
+
+The magistrate, with the profoundest regret, was unable to agree
+with Lord Cantrip in his opinion that the evidence adduced was not
+sufficient to demand the temporary committal of Mr. Finn.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER L.
+
+WHAT THE LORDS AND COMMONS SAID ABOUT THE MURDER.
+
+
+When the House met on that Thursday at four o'clock everybody was
+talking about the murder, and certainly four-fifths of the members
+had made up their minds that Phineas Finn was the murderer. To have
+known a murdered man is something, but to have been intimate with
+a murderer is certainly much more. There were many there who were
+really sorry for poor Bonteen,--of whom without a doubt the end had
+come in a very horrible manner; and there were more there who were
+personally fond of Phineas Finn,--to whom the future of the young
+member was very sad, and the fact that he should have become a
+murderer very awful. But, nevertheless, the occasion was not without
+its consolations. The business of the House is not always exciting,
+or even interesting. On this afternoon there was not a member who
+did not feel that something had occurred which added an interest to
+Parliamentary life.
+
+Very soon after prayers Mr. Gresham entered the House, and men who
+had hitherto been behaving themselves after a most unparliamentary
+fashion, standing about in knots, talking by no means in whispers,
+moving in and out of the House rapidly, all crowded into their
+places. Whatever pretence of business had been going on was stopped
+in a moment, and Mr. Gresham rose to make his statement. "It was with
+the deepest regret,--nay, with the most profound sorrow,--that he was
+called upon to inform the House that his right honourable friend and
+colleague, Mr. Bonteen, had been basely and cruelly murdered during
+the past night." It was odd then to see how the name of the man, who,
+while he was alive and a member of that House, could not have been
+pronounced in that assembly without disorder, struck the members
+almost with dismay. "Yes, his friend Mr. Bonteen, who had so lately
+filled the office of President of the Board of Trade, and whose
+loss the country and that House could so ill bear, had been beaten
+to death in one of the streets of the metropolis by the arm of a
+dastardly ruffian during the silent watches of the night." Then Mr.
+Gresham paused, and every one expected that some further statement
+would be made. "He did not know that he had any further communication
+to make on the subject. Some little time must elapse before he could
+fill the office. As for adequately supplying the loss, that would
+be impossible. Mr. Bonteen's services to the country, especially in
+reference to decimal coinage, were too well known to the House to
+allow of his holding out any such hope." Then he sat down without
+having as yet made an allusion to Phineas Finn.
+
+But the allusion was soon made. Mr. Daubeny rose, and with much
+graceful and mysterious circumlocution asked the Prime Minister
+whether it was true that a member of the House had been arrested, and
+was now in confinement on the charge of having been concerned in the
+murder of the late much-lamented President of the Board of Trade.
+He--Mr. Daubeny--had been given to understand that such a charge had
+been made against an honourable member of that House, who had once
+been a colleague of Mr. Bonteen's, and who had always supported the
+right honourable gentleman opposite. Then Mr. Gresham rose again.
+"He regretted to say that the honourable member for Tankerville was
+in custody on that charge. The House would of course understand that
+he only made that statement as a fact, and that he was offering no
+opinion as to who was the perpetrator of the murder. The case seemed
+to be shrouded in great mystery. The two gentlemen had unfortunately
+differed, but he did not at all think that the House would on that
+account be disposed to attribute guilt so black and damning to
+a gentleman they had all known so well as the honourable member
+for Tankerville." So much and no more was spoken publicly, to the
+reporters; but members continued to talk about the affair the whole
+evening.
+
+There was nothing, perhaps, more astonishing than the absence of
+rancour or abhorrence with which the name of Phineas was mentioned,
+even by those who felt most certain of his guilt. All those who had
+been present at the club acknowledged that Bonteen had been the
+sinner in reference to the transaction there; and it was acknowledged
+to have been almost a public misfortune that such a man as Bonteen
+should have been able to prevail against such a one as Phineas Finn
+in regard to the presence of the latter in the Government. Stories
+which were exaggerated, accounts worse even than the truth, were
+bandied about as to the perseverance with which the murdered man
+had destroyed the prospects of the supposed murderer, and robbed
+the country of the services of a good workman. Mr. Gresham, in the
+official statement which he had made, had, as a matter of course,
+said many fine things about Mr. Bonteen. A man can always have fine
+things said about him for a few hours after his death. But in the
+small private conferences which were held the fine things said all
+referred to Phineas Finn. Mr. Gresham had spoken of a "dastardly
+ruffian in the silent watches," but one would have almost thought
+from overhearing what was said by various gentlemen in different
+parts of the House that upon the whole Phineas Finn was thought to
+have done rather a good thing in putting poor Mr. Bonteen out of the
+way.
+
+And another pleasant feature of excitement was added by the prevalent
+idea that the Prince had seen and heard the row. Those who had been
+at the club at the time of course knew that this was not the case;
+but the presence of the Prince at The Universe between the row and
+the murder had really been a fact, and therefore it was only natural
+that men should allow themselves the delight of mixing the Prince
+with the whole concern. In remote circles the Prince was undoubtedly
+supposed to have had a great deal to do with the matter, though
+whether as abettor of the murdered or of the murderer was never
+plainly declared. A great deal was said about the Prince that evening
+in the House, so that many members were able to enjoy themselves
+thoroughly.
+
+"What a godsend for Gresham," said one gentleman to Mr. Ratler very
+shortly after the strong eulogium which had been uttered on poor Mr.
+Bonteen by the Prime Minister.
+
+"Well,--yes; I was afraid that the poor fellow would never have got
+on with us."
+
+"Got on! He'd have been a thorn in Gresham's side as long as he
+held office. If Finn should be acquitted, you ought to do something
+handsome for him." Whereupon Mr. Ratler laughed heartily.
+
+"It will pretty nearly break them up," said Sir Orlando Drought, one
+of Mr. Daubeny's late Secretaries of State to Mr. Roby, Mr. Daubeny's
+late patronage secretary.
+
+"I don't quite see that. They'll be able to drop their decimal
+coinage with a good excuse, and that will be a great comfort. They
+are talking of getting Monk to go back to the Board of Trade."
+
+"Will that strengthen them?"
+
+"Bonteen would have weakened them. The man had got beyond himself,
+and lost his head. They are better without him."
+
+"I suppose Finn did it?" asked Sir Orlando.
+
+"Not a doubt about it, I'm told. The queer thing is that he should
+have declared his purpose beforehand to Erle. Gresham says that
+all that must have been part of his plan,--so as to make men think
+afterwards that he couldn't have done it. Grogram's idea is that he
+had planned the murder before he went to the club."
+
+"Will the Prince have to give evidence?"
+
+"No, no," said Mr. Roby. "That's all wrong. The Prince had left the
+club before the row commenced. Confucius Putt says that the Prince
+didn't hear a word of it. He was talking to the Prince all the time."
+Confucius Putt was the distinguished artist with whom the Prince had
+shaken hands on leaving the club.
+
+Lord Drummond was in the Peers' Gallery, and Mr. Boffin was talking
+to him over the railings. It may be remembered that those two
+gentlemen had conscientiously left Mr. Daubeny's Cabinet because they
+had been unable to support him in his views about the Church. After
+such sacrifice on their parts their minds were of course intent on
+Church matters. "There doesn't seem to be a doubt about it," said Mr.
+Boffin.
+
+"Cantrip won't believe it," said the peer.
+
+"He was at the Colonies with Cantrip, and Cantrip found him very
+agreeable. Everybody says that he was one of the pleasantest fellows
+going. This makes it out of the question that they should bring in
+any Church bill this Session."
+
+"Do you think so?"
+
+"Oh yes;--certainly. There will be nothing else thought of now till
+the trial."
+
+"So much the better," said his Lordship. "It's an ill wind that blows
+no one any good. Will they have evidence for a conviction?"
+
+"Oh dear yes; not a doubt about it. Fawn can swear to him," said Mr.
+Boffin.
+
+Barrington Erle was telling his story for the tenth time when he was
+summoned out of the Library to the Duchess of Omnium, who had made
+her way up into the lobby. "Oh, Mr. Erle, do tell me what you really
+think," said the Duchess.
+
+"That is just what I can't do."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because I don't know what to think."
+
+"He can't have done it, Mr. Erle."
+
+"That's just what I say to myself, Duchess."
+
+"But they do say that the evidence is so very strong against him."
+
+"Very strong."
+
+"I wish we could get that Lord Fawn out of the way."
+
+"Ah;--but we can't."
+
+"And will they--hang him?"
+
+"If they convict him, they will."
+
+"A man we all knew so well! And just when we had made up our minds to
+do everything for him. Do you know I'm not a bit surprised. I've felt
+before now as though I should like to have done it myself."
+
+"He could be very nasty, Duchess!"
+
+"I did so hate that man. But I'd give,--oh, I don't know what I'd
+give to bring him to life again this minute. What will Lady Laura
+do?" In answer to this, Barrington Erle only shrugged his shoulders.
+Lady Laura was his cousin. "We mustn't give him up, you know, Mr.
+Erle."
+
+"What can we do?"
+
+"Surely we can do something. Can't we get it in the papers that he
+must be innocent,--so that everybody should be made to think so? And
+if we could get hold of the lawyers, and make them not want to--to
+destroy him! There's nothing I wouldn't do. There's no getting hold
+of a judge, I know."
+
+"No, Duchess. The judges are stone."
+
+"Not that they are a bit better than anybody else,--only they like to
+be safe."
+
+"They do like to be safe."
+
+"I'm sure we could do it if we put our shoulders to the wheel. I
+don't believe, you know, for a moment that he murdered him. It was
+done by Lizzie Eustace's Jew."
+
+"It will be sifted, of course."
+
+"But what's the use of sifting if Mr. Finn is to be hung while it's
+being done? I don't think anything of the police. Do you remember how
+they bungled about that woman's necklace? I don't mean to give him
+up, Mr. Erle; and I expect you to help me." Then the Duchess returned
+home, and, as we know, found Madame Goesler at her house.
+
+Nothing whatever was done that night, either in the Lords or Commons.
+A "statement" about Mr. Bonteen was made in the Upper as well as
+in the Lower House, and after that statement any real work was out
+of the question. Had Mr. Bonteen absolutely been Chancellor of the
+Exchequer, and in the Cabinet when he was murdered, and had Phineas
+Finn been once more an Under-Secretary of State, the commotion
+and excitement could hardly have been greater. Even the Duke of
+St. Bungay had visited the spot,--well known to him, as there the
+urban domains meet of two great Whig peers, with whom and whose
+predecessors he had long been familiar. He also had known Phineas
+Finn, and not long since had said civil words to him and of him. He,
+too, had, of late days, especially disliked Mr. Bonteen, and had
+almost insisted that the man now murdered should not be admitted into
+the Cabinet. He had heard what was the nature of the evidence;--had
+heard of the quarrel, the life-preserver, and the grey coat. "I
+suppose he must have done it," said the Duke of St. Bungay to himself
+as he walked away up Hay Hill.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LI.
+
+"YOU THINK IT SHAMEFUL."
+
+
+The tidings of what had taken place first reached Lady Laura Kennedy
+from her brother on his return to Portman Square after the scene in
+the police court. The object of his visit to Finn's lodgings has
+been explained, but the nature of Lady Laura's vehemence in urging
+upon her brother the performance of a very disagreeable task has not
+been sufficiently described. No brother would willingly go on such a
+mission from a married sister to a man who had been publicly named
+as that sister's lover;--and no brother could be less likely to do
+so than Lord Chiltern. But Lady Laura had been very stout in her
+arguments, and very strong-willed in her purpose. The income arising
+from this money,--which had been absolutely her own,--would again be
+exclusively her own should the claim to it on behalf of her husband's
+estate be abandoned. Surely she might do what she liked with her own.
+If her brother would not assist her in making this arrangement, it
+must be done by other means. She was quite willing that it should
+appear to come to Mr. Finn from her father and not from herself. Did
+her brother think any ill of her? Did he believe in the calumnies of
+the newspapers? Did he or his wife for a moment conceive that she
+had a lover? When he looked at her, worn out, withered, an old woman
+before her time, was it possible that he should so believe? She
+herself asked him these questions. Lord Chiltern of course declared
+that he had no suspicion of the kind. "No;--indeed," said Lady Laura.
+"I defy any one to suspect me who knows me. And if so, why am not
+I as much entitled to help a friend as you might be? You need not
+even mention my name." He endeavoured to make her understand that her
+name would be mentioned, and others would believe and would say evil
+things. "They cannot say worse than they have said," she continued.
+"And yet what harm have they done to me,--or you?" Then he demanded
+why she desired to go so far out of her way with the view of spending
+her money upon one who was in no way connected with her. "Because
+I like him better than any one else," she answered, boldly. "There
+is very little left for which I care at all;--but I do care for his
+prosperity. He was once in love with me and told me so,--but I had
+chosen to give my hand to Mr. Kennedy. He is not in love with me
+now,--nor I with him; but I choose to regard him as my friend." He
+assured her over and over again that Phineas Finn would certainly
+refuse to touch her money;--but this she declined to believe. At any
+rate the trial might be made. He would not refuse money left to him
+by will, and why should he not now enjoy that which was intended for
+him? Then she explained how certain it was that he must speedily
+vanish out of the world altogether, unless some assurance of an
+income were made to him. So Lord Chiltern went on his mission, hardly
+meaning to make the offer, and confident that it would be refused
+if made. We know the nature of the new trouble in which he found
+Phineas Finn enveloped. It was such that Lord Chiltern did not open
+his mouth about money, and now, having witnessed the scene at the
+police-office, he had come back to tell his tale to his sister. She
+was sitting with his wife when he entered the room.
+
+"Have you heard anything?" he asked at once.
+
+"Heard what?" said his wife.
+
+"Then you have not heard it. A man has been murdered."
+
+"What man?" said Lady Laura, jumping suddenly from her seat. "Not
+Robert!" Lord Chiltern shook his head. "You do not mean that Mr. Finn
+has been--killed!" Again he shook his head; and then she sat down as
+though the asking of the two questions had exhausted her.
+
+"Speak, Oswald," said his wife. "Why do you not tell us? Is it one
+whom we knew?"
+
+"I think that Laura used to know him. Mr. Bonteen was murdered last
+night in the streets."
+
+"Mr. Bonteen! The man who was Mr. Finn's enemy," said Lady Chiltern.
+
+"Mr. Bonteen!" said Lady Laura, as though the murder of twenty Mr.
+Bonteens were nothing to her.
+
+"Yes;--the man whom you talk of as Finn's enemy. It would be better
+if there were no such talk."
+
+"And who killed him?" said Lady Laura, again getting up and coming
+close to her brother.
+
+"Who was it, Oswald?" asked his wife; and she also was now too deeply
+interested to keep her seat.
+
+"They have arrested two men," said Lord Chiltern;--"that Jew who
+married Lady Eustace, and--" But there he paused. He had determined
+beforehand that he would tell his sister the double arrest that the
+doubt this implied might lessen the weight of the blow; but now he
+found it almost impossible to mention the name.
+
+"Who is the other, Oswald?" said his wife.
+
+"Not Phineas," screamed Lady Laura.
+
+"Yes, indeed; they have arrested him, and I have just come from
+the court." He had no time to go on, for his sister was crouching
+prostrate on the floor before him. She had not fainted. Women do
+not faint under such shocks. But in her agony she had crouched down
+rather than fallen, as though it were vain to attempt to stand
+upright with so crushing a weight of sorrow on her back. She uttered
+one loud shriek, and then covering her face with her hands burst out
+into a wail of sobs. Lady Chiltern and her brother both tried to
+raise her, but she would not be lifted. "Why will you not hear me
+through, Laura?" said he.
+
+"You do not think he did it?" said his wife.
+
+"I'm sure he did not," replied Lord Chiltern.
+
+The poor woman, half-lying, half-seated, on the floor, still hiding
+her face with her hands, still bursting with half suppressed sobs,
+heard and understood both the question and the answer. But the fact
+was not altered to her,--nor the condition of the man she loved.
+She had not yet begun to think whether it were possible that he
+should have been guilty of such a crime. She had heard none of the
+circumstances, and knew nothing of the manner of the man's death. It
+might be that Phineas had killed the man, bringing himself within the
+reach of the law, and that yet he should have done nothing to merit
+her reproaches;--hardly even her reprobation! Hitherto she felt only
+the sorrow, the annihilation of the blow;--but not the shame with
+which it would overwhelm the man for whom she so much coveted the
+good opinion of the world.
+
+"You hear what he says, Laura."
+
+"They are determined to destroy him," she sobbed out, through her
+tears.
+
+"They are not determined to destroy him at all," said Lord Chiltern.
+"It will have to go by evidence. You had better sit up and let me
+tell you all. I will tell you nothing till you are seated again. You
+disgrace yourself by sprawling there."
+
+"Do not be hard to her, Oswald."
+
+"I am disgraced," said Lady Laura, slowly rising and placing herself
+again on the sofa. "If there is anything more to tell, you can tell
+it. I do not care what happens to me now, or who knows it. They
+cannot make my life worse than it is."
+
+Then he told all the story,--of the quarrel, and the position of the
+streets, of the coat, and the bludgeon, and the three blows, each on
+the head, by which the man had been killed. And he told them also how
+the Jew was said never to have been out of his bed, and how the Jew's
+coat was not the coat Lord Fawn had seen, and how no stain of blood
+had been found about the raiment of either of the men. "It was the
+Jew who did it, Oswald, surely," said Lady Chiltern.
+
+"It was not Phineas Finn who did it," he replied.
+
+"And they will let him go again?"
+
+"They will let him go when they find out the truth, I suppose. But
+those fellows blunder so, I would never trust them. He will get some
+sharp lawyer to look into it; and then perhaps everything will come
+out. I shall go and see him to-morrow. But there is nothing further
+to be done."
+
+"And I must see him," said Lady Laura slowly.
+
+Lady Chiltern looked at her husband, and his face became redder than
+usual with an angry flush. When his sister had pressed him to take
+her message about the money, he had assured her that he suspected her
+of no evil. Nor had he ever thought evil of her. Since her marriage
+with Mr. Kennedy, he had seen but little of her or of her ways of
+life. When she had separated herself from her husband he had approved
+of the separation, and had even offered to assist her should she
+be in difficulty. While she had been living a sad lonely life at
+Dresden, he had simply pitied her, declaring to himself and his wife
+that her lot in life had been very hard. When these calumnies about
+her and Phineas Finn had reached his ears,--or his eyes,--as such
+calumnies always will reach the ears and eyes of those whom they
+are most capable of hurting, he had simply felt a desire to crush
+some Quintus Slide, or the like, into powder for the offence. He had
+received Phineas in his own house with all his old friendship. He had
+even this morning been with the accused man as almost his closest
+friend. But, nevertheless, there was creeping into his heart a sense
+of the shame with which he would be afflicted, should the world
+really be taught to believe that the man had been his sister's lover.
+Lady Laura's distress on the present occasion was such as a wife
+might show, or a girl weeping for her lover, or a mother for her son,
+or a sister for a brother; but was extravagant and exaggerated in
+regard to such friendship as might be presumed to exist between the
+wife of Mr. Robert Kennedy and the member for Tankerville. He could
+see that his wife felt this as he did, and he thought it necessary
+to say something at once, that might force his sister to moderate at
+any rate her language, if not her feelings. Two expressions of face
+were natural to him; one eloquent of good humour, in which the reader
+of countenances would find some promise of coming frolic;--and
+the other, replete with anger, sometimes to the extent almost of
+savagery. All those who were dependent on him were wont to watch
+his face with care and sometimes with fear. When he was angry it
+would almost seem that he was about to use personal violence on the
+object of his wrath. At the present moment he was rather grieved than
+enraged; but there came over his face that look of wrath with which
+all who knew him were so well acquainted. "You cannot see him," he
+said.
+
+"Why not I, as well as you?"
+
+"If you do not understand, I cannot tell you. But you must not see
+him;--and you shall not."
+
+"Who will hinder me?"
+
+"If you put me to it, I will see that you are hindered. What is the
+man to you that you should run the risk of evil tongues, for the sake
+of visiting him in gaol? You cannot save his life,--though it may be
+that you might endanger it."
+
+"Oswald," she said very slowly, "I do not know that I am in any way
+under your charge, or bound to submit to your orders."
+
+"You are my sister."
+
+"And I have loved you as a sister. How should it be possible that my
+seeing him should endanger his life?"
+
+"It will make people think that the things are true which have been
+said."
+
+"And will they hang him because I love him? I do love him. Violet
+knows how well I have always loved him." Lord Chiltern turned his
+angry face upon his wife. Lady Chiltern put her arm round her
+sister-in-law's waist, and whispered some words into her ear. "What
+is that to me?" continued the half-frantic woman. "I do love him. I
+have always loved him. I shall love him to the end. He is all my life
+to me."
+
+"Shame should prevent your telling it," said Lord Chiltern.
+
+"I feel no shame. There is no disgrace in love. I did disgrace
+myself when I gave the hand for which he asked to another man,
+because,--because--" But she was too noble to tell her brother even
+then that at the moment of her life to which she was alluding she had
+married the rich man, rejecting the poor man's hand, because she had
+given up all her fortune to the payment of her brother's debts. And
+he, though he had well known what he had owed to her, and had never
+been easy till he had paid the debt, remembered nothing of all this
+now. No lending and paying back of money could alter the nature
+either of his feelings or his duty in such an emergency as this.
+"And, mind you," she continued, turning to her sister-in-law, "there
+is no place for the shame of which he is thinking," and she pointed
+her finger out at her brother. "I love him,--as a mother might love
+her child, I fancy; but he has no love for me; none;--none. When I am
+with him, I am only a trouble to him. He comes to me, because he is
+good; but he would sooner be with you. He did love me once;--but then
+I could not afford to be so loved."
+
+"You can do no good by seeing him," said her brother.
+
+"But I will see him. You need not scowl at me as though you wished
+to strike me. I have gone through that which makes me different from
+other women, and I care not what they say of me. Violet understands
+it all;--but you understand nothing."
+
+"Be calm, Laura," said her sister-in-law, "and Oswald will do all
+that can be done."
+
+"But they will hang him."
+
+"Nonsense!" said her brother. "He has not been as yet committed for
+his trial. Heaven knows how much has to be done. It is as likely as
+not that in three days' time he will be out at large, and all the
+world will be running after him just because he has been in Newgate."
+
+"But who will look after him?"
+
+"He has plenty of friends. I will see that he is not left without
+everything that he wants."
+
+"But he will want money."
+
+"He has plenty of money for that. Do you take it quietly, and not
+make a fool of yourself. If the worst comes to the worst--"
+
+"Oh, heavens!"
+
+"Listen to me, if you can listen. Should the worst come to the worst,
+which I believe to be altogether impossible,--mind, I think it next
+to impossible, for I have never for a moment believed him to be
+guilty,--we will,--visit him,--together. Good-bye now. I am going
+to see that friend of his, Mr. Low." So saying Lord Chiltern went,
+leaving the two women together.
+
+"Why should he be so savage with me?" said Lady Laura.
+
+"He does not mean to be savage."
+
+"Does he speak to you like that? What right has he to tell me of
+shame? Has my life been so bad, and his so good? Do you think it
+shameful that I should love this man?" She sat looking into her
+friend's face, but her friend for a while hesitated to answer. "You
+shall tell me, Violet. We have known each other so well that I can
+bear to be told by you. Do not you love him?"
+
+"I love him!--certainly not."
+
+"But you did."
+
+"Not as you mean. Who can define love, and say what it is? There are
+so many kinds of love. We say that we love the Queen."
+
+"Psha!"
+
+"And we are to love all our neighbours. But as men and women talk of
+love, I never at any moment of my life loved any man but my husband.
+Mr. Finn was a great favourite with me,--always."
+
+"Indeed he was."
+
+"As any other man might be,--or any woman. He is so still, and with
+all my heart I hope that this may be untrue."
+
+"It is false as the Devil. It must be false. Can you think of the
+man,--his sweetness, the gentle nature of him, his open, free speech,
+and courage, and believe that he would go behind his enemy and knock
+his brains out in the dark? I can conceive it of myself, that I
+should do it, much easier than of him."
+
+"Oswald says it is false."
+
+"But he says it as partly believing that it is true. If it be true I
+will hang myself. There will be nothing left among men or women fit
+to live for. You think it shameful that I should love him."
+
+"I have not said so."
+
+"But you do."
+
+"I think there is cause for shame in your confessing it."
+
+"I do confess it."
+
+"You ask me, and press me, and because we have loved one another so
+well I must answer you. If a woman,--a married woman,--be oppressed
+by such a feeling, she should lay it down at the bottom of her heart,
+out of sight, never mentioning it, even to herself."
+
+"You talk of the heart as though we could control it."
+
+"The heart will follow the thoughts, and they may be controlled. I
+am not passionate, perhaps, as you are, and I think I can control
+my heart. But my fortune has been kind to me, and I have never been
+tempted. Laura, do not think I am preaching to you."
+
+"Oh no;--but your husband; think of him, and think of mine! You have
+babies."
+
+"May God make me thankful. I have every good thing on earth that God
+can give."
+
+"And what have I? To see that man prosper in life, who they tell me
+is a murderer; that man who is now in a felon's gaol,--whom they
+will hang for ought we know,--to see him go forward and justify
+my thoughts of him! that yesterday was all I had. To-day I have
+nothing,--except the shame with which you and Oswald say that I have
+covered myself."
+
+"Laura, I have never said so."
+
+"I saw it in your eye when he accused me. And I know that it is
+shameful. I do know that I am covered with shame. But I can bear my
+own disgrace better than his danger." After a long pause,--a silence
+of probably some fifteen minutes,--she spoke again. "If Robert should
+die,--what would happen then?"
+
+"It would be--a release, I suppose," said Lady Chiltern in a voice so
+low, that it was almost a whisper.
+
+"A release indeed;--and I would become that man's wife the next day,
+at the foot of the gallows;--if he would have me. But he would not
+have me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LII.
+
+MR. KENNEDY'S WILL.
+
+
+Mr. Kennedy had fired a pistol at Phineas Finn in Macpherson's Hotel
+with the manifest intention of blowing out the brains of his presumed
+enemy, and no public notice had been taken of the occurrence. Phineas
+himself had been only too willing to pass the thing by as a trifling
+accident, if he might be allowed to do so, and the Macphersons had
+been by far too true to their great friend to think of giving him in
+charge to the police. The affair had been talked about, and had come
+to the knowledge of reporters and editors. Most of the newspapers had
+contained paragraphs giving various accounts of the matter; and one
+or two had followed the example of The People's Banner in demanding
+that the police should investigate the matter. But the matter had not
+been investigated. The police were supposed to know nothing about
+it,--as how should they, no one having seen or heard the shot but
+they who were determined to be silent? Mr. Quintus Slide had been
+indignant all in vain, so far as Mr. Kennedy and his offence had
+been concerned. As soon as the pistol had been fired and Phineas
+had escaped from the room, the unfortunate man had sunk back in
+his chair, conscious of what he had done, knowing that he had
+made himself subject to the law, and expecting every minute that
+constables would enter the room to seize him. He had seen his enemy's
+hat lying on the floor, and, when nobody would come to fetch it, had
+thrown it down the stairs. After that he had sat waiting for the
+police, with the pistol, still loaded in every barrel but one, lying
+by his side,--hardly repenting the attempt, but trembling for the
+result,--till Macpherson, the landlord, who had been brought home
+from chapel, knocked at his door. There was very little said between
+them; and no positive allusion was made to the shot that had been
+fired; but Macpherson succeeded in getting the pistol into his
+possession,--as to which the unfortunate man put no impediment in
+his way, and he managed to have it understood that Mr. Kennedy's
+cousin should be summoned on the following morning. "Is anybody else
+coming?" Robert Kennedy asked, when the landlord was about to leave
+the room. "Naebody as I ken o', yet, laird," said Macpherson, "but
+likes they will." Nobody, however, did come, and the "laird" had
+spent the evening by himself in very wretched solitude.
+
+On the following day the cousin had come, and to him the whole story
+was told. After that, no difficulty was found in taking the miserable
+man back to Loughlinter, and there he had been for the last two
+months in the custody of his more wretched mother and of his cousin.
+No legal steps had been taken to deprive him of the management either
+of himself or of his property,--so that he was in truth his own
+master. And he exercised his mastery in acts of petty tyranny about
+his domain, becoming more and more close-fisted in regard to money,
+and desirous, as it appeared, of starving all living things about the
+place,--cattle, sheep, and horses, so that the value of their food
+might be saved. But every member of the establishment knew that the
+laird was "nae just himself," and consequently his orders were not
+obeyed. And the laird knew the same of himself, and, though he would
+give the orders not only resolutely, but with imperious threats of
+penalties to follow disobedience, still he did not seem to expect
+compliance. While he was in this state, letters addressed to him came
+for a while into his own hands, and thus more than one reached him
+from Lord Brentford's lawyer, demanding that restitution should be
+made of the interest arising from Lady Laura's fortune. Then he would
+fly out into bitter wrath, calling his wife foul names, and swearing
+that she should never have a farthing of his money to spend upon her
+paramour. Of course it was his money, and his only. All the world
+knew that. Had she not left his roof, breaking her marriage vows,
+throwing aside every duty, and bringing him down to his present state
+of abject misery? Her own fortune! If she wanted the interest of her
+wretched money, let her come to Loughlinter and receive it there. In
+spite of all her wickedness, her cruelty, her misconduct, which had
+brought him,--as he now said,--to the verge of the grave, he would
+still give her shelter and room for repentance. He recognised his
+vows, though she did not. She should still be his wife, though she
+had utterly disgraced both herself and him. She should still be his
+wife, though she had so lived as to make it impossible that there
+should be any happiness in their household.
+
+It was thus he spoke when first one and then another letter came
+from the Earl's lawyer, pointing out to him the injustice to which
+Lady Laura was subjected by the loss of her fortune. No doubt these
+letters would not have been written in the line assumed had not Mr.
+Kennedy proved himself to be unfit to have the custody of his wife
+by attempting to shoot the man whom he accused of being his wife's
+lover. An act had been done, said the lawyer, which made it quite
+out of the question that Lady Laura should return to her husband.
+To this, when speaking of the matter to those around him,--which he
+did with an energy which seemed to be foreign to his character,--Mr.
+Kennedy made no direct allusion; but he swore most positively that
+not a shilling should be given up. The fear of policemen coming down
+to Loughlinter to take account of that angry shot had passed away;
+and, though he knew, with an uncertain knowledge, that he was not in
+all respects obeyed as he used to be,--that his orders were disobeyed
+by stewards and servants, in spite of his threats of dismissal,--he
+still felt that he was sufficiently his own master to defy the Earl's
+attorney and to maintain his claim upon his wife's person. Let her
+return to him first of all!
+
+But after a while the cousin interfered still further; and Robert
+Kennedy, who so short a time since had been a member of the
+Government, graced by permission to sit in the Cabinet, was not
+allowed to open his own post-bag. He had written a letter to one
+person, and then again to another, which had induced those who
+received them to return answers to the cousin. To Lord Brentford's
+lawyer he had used a few very strong words. Mr. Forster had replied
+to the cousin, stating how grieved Lord Brentford would be, how much
+grieved would be Lady Laura, to find themselves driven to take steps
+in reference to what they conceived to be the unfortunate condition
+of Mr. Robert Kennedy; but that such steps must be taken unless some
+arrangement could be made which should be at any rate reasonable.
+Then Mr. Kennedy's post-bag was taken from him; the letters which
+he wrote were not sent;--and he took to his bed. It was during this
+condition of affairs that the cousin took upon himself to intimate
+to Mr. Forster that the managers of Mr. Kennedy's estate were by
+no means anxious of embarrassing their charge by so trumpery an
+additional matter as the income derived from Lady Laura's forty
+thousand pounds.
+
+But things were in a terrible confusion at Loughlinter. Rents were
+paid as heretofore on receipts given by Robert Kennedy's agent; but
+the agent could only pay the money to Robert Kennedy's credit at his
+bank. Robert Kennedy's cheques would, no doubt, have drawn the money
+out again;--but it was almost impossible to induce Robert Kennedy
+to sign a cheque. Even in bed he inquired daily about his money,
+and knew accurately the sum lying at his banker's; but he could be
+persuaded to disgorge nothing. He postponed from day to day the
+signing of certain cheques that were brought to him, and alleged very
+freely that an attempt was being made to rob him. During all his life
+he had been very generous in subscribing to public charities; but
+now he stopped all his subscriptions. The cousin had to provide even
+for the payment of wages, and things went very badly at Loughlinter.
+Then there arose the question whether legal steps should be taken for
+placing the management of the estate in other hands, on the ground
+of the owner's insanity. But the wretched old mother begged that
+this might not be done;--and Dr. Macnuthrie, from Callender, was of
+opinion that no steps should be taken at present. Mr. Kennedy was
+very ill,--very ill indeed; would take no nourishment, and seemed to
+be sinking under the pressure of his misfortunes. Any steps such as
+those suggested would probably send their friend out of the world at
+once.
+
+In fact Robert Kennedy was dying;--and in the first week of May, when
+the beauty of the spring was beginning to show itself on the braes of
+Loughlinter, he did die. The old woman, his mother, was seated by his
+bedside, and into her ears he murmured his last wailing complaint.
+"If she had the fear of God before her eyes, she would come back
+to me." "Let us pray that He may soften her heart," said the old
+lady. "Eh, mother;--nothing can soften the heart Satan has hardened,
+till it be hard as the nether millstone." And in that faith he died
+believing, as he had ever believed, that the spirit of evil was
+stronger than the spirit of good.
+
+
+[Illustration: "He may soften her heart."]
+
+
+For some time past there had been perturbation in the mind of that
+cousin, and of all other Kennedys of that ilk, as to the nature of
+the will of the head of the family. It was feared lest he should have
+been generous to the wife who was believed by them all to have been
+so wicked and treacherous to her husband;--and so it was found to be
+when the will was read. During the last few months no one near him
+had dared to speak to him of his will, for it had been known that
+his condition of mind rendered him unfit to alter it; nor had he
+ever alluded to it himself. As a matter of course there had been a
+settlement, and it was supposed that Lady Laura's own money would
+revert to her; but when it was found that in addition to this the
+Loughlinter estate became hers for life, in the event of Mr. Kennedy
+dying without a child, there was great consternation among the
+Kennedys generally. There were but two or three of them concerned,
+and for those there was money enough; but it seemed to them now that
+the bad wife, who had utterly refused to acclimatise herself to the
+soil to which she had been transplanted, was to be rewarded for her
+wicked stubbornness. Lady Laura would become mistress of her own
+fortune and of all Loughlinter, and would be once more a free woman,
+with all the power that wealth and fashion can give. Alas, alas! it
+was too late now for the taking of any steps to sever her from her
+rich inheritance! "And the false harlot will come and play havoc
+here, in my son's mansion," said the old woman with extremest
+bitterness.
+
+The tidings were conveyed to Lady Laura through her lawyer, but did
+not reach her in full till some eight or ten days after the news of
+her husband's death. The telegram announcing that event had come to
+her at her father's house in Portman Square, on the day after that
+on which Phineas had been arrested, and the Earl had of course known
+that his great longing for the recovery of his wife's fortune had
+been now realised. To him there was no sorrow in the news. He had
+only known Robert Kennedy as one who had been thoroughly disagreeable
+to himself, and who had persecuted his daughter throughout
+their married life. There had come no happiness,--not even
+prosperity,--through the marriage. His daughter had been forced to
+leave the man's house,--and had been forced also to leave her money
+behind her. Then she had been driven abroad, fearing persecution, and
+had only dared to return when the man's madness became so notorious
+as to annul his power of annoying her. Now by his death, a portion
+of the injury which he had inflicted on the great family of Standish
+would be remedied. The money would come back,--together with the
+stipulated jointure,--and there could no longer be any question of
+return. The news delighted the old Lord,--and he was almost angry
+with his daughter because she also would not confess her delight.
+
+"Oh, Papa, he was my husband."
+
+"Yes, yes, no doubt. I was always against it, you will remember."
+
+"Pray do not talk in that way now, Papa. I know that I was not to him
+what I should have been."
+
+"You used to say it was all his fault."
+
+"We will not talk of it now, Papa. He is gone, and I remember his
+past goodness to me."
+
+She clothed herself in the deepest of mourning, and made herself a
+thing of sorrow by the sacrificial uncouthness of her garments. And
+she tried to think of him;--to think of him, and not to think of
+Phineas Finn. She remembered with real sorrow the words she had
+spoken to her sister-in-law, in which she had declared, while still
+the wife of another man, that she would willingly marry Phineas at
+the foot even of the gallows if she were free. She was free now; but
+she did not repeat her assertion. It was impossible not to think of
+Phineas in his present strait, but she abstained from speaking of him
+as far as she could, and for the present never alluded to her former
+purpose of visiting him in his prison.
+
+From day to day, for the first few days of her widowhood, she heard
+what was going on. The evidence against him became stronger and
+stronger, whereas the other man, Yosef Mealyus, had been already
+liberated. There were still many who felt sure that Mealyus had been
+the murderer, among whom were all those who had been ranked among
+the staunch friends of our hero. The Chilterns so believed, and Lady
+Laura; the Duchess so believed, and Madame Goesler. Mr. Low felt sure
+of it, and Mr. Monk and Lord Cantrip; and nobody was more sure than
+Mrs. Bunce. There were many who professed that they doubted; men such
+as Barrington Erle, Laurence Fitzgibbon, the two Dukes,--though the
+younger Duke never expressed such doubt at home,--and Mr. Gresham
+himself. Indeed, the feeling of Parliament in general was one of
+great doubt. Mr. Daubeny never expressed an opinion one way or the
+other, feeling that the fate of two second-class Liberals could
+not be matter of concern to him;--but Sir Orlando Drought, and Mr.
+Roby, and Mr. Boffin, were as eager as though they had not been
+Conservatives, and were full of doubt. Surely, if Phineas Finn were
+not the murderer, he had been more ill-used by Fate than had been any
+man since Fate first began to be unjust. But there was also a very
+strong party by whom no doubt whatever was entertained as to his
+guilt,--at the head of which, as in duty bound, was the poor widow,
+Mrs. Bonteen. She had no doubt as to the hand by which her husband
+had fallen, and clamoured loudly for the vengeance of the law. All
+the world, she said, knew how bitter against her husband had been
+this wretch, whose villainy had been exposed by her dear, gracious
+lord; and now the evidence against him was, to her thinking,
+complete. She was supported strongly by Lady Eustace, who, much as
+she wished not to be the wife of the Bohemian Jew, thought even that
+preferable to being known as the widow of a murderer who had been
+hung. Mr. Ratler, with one or two others in the House, was certain
+of Finn's guilt. The People's Banner, though it prefaced each
+one of its daily paragraphs on the subject with a statement as to
+the manifest duty of an influential newspaper to abstain from the
+expression of any opinion on such a subject till the question had
+been decided by a jury, nevertheless from day to day recapitulated
+the evidence against the Member for Tankerville, and showed how
+strong were the motives which had existed for such a deed. But, among
+those who were sure of Finn's guilt, there was no one more sure than
+Lord Fawn, who had seen the coat and the height of the man,--and the
+step. He declared among his intimate friends that of course he could
+not swear to the person. He could not venture, when upon his oath,
+to give an opinion. But the man who had passed him at so quick a
+pace had been half a foot higher than Mealyus;--of that there could
+be no doubt. Nor could there be any doubt as to the grey coat. Of
+course there might be other men with grey coats besides Mr. Phineas
+Finn,--and other men half a foot taller than Yosef Mealyus. And there
+might be other men with that peculiarly energetic step. And the man
+who hurried by him might not have been the man who murdered Mr.
+Bonteen. Of all that Lord Fawn could say nothing. But what he did
+say,--of that he was sure. And all those who knew him were well aware
+that in his own mind he was convinced of the guilt of Phineas Finn.
+And there was another man equally convinced. Mr. Maule, Senior,
+remembered well the manner in which Madame Goesler spoke of Phineas
+Finn in reference to the murder, and was quite sure that Phineas was
+the murderer.
+
+For a couple of days Lord Chiltern was constantly with the poor
+prisoner, but after that he was obliged to return to Harrington
+Hall. This he did a day after the news arrived of the death of his
+brother-in-law. Both he and Lady Chiltern had promised to return
+home, having left Adelaide Palliser alone in the house, and already
+they had overstayed their time. "Of course I will remain with you,"
+Lady Chiltern had said to her sister-in-law; but the widow had
+preferred to be left alone. For these first few days,--when she must
+make pretence of sorrow because her husband had died; and had such
+real cause for sorrow in the miserable condition of the man she
+loved,--she preferred to be alone. Who could sympathise with her now,
+or with whom could she speak of her grief? Her father was talking to
+her always of her money;--but from him she could endure it. She was
+used to him, and could remember when he spoke to her of her forty
+thousand pounds, and of her twelve hundred a year of jointure, that
+it had not always been with him like that. As yet nothing had been
+heard of the will, and the Earl did not in the least anticipate any
+further accession of wealth from the estate of the man whom they had
+all hated. But his daughter would now be a rich woman; and was yet
+young, and there might still be splendour. "I suppose you won't care
+to buy land," he said.
+
+"Oh, Papa, do not talk of buying anything yet."
+
+"But, my dear Laura, you must put your money into something. You can
+get very nearly 5 per cent. from Indian Stock."
+
+"Not yet, Papa," she said. But he proceeded to explain to her how
+very important an affair money is, and that persons who have got
+money cannot be excused for not considering what they had better do
+with it. No doubt she could get 4 per cent. on her money by buying up
+certain existing mortgages on the Saulsby property,--which would no
+doubt be very convenient if, hereafter, the money should go to her
+brother's child. "Not yet, Papa," she said again, having, however,
+already made up her mind that her money should have a different
+destination.
+
+She could not interest her father at all in the fate of Phineas Finn.
+When the story of the murder had first been told to him, he had been
+amazed,--and, no doubt, somewhat gratified, as we all are, at tragic
+occurrences which do not concern ourselves. But he could not be made
+to tremble for the fate of Phineas Finn. And yet he had known the man
+during the last few years most intimately, and had had much in common
+with him. He had trusted Phineas in respect to his son, and had
+trusted him also in respect to his daughter. Phineas had been his
+guest at Dresden; and, on his return to London, had been the first
+friend he had seen, with the exception of his lawyer. And yet he
+could hardly be induced to express the slightest interest as to
+the fate of this friend who was to be tried for murder. "Oh;--he's
+committed, is he? I think I remember that Protheroe once told me
+that, in thirty-nine cases out of forty, men committed for serious
+offences have been guilty of them." The Protheroe here spoken of as
+an authority in criminal matters was at present Lord Weazeling, the
+Lord Chancellor.
+
+"But Mr. Finn has not been guilty, Papa."
+
+"There is always the one chance out of forty. But, as I was saying,
+if you like to take up the Saulsby mortgages, Mr. Forster can't be
+told too soon."
+
+"Papa, I shall do nothing of the kind," said Lady Laura. And then she
+rose and walked out of the room.
+
+At the end of ten days from the death of Mr. Kennedy, there came the
+tidings of the will. Lady Laura had written to Mrs. Kennedy a letter
+which had taken her much time in composition, expressing her deep
+sorrow, and condoling with the old woman. And the old woman had
+answered. "Madam, I am too old now to express either grief or anger.
+My dear son's death, caused by domestic wrong, has robbed me of any
+remaining comfort which the undeserved sorrows of his latter years
+had not already dispelled. Your obedient servant, Sarah Kennedy."
+From which it may be inferred that she had also taken considerable
+trouble in the composition of her letter. Other communications
+between Loughlinter and Portman Square there were none, but there
+came through the lawyers a statement of Mr. Kennedy's will, as far as
+the interests of Lady Laura were concerned. This reached Mr. Forster
+first, and he brought it personally to Portman Square. He asked for
+Lady Laura, and saw her alone. "He has bequeathed to you the use of
+Loughlinter for your life, Lady Laura."
+
+"To me!"
+
+"Yes, Lady Laura. The will is dated in the first year of his
+marriage, and has not been altered since."
+
+"What can I do with Loughlinter? I will give it back to them." Then
+Mr. Forster explained that the legacy referred not only to the house
+and immediate grounds,--but to the whole estate known as the domain
+of Loughlinter. There could be no reason why she should give it up,
+but very many why she should not do so. Circumstanced as Mr. Kennedy
+had been, with no one nearer to him than a first cousin, with a
+property purchased with money saved by his father,--a property to
+which no cousin could by inheritance have any claim,--he could not
+have done better with it than to leave it to his widow in fault of
+any issue of his own. Then the lawyer explained that were she to give
+it up, the world would of course say that she had done so from a
+feeling of her own unworthiness. "Why should I feel myself to be
+unworthy?" she asked. The lawyer smiled, and told her that of course
+she would retain Loughlinter.
+
+Then, at her request, he was taken to the Earl's room and there
+repeated the good news. Lady Laura preferred not to hear her father's
+first exultations. But while this was being done she also exulted.
+Might it not still be possible that there should be before her a
+happy evening to her days; and that she might stand once more beside
+the falls of Linter, contented, hopeful, nay, almost glorious, with
+her hand in his to whom she had once refused her own on that very
+spot?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIII.
+
+NONE BUT THE BRAVE DESERVE THE FAIR.
+
+
+Though Mr. Robert Kennedy was lying dead at Loughlinter, and though
+Phineas Finn, a member of Parliament, was in prison, accused of
+murdering another member of Parliament, still the world went on with
+its old ways, down in the neighbourhood of Harrington Hall and Spoon
+Hall as at other places. The hunting with the Brake hounds was now
+over for the season,--had indeed been brought to an auspicious end
+three weeks since,--and such gentlemen as Thomas Spooner had time on
+their hands to look about their other concerns. When a man hunts five
+days a week, regardless of distances, and devotes a due proportion
+of his energies to the necessary circumstances of hunting, the
+preservation of foxes, the maintenance of good humour with the
+farmers, the proper compensation for poultry really killed by
+four-legged favourites, the growth and arrangement of coverts, the
+lying-in of vixens, and the subsequent guardianship of nurseries, the
+persecution of enemies, and the warm protection of friends,--when
+he follows the sport, accomplishing all the concomitant duties of a
+true sportsman, he has not much time left for anything. Such a one
+as Mr. Spooner of Spoon Hall finds that his off day is occupied from
+breakfast to dinner with grooms, keepers, old women with turkeys'
+heads, and gentlemen in velveteens with information about wires and
+unknown earths. His letters fall naturally to the Sunday afternoon,
+and are hardly written before sleep overpowers him. Many a large
+fortune has been made with less of true devotion to the work than is
+given to hunting by so genuine a sportsman as Mr. Spooner.
+
+Our friend had some inkling of this himself, and felt that many of
+the less important affairs of his life were neglected because he
+was so true to the one great object of his existence. He had wisely
+endeavoured to prevent wrack and ruin among the affairs of Spoon
+Hall,--and had thoroughly succeeded by joining his cousin Ned with
+himself in the administration of his estate,--but there were things
+which Ned with all his zeal and all his cleverness could not do for
+him. He was conscious that had he been as remiss in the matter of
+hunting, as that hard-riding but otherwise idle young scamp, Gerard
+Maule, he might have succeeded much better than he had hitherto done
+with Adelaide Palliser. "Hanging about and philandering, that's what
+they want," he said to his cousin Ned.
+
+"I suppose it is," said Ned. "I was fond of a girl once myself, and
+I hung about a good deal. But we hadn't sixpence between us."
+
+"That was Polly Maxwell. I remember. You behaved very badly then."
+
+"Very badly, Tom; about as bad as a man could behave,--and she was
+as bad. I loved her with all my heart, and I told her so. And she
+told me the same. There never was anything worse. We had just nothing
+between us, and nobody to give us anything."
+
+"It doesn't pay; does it, Ned, that kind of thing?"
+
+"It doesn't pay at all. I wouldn't give her up,--nor she me. She was
+about as pretty a girl as I remember to have seen."
+
+"I suppose you were a decent-looking fellow in those days yourself.
+They say so, but I never quite believed it."
+
+"There wasn't much in that," said Ned. "Girls don't want a man to be
+good-looking, but that he should speak up and not be afraid of them.
+There were lots of fellows came after her. You remember Blinks, of
+the Carabineers. He was full of money, and he asked her three times.
+She is an old maid to this day, and is living as companion to some
+crusty crochetty countess."
+
+"I think you did behave badly, Ned. Why didn't you set her free?"
+
+"Of course, I behaved badly. And why didn't she set me free, if you
+come to that? I might have found a female Blinks of my own,--only
+for her. I wonder whether it will come against us when we die, and
+whether we shall be brought up together to receive punishment."
+
+"Not if you repent, I suppose," said Tom Spooner, very seriously.
+
+"I sometimes ask myself whether she has repented. I made her swear
+that she'd never give me up. She might have broken her word a score
+of times, and I wish she had."
+
+"I think she was a fool, Ned."
+
+"Of course she was a fool. She knows that now, I dare say. And
+perhaps she has repented. Do you mean to try it again with that girl
+at Harrington Hall?"
+
+Mr. Thomas Spooner did mean to try it again with the girl at
+Harrington Hall. He had never quite trusted the note which he had
+got from his friend Chiltern, and had made up his mind that, to say
+the least of it, there had been very little friendship shown in the
+letter. Had Chiltern meant to have stood to him "like a brick," as he
+ought to have stood by his right hand man in the Brake country, at
+any rate a fair chance might have been given him. "Where the devil
+would he be in such a country as this without me,"--Tom had said
+to his cousin,--"not knowing a soul, and with all the shooting men
+against him? I might have had the hounds myself,--and might have 'em
+now if I cared to take them. It's not standing by a fellow as he
+ought to do. He writes to me, by George, just as he might do to some
+fellow who never had a fox about his place."
+
+"I suppose he didn't put the two things together," said Ned Spooner.
+
+"I hate a fellow that can't put two things together. If I stand to
+you you've a right to stand to me. That's what you mean by putting
+two things together. I mean to have another shy at her. She has
+quarrelled with that fellow Maule altogether. I've learned that from
+the gardener's girl at Harrington."
+
+Yes,--he would make another attempt. All history, all romance, all
+poetry and all prose, taught him that perseverance in love was
+generally crowned with success,--that true love rarely was crowned
+with success except by perseverance. Such a simple little tale of
+boy's passion as that told him by his cousin had no attraction for
+him. A wife would hardly be worth having, and worth keeping, so won.
+And all proverbs were on his side. "None but the brave deserve the
+fair," said his cousin. "I shall stick to it," said Tom Spooner.
+"Labor omnia vincit," said his cousin. But what should be his next
+step? Gerard Maule had been sent away with a flea in his ear,--so, at
+least, Mr. Spooner asserted, and expressed an undoubting opinion that
+this imperative dismissal had come from the fact that Gerard Maule,
+when "put through his facings" about income was not able to "show the
+money." "She's not one of your Polly Maxwells, Ned." Ned said that he
+supposed she was not one of that sort. "Heaven knows I couldn't show
+the money," said Ned, "but that didn't make her any wiser." Then Tom
+gave it as his opinion that Miss Palliser was one of those young
+women who won't go anywhere without having everything about them.
+"She could have her own carriage with me, and her own horses, and her
+own maid, and everything."
+
+"Her own way into the bargain," said Ned. Whereupon Tom Spooner
+winked, and suggested that that might be as things turned out after
+the marriage. He was quite willing to run his chance for that.
+
+But how was he to get at her to prosecute his suit? As to writing to
+her direct,--he didn't much believe in that. "It looks as though one
+were afraid of her, you know;--which I ain't the least. I stood up to
+her before, and I wasn't a bit more nervous than I am at this moment.
+Were you nervous in that affair with Miss Maxwell?"
+
+"Ah;--it's a long time ago. There wasn't much nervousness there."
+
+"A sort of milkmaid affair?"
+
+"Just that."
+
+"That is different, you know. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll just
+drive slap over to Harrington and chance it. I'll take the two bays
+in the phaeton. Who's afraid?"
+
+"There's nothing to be afraid of," said Ned.
+
+"Old Chiltern is such a d---- cantankerous fellow, and perhaps Lady
+C. may say that I oughtn't to have taken advantage of her absence.
+But, what's the odds? If she takes me there'll be an end of it. If
+she don't, they can't eat me."
+
+"The only thing is whether they'll let you in."
+
+"I'll try at any rate," said Tom, "and you shall go over with me.
+You won't mind trotting about the grounds while I'm carrying on the
+war inside? I'll take the two bays, and Dick Farren behind, and I
+don't think there's a prettier got-up trap in the county. We'll go
+to-morrow."
+
+And on the morrow they did start, having heard on that very morning
+of the arrest of Phineas Finn. "By George, don't it feel odd," said
+Tom just as they started,--"a fellow that we used to know down here,
+having him out hunting and all that, and now he's--a murderer! Isn't
+it a coincidence?"
+
+"It startles one," said Ned.
+
+"That's what I mean. It's such a strange thing that it should be the
+man we know ourselves. These things always are happening to me. Do
+you remember when poor Fred Fellows got his bad fall and died the
+next year? You weren't here then."
+
+"I've heard you speak of it."
+
+"I was in the very same field, and should have been the man to pick
+him up, only the hounds had just turned to the left. It's very odd
+that these coincidences always are happening to some men and never do
+happen to others. It makes one feel that he's marked out, you know."
+
+"I hope you'll be marked out by victory to-day."
+
+"Well;--yes. That's more important just now than Mr. Bonteen's
+murder. Do you know, I wish you'd drive. These horses are pulling,
+and I don't want to be all in a flurry when I get to Harrington."
+Now it was a fact very well known to all concerned with Spoon Hall,
+that there was nothing as to which the Squire was so jealous as
+the driving of his own horses. He would never trust the reins to a
+friend, and even Ned had hardly ever been allowed the honour of the
+whip when sitting with his cousin. "I'm apt to get red in the face
+when I'm overheated," said Tom as he made himself comfortable and
+easy in the left hand seat.
+
+There were not many more words spoken during the journey. The lover
+was probably justified in feeling some trepidation. He had been quite
+correct in suggesting that the matter between him and Miss Palliser
+bore no resemblance at all to that old affair between his cousin Ned
+and Polly Maxwell. There had been as little trepidation as money in
+that case,--simply love and kisses, parting, despair, and a broken
+heart. Here things were more august. There was plenty of money, and,
+let affairs go as they might, there would be no broken heart. But
+that perseverance in love of which Mr. Spooner intended to make
+himself so bright an example does require some courage. The Adelaide
+Pallisers of the world have a way of making themselves uncommonly
+unpleasant to a man when they refuse him for the third or fourth
+time. They allow themselves sometimes to express a contempt which is
+almost akin to disgust, and to speak to a lover as though he were no
+better than a footman. And then the lover is bound to bear it all,
+and when he has borne it, finds it so very difficult to get out of
+the room. Mr. Spooner had some idea of all this as his cousin drove
+him up to the door, at what he then thought a very fast pace. "D----
+it all," he said, "you needn't have brought them up so confoundedly
+hot." But it was not of the horses that he was really thinking, but
+of the colour of his own nose. There was something working within
+him which had flurried him, in spite of the tranquillity of his idle
+seat.
+
+Not the less did he spring out of the phaeton with a quite youthful
+jump. It was well that every one about Harrington Hall should know
+how alert he was on his legs; a little weather-beaten about the face
+he might be; but he could get in and out of his saddle as quickly
+as Gerard Maule even yet; and for a short distance would run Gerard
+Maule for a ten-pound note. He dashed briskly up to the door, and
+rang the bell as though he feared neither Adelaide nor Lord Chiltern
+any more than he did his own servants at Spoon Hall. "Was Miss
+Palliser at home?" The maid-servant who opened the door told him that
+Miss Palliser was at home, with a celerity which he certainly had
+not expected. The male members of the establishment were probably
+disporting themselves in the absence of their master and mistress,
+and Adelaide Palliser was thus left to the insufficient guardianship
+of young women who were altogether without discretion. "Yes, sir;
+Miss Palliser is at home." So said the indiscreet female, and Mr.
+Spooner was for the moment confounded by his own success. He had
+hardly told himself what reception he had expected, or whether, in
+the event of the servant informing him at the front door that the
+young lady was not at home he would make any further immediate effort
+to prolong the siege so as to force an entry; but now, when he had
+carried the very fortress by surprise, his heart almost misgave him.
+He certainly had not thought, when he descended from his chariot like
+a young Bacchus in quest of his Ariadne, that he should so soon be
+enabled to repeat the tale of his love. But there he was, confronted
+with Ariadne before he had had a moment to shake his godlike locks or
+arrange the divinity of his thoughts. "Mr. Spooner," said the maid,
+opening the door.
+
+"Oh dear!" exclaimed Ariadne, feeling the vainness of her wish to fly
+from the god. "You know, Mary, that Lady Chiltern is up in London."
+
+"But he didn't ask for Lady Chiltern, Miss." Then there was a pause,
+during which the maid-servant managed to shut the door and to escape.
+
+"Lord Chiltern is up in London," said Miss Palliser, rising from her
+chair, "and Lady Chiltern is with him. They will be at home, I think,
+to-morrow, but I am not quite sure." She looked at him rather as
+Diana might have looked at poor Orion than as any Ariadne at any
+Bacchus; and for a moment Mr. Spooner felt that the pale chillness of
+the moon was entering in upon his very heart and freezing the blood
+in his veins.
+
+"Miss Palliser--" he began.
+
+But Adelaide was for the moment an unmitigated Diana. "Mr. Spooner,"
+she said, "I cannot for an instant suppose that you wish to say
+anything to me."
+
+"But I do," said he, laying his hand upon his heart.
+
+"Then I must declare that--that--that you ought not to. And I hope
+you won't. Lady Chiltern is not in the house, and I think that--that
+you ought to go away. I do, indeed."
+
+But Mr. Spooner, though the interview had been commenced with
+unexpected and almost painful suddenness, was too much a man to be
+driven off by the first angry word. He remembered that this Diana was
+but mortal; and he remembered, too, that though he had entered in
+upon her privacy he had done so in a manner recognised by the world
+as lawful. There was no reason why he should allow himself to be
+congealed,--or even banished out of the grotto of the nymph,--without
+speaking a word on his own behalf. Were he to fly now, he must
+fly for ever; whereas, if he fought now,--fought well, even though
+not successfully at the moment,--he might fight again. While Miss
+Palliser was scowling at him he resolved upon fighting. "Miss
+Palliser," he said, "I did not come to see Lady Chiltern; I came to
+see you. And now that I have been happy enough to find you I hope you
+will listen to me for a minute. I shan't do you any harm."
+
+"I'm not afraid of any harm, but I cannot think that you have
+anything to say that can do anybody any good." She sat down, however,
+and so far yielded. "Of course I cannot make you go away, Mr.
+Spooner; but I should have thought, when I asked you--"
+
+Mr. Spooner also seated himself, and uttered a sigh. Making love to
+a sweet, soft, blushing, willing, though silent girl is a pleasant
+employment; but the task of declaring love to a stony-hearted,
+obdurate, ill-conditioned Diana is very disagreeable for any
+gentleman. And it is the more so when the gentleman really loves,--or
+thinks that he loves,--his Diana. Mr. Spooner did believe himself
+to be verily in love. Having sighed, he began: "Miss Palliser, this
+opportunity of declaring to you the state of my heart is too valuable
+to allow me to give it up without--without using it."
+
+"It can't be of any use."
+
+"Oh, Miss Palliser,--if you knew my feelings!"
+
+"But I know my own."
+
+"They may change, Miss Palliser."
+
+"No, they can't."
+
+"Don't say that, Miss Palliser."
+
+"But I do say it. I say it over and over again. I don't know what any
+gentleman can gain by persecuting a lady. You oughtn't to have been
+shown up here at all."
+
+Mr. Spooner knew well that women have been won even at the tenth time
+of asking, and this with him was only the third. "I think if you knew
+my heart--" he commenced.
+
+"I don't want to know your heart."
+
+"You might listen to a man, at any rate."
+
+"I don't want to listen. It can't do any good. I only want you to
+leave me alone, and go away."
+
+"I don't know what you take me for," said Mr. Spooner, beginning to
+wax angry.
+
+"I haven't taken you for anything at all. This is very disagreeable
+and very foolish. A lady has a right to know her own mind, and she
+has a right not to be persecuted." She would have referred to Lord
+Chiltern's letter had not all the hopes of her heart been so terribly
+crushed since that letter had been written. In it he had openly
+declared that she was already engaged to be married to Mr. Maule,
+thinking that he would thus put an end to Mr. Spooner's little
+adventure. But since the writing of Lord Chiltern's letter that
+unfortunate reference had been made to Boulogne, and every particle
+of her happiness had been destroyed. She was a miserable, blighted
+young woman, who had quarrelled irretrievably with her lover, feeling
+greatly angry with herself because she had made the quarrel, and yet
+conscious that her own self-respect had demanded the quarrel. She was
+full of regret, declaring to herself from morning to night that, in
+spite of all his manifest wickedness in having talked of Boulogne,
+she never could care at all for any other man. And now there was this
+aggravation to her misery,--this horrid suitor, who disgraced her by
+making those around her suppose it to be possible that she should
+ever accept him; who had probably heard of her quarrel, and had been
+mean enough to suppose that therefore there might be a chance for
+himself! She did despise him, and wanted him to understand that she
+despised him.
+
+"I believe I am in a condition to offer my hand and fortune to any
+young lady without impropriety," said Mr. Spooner.
+
+"I don't know anything about your condition."
+
+"But I will tell you everything."
+
+"I don't want to know anything about it."
+
+"I have an estate of--"
+
+"I don't want to know about your estate. I won't hear about your
+estate. It can be nothing to me."
+
+"It is generally considered to be a matter of some importance."
+
+"It is of no importance to me, at all, Mr. Spooner; and I won't hear
+anything about it. If all the parish belonged to you, it would not
+make any difference."
+
+"All the parish does belong to me, and nearly all the next," replied
+Mr. Spooner, with great dignity.
+
+"Then you'd better find some lady who would like to have two
+parishes. They haven't any weight with me at all." At that moment
+she told herself how much she would prefer even Bou--logne, to Mr.
+Spooner's two parishes.
+
+"What is it that you find so wrong about me?" asked the unhappy
+suitor.
+
+Adelaide looked at him, and longed to tell him that his nose was red.
+And, though she would not quite do that, she could not bring herself
+to spare him. What right had he to come to her,--a nasty, red-nosed
+old man, who knew nothing about anything but foxes and horses,--to
+her, who had never given him the encouragement of a single smile? She
+could not allude to his nose, but in regard to his other defects she
+would not spare him. "Our tastes are not the same, Mr. Spooner."
+
+"You are very fond of hunting."
+
+"And our ages are not the same."
+
+"I always thought that there should be a difference of age," said Mr.
+Spooner, becoming very red.
+
+"And,--and,--and,--it's altogether quite preposterous. I don't
+believe that you can really think it yourself."
+
+"But I do."
+
+"Then you must unthink it. And, indeed, Mr. Spooner, since you drive
+me to say so,--I consider it to be very unmanly of you, after what
+Lord Chiltern told you in his letter."
+
+"But I believe that is all over."
+
+Then her anger flashed up very high. "And if you do believe it, what
+a mean man you must be to come to me when you must know how miserable
+I am, and to think that I should be driven to accept you after losing
+him! You never could have been anything to me. If you wanted to get
+married at all, you should have done it before I was born." This
+was hard upon the man, as at that time he could not have been much
+more than twenty. "But you don't know anything of the difference in
+people if you think that any girl would look at you, after having
+been--loved by Mr. Maule. Now, as you do not seem inclined to go
+away, I shall leave you." So saying, she walked off with stately
+step, out of the room, leaving the door open behind her to facilitate
+her escape.
+
+She had certainly been very rude to him, and had treated him very
+badly. Of that he was sure. He had conferred upon her what is
+commonly called the highest compliment which a gentleman can pay
+to a lady, and she had insulted him;--had doubly insulted him. She
+had referred to his age, greatly exaggerating his misfortune in
+that respect; and she had compared him to that poor beggar Maule in
+language most offensive. When she left him, he put his hand beneath
+his waistcoat, and turned with an air almost majestic towards the
+window. But in an instant he remembered that there was nobody there
+to see how he bore his punishment, and he sank down into human
+nature. "Damnation!" he said, as he put his hands into his trousers
+pockets.
+
+Slowly he made his way down into the hall, and slowly he opened for
+himself the front door, and escaped from the house on to the gravel
+drive. There he found his cousin Ned still seated in the phaeton, and
+slowly driving round the circle in front of the hall door. The squire
+succeeded in gaining such command over his own gait and countenance
+that his cousin divined nothing of the truth as he clambered up into
+his seat. But he soon showed his temper. "What the devil have you got
+the reins in this way for?"
+
+"The reins are all right," said Ned.
+
+"No they ain't;--they're all wrong." And then he drove down the
+avenue to Spoon Hall as quickly as he could make the horses trot.
+
+"Did you see her?" said Ned, as soon as they were beyond the gates.
+
+"See your grandmother."
+
+"Do you mean to say that I'm not to ask?"
+
+"There's nothing I hate so much as a fellow that's always asking
+questions," said Tom Spooner. "There are some men so d----d
+thick-headed that they never know when they ought to hold their
+tongue."
+
+For a minute or two Ned bore the reproof in silence, and then he
+spoke. "If you are unhappy, Tom, I can bear a good deal; but don't
+overdo it,--unless you want me to leave you."
+
+"She's the d----t vixen that ever had a tongue in her head," said
+Tom Spooner, lifting his whip and striking the poor off-horse in his
+agony. Then Ned forgave him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIV.
+
+THE DUCHESS TAKES COUNSEL.
+
+
+Phineas Finn, when he had been thrice remanded before the Bow Street
+magistrate, and four times examined, was at last committed to be
+tried for the murder of Mr. Bonteen. This took place on Wednesday,
+May 19th, a fortnight after the murder. But during those fourteen
+days little was learned, or even surmised, by the police, in addition
+to the circumstances which had transpired at once. Indeed the delay,
+slight as it was, had arisen from a desire to find evidence that
+might affect Mr. Emilius, rather than with a view to strengthen that
+which did affect Phineas Finn. But no circumstance could be found
+tending in any way to add to the suspicion to which the converted Jew
+was made subject by his own character, and by the supposition that
+he would have been glad to get rid of Mr. Bonteen. He did not even
+attempt to run away,--for which attempt certain pseudo-facilities
+were put in his way by police ingenuity. But Mr. Emilius stood his
+ground and courted inquiry. Mr. Bonteen had been to him, he said, a
+very bitter, unjust, and cruel enemy. Mr. Bonteen had endeavoured to
+rob him of his dearest wife;--had charged him with bigamy;--had got
+up false evidence in the hope of ruining him. He had undoubtedly
+hated Mr. Bonteen, and might probably have said so. But, as it
+happened, through God's mercy, he was enabled to prove that he could
+not possibly have been at the scene of the murder when the murder was
+committed. During that hour of the night he had been in his own bed;
+and, had he been out, could not have re-entered the house without
+calling up the inmates. But, independently of his alibi, Mealyus was
+able to rely on the absolute absence of any evidence against him.
+No grey coat could be traced to his hands, even for an hour. His
+height was very much less than that attributed by Lord Fawn to the
+man whom he had seen hurrying to the spot. No weapon was found in his
+possession by which the deed could have been done. Inquiry was made
+as to the purchase of life-preservers, and the reverend gentleman was
+taken to half-a-dozen shops at which such instruments had lately been
+sold. But there had been a run upon life-preservers, in consequence
+of recommendations as to their use given by certain newspapers;--and
+it was found as impossible to trace one particular purchase as it
+would be that of a loaf of bread. At none of the half-dozen shops to
+which he was taken was Mr. Emilius remembered; and then all further
+inquiry in that direction was abandoned, and Mr. Emilius was set at
+liberty. "I forgive my persecutors from the bottom of my heart," he
+said,--"but God will requite it to them."
+
+In the meantime Phineas was taken to Newgate, and was there confined,
+almost with the glory and attendance of a State prisoner. This was no
+common murder, and no common murderer. Nor were they who interested
+themselves in the matter the ordinary rag, tag, and bobtail of the
+people,--the mere wives and children, or perhaps fathers and mothers,
+or brothers and sisters of the slayer or the slain. Dukes and Earls,
+Duchesses and Countesses, Members of the Cabinet, great statesmen,
+Judges, Bishops, and Queen's Counsellors, beautiful women, and
+women of highest fashion, seemed for a while to think of but little
+else than the fate of Mr. Bonteen and the fate of Phineas Finn.
+People became intimately acquainted with each other through similar
+sympathies in this matter, who had never before spoken to or seen
+each other. On the day after the full committal of the man, Mr. Low
+received a most courteous letter from the Duchess of Omnium, begging
+him to call in Carlton Terrace if his engagements would permit him
+to do so. The Duchess had heard that Mr. Low was devoting all his
+energies to the protection of Phineas Finn; and, as a certain friend
+of hers,--a lady,--was doing the same, she was anxious to bring them
+together. Indeed, she herself was equally prepared to devote her
+energies for the present to the same object. She had declared to
+all her friends,--especially to her husband and to the Duke of St.
+Bungay,--her absolute conviction of the innocence of the accused man,
+and had called upon them to defend him. "My dear," said the elder
+Duke, "I do not think that in my time any innocent man has ever lost
+his life upon the scaffold."
+
+"Is that a reason why our friend should be the first instance?" said
+the Duchess.
+
+"He must be tried according to the laws of his country," said the
+younger Duke.
+
+"Plantagenet, you always speak as if everything were perfect, whereas
+you know very well that everything is imperfect. If that man is--is
+hung, I--"
+
+"Glencora," said her husband, "do not connect yourself with the fate
+of a stranger from any misdirected enthusiasm."
+
+"I do connect myself. If that man be hung--I shall go into mourning
+for him. You had better look to it."
+
+Mr. Low obeyed the summons, and called on the Duchess. But, in truth,
+the invitation had been planned by Madame Goesler, who was present
+when the lawyer, about five o'clock in the afternoon, was shown into
+the presence of the Duchess. Tea was immediately ordered, and Mr. Low
+was almost embraced. He was introduced to Madame Goesler, of whom he
+did not before remember that he had heard the name, and was at once
+given to understand that the fate of Phineas was now in question. "We
+know so well," said the Duchess, "how true you are to him."
+
+"He is an old friend of mine," said the lawyer, "and I cannot believe
+him to have been guilty of a murder."
+
+"Guilty!--he is no more guilty than I am. We are as sure of that as
+we are of the sun. We know that he is innocent;--do we not, Madame
+Goesler? And we, too, are very dear friends of his;--that is, I am."
+
+"And so am I," said Madame Goesler, in a voice very low and sweet,
+but yet so energetic as to make Mr. Low almost rivet his attention
+upon her.
+
+"You must understand, Mr. Low, that Mr. Finn is a man horribly hated
+by certain enemies. That wretched Mr. Bonteen hated his very name.
+But there are other people who think very differently of him. He must
+be saved."
+
+"Indeed I hope he may," said Mr. Low.
+
+"We wanted to see you for ever so many reasons. Of course you
+understand that--that any sum of money can be spent that the case may
+want."
+
+"Nothing will be spared on that account certainly," said the lawyer.
+
+"But money will do a great many things. We would send all round
+the world if we could get evidence against that other man,--Lady
+Eustace's husband, you know."
+
+"Can any good be done by sending all round the world?"
+
+"He went back to his own home not long ago,--in Poland, I think,"
+said Madame Goesler. "Perhaps he got the instrument there, and
+brought it with him." Mr. Low shook his head. "Of course we are very
+ignorant;--but it would be a pity that everything should not be
+tried."
+
+"He might have got in and out of the window, you know," said the
+Duchess. Still Mr. Low shook his head. "I believe things can always
+be found out, if only you take trouble enough. And trouble means
+money;--does it not? We wouldn't mind how many thousand pounds it
+cost; would we, Marie?"
+
+"I fear that the spending of thousands can do no good," said Mr. Low.
+
+"But something must be done. You don't mean to say that Mr. Finn is
+to be hung because Lord Fawn says that he saw a man running along the
+street in a grey coat."
+
+"Certainly not."
+
+"There is nothing else against him;--nobody else saw him."
+
+"If there be nothing else against him he will be acquitted."
+
+"You think then," said Madame Goesler, "that there will be no use in
+tracing what the man Mealyus did when he was out of England. He might
+have bought a grey coat then, and have hidden it till this night,
+and then have thrown it away." Mr. Low listened to her with close
+attention, but again shook his head. "If it could be shown that the
+man had a grey coat at that time it would certainly weaken the effect
+of Mr. Finn's grey coat."
+
+"And if he bought a bludgeon there, it would weaken the effect of
+Mr. Finn's bludgeon. And if he bought rope to make a ladder it would
+show that he had got out. It was a dark night, you know, and nobody
+would have seen it. We have been talking it all over, Mr. Low, and we
+really think you ought to send somebody."
+
+"I will mention what you say to the gentlemen who are employed on Mr.
+Finn's defence."
+
+"But will not you be employed?" Then Mr. Low explained that the
+gentlemen to whom he referred were the attorneys who would get up the
+case on their friend's behalf, and that as he himself practised in
+the Courts of Equity only, he could not defend Mr. Finn on his trial.
+
+"He must have the very best men," said the Duchess.
+
+"He must have good men, certainly."
+
+"And a great many. Couldn't we get Sir Gregory Grogram?" Mr. Low
+shook his head. "I know very well that if you get men who are
+really,--really swells, for that is what it is, Mr. Low,--and pay
+them well enough, and so make it really an important thing, they
+can browbeat any judge and hoodwink any jury. I daresay it is very
+dreadful to say so, Mr. Low; but, nevertheless, I believe it, and as
+this man is certainly innocent it ought to be done. I daresay it's
+very shocking, but I do think that twenty thousand pounds spent among
+the lawyers would get him off."
+
+"I hope we can get him off without expending twenty thousand pounds,
+Duchess."
+
+"But you can have the money and welcome;--cannot he, Madame Goesler?"
+
+"He could have double that, if double were necessary."
+
+"I would fill the court with lawyers for him," continued the Duchess.
+"I would cross-examine the witnesses off their legs. I would rake
+up every wicked thing that horrid Jew has done since he was born.
+I would make witnesses speak. I would give a carriage and pair of
+horses to every one of the jurors' wives, if that would do any good.
+You may shake your head, Mr. Low; but I would. And I'd carry Lord
+Fawn off to the Antipodes, too;--and I shouldn't care if you left him
+there. I know that this man is innocent, and I'd do anything to save
+him. A woman, I know, can't do much;--but she has this privilege,
+that she can speak out what men only think. I'd give them two
+carriages and two pairs of horses a-piece if I could do it that way."
+
+Mr. Low did his best to explain to the Duchess that the desired
+object could hardly be effected after the fashion she proposed, and
+he endeavoured to persuade her that justice was sure to be done in
+an English court of law. "Then why are people so very anxious to get
+this lawyer or that to bamboozle the witnesses?" said the Duchess.
+Mr. Low declared it to be his opinion that the poorest man in England
+was not more likely to be hung for a murder he had not committed than
+the richest. "Then why would you, if you were accused, have ever so
+many lawyers to defend you?" Mr. Low went on to explain. "The more
+money you spend," said the Duchess, "the more fuss you make. And the
+longer a trial is about and the greater the interest, the more chance
+a man has to escape. If a man is tried for three days you always
+think he'll get off, but if it lasts ten minutes he is sure to be
+convicted and hung. I'd have Mr. Finn's trial made so long that they
+never could convict him. I'd tire out all the judges and juries in
+London. If you get lawyers enough they may speak for ever." Mr.
+Low endeavoured to explain that this might prejudice the prisoner.
+"And I'd examine every member of the House of Commons, and all the
+Cabinet, and all their wives. I'd ask them all what Mr. Bonteen
+had been saying. I'd do it in such a way as a trial was never done
+before;--and I'd take care that they should know what was coming."
+
+"And if he were convicted afterwards?"
+
+"I'd buy up the Home Secretary. It's very horrid to say so, of
+course, Mr. Low; and I dare say there is nothing wrong ever done in
+Chancery. But I know what Cabinet Ministers are. If they could get a
+majority by granting a pardon they'd do it quick enough."
+
+"You are speaking of a liberal Government, of course, Duchess."
+
+"There isn't twopence to choose between them in that respect. Just
+at this moment I believe Mr. Finn is the most popular member of the
+House of Commons; and I'd bring all that to bear. You can't but know
+that if everything of that kind is done it will have an effect. I
+believe you could make him so popular that the people would pull down
+the prison rather than have him hung;--so that a jury would not dare
+to say he was guilty."
+
+"Would that be justice, ladies?" asked the just man.
+
+"It would be success, Mr. Low,--which is a great deal the better
+thing of the two."
+
+"If Mr. Finn were found guilty, I could not in my heart believe that
+that would be justice," said Madame Goesler.
+
+Mr. Low did his best to make them understand that the plan of pulling
+down Newgate by the instrumentality of Phineas Finn's popularity,
+or of buying up the Home Secretary by threats of Parliamentary
+defection, would hardly answer their purpose. He would, he assured
+them, suggest to the attorneys employed the idea of searching for
+evidence against the man Mealyus in his own country, and would
+certainly take care that nothing was omitted from want of means. "You
+had better let us put a cheque in your hands," said the Duchess. But
+to this he would not assent. He did admit that it would be well to
+leave no stone unturned, and that the turning of such stones must
+cost money;--but the money, he said, would be forthcoming. "He's not
+a rich man himself," said the Duchess. Mr. Low assured her that if
+money were really wanting he would ask for it. "And now," said the
+Duchess, "there is one other thing that we want. Can we see him?"
+
+"You, yourself?"
+
+"Yes;--I myself, and Madame Goesler. You look as if it would be very
+wicked." Mr. Low thought that it would be wicked;--that the Duke
+would not like it; and that such a visit would occasion ill-natured
+remarks. "People do visit him, I suppose. He's not locked up like a
+criminal."
+
+"I visit him," said Mr. Low, "and one or two other friends have done
+so. Lord Chiltern has been with him, and Mr. Erle."
+
+"Has no lady seen him?" asked the Duchess.
+
+"Not to my knowledge."
+
+"Then it's time some lady should do so. I suppose we could be
+admitted. If we were his sisters they'd let us in."
+
+"You must excuse me, Duchess, but--"
+
+"Of course I will excuse you. But what?"
+
+"You are not his sisters."
+
+"If I were engaged to him, to be his wife?--" said Madame Goesler,
+standing up. "I am not so. There is nothing of that kind. You must
+not misunderstand me. But if I were?"
+
+"On that plea I presume you could be admitted."
+
+"Why not as a friend? Lord Chiltern is admitted as his friend."
+
+"Because of the prudery of a prison," said the Duchess. "All things
+are wrong to the lookers after wickedness, my dear. If it would
+comfort him to see us, why should he not have that comfort?"
+
+"Would you have gone to him in his own lodgings?" asked Mr. Low.
+
+"I would,--if he'd been ill," said Madame Goesler.
+
+"Madam," said Mr. Low, speaking with a gravity which for a moment had
+its effect even upon the Duchess of Omnium, "I think, at any rate,
+that if you visit Mr. Finn in prison, you should do so through the
+instrumentality of his Grace, your husband."
+
+"Of course you suspect me of all manner of evil."
+
+"I suspect nothing;--but I am sure that it should be so."
+
+"It shall be so," said the Duchess. "Thank you, sir. We are much
+obliged to you for your wise counsel."
+
+"I am obliged to you," said Madame Goesler, "because I know that you
+have his safety at heart."
+
+"And so am I," said the Duchess, relenting, and giving him her
+hand. "We are really ever so much obliged to you. You don't quite
+understand about the Duke; and how should you? I never do anything
+without telling him, but he hasn't time to attend to things."
+
+"I hope I have not offended you."
+
+"Oh dear, no. You can't offend me unless you mean it. Good-bye,--and
+remember to have a great many lawyers, and all with new wigs; and let
+them all get in a great rage that anybody should suppose it possible
+that Mr. Finn is a murderer. I'm sure I am. Good-bye, Mr. Low."
+
+"You'll never be able to get to him," said the Duchess, as soon as
+they were alone.
+
+"I suppose not."
+
+"And what good could you do? Of course I'd go with you if we could
+get in;--but what would be the use?"
+
+"To let him know that people do not think him guilty."
+
+"Mr. Low will tell him that. I suppose, too, we can write to him.
+Would you mind writing?"
+
+"I would rather go."
+
+"You might as well tell the truth when you are about it. You are
+breaking your heart for him."
+
+"If he were to be condemned, and--executed, I should break my heart.
+I could never appear bright before the world again."
+
+"That is just what I told Plantagenet. I said I would go into
+mourning."
+
+"And I should really mourn. And yet were he free to-morrow he would
+be no more to me than any other friend."
+
+"Do you mean you would not marry him?"
+
+"No;--I would not. Nor would he ask me. I will tell you what will be
+his lot in life,--if he escapes from the present danger."
+
+"Of course he will escape. They don't really hang innocent men."
+
+"Then he will become the husband of Lady Laura Kennedy."
+
+"Poor fellow! If I believed that, I should think it cruel to help him
+escape from Newgate."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LV.
+
+PHINEAS IN PRISON.
+
+
+Phineas Finn himself, during the fortnight in which he was carried
+backwards and forwards between his prison and the Bow Street
+Police-office, was able to maintain some outward show of manly
+dignity,--as though he felt that the terrible accusation and great
+material inconvenience to which he was subjected were only, and
+could only be, temporary in their nature, and that the truth would
+soon prevail. During this period he had friends constantly with
+him,--either Mr. Low, or Lord Chiltern, or Barrington Erle, or his
+landlord, Mr. Bunce, who, in these days, was very true to him. And he
+was very frequently visited by the attorney, Mr. Wickerby, who had
+been expressly recommended to him for this occasion. If anybody could
+be counted upon to see him through his difficulty it was Wickerby.
+But the company of Mr. Wickerby was not pleasant to him, because, as
+far as he could judge, Mr. Wickerby did not believe in his innocence.
+Mr. Wickerby was willing to do his best for him; was, so to speak,
+moving heaven and earth on his behalf; was fully conscious that this
+case was a great affair, and in no respect similar to those which
+were constantly placed in his hands; but there never fell from him a
+sympathetic expression of assurance of his client's absolute freedom
+from all taint of guilt in the matter. From day to day, and ten times
+a day, Phineas would express his indignant surprise that any one
+should think it possible that he had done this deed, but to all these
+expressions Mr. Wickerby would make no answer whatever. At last
+Phineas asked him the direct question. "I never suspect anybody of
+anything," said Mr. Wickerby. "Do you believe in my innocence?"
+demanded Phineas. "Everybody is entitled to be believed innocent till
+he has been proved to be guilty," said Mr. Wickerby. Then Phineas
+appealed to his friend Mr. Low, asking whether he might not be
+allowed to employ some lawyer whose feelings would be more in unison
+with his own. But Mr. Low adjured him to make no change. Mr. Wickerby
+understood the work and was a most zealous man. His client was
+entitled to his services, but to nothing more than his services. And
+so Mr. Wickerby carried on the work, fully believing that Phineas
+Finn had in truth murdered Mr. Bonteen.
+
+But the prisoner was not without sympathy and confidence. Mr. Low,
+Lord Chiltern, and Lady Chiltern, who, on one occasion, came to
+visit him with her husband, entertained no doubts prejudicial to his
+honour. They told him perhaps almost more than was quite true of the
+feelings of the world in his favour. He heard of the friendship and
+faith of the Duchess of Omnium, of Madame Goesler, and of Lady Laura
+Kennedy,--hearing also that Lady Laura was now a widow. And then at
+length his two sisters came over to him from Ireland, and wept and
+sobbed, and fell into hysterics in his presence. They were sure that
+he was innocent, as was every one, they said, throughout the length
+and breadth of Ireland. And Mrs. Bunce, who came to see Phineas in
+his prison, swore that she would tear the judge from his bench if he
+did not at once pronounce a verdict in favour of her darling without
+waiting for any nonsense of a jury. And Bunce, her husband, having
+convinced himself that his lodger had not committed the murder, was
+zealous in another way, taking delight in the case, and proving that
+no jury could find a verdict of guilty.
+
+During that week Phineas, buoyed up by the sympathy of his friends,
+and in some measure supported by the excitement of the occasion,
+carried himself well, and bore bravely the terrible misfortune to
+which he had been subjected by untoward circumstances. But when the
+magistrate fully committed him, giving the first public decision
+on the matter from the bench, declaring to the world at large that
+on the evidence as given, prima facie, he, Phineas Finn, must be
+regarded as the murderer of Mr. Bonteen, our hero's courage almost
+gave way. If such was now the judicial opinion of the magistrate,
+how could he expect a different verdict from a jury in two months'
+time, when he would be tried before a final court? As far as he could
+understand, nothing more could be learned on the matter. All the
+facts were known that could be known,--as far as he, or rather his
+friends on his behalf, were able to search for facts. It seemed to
+him that there was no tittle whatever of evidence against him. He had
+walked straight home from his club with the life-preserver in his
+pocket, and had never turned to the right or to the left. Till he
+found himself committed, he would not believe that any serious and
+prolonged impediment could be thrown in the way of his liberty. He
+would not believe that a man altogether innocent could be in danger
+of the gallows on a false accusation. It had seemed to him that the
+police had kept their hold on him with a rabid ferocity, straining
+every point with the view of showing that it was possible that he
+should have been the murderer. Every policeman who had been near him,
+carrying him backward and forward from his prison, or giving evidence
+as to the circumstances of the locality and of his walk home on that
+fatal night, had seemed to him to be an enemy. But he had looked for
+impartiality from the magistrate,--and now the magistrate had failed
+him. He had seen in court the faces of men well known to him,--men
+known in the world,--with whom he had been on pleasant terms in
+Parliament, who had sat upon the bench while he was standing as a
+culprit between two constables; and they who had been his familiar
+friends had appeared at once to have been removed from him by some
+unmeasurable distance. But all that he had, as it were, discounted,
+believing that a few hours,--at the very longest a few days,--would
+remove the distance; but now he was sent back to his prison, there to
+await his trial for the murder.
+
+And it seemed to him that his committal startled no one but himself.
+Could it be that even his dearest friends thought it possible that he
+had been guilty? When that day came, and he was taken back to Newgate
+on his last journey there from Bow Street, Lord Chiltern had returned
+for a while to Harrington Hall, having promised that he would be back
+in London as soon as his business would permit; but Mr. Low came to
+him almost immediately to his prison room. "This is a pleasant state
+of things," said Phineas, with a forced laugh. But as he laughed he
+also sobbed, with a low, irrepressible, convulsive movement in his
+throat.
+
+"Phineas, the time has come in which you must show yourself to be a
+man."
+
+"A man! Oh, yes, I can be a man. A murderer you mean. I shall have to
+be--hung, I suppose."
+
+"May God, in His mercy, forbid."
+
+"No;--not in His mercy; in His justice. There can be no need for
+mercy here,--not even from Heaven. When they take my life may He
+forgive my sins through the merits of my Saviour. But for this there
+can be no mercy. Why do you not speak? Do you mean to say that I am
+guilty?"
+
+"I am sure that you are innocent."
+
+"And yet, look here. What more can be done to prove it than has been
+done? That blundering fool will swear my life away." Then he threw
+himself on his bed, and gave way to his sobs.
+
+That evening he was alone,--as, indeed, most of his evenings had been
+spent, and the minutes were minutes of agony to him. The external
+circumstances of his position were as comfortable as circumstances
+would allow. He had a room to himself looking out through heavy iron
+bars into one of the courts of the prison. The chamber was carpeted,
+and was furnished with bed and chairs and two tables. Books were
+allowed him as he pleased, and pen and ink. It was May, and no fire
+was necessary. At certain periods of the day he could walk alone
+in the court below,--the restriction on such liberty being that at
+other certain hours the place was wanted for other prisoners. As far
+as he knew no friend who called was denied to him, though he was
+by no means certain that his privilege in that respect would not be
+curtailed now that he had been committed for trial. His food had been
+plentiful and well cooked, and even luxuries, such as fish and wine
+and fruit, had been supplied to him. That the fruit had come from
+the hot-houses of the Duchess of Omnium, and the wine from Mr. Low's
+cellar, and the fish and lamb and spring vegetables, the cream and
+coffee and fresh butter from the unrestricted orders of another
+friend, that Lord Chiltern had sent him champagne and cigars,
+and that Lady Chiltern had given directions about the books and
+stationery, he did not know. But as far as he could be consoled by
+such comforts, there had been the consolation. If lamb and salad
+could make him happy he might have enjoyed his sojourn in Newgate.
+Now, this evening, he was past all enjoyment. It was impossible that
+he should read. How could a man fix his attention on any book, with a
+charge of murder against himself affirmed by the deliberate decision
+of a judge? And he knew himself to be as innocent as the magistrate
+himself. Every now and then he would rise from his bed, and almost
+rush across the room as though he would dash his head against the
+wall. Murder! They really believed that he had deliberately murdered
+the man;--he, Phineas Finn, who had served his country with repute,
+who had sat in Parliament, who had prided himself on living with the
+best of his fellow-creatures, who had been the friend of Mr. Monk and
+of Lord Cantrip, the trusted intimate of such women as Lady Laura
+and Lady Chiltern, who had never put his hand to a mean action, or
+allowed his tongue to speak a mean word! He laughed in his wrath,
+and then almost howled in his agony. He thought of the young loving
+wife who had lived with him little more than for one fleeting year,
+and wondered whether she was looking down upon him from Heaven, and
+how her spirit would bear this accusation against the man upon whose
+bosom she had slept, and in whose arms she had gone to her long rest.
+"They can't believe it," he said aloud. "It is impossible. Why should
+I have murdered him?" And then he remembered an example in Latin
+from some rule of grammar, and repeated it to himself over and over
+again.--"No one at an instant,--of a sudden,--becomes most base." It
+seemed to him that there was such a want of knowledge of human nature
+in the supposition that it was possible that he should have committed
+such a crime. And yet--there he was, committed to take his trial for
+the murder of Mr. Bonteen.
+
+The days were long, and it was daylight till nearly nine. Indeed the
+twilight lingered, even through those iron bars, till after nine. He
+had once asked for candles, but had been told that they could not be
+allowed him without an attendant in the room,--and he had dispensed
+with them. He had been treated doubtless with great respect, but
+nevertheless he had been treated as a prisoner. They hardly denied
+him anything that he asked, but when he asked for that which they did
+not choose to grant they would annex conditions which induced him to
+withdraw his request. He understood their ways now, and did not rebel
+against them.
+
+On a sudden he heard the key in the door, and the man who attended
+him entered the room with a candle in his hand. A lady had come to
+call, and the governor had given permission for her entrance. He
+would return for the light,--and for the lady, in half an hour. He
+had said all this before Phineas could see who the lady was. And when
+he did see the form of her who followed the gaoler, and who stood
+with hesitating steps behind him in the doorway, he knew her by her
+sombre solemn raiment, and not by her countenance. She was dressed
+from head to foot in the deepest weeds of widowhood, and a heavy veil
+fell from her bonnet over her face. "Lady Laura, is it you?" said
+Phineas, putting out his hand. Of course it was Lady Laura. While the
+Duchess of Omnium and Madame Goesler were talking about such a visit,
+allowing themselves to be deterred by the wisdom of Mr. Low, she had
+made her way through bolts and bars, and was now with him in his
+prison.
+
+
+[Illustration: Of course it was Lady Laura.]
+
+
+"Oh, Phineas!" She slowly raised her veil, and stood gazing at him.
+"Of all my troubles this,--to see you here,--is the heaviest."
+
+"And of all my consolations to see you here is the greatest." He
+should not have so spoken. Could he have thought of things as they
+were, and have restrained himself, he should not have uttered words
+to her which were pleasant but not true. There came a gleam of
+sunshine across her face as she listened to him, and then she threw
+herself into his arms, and wept upon his shoulder. "I did not expect
+that you would have found me," he said.
+
+She took the chair opposite to that on which he usually sat, and
+then began her tale. Her cousin, Barrington Erle, had brought her
+there, and was below, waiting for her in the Governor's house. He
+had procured an order for her admission that evening, direct from Sir
+Harry Coldfoot, the Home Secretary,--which, however, as she admitted,
+had been given under the idea that she and Erle were to see him
+together. "But I would not let him come with me," she said. "I could
+not have spoken to you, had he been here;--could I?"
+
+"It would not have been the same, Lady Laura." He had thought much of
+his mode of addressing her on occasions before this, at Dresden and
+at Portman Square, and had determined that he would always give her
+her title. Once or twice he had lacked the courage to be so hard to
+her. Now as she heard the name the gleam of sunshine passed from her
+altogether. "We hardly expected that we should ever meet in such a
+place as this?" he said.
+
+"I cannot understand it. They cannot really think you killed him." He
+smiled, and shook his head. Then she spoke of her own condition. "You
+have heard what has happened? You know that I am--a widow?"
+
+"Yes;--I had heard." And then he smiled again. "You will have
+understood why I could not come to you,--as I should have done but
+for this little accident."
+
+"He died on the day that they arrested you. Was it not strange that
+such a double blow should fall together? Oswald, no doubt, told you
+all."
+
+"He told me of your husband's death."
+
+"But not of his will? Perhaps he has not seen you since he heard it."
+Lord Chiltern had heard of the will before his last visit to Phineas
+in Newgate, but had not chosen then to speak of his sister's wealth.
+
+"I have heard nothing of Mr. Kennedy's will."
+
+"It was made immediately after our marriage,--and he never changed
+it, though he had so much cause of anger against me."
+
+"He has not injured you, then,--as regards money."
+
+"Injured me! No, indeed. I am a rich woman,--very rich. All
+Loughlinter is my own,--for life. But of what use can it be to
+me?" He in his present state could tell her of no uses for such a
+property. "I suppose, Phineas, it cannot be that you are really in
+danger?"
+
+"In the greatest danger, I fancy."
+
+"Do you mean that they will say--you are guilty?"
+
+"The magistrates have said so already."
+
+"But surely that is nothing. If I thought so, I should die. If I
+believed it, they should never take me out of the prison while you
+are here. Barrington says that it cannot be. Oswald and Violet are
+sure that such a thing can never happen. It was that Jew who did it."
+
+"I cannot say who did it. I did not."
+
+"You! Oh, Phineas! The world must be mad when any can believe it!"
+
+"But they do believe it?" This, he said, meaning to ask a question as
+to that outside world.
+
+"We do not. Barrington says--"
+
+"What does Barrington say?"
+
+"That there are some who do;--just a few, who were Mr. Bonteen's
+special friends."
+
+"The police believe it. That is what I cannot understand;--men who
+ought to be keen-eyed and quick-witted. That magistrate believes it.
+I saw men in the Court who used to know me well, and I could see that
+they believed it. Mr. Monk was here yesterday."
+
+"Does he believe it?"
+
+"I asked him, and he told me--no. But I did not quite trust him as he
+told me. There are two or three who believe me innocent."
+
+"Who are they?"
+
+"Low, and Chiltern, and his wife;--and that man Bunce, and his wife.
+If I escape from this,--if they do not hang me,--I will remember
+them. And there are two other women who know me well enough not to
+think me a murderer."
+
+"Who are they, Phineas?"
+
+"Madame Goesler, and the Duchess of Omnium."
+
+"Have they been here?" she asked, with jealous eagerness.
+
+"Oh, no. But I hear that it is so,--and I know it. One learns to feel
+even from hearsay what is in the minds of people."
+
+"And what do I believe, Phineas? Can you read my thoughts?"
+
+"I know them of old, without reading them now." Then he put forth his
+hand and took hers. "Had I murdered him in real truth, you would not
+have believed it."
+
+"Because I love you, Phineas."
+
+Then the key was again heard in the door, and Barrington Erle
+appeared with the gaolers. The time was up, he said, and he had come
+to redeem his promise. He spoke cordially to his old friend, and
+grasped the prisoner's hand cordially,--but not the less did he
+believe that there was blood on it, and Phineas knew that such was
+his belief. It appeared on his arrival that Lady Laura had not at
+all accomplished the chief object of her visit. She had brought
+with her various cheques, all drawn by Barrington Erle on his
+banker,--amounting altogether to many hundreds of pounds,--which
+it was intended that Phineas should use from time to time for the
+necessities of his trial. Barrington Erle explained that the money
+was in fact to be a loan from Lady Laura's father, and was simply
+passed through his banker's account. But Phineas knew that the loan
+must come from Lady Laura, and he positively refused to touch it.
+His friend, Mr. Low, was managing all that for him, and he would not
+embarrass the matter by a fresh account. He was very obstinate, and
+at last the cheques were taken away in Barrington Erle's pocket.
+
+"Good-night, old fellow," said Erle, affectionately. "I'll see you
+again before long. May God send you through it all."
+
+"Good-night, Barrington. It was kind of you to come to me." Then Lady
+Laura, watching to see whether her cousin would leave her alone for
+a moment with the object of her idolatry, paused before she gave him
+her hand. "Good-night, Lady Laura," he said.
+
+"Good-night!" Barrington Erle was now just outside the door.
+
+"I shall not forget your coming here to me."
+
+"How should we, either of us, forget it?"
+
+"Come, Laura," said Barrington Erle, "we had better make an end of
+it."
+
+"But if I should never see him again!"
+
+"Of course you will see him again."
+
+"When! and where! Oh, God,--if they should murder him!" Then she
+threw herself into his arms, and covered him with kisses, though her
+cousin had returned into the room and stood over her as she embraced
+him.
+
+"Laura," said he, "you are doing him an injury. How should he support
+himself if you behave like this! Come away."
+
+"Oh, my God, if they should kill him!" she exclaimed. But she allowed
+her cousin to take her in his arms, and Phineas Finn was left alone
+without having spoken another word to either of them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVI.
+
+THE MEAGER FAMILY.
+
+
+On the day after the committal a lady, who had got out of a cab at
+the corner of Northumberland Street, in the Marylebone Road, walked
+up that very uninviting street, and knocked at a door just opposite
+to the deadest part of the dead wall of the Marylebone Workhouse.
+Here lived Mrs. and Miss Meager,--and also on occasions Mr. Meager,
+who, however, was simply a trouble and annoyance in the world,
+going about to race-courses, and occasionally, perhaps, to worse
+places, and being of no slightest use to the two poor hard-worked
+women,--mother and daughter,--who endeavoured to get their living by
+letting lodgings. The task was difficult, for it is not everybody who
+likes to look out upon the dead wall of a workhouse, and they who
+do are disposed to think that their willingness that way should be
+considered in the rent. But Mr. Emilius, when the cruelty of his
+wife's friends deprived him of the short-lived luxury of his mansion
+in Lowndes Square, had found in Northumberland Street a congenial
+retreat, and had for a while trusted to Mrs. and Miss Meager for
+all his domestic comforts. Mr. Emilius was always a favourite with
+new friends, and had not as yet had his Northumberland Street gloss
+rubbed altogether off him when Mr. Bonteen was murdered. As it
+happened, on that night,--or rather early in the day, for Meager
+had returned to the bosom of his family after a somewhat prolonged
+absence in the provinces, and therefore the date had become specially
+remarkable in the Meager family from the double event,--Mr. Meager
+had declared that unless his wife could supply him with a five-pound
+note he must cut his throat instantly. His wife and daughter had
+regretted the necessity, but had declared the alternative to be out
+of the question. Whereupon Mr. Meager had endeavoured to force the
+lock of an old bureau with a carving-knife, and there had been some
+slight personal encounter,--after which he had had some gin and had
+gone to bed. Mrs. Meager remembered the day very well indeed, and
+Miss Meager, when the police came the next morning, had accounted
+for her black eye by a tragical account of a fall she had had
+against the bed-post in the dark. Up to that period Mr. Emilius had
+been everything that was sweet and good,--an excellent, eloquent
+clergyman, who was being ill-treated by his wife's wealthy relations,
+who was soft in his manners and civil in his words, and never gave
+more trouble than was necessary. The period, too, would have been
+one of comparative prosperity to the Meager ladies,--but for that
+inopportune return of the head of the family,--as two other lodgers
+had been inclined to look out upon the dead wall, or else into the
+cheerful back-yard; which circumstance came to have some bearing
+upon our story, as Mrs. Meager had been driven by the press of her
+increased household to let that good-natured Mr. Emilius know that
+if "he didn't mind it" the latch-key might be an accommodation on
+occasions. To give him his due, indeed, he had, when first taking the
+rooms, offered to give up the key when not intending to be out at
+night.
+
+After the murder Mr. Emilius had been arrested, and had been kept in
+durance for a week. Miss Meager had been sure that he was innocent;
+Mrs. Meager had trusted the policemen, who evidently thought that
+the clergyman was guilty. Of the policemen who were concerned on the
+occasion, it may be said in a general way that they believed that
+both the gentlemen had committed the murder,--so anxious were they
+not to be foiled in the attempts at discovery which their duty called
+upon them to make. Mr. Meager had left the house on the morning of
+the arrest, having arranged that little matter of the five-pound
+note by a compromise. When the policeman came for Mr. Emilius, Mr.
+Meager was gone. For a day or two the lodger's rooms were kept vacant
+for the clergyman till Mrs. Meager became quite convinced that he
+had committed the murder, and then all his things were packed up
+and placed in the passage. When he was liberated he returned to the
+house, and expressed unbounded anger at what had been done. He took
+his two boxes away in a cab, and was seen no more by the ladies of
+Northumberland Street.
+
+But a further gleam of prosperity fell upon them in consequence of
+the tragedy which had been so interesting to them. Hitherto the
+inquiries made at their house had had reference solely to the habits
+and doings of their lodger during the last few days; but now there
+came to them a visitor who made a more extended investigation; and
+this was one of their own sex. It was Madame Goesler who got out
+of the cab at the workhouse corner, and walked from thence to Mrs.
+Meager's house. This was her third appearance in Northumberland
+Street, and at each coming she had spoken kind words, and had left
+behind her liberal recompense for the trouble which she gave. She
+had no scruples as to paying for the evidence which she desired to
+obtain,--no fear of any questions which might afterwards be asked
+in cross-examination. She dealt out sovereigns--womanfully, and had
+had Mrs. and Miss Meager at her feet. Before the second visit was
+completed they were both certain that the Bohemian converted Jew had
+murdered Mr. Bonteen, and were quite willing to assist in hanging
+him.
+
+"Yes, Ma'am," said Mrs. Meager, "he did take the key with him. Amelia
+remembers we were a key short at the time he was away." The absence
+here alluded to was that occasioned by the journey which Mr. Emilius
+took to Prague, when he heard that evidence of his former marriage
+was being sought against him in his own country.
+
+"That he did," said Amelia, "because we were put out ever so. And he
+had no business, for he was not paying for the room."
+
+"You have only one key."
+
+"There is three, Ma'am. The front attic has one regular because he's
+on a daily paper, and of course he doesn't get to bed till morning.
+Meager always takes another, and we can't get it from him ever so."
+
+"And Mr. Emilius took the other away with him?" asked Madame Goesler.
+
+"That he did, Ma'am. When he came back he said it had been in a
+drawer,--but it wasn't in the drawer. We always knows what's in the
+drawers."
+
+"The drawer wasn't left locked, then?"
+
+"Yes, it was, Ma'am, and he took that key--unbeknownst to us," said
+Mrs. Meager. "But there is other keys that open the drawers. We are
+obliged in our line to know about the lodgers, Ma'am."
+
+This was certainly no time for Madame Goesler to express
+disapprobation of the practices which were thus divulged. She smiled,
+and nodded her head, and was quite sympathetic with Mrs. Meager. She
+had learned that Mr. Emilius had taken the latch-key with him to
+Bohemia, and was convinced that a dozen other latch-keys might have
+been made after the pattern without any apparent detection by the
+London police. "And now about the coat, Mrs. Meager."
+
+"Well, Ma'am?"
+
+"Mr. Meager has not been here since?"
+
+"No, Ma'am. Mr. Meager, Ma'am, isn't what he ought to be. I never do
+own it up, only when I'm driven. He hasn't been home."
+
+"I suppose he still has the coat."
+
+"Well, Ma'am, no. We sent a young man after him, as you said, and the
+young man found him at the Newmarket Spring."
+
+"Some water cure?" asked Madame Goesler.
+
+"No, Ma'am. It ain't a water cure, but the races. He hadn't got the
+coat. He does always manage a tidy great coat when November is coming
+on, because it covers everything, and is respectable, but he mostly
+parts with it in April. He gets short, and then he--just pawns it."
+
+"But he had it the night of the murder?"
+
+"Yes, Ma'am, he had. Amelia and I remembered it especial. When we
+went to bed, which we did soon after ten, it was left in this room,
+lying there on the sofa." They were now sitting in the little back
+parlour, in which Mrs. and Miss Meager were accustomed to live.
+
+"And it was there in the morning?"
+
+"Father had it on when he went out," said Amelia.
+
+"If we paid him he would get it out of the pawnshop, and bring it to
+us, would he not?" asked the lady.
+
+To this Mrs. Meager suggested that it was quite on the cards that Mr.
+Meager might have been able to do better with his coat by selling it,
+and if so, it certainly would have been sold, as no prudent idea of
+redeeming his garment for the next winter's wear would ever enter his
+mind. And Mrs. Meager seemed to think that such a sale would not have
+taken place between her husband and any old friend. "He wouldn't know
+where he sold it," said Mrs. Meager.
+
+"Anyways he'd tell us so," said Amelia.
+
+"But if we paid him to be more accurate?" said Madame Goesler.
+
+"They is so afraid of being took up themselves," said Mrs. Meager.
+There was, however, ample evidence that Mr. Meager had possessed a
+grey great coat, which during the night of the murder had been left
+in the little sitting-room, and which they had supposed to have lain
+there all night. To this coat Mr. Emilius might have had easy access.
+"But then it was a big man that was seen, and Emilius isn't no ways a
+big man. Meager's coat would be too long for him, ever so much."
+
+"Nevertheless we must try and get the coat," said Madame Goesler.
+"I'll speak to a friend about it. I suppose we can find your husband
+when we want him?"
+
+"I don't know, Ma'am. We never can find him; but then we never do
+want him,--not now. The police know him at the races, no doubt. You
+won't go and get him into trouble, Ma'am, worse than he is? He's
+always been in trouble, but I wouldn't like to be means of making it
+worse on him than it is."
+
+Madame Goesler, as she again paid the woman for her services, assured
+her that she would do no injury to Mr. Meager. All that she wanted of
+Mr. Meager was his grey coat, and that not with any view that could
+be detrimental either to his honour or to his safety, and she was
+willing to pay any reasonable price,--or almost any unreasonable
+price,--for the coat. But the coat must be made to be forthcoming if
+it were still in existence, and had not been as yet torn to pieces by
+the shoddy makers.
+
+"It ain't near come to that yet," said Amelia. "I don't know that
+I ever see father more respectable,--that is, in the way of a great
+coat."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVII.
+
+THE BEGINNING OF THE SEARCH FOR THE KEY AND THE COAT.
+
+
+When Madame Goesler revealed her plans and ideas to Mr. Wickerby,
+the attorney, who had been employed to bring Phineas Finn through
+his troubles, that gentleman evidently did not think much of the
+unprofessional assistance which the lady proposed to give him. "I'm
+afraid it is far-fetched, Ma'am,--if you understand what I mean,"
+said Mr. Wickerby. Madame Goesler declared that she understood very
+well what Mr. Wickerby meant, but that she could hardly agree with
+him. "According to that the gentleman must have plotted the murder
+more than a month before he committed it," said Mr. Wickerby.
+
+"And why not?"
+
+"Murder plots are generally the work of a few hours at the
+longest, Madame Goesler. Anger, combined with an indifference to
+self-sacrifice, does not endure the wear of many days. And the object
+here was insufficient. I don't think we can ask to have the trial put
+off in order to find out whether a false key may have been made in
+Prague."
+
+"And you will not look for the coat?"
+
+"We can look for it, and probably get it, if the woman has not lied
+to you; but I don't think it will do us any good. The woman probably
+is lying. You have been paying her very liberally, so that she has
+been making an excellent livelihood out of the murder. No jury would
+believe her. And a grey coat is a very common thing. After all, it
+would prove nothing. It would only let the jury know that Mr. Meager
+had a grey coat as well as Mr. Finn. That Mr. Finn wore a grey coat
+on that night is a fact which we can't upset. If you got hold of
+Meager's coat you wouldn't be a bit nearer to proof that Emilius had
+worn it."
+
+"There would be the fact that he might have worn it."
+
+"Madame Goesler, indeed it would not help our client. You see what
+are the difficulties in our way. Mr. Finn was on the spot at the
+moment, or so near it as to make it certainly possible that he might
+have been there. There is no such evidence as to Emilius, even if he
+could be shown to have had a latch-key. The man was killed by such an
+instrument as Mr. Finn had about him. There is no evidence that Mr.
+Emilius had such an instrument in his hand. A tall man in a grey coat
+was seen hurrying to the spot at the exact hour. Mr. Finn is a tall
+man and wore a grey coat at the time. Emilius is not a tall man, and,
+even though Meager had a grey coat, there is no evidence to show
+that Emilius ever wore it. Mr. Finn had quarrelled violently with
+Mr. Bonteen within the hour. It does not appear that Emilius ever
+quarrelled with Mr. Bonteen, though Mr. Bonteen had exerted himself
+in opposition to Emilius."
+
+"Is there to be no defence, then?"
+
+"Certainly there will be a defence, and such a defence as I think
+will prevent any jury from being unanimous in convicting my client.
+Though there is a great deal of evidence against him, it is all--what
+we call circumstantial."
+
+"I understand, Mr. Wickerby."
+
+"Nobody saw him commit the murder."
+
+"Indeed no," said Madame Goesler.
+
+"Although there is personal similarity, there is no personal
+identity. There is no positive proof of anything illegal on his
+part, or of anything that would have been suspicious had no murder
+been committed,--such as the purchase of poison, or carrying
+of a revolver. The life-preserver, had no such instrument been
+unfortunately used, might have been regarded as a thing of custom."
+
+"But I am sure that that Bohemian did murder Mr. Bonteen," said
+Madame Goesler, with enthusiasm.
+
+"Madame," said Mr. Wickerby, holding up both his hands, "I can only
+wish that you could be upon the jury."
+
+"And you won't try to show that the other man might have done it?"
+
+"I think not. Next to an alibi that breaks down;--you know what an
+alibi is, Madame Goesler?"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Wickerby; I know what an alibi is."
+
+"Next to an alibi that breaks down, an unsuccessful attempt to affix
+the fault on another party is the most fatal blow which a prisoner's
+counsel can inflict upon him. It is always taken by the jury as so
+much evidence against him. We must depend altogether on a different
+line of defence."
+
+"What line, Mr. Wickerby?"
+
+"Juries are always unwilling to hang,"--Madame Goesler shuddered
+as the horrid word was broadly pronounced,--"and are apt to think
+that simply circumstantial evidence cannot be suffered to demand
+so disagreeable a duty. They are peculiarly averse to hanging a
+gentleman, and will hardly be induced to hang a member of Parliament.
+Then Mr. Finn is very good-looking, and has been popular,--which
+is all in his favour. And we shall have such evidence on the score
+of character as was never before brought into one of our courts.
+We shall have half the Cabinet. There will be two dukes." Madame
+Goesler, as she listened to the admiring enthusiasm of the attorney
+while he went on with his list, acknowledged to herself that her
+dear friend, the Duchess, had not been idle. "There will be three
+Secretaries of State. The Secretary of State for the Home Department
+himself will be examined. I am not quite sure that we mayn't get the
+Lord Chancellor. There will be Mr. Monk,--about the most popular man
+in England,--who will speak of the prisoner as his particular friend.
+I don't think any jury would hang a particular friend of Mr. Monk's.
+And there will be ever so many ladies. That has never been done
+before, but we mean to try it." Madame Goesler had heard all this,
+and had herself assisted in the work. "I rather think we shall get
+four or five leading members of the Opposition, for they all disliked
+Mr. Bonteen. If we could manage Mr. Daubeny and Mr. Gresham, I think
+we might reckon ourselves quite safe. I forgot to say that the Bishop
+of Barchester has promised."
+
+"All that won't prove his innocence, Mr. Wickerby." Mr. Wickerby
+shrugged his shoulders. "If he be acquitted after that fashion men
+then will say--that he was guilty."
+
+"We must think of his life first, Madame Goesler," said the attorney.
+
+Madame Goesler when she left the attorney's room was very
+ill-satisfied with him. She desired some adherent to her cause who
+would with affectionate zeal resolve upon washing Phineas Finn white
+as snow in reference to the charge now made against him. But no man
+would so resolve who did not believe in his innocence,--as Madame
+Goesler believed herself. She herself knew that her own belief was
+romantic and unpractical. Nevertheless, the conviction of the guilt
+of that other man, towards which she still thought that much could
+be done if that coat were found and the making of a secret key were
+proved, was so strong upon her that she would not allow herself
+to drop it. It would not be sufficient for her that Phineas Finn
+should be acquitted. She desired that the real murderer should be
+hung for the murder, so that all the world might be sure,--as she
+was sure,--that her hero had been wrongfully accused.
+
+"Do you mean that you are going to start yourself?" the Duchess said
+to her that same afternoon.
+
+"Yes, I am."
+
+"Then you must be very far gone in love, indeed."
+
+"You would do as much, Duchess, if you were free as I am. It isn't a
+matter of love at all. It's womanly enthusiasm for the cause one has
+taken up."
+
+"I'm quite as enthusiastic,--only I shouldn't like to go to Prague in
+June."
+
+"I'd go to Siberia in January if I could find out that that horrid
+man really committed the murder."
+
+"Who are going with you?"
+
+"We shall be quite a company. We have got a detective policeman, and
+an interpreter who understands Czech and German to go about with the
+policeman, and a lawyer's clerk, and there will be my own maid."
+
+"Everybody will know all about it before you get there."
+
+"We are not to go quite together. The policeman and the interpreter
+are to form one party, and I and my maid another. The poor clerk is
+to be alone. If they get the coat, of course you'll telegraph to me."
+
+"Who is to have the coat?"
+
+"I suppose they'll take it to Mr. Wickerby. He says he doesn't want
+it,--that it would do no good. But I think that if we could show that
+the man might very easily have been out of the house,--that he had
+certainly provided himself with means of getting out of the house
+secretly,--the coat would be of service. I am going at any rate; and
+shall be in Paris to-morrow morning."
+
+"I think it very grand of you, my dear; and for your sake I hope
+he may live to be Prime Minister. Perhaps, after all, he may give
+Plantagenet his 'Garter.'"
+
+When the old Duke died, a Garter became vacant, and had of course
+fallen to the gift of Mr. Gresham. The Duchess had expected that
+it would be continued in the family, as had been the Lieutenancy
+of Barsetshire, which also had been held by the old Duke. But the
+Garter had been given to Lord Cantrip, and the Duchess was sore. With
+all her Radical propensities and inclination to laugh at dukes and
+marquises, she thought very much of Garters and Lieutenancies;--but
+her husband would not think of them at all, and hence there were
+words between them. The Duchess had declared that the Duke should
+insist on having the Garter. "These are things that men do not ask
+for," the Duke had said.
+
+"Don't tell me, Plantagenet, about not asking. Everybody asks for
+everything nowadays."
+
+"Your everybody is not correct, Glencora. I never yet asked for
+anything,--and never shall. No honour has any value in my eyes unless
+it comes unasked." Thereupon it was that the Duchess now suggested
+that Phineas Finn, when Prime Minister, might perhaps bestow a Garter
+upon her husband.
+
+And so Madame Goesler started for Prague with the determination
+of being back, if possible, before the trial began. It was to be
+commenced at the Old Bailey towards the end of June, and people
+already began to foretell that it would extend over a very long
+period. The circumstances seemed to be simple; but they who
+understood such matters declared that the duration of a trial
+depended a great deal more on the public interest felt in the matter
+than upon its own nature. Now it was already perceived that no
+trial of modern days had ever been so interesting as would be this
+trial. It was already known that the Attorney-General, Sir Gregory
+Grogram, was to lead the case for the prosecution, and that the
+Solicitor-General, Sir Simon Slope, was to act with him. It had been
+thought to be due to the memory and character of Mr. Bonteen, who
+when he was murdered had held the office of President of the Board of
+Trade, and who had very nearly been Chancellor of the Exchequer, that
+so unusual a task should be imposed on these two high legal officers
+of the Government. No doubt there would be a crowd of juniors with
+them, but it was understood that Sir Gregory Grogram would himself
+take the burden of the task upon his own shoulders. It was declared
+everywhere that Sir Gregory did believe Phineas Finn to be guilty,
+but it was also declared that Sir Simon Slope was convinced he was
+innocent. The defence was to be entrusted to the well-practised
+but now aged hands of that most experienced practitioner Mr.
+Chaffanbrass, than whom no barrister living or dead ever rescued more
+culprits from the fangs of the law. With Mr. Chaffanbrass, who quite
+late in life had consented to take a silk gown, was to be associated
+Mr. Serjeant Birdbolt,--who was said to be employed in order that the
+case might be in safe hands should the strength of Mr. Chaffanbrass
+fail him at the last moment; and Mr. Snow, who was supposed to handle
+a witness more judiciously than any of the rising men, and that
+subtle, courageous, eloquent, and painstaking youth, Mr. Golightly,
+who now, with no more than ten or fifteen years' practice, was
+already known to be earning his bread and supporting a wife and
+family.
+
+But the glory of this trial would not depend chiefly on the array of
+counsel, nor on the fact that the Lord Chief Justice himself would be
+the judge, so much as on the social position of the murdered man and
+of the murderer. Noble lords and great statesmen would throng the
+bench of the court to see Phineas Finn tried, and all the world who
+could find an entrance would do the same to see the great statesmen
+and the noble lords. The importance of such an affair increases
+like a snowball as it is rolled on. Many people talk much, and then
+very many people talk very much more. The under-sheriffs of the
+City, praiseworthy gentlemen not hitherto widely known to fame,
+became suddenly conspicuous and popular, as being the dispensers of
+admissions to seats in the court. It had been already admitted by
+judges and counsel that sundry other cases must be postponed, because
+it was known that the Bonteen murder would occupy at least a week. It
+was supposed that Mr. Chaffanbrass would consume a whole day at the
+beginning of the trial in getting a jury to his mind,--a matter on
+which he was known to be very particular,--and another whole day at
+the end of the trial in submitting to the jury the particulars of all
+the great cases on record in which circumstantial evidence was known
+to have led to improper verdicts. It was therefore understood that
+the last week in June would be devoted to the trial, to the exclusion
+of all other matters of interest. When Mr. Gresham, hard pressed by
+Mr. Turnbull for a convenient day, offered that gentleman Thursday,
+the 24th of June, for suggesting to the House a little proposition
+of his own with reference to the English Church establishment, Mr.
+Turnbull openly repudiated the offer, because on that day the trial
+of Phineas Finn would be commenced. "I hope," said Mr. Gresham, "that
+the work of the country will not be impeded by that unfortunate
+affair." "I am afraid," said Mr. Turnbull, "that the right honourable
+gentleman will find that the member for Tankerville will on that
+day monopolise the attention of this House." The remark was thought
+to have been made in very bad taste, but nobody doubted its truth.
+Perhaps the interest was enhanced among politicians by the existence
+very generally of an opinion that though Phineas Finn had murdered
+Mr. Bonteen, he would certainly be acquitted. Nothing could then
+prevent the acquitted murderer from resuming his seat in the House,
+and gentlemen were already beginning to ask themselves after what
+fashion it would become them to treat him. Would the Speaker catch
+his eye when he rose to speak? Would he still be "Phineas" to the
+very large number of men with whom his general popularity had made
+him intimate? Would he be cold-shouldered at the clubs, and treated
+as one whose hands were red with blood? or would he become more
+popular than ever, and receive an ovation after his acquittal?
+
+In the meantime Madame Goesler started on her journey for Prague.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVIII.
+
+THE TWO DUKES.
+
+
+It was necessary that the country should be governed, even though
+Mr. Bonteen had been murdered;--and in order that it should be duly
+governed it was necessary that Mr. Bonteen's late place at the Board
+of Trade should be filled. There was some hesitation as to the
+filling it, and when the arrangement was completed people were very
+much surprised indeed. Mr. Bonteen had been appointed chiefly because
+it was thought that he might in that office act as a quasi House of
+Commons deputy to the Duke of Omnium in carrying out his great scheme
+of a five-farthinged penny and a ten-pennied shilling. The Duke, in
+spite of his wealth and rank and honour, was determined to go on with
+his great task. Life would be nothing to him now unless he could at
+least hope to arrange the five farthings. When his wife had bullied
+him about the Garter he had declared to her, and with perfect truth,
+that he had never asked for anything. He had gone on to say that he
+never would ask for anything; and he certainly did not think that
+he was betraying himself with reference to that assurance when he
+suggested to Mr. Gresham that he would himself take the place left
+vacant by Mr. Bonteen--of course retaining his seat in the Cabinet.
+
+"I should hardly have ventured to suggest such an arrangement to your
+Grace," said the Prime Minister.
+
+"Feeling that it might be so, I thought that I would venture to
+ask," said the Duke. "I am sure you know that I am the last man to
+interfere as to place or the disposition of power."
+
+"Quite the last man," said Mr. Gresham.
+
+"But it has always been held that the Board of Trade is not
+incompatible with the Peerage."
+
+"Oh dear, yes."
+
+"And I can feel myself nearer to this affair of mine there than I can
+elsewhere."
+
+Mr. Gresham of course had no objection to urge. This great nobleman,
+who was now asking for Mr. Bonteen's shoes, had been Chancellor of
+the Exchequer, and would have remained Chancellor of the Exchequer
+had not the mantle of his nobility fallen upon him. At the present
+moment he held an office in which peers are often temporarily
+shelved, or put away, perhaps, out of harm's way for the time, so
+that they may be brought down and used when wanted, without having
+received crack or detriment from that independent action into which a
+politician is likely to fall when his party is "in" but he is still
+"out". He was Lord Privy Seal,--a Lordship of State which does carry
+with it a status and a seat in the Cabinet, but does not necessarily
+entail any work. But the present Lord, who cared nothing for status,
+and who was much more intent on his work than he was even on his seat
+in the Cabinet, was possessed by what many of his brother politicians
+regarded as a morbid dislike to pretences. He had not been happy
+during his few weeks of the Privy Seal, and had almost envied Mr.
+Bonteen the realities of the Board of Trade. "I think upon the whole
+it will be best to make the change," he said to Mr. Gresham. And Mr.
+Gresham was delighted.
+
+But there were one or two men of mark,--one or two who were older
+than Mr. Gresham probably, and less perfect in their Liberal
+sympathies,--who thought that the Duke of Omnium was derogating from
+his proper position in the step which he was now taking. Chief among
+these was his friend the Duke of St. Bungay, who alone perhaps could
+venture to argue the matter with him. "I almost wish that you had
+spoken to me first," said the elder Duke.
+
+"I feared that I should find you so strongly opposed to my
+resolution."
+
+"If it was a resolution."
+
+"I think it was," said the younger. "It was a great misfortune to me
+that I should have been obliged to leave the House of Commons."
+
+"You should not feel it so."
+
+"My whole life was there," said he who, as Plantagenet Palliser, had
+been so good a commoner.
+
+"But your whole life should certainly not be there now,--nor your
+whole heart. On you the circumstances of your birth have imposed
+duties quite as high, and I will say quite as useful, as any which a
+career in the House of Commons can put within the reach of a man."
+
+"Do you think so, Duke?"
+
+"Certainly I do. I do think that the England which we know could not
+be the England that she is but for the maintenance of a high-minded,
+proud, and self-denying nobility. And though with us there is no
+line dividing our very broad aristocracy into two parts, a higher
+and a lower, or a greater and a smaller, or a richer and a poorer,
+nevertheless we all feel that the success of our order depends
+chiefly on the conduct of those whose rank is the highest and whose
+means are the greatest. To some few, among whom you are conspicuously
+one, wealth has been given so great and rank so high that much of
+the welfare of your country depends on the manner in which you bear
+yourself as the Duke of Omnium."
+
+"I would not wish to think so."
+
+"Your uncle so thought. And, though he was a man very different from
+you, not inured to work in his early life, with fewer attainments,
+probably a slower intellect, and whose general conduct was inferior
+to your own,--I speak freely because the subject is important,--he
+was a man who understood his position and the requirements of his
+order very thoroughly. A retinue almost Royal, together with an
+expenditure which Royalty could not rival, secured for him the
+respect of the nation."
+
+"Your life has not been as was his, and you have won a higher
+respect."
+
+"I think not. The greater part of my life was spent in the House of
+Commons, and my fortune was never much more than the tenth of his.
+But I wish to make no such comparison."
+
+"I must make it, if I am to judge which I would follow."
+
+"Pray understand me, my friend," said the old man, energetically. "I
+am not advising you to abandon public life in order that you may live
+in repose as a great nobleman. It would not be in your nature to do
+so, nor could the country afford to lose your services. But you need
+not therefore take your place in the arena of politics as though you
+were still Plantagenet Palliser, with no other duties than those of a
+politician,--as you might so well have done had your uncle's titles
+and wealth descended to a son."
+
+"I wish they had," said the regretful Duke.
+
+"It cannot be so. Your brother perhaps wishes that he were a Duke,
+but it has been arranged otherwise. It is vain to repine. Your wife
+is unhappy because your uncle's Garter was not at once given to you."
+
+"Glencora is like other women,--of course."
+
+"I share her feelings. Had Mr. Gresham consulted me, I should not
+have scrupled to tell him that it would have been for the welfare of
+his party that the Duke of Omnium should be graced with any and every
+honour in his power to bestow. Lord Cantrip is my friend, almost as
+warmly as are you; but the country would not have missed the ribbon
+from the breast of Lord Cantrip. Had you been more the Duke, and less
+the slave of your country, it would have been sent to you. Do I make
+you angry by speaking so?"
+
+"Not in the least. I have but one ambition."
+
+"And that is--?"
+
+"To be the serviceable slave of my country."
+
+"A master is more serviceable than a slave," said the old man.
+
+"No; no; I deny it. I can admit much from you, but I cannot admit
+that. The politician who becomes the master of his country sinks from
+the statesman to the tyrant."
+
+"We misunderstand each other, my friend. Pitt, and Peel, and
+Palmerston were not tyrants, though each assumed and held for
+himself to the last the mastery of which I speak. Smaller men who
+have been slaves, have been as patriotic as they, but less useful.
+I regret that you should follow Mr. Bonteen in his office."
+
+"Because he was Mr. Bonteen."
+
+"All the circumstances of the transfer of office occasioned by your
+uncle's death seem to me to make it undesirable. I would not have
+you make yourself too common. This very murder adds to the feeling.
+Because Mr. Bonteen has been lost to us, the Minister has recourse to
+you."
+
+"It was my own suggestion."
+
+"But who knows that it was so? You, and I, and Mr. Gresham--and
+perhaps one or two others."
+
+"It is too late now, Duke; and, to tell the truth of myself, not even
+you can make me other than I am. My uncle's life to me was always a
+problem which I could not understand. Were I to attempt to walk in
+his ways I should fail utterly, and become absurd. I do not feel the
+disgrace of following Mr. Bonteen."
+
+"I trust you may at least be less unfortunate."
+
+"Well;--yes. I need not expect to be murdered in the streets because
+I am going to the Board of Trade. I shall have made no enemy by my
+political success."
+
+"You think that--Mr. Finn--did do that deed?" asked the elder Duke.
+
+"I hardly know what I think. My wife is sure that he is innocent."
+
+"The Duchess is enthusiastic always."
+
+"Many others think the same. Lord and Lady Chiltern are sure of
+that."
+
+"They were always his best friends."
+
+"I am told that many of the lawyers are sure that it will be
+impossible to convict him. If he be acquitted I shall strive to think
+him innocent. He will come back to the House, of course."
+
+"I should think he would apply for the Hundreds," said the Duke of
+St. Bungay.
+
+"I do not see why he should. I would not in his place. If he be
+innocent, why should he admit himself unfit for a seat in Parliament?
+I tell you what he might do;--resign, and then throw himself again
+upon his constituency." The other Duke shook his head, thereby
+declaring his opinion that Phineas Finn was in truth the man who had
+murdered Mr. Bonteen.
+
+When it was publicly known that the Duke of Omnium had stepped into
+Mr. Bonteen's shoes, the general opinion certainly coincided with
+that given by the Duke of St. Bungay. It was not only that the
+late Chancellor of the Exchequer should not have consented to fill
+so low an office, or that the Duke of Omnium should have better
+known his own place, or that he should not have succeeded a man so
+insignificant as Mr. Bonteen. These things, no doubt, were said,--but
+more was said also. It was thought that he should not have gone to
+an office which had been rendered vacant by the murder of a man
+who had been placed there merely to assist himself. If the present
+arrangement was good, why should it not have been made independently
+of Mr. Bonteen? Questions were asked about it in both Houses, and
+the transfer no doubt did have the effect of lowering the man in the
+estimation of the political world. He himself felt that he did not
+stand so high with his colleagues as when he was Chancellor of the
+Exchequer; not even so high as when he held the Privy Seal. In the
+printed lists of those who attended the Cabinets his name generally
+was placed last, and an opponent on one occasion thought, or
+pretended to think, that he was no more than Postmaster-General. He
+determined to bear all this without wincing,--but he did wince. He
+would not own to himself that he had been wrong, but he was sore,--as
+a man is sore who doubts about his own conduct; and he was not the
+less so because he strove to bear his wife's sarcasms without showing
+that they pained him.
+
+"They say that poor Lord Fawn is losing his mind," she said to him.
+
+"Lord Fawn! I haven't heard anything about it."
+
+"He was engaged to Lady Eustace once, you remember. They say that
+he'll be made to declare why he didn't marry her if this bigamy case
+goes on. And then it's so unfortunate that he should have seen the
+man in the grey coat; I hope he won't have to resign."
+
+"I hope not, indeed."
+
+"Because, of course, you'd have to take his place as
+Under-Secretary." This was very awkward;--but the husband only
+smiled, and expressed a hope that if he did so he might himself be
+equal to his new duties. "By the bye, Plantagenet, what do you mean
+to do about the jewels?"
+
+"I haven't thought about them. Madame Goesler had better take them."
+
+"But she won't."
+
+"I suppose they had better be sold."
+
+"By auction?"
+
+"That would be the proper way."
+
+"I shouldn't like that at all. Couldn't we buy them ourselves, and
+let the money stand till she choose to take it? It's an affair of
+trade, I suppose, and you're at the head of all that now." Then
+again she asked him some question about the Home Secretary, with
+reference to Phineas Finn; and when he told her that it would be
+highly improper for him to speak to that officer on such a subject,
+she pretended to suppose that the impropriety would consist in the
+interference of a man holding so low a position as he was. "Of course
+it is not the same now," she said, "as it used to be when you were at
+the Exchequer." All which he took without uttering a word of anger,
+or showing a sign of annoyance. "You only get two thousand a year, do
+you, at the Board of Trade, Plantagenet?"
+
+"Upon my word, I forget. I think it's two thousand five hundred."
+
+"How nice! It was five at the Exchequer, wasn't it?"
+
+"Yes; five thousand at the Exchequer."
+
+"When you're a Lord of the Treasury it will only be one;--will it?"
+
+"What a goose you are, Glencora. If it suited me to be a Lord of the
+Treasury, what difference would the salary make?"
+
+"Not the least;--nor yet the rank, or the influence, or the prestige,
+or the general fitness of things. You are above all such sublunary
+ideas. You would clean Mr. Gresham's shoes for him, if--the service
+of your country required it." These last words she added in a tone
+of voice very similar to that which her husband himself used on
+occasions.
+
+"I would even allow you to clean them,--if the service of the country
+required it," said the Duke.
+
+But, though he was magnanimous, he was not happy, and perhaps the
+intense anxiety which his wife displayed as to the fate of Phineas
+Finn added to his discomfort. The Duchess, as the Duke of St. Bungay
+had said, was enthusiastic, and he never for a moment dreamed of
+teaching her to change her nature; but it would have been as well
+if her enthusiasm at the present moment could have been brought to
+display itself on some other subject. He had been brought to feel
+that Phineas Finn had been treated badly when the good things of
+Government were being given away, and that this had been caused by
+the jealous prejudices of the man who had been since murdered. But an
+expectant Under-Secretary of State, let him have been ever so cruelly
+left out in the cold, should not murder the man by whom he has been
+ill-treated. Looking at all the evidence as best he could, and
+listening to the opinions of others, the Duke did think that Phineas
+had been guilty. The murder had clearly been committed by a personal
+enemy, not by a robber. Two men were known to have entertained
+feelings of enmity against Mr. Bonteen; as to one of whom he was
+assured that it was impossible that he should have been on the
+spot. As to the other it seemed equally manifest that he must have
+been there. If it were so, it would have been much better that his
+wife should not display her interest publicly in the murderer's
+favour. But the Duchess, wherever she went, spoke of the trial as a
+persecution; and seemed to think that the prisoner should already be
+treated as a hero and a martyr. "Glencora," he said to her, "I wish
+that you could drop the subject of this trial till it be over."
+
+"But I can't."
+
+"Surely you can avoid speaking of it."
+
+"No more than you can avoid your decimals. Out of the full heart the
+mouth speaks, and my heart is very full. What harm do I do?"
+
+"You set people talking of you."
+
+"They have been doing that ever since we were married;--but I do not
+know that they have made out much against me. We must go after our
+nature, Plantagenet. Your nature is decimals. I run after units." He
+did not deem it wise to say anything further,--knowing that to this
+evil also of Phineas Finn the gods would at last vouchsafe an ending.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIX.
+
+MRS. BONTEEN.
+
+
+At the time of the murder, Lady Eustace, whom we must regard as the
+wife of Mr. Emilius till it be proved that he had another wife when
+he married her, was living as the guest of Mr. Bonteen. Mr. Bonteen
+had pledged himself to prove the bigamy, and Mrs. Bonteen had opened
+her house and her heart to the injured lady. Lizzie Eustace, as
+she had always been called, was clever, rich, and pretty, and knew
+well how to ingratiate herself with the friend of the hour. She was
+a greedy, grasping little woman, but, when she had before her a
+sufficient object, she could appear to pour all that she had into
+her friend's lap with all the prodigality of a child. Perhaps Mrs.
+Bonteen had liked to have things poured into her lap. Perhaps Mr.
+Bonteen had enjoyed the confidential tears of a pretty woman. It may
+be that the wrongs of a woman doomed to live with Mr. Emilius as his
+wife had touched their hearts. Be that as it might, they had become
+the acknowledged friends and supporters of Lady Eustace, and she was
+living with them in their little house in St. James's Place on that
+fatal night.
+
+
+[Illustration: Lizzie Eustace.]
+
+
+Lizzie behaved herself very well when the terrible tidings were
+brought home. Mr. Bonteen was so often late at the House or at his
+club that his wife rarely sat up for him; and when the servants were
+disturbed between six and seven o'clock in the morning, no surprise
+had as yet been felt at his absence. The sergeant of police who had
+brought the news sent for the maid of the unfortunate lady, and the
+maid, in her panic, told her story to Lady Eustace before daring to
+communicate it to her mistress. Lizzie Eustace, who in former days
+had known something of policemen, saw the man, and learned from him
+all that there was to learn. Then, while the sergeant remained on the
+landing place, outside, to support her, if necessary, with the maid
+by her side to help her, kneeling by the bed, she told the wretched
+woman what had happened. We need not witness the paroxysms of the
+widow's misery, but we may understand that Lizzie Eustace was from
+that moment more strongly fixed than ever in her friendship with Mrs.
+Bonteen.
+
+When the first three or four days of agony and despair had passed
+by, and the mind of the bereaved woman was able to turn itself from
+the loss to the cause of the loss, Mrs. Bonteen became fixed in her
+certainty that Phineas Finn had murdered her husband, and seemed
+to think that it was the first and paramount duty of the present
+Government to have the murderer hung,--almost without a trial.
+When she found that, at the best, the execution of the man she so
+vehemently hated could not take place for two months after the doing
+of the deed, even if then, she became almost frantic in her anger.
+Surely they would not let him escape! What more proof could be
+needed? Had not the miscreant quarrelled with her husband, and
+behaved abominably to him but a few minutes before the murder? Had he
+not been on the spot with the murderous instrument in his pocket? Had
+he not been seen by Lord Fawn hastening on the steps of her dear and
+doomed husband? Mrs. Bonteen, as she sat enveloped in her new weeds,
+thirsting for blood, could not understand that further evidence
+should be needed, or that a rational doubt should remain in the mind
+of any one who knew the circumstances. It was to her as though she
+had seen the dastard blow struck, and with such conviction as this on
+her mind did she insist on talking of the coming trial to her inmate,
+Lady Eustace. But Lizzie had her own opinion, though she was forced
+to leave it unexpressed in the presence of Mrs. Bonteen. She knew
+the man who claimed her as his wife, and did not think that Phineas
+Finn was guilty of the murder. Her Emilius,--her Yosef Mealyus, as
+she had delighted to call him, since she had separated herself from
+him,--was, as she thought, the very man to commit a murder. He was
+by no means degraded in her opinion by the feeling. To commit great
+crimes is the line of life that comes naturally to some men, and was,
+as she thought, a line less objectionable than that which confines
+itself to small crimes. She almost felt that the audacity of her
+husband in doing such a deed redeemed her from some of the ignominy
+to which she had subjected herself by her marriage with a runaway
+who had another wife living. There was a dash of adventure about
+it which was almost gratifying. But these feelings she was obliged,
+at any rate for the present, to keep to herself. Not only must she
+acknowledge the undoubted guilt of Phineas Finn for the sake of her
+friend, Mrs. Bonteen; but she must consider carefully whether she
+would gain or lose more by having a murderer for her husband. She
+did not relish the idea of being made a widow by the gallows. She
+was still urgent as to the charge of bigamy, and should she succeed
+in proving that the man had never been her husband, then she did
+not care how soon they might hang him. But for the present it was
+better for all reasons that she should cling to the Phineas Finn
+theory,--feeling certain that it was the bold hand of her own Emilius
+who had struck the blow.
+
+She was by no means free from the solicitations of her husband, who
+knew well where she was, and who still adhered to his purpose of
+reclaiming his wife and his wife's property. When he was released by
+the magistrate's order, and had recovered his goods from Mr. Meager's
+house, and was once more established in lodgings, humbler, indeed,
+than those in Northumberland Street, he wrote the following letter to
+her who had been for one blessed year the partner of his joys, and
+his bosom's mistress:--
+
+
+   3, Jellybag Street, Edgware Road,
+   May 26, 18--.
+
+   DEAREST WIFE,--
+
+   You will have heard to what additional sorrow and disgrace
+   I have been subjected through the malice of my enemies.
+   But all in vain! Though princes and potentates have been
+   arrayed against me [the princes and potentates had no
+   doubt been Lord Chiltern and Mr. Low], innocence has
+   prevailed, and I have come out from the ordeal white as
+   bleached linen or unsullied snow. The murderer is in the
+   hands of justice, and though he be the friend of kings and
+   princes [Mr. Emilius had probably heard that the Prince
+   had been at the club with Phineas], yet shall justice
+   be done upon him, and the truth of the Lord shall be
+   made to prevail. Mr. Bonteen has been very hostile to
+   me, believing evil things of me, and instigating you, my
+   beloved, to believe evil of me. Nevertheless, I grieve
+   for his death. I lament bitterly that he should have been
+   cut off in his sins, and hurried before the judgment
+   seat of the great Judge without an hour given to him for
+   repentance. Let us pray that the mercy of the Lord may
+   be extended even to him. I beg that you will express my
+   deepest commiseration to his widow, and assure her that
+   she has my prayers.
+
+   And now, my dearest wife, let me approach my own affairs.
+   As I have come out unscorched from the last fiery furnace
+   which has been heated for me by my enemies seven times
+   hot, so shall I escape from that other fire with which the
+   poor man who has gone from us endeavoured to envelop me.
+   If they have made you believe that I have any wife but
+   yourself they have made you believe a falsehood. You, and
+   you only, have my hand. You, and you only, have my heart.
+   I know well what attempts are being made to suborn false
+   evidence in my old country, and how the follies of my
+   youth are being pressed against me,--how anxious are proud
+   Englishmen that the poor Bohemian should be robbed of the
+   beauty and wit and wealth which he had won for himself.
+   But the Lord fights on my side, and I shall certainly
+   prevail.
+
+   If you will come back to me all shall be forgiven. My
+   heart is as it ever was. Come, and let us leave this cold
+   and ungenial country and go to the sunny south; to the
+   islands of the blest,--
+
+
+Mr. Emilius during his married life had not quite fathomed the depths
+of his wife's character, though, no doubt, he had caught some points
+of it with sufficient accuracy.
+
+
+   --where we may forget these blood-stained sorrows, and
+   mutually forgive each other. What happiness, what joys
+   can you expect in your present mode of life? Even your
+   income,--which in truth is my income,--you cannot obtain,
+   because the tenants will not dare to pay it in opposition
+   to my legal claims. But of what use is gold? What can
+   purple do for us, and fine linen, and rich jewels, without
+   love and a contented heart? Come, dearest, once more to
+   your own one, who will never remember aught of the sad
+   rupture which enemies have made, and we will hurry to the
+   setting sun, and recline on mossy banks, and give up our
+   souls to Elysium.
+
+
+As Lizzie read this she uttered an exclamation of disgust. Did the
+man after all know so little of her as to suppose that she, with all
+her experiences, did not know how to keep her own life and her own
+pocket separate from her romance? She despised him for this, almost
+as much as she respected him for the murder.
+
+
+   If you will only say that you will see me, I will be at
+   your feet in a moment. Till the solemnity with which the
+   late tragical event must have filled you shall have left
+   you leisure to think of all this, I will not force myself
+   into your presence, or seek to secure by law rights which
+   will be much dearer to me if they are accorded by your own
+   sweet goodwill. And in the meantime, I will agree that
+   the income shall be drawn, provided that it be equally
+   divided between us. I have been sorely straitened in
+   my circumstances by these last events. My congregation
+   is of course dispersed. Though my innocence has been
+   triumphantly displayed, my name has been tarnished. It is
+   with difficulty that I find a spot where to lay my weary
+   head. I am ahungered and athirst;--and my very garments
+   are parting from me in my need. Can it be that you
+   willingly doom me to such misery because of my love for
+   you? Had I been less true to you, it might have been
+   otherwise.
+
+   Let me have an answer at once, and I will instantly take
+   steps about the money if you will agree.
+
+   Your truly most loving husband,
+
+   JOSEPH EMILIUS.
+
+   To Lady Eustace, wife of the Rev. Joseph Emilius.
+
+
+When Lizzie had read the letter twice through she resolved that she
+would show it to her friend. "I know it will reopen the floodgates of
+your grief," she said; "but unless you see it, how can I ask from you
+the advice which is so necessary to me?" But Mrs. Bonteen was a woman
+sincere at any rate in this,--that the loss of her husband had been
+to her so crushing a calamity that there could be no reopening of the
+floodgates. The grief that cannot bear allusion to its causes has
+generally something of affectation in its composition. The floodgates
+with this widowed one had never yet been for a moment closed. It was
+not that her tears were ever flowing, but that her heart had never
+yet for a moment ceased to feel that its misery was incapable of
+alleviation. No utterances concerning her husband could make her more
+wretched than she was. She took the letter and read it through. "I
+daresay he is a bad man," said Mrs. Bonteen.
+
+"Indeed he is," said the bad man's wife.
+
+"But he was not guilty of this crime."
+
+"Oh, no;--I am sure of that," said Lady Eustace, feeling certain at
+the same time that Mr. Bonteen had fallen by her husband's hands.
+
+"And therefore I am glad they have given him up. There can be no
+doubt now about it."
+
+"Everybody knows who did it now," said Lady Eustace.
+
+"Infamous ruffian! My poor dear lost one always knew what he was. Oh
+that such a creature should have been allowed to come among us."
+
+"Of course he'll be hung, Mrs. Bonteen."
+
+"Hung! I should think so! What other end would be fit for him? Oh,
+yes; they must hang him. But it makes one think that the world is too
+hard a place to live in, when such a one as he can cause so great a
+ruin."
+
+"It has been very terrible."
+
+"Think what the country has lost! They tell me that the Duke of
+Omnium is to take my husband's place; but the Duke cannot do what
+he did. Every one knows that for real work there was no one like
+him. Nothing was more certain than that he would have been Prime
+Minister,--oh, very soon. They ought to pinch him to death with
+red-hot tweezers."
+
+But Lady Eustace was anxious at the present moment to talk about her
+own troubles. "Of course, Mr. Emilius did not commit the murder."
+
+"Phineas Finn committed it," said the half-maddened woman, rising
+from her chair. "And Phineas Finn shall hang by his neck till he is
+dead."
+
+"But Emilius has certainly got another wife in Prague."
+
+"I suppose you know. He said it was so, and he was always right."
+
+"I am sure of it,--just as you are sure of this horrid Mr. Finn."
+
+"The two things can't be named together, Lady Eustace."
+
+"Certainly not. I wouldn't think of being so unfeeling. But he has
+written me this letter, and what must I do? It is very dreadful about
+the money, you know."
+
+"He cannot touch your money. My dear one always said that he could
+not touch it."
+
+"But he prevents me from touching it. What they give me only comes
+by a sort of favour from the lawyer. I almost wish that I had
+compromised."
+
+"You would not be rid of him that way."
+
+"No;--not quite rid of him. You see I never had to take that horrid
+name because of the title. I suppose I'd better send the letter to
+the lawyer."
+
+"Send it to the lawyer, of course. That is what he would have done.
+They tell me that the trial is to be on the 24th of June. Why should
+they postpone it so long? They know all about it. They always
+postpone everything. If he had lived, there would be an end of that
+before long."
+
+Lady Eustace was tired of the virtues of her friend's martyred lord,
+and was very anxious to talk of her own affairs. She was still
+holding her husband's letter open in her hand, and was thinking how
+she could force her friend's dead lion to give place for a while
+to her own live dog, when a servant announced that Mr. Camperdown,
+the attorney, was below. In former days there had been an old Mr.
+Camperdown, who was vehemently hostile to poor Lizzie Eustace; but
+now, in her new troubles, the firm that had ever been true to her
+first husband had taken up her case for the sake of the family and
+her property--and for the sake of the heir, Lizzie Eustace's little
+boy; and Mr. Camperdown's firm had, next to Mr. Bonteen, been the
+depository of her trust. He had sent clerks out to Prague,--one who
+had returned ill,--as some had said poisoned, though the poison had
+probably been nothing more than the diet natural to Bohemians. And
+then another had been sent. This, of course, had all been previous
+to Madame Goesler's self-imposed mission,--which, though it was
+occasioned altogether by the suspected wickednesses of Mr. Emilius,
+had no special reference to his matrimonial escapades. And now Mr.
+Camperdown was down stairs. "Shall I go down to him, dear Mrs.
+Bonteen?"
+
+"He may come here if you please."
+
+"Perhaps I had better go down. He will disturb you."
+
+"My darling lost one always thought that there should be two present
+to hear such matters. He said it was safer." Mr. Camperdown, junior,
+was therefore shown upstairs to Mrs. Bonteen's drawing-room.
+
+"We have found it all out, Lady Eustace," said Mr. Camperdown.
+
+"Found out what?"
+
+"We've got Madame Mealyus over here."
+
+"No!" said Mrs. Bonteen, with her hands raised. Lady Eustace sat
+silent, with her mouth open.
+
+"Yes, indeed;--and photographs of the registry of the marriage
+from the books of the synagogue at Cracow. His signature was Yosef
+Mealyus, and his handwriting isn't a bit altered. I think we could
+have proved it without the lady; but of course it was better to bring
+her if possible."
+
+"Where is she?" asked Lizzie, thinking that she would like to see her
+own predecessor.
+
+"We have her safe, Lady Eustace. She's not in custody; but as
+she can't speak a word of English or French, she finds it more
+comfortable to be kept in private. We're afraid it will cost a little
+money."
+
+"Will she swear that she is his wife?" asked Mrs. Bonteen.
+
+"Oh, yes; there'll be no difficulty about that. But her swearing
+alone mightn't be enough."
+
+"Surely that settles it all," said Lady Eustace.
+
+"For the money that we shall have to pay," said Mr. Camperdown, "we
+might probably have got a dozen Bohemian ladies to come and swear
+that they were married to Yosef Mealyus at Cracow. The difficulty has
+been to bring over documentary evidence which will satisfy a jury
+that this is the woman she says she is. But I think we've got it."
+
+"And I shall be free!" said Lady Eustace, clasping her hands
+together.
+
+"It will cost a good deal, I fear," said Mr. Camperdown.
+
+"But I shall be free! Oh, Mr. Camperdown, there is not a woman in all
+the world who cares so little for money as I do. But I shall be free
+from the power of that horrid man who has entangled me in the meshes
+of his sinful life." Mr. Camperdown told her that he thought that
+she would be free, and went on to say that Yosef Mealyus had already
+been arrested, and was again in prison. The unfortunate man had not
+therefore long enjoyed that humbler apartment which he had found for
+himself in Jellybag Street.
+
+When Mr. Camperdown went, Mrs. Bonteen followed him out to the top
+of the stairs. "You have heard about the trial, Mr. Camperdown?" He
+said that he knew that it was to take place at the Central Criminal
+Court in June. "Yes; I don't know why they have put it off so long.
+People know that he did it--eh?" Mr. Camperdown, with funereal
+sadness, declared that he had never looked into the matter. "I cannot
+understand that everybody should not know it," said Mrs. Bonteen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LX.
+
+TWO DAYS BEFORE THE TRIAL.
+
+
+There was a scene in the private room of Mr. Wickerby, the attorney
+in Hatton Garden, which was very distressing indeed to the feelings
+of Lord Fawn, and which induced his lordship to think that he was
+being treated without that respect which was due to him as a peer
+and a member of the Government. There were present at this scene Mr.
+Chaffanbrass, the old barrister, Mr. Wickerby himself, Mr. Wickerby's
+confidential clerk, Lord Fawn, Lord Fawn's solicitor,--that same
+Mr. Camperdown whom we saw in the last chapter calling upon Lady
+Eustace,--and a policeman. Lord Fawn had been invited to attend, with
+many protestations of regret as to the trouble thus imposed upon him,
+because the very important nature of the evidence about to be given
+by him at the forthcoming trial seemed to render it expedient that
+some questions should be asked. This was on Tuesday, the 22nd June,
+and the trial was to be commenced on the following Thursday. And
+there was present in the room, very conspicuously, an old heavy grey
+great coat, as to which Mr. Wickerby had instructed Mr. Chaffanbrass
+that evidence was forthcoming, if needed, to prove that that coat was
+lying on the night of the murder in a downstairs room in the house
+in which Yosef Mealyus was then lodging. The reader will remember
+the history of the coat. Instigated by Madame Goesler, who was
+still absent from England, Mr. Wickerby had traced the coat, and
+had purchased the coat, and was in a position to prove that this
+very coat was the coat which Mr. Meager had brought home with him to
+Northumberland Street on that day. But Mr. Wickerby was of opinion
+that the coat had better not be used. "It does not go far enough,"
+said Mr. Wickerby. "It don't go very far, certainly," said Mr.
+Chaffanbrass. "And if you try to show that another man has done it,
+and he hasn't," said Mr. Wickerby, "it always tells against you
+with a jury." To this Mr. Chaffanbrass made no reply, preferring to
+form his own opinion, and to keep it to himself when formed. But in
+obedience to his instructions, Lord Fawn was asked to attend at Mr.
+Wickerby's chambers, in the cause of truth, and the coat was brought
+out on the occasion. "Was that the sort of coat the man wore, my
+lord?" said Mr. Chaffanbrass as Mr. Wickerby held up the coat to
+view. Lord Fawn walked round and round the coat, and looked at it
+very carefully before he would vouchsafe a reply. "You see it is a
+grey coat," said Mr. Chaffanbrass, not speaking at all in the tone
+which Mr. Wickerby's note had induced Lord Fawn to expect.
+
+"It is grey," said Lord Fawn.
+
+"Perhaps it's not the same shade of grey, Lord Fawn. You see, my
+lord, we are most anxious not to impute guilt where guilt doesn't
+lie. You are a witness for the Crown, and, of course, you will tell
+the Crown lawyers all that passes here. Were it possible, we would
+make this little preliminary inquiry in their presence;--but we can
+hardly do that. Mr. Finn's coat was a very much smaller coat."
+
+"I should think it was," said his lordship, who did not like being
+questioned about coats.
+
+"You don't think the coat the man wore when you saw him was a big
+coat like that? You think he wore a little coat?"
+
+"He wore a grey coat," said Lord Fawn.
+
+"This is grey;--a coat shouldn't be greyer than that."
+
+"I don't think Lord Fawn should be asked any more questions on the
+matter till he gives his evidence in court," said Mr. Camperdown.
+
+"A man's life depends on it, Mr. Camperdown," said the barrister. "It
+isn't a matter of cross-examination. If I bring that coat into court
+I must make a charge against another man by the very act of doing so.
+And I will not do so unless I believe that other man to be guilty.
+It's an inquiry I can't postpone till we are before the jury. It
+isn't that I want to trump up a case against another man for the sake
+of extricating my client on a false issue. Lord Fawn doesn't want to
+hang Mr. Finn if Mr. Finn be not guilty."
+
+"God forbid!" said his lordship.
+
+"Mr. Finn couldn't have worn that coat, or a coat at all like it."
+
+"What is it you do want to learn, Mr. Chaffanbrass?" asked Mr.
+Camperdown.
+
+"Just put on the coat, Mr. Scruby." Then at the order of the
+barrister, Mr. Scruby, the attorney's clerk, did put on Mr. Meager's
+old great coat, and walked about the room in it. "Walk quick," said
+Mr. Chaffanbrass;--and the clerk did "walk quick." He was a stout,
+thick-set little man, nearly half a foot shorter than Phineas Finn.
+"Is that at all like the figure?" asked Mr. Chaffanbrass.
+
+"I think it is like the figure," said Lord Fawn.
+
+"And like the coat?"
+
+"It's the same colour as the coat."
+
+"You wouldn't swear it was not the coat?"
+
+"I am not on my oath at all, Mr. Chaffanbrass."
+
+"No, my lord;--but to me your word is as good as your oath. If you
+think it possible that was the coat--"
+
+"I don't think anything about it at all. When Mr. Scruby hurries down
+the room in that way he looks as the man looked when he was hurrying
+under the lamp-post. I am not disposed to say any more at present."
+
+"It's a matter of regret to me that Lord Fawn should have come here
+at all," said Mr. Camperdown, who had been summoned to meet his
+client at the chambers, but had come with him.
+
+"I suppose his lordship wishes us to know all that he knew, seeing
+that it's a question of hanging the right man or the wrong one. I
+never heard such trash in my life. Take it off, Mr. Scruby, and let
+the policeman keep it. I understand Lord Fawn to say that the man's
+figure was about the same as yours. My client, I believe, stands
+about twelve inches taller. Thank you, my lord;--we shall get at
+the truth at last, I don't doubt." It was afterwards said that Mr.
+Chaffanbrass's conduct had been very improper in enticing Lord Fawn
+to Mr. Wickerby's chambers; but Mr. Chaffanbrass never cared what
+any one said. "I don't know that we can make much of it," he said,
+when he and Mr. Wickerby were alone, "but it may be as well to bring
+it into court. It would prove nothing against the Jew even if that
+fellow,"--he meant Lord Fawn,--"could be made to swear that the
+coat worn was exactly similar to this. I am thinking now about the
+height."
+
+"I don't doubt but you'll get him off."
+
+"Well;--I may do so. They ought not to hang any man on such evidence
+as there is against him, even though there were no moral doubt of his
+guilt. There is nothing really to connect Mr. Phineas Finn with the
+murder,--nothing tangible. But there is no saying nowadays what a
+jury will do. Juries depend a great deal more on the judge than they
+used to do. If I were on trial for my life, I don't think I'd have
+counsel at all."
+
+"No one could defend you as well as yourself, Mr. Chaffanbrass."
+
+"I didn't mean that. No;--I shouldn't defend myself. I should say
+to the judge, 'My lord, I don't doubt the jury will do just as you
+tell them, and you'll form your own opinion quite independent of the
+arguments.'"
+
+"You'd be hung, Mr. Chaffanbrass."
+
+"No; I don't know that I should," said Mr. Chaffanbrass, slowly. "I
+don't think I could affront a judge of the present day into hanging
+me. They've too much of what I call thick-skinned honesty for that.
+It's the temper of the time to resent nothing,--to be mealy-mouthed
+and mealy-hearted. Jurymen are afraid of having their own opinion,
+and almost always shirk a verdict when they can."
+
+"But we do get verdicts."
+
+"Yes; the judges give them. And they are mealy-mouthed verdicts,
+tending to equalise crime and innocence, and to make men think that
+after all it may be a question whether fraud is violence, which,
+after all, is manly, and to feel that we cannot afford to hate
+dishonesty. It was a bad day for the commercial world, Mr. Wickerby,
+when forgery ceased to be capital."
+
+"It was a horrid thing to hang a man for writing another man's name
+to a receipt for thirty shillings."
+
+"We didn't do it, but the fact that the law held certain frauds to be
+hanging matters operated on the minds of men in regard to all fraud.
+What with the joint-stock working of companies, and the confusion
+between directors who know nothing and managers who know everything,
+and the dislike of juries to tread upon people's corns, you can't
+punish dishonest trading. Caveat emptor is the only motto going,
+and the worst proverb that ever came from dishonest stony-hearted
+Rome. With such a motto as that to guide us no man dare trust his
+brother. Caveat lex,--and let the man who cheats cheat at his
+peril."
+
+"You'd give the law a great deal to do."
+
+"Much less than at present. What does your Caveat emptor come to?
+That every seller tries to pick the eyes out of the head of the
+purchaser. Sooner or later the law must interfere, and Caveat
+emptor falls to the ground. I bought a horse the other day; my
+daughter wanted something to look pretty, and like an old ass as I am
+I gave a hundred and fifty pounds for the brute. When he came home he
+wasn't worth a feed of corn."
+
+"You had a warranty, I suppose?"
+
+"No, indeed! Did you ever hear of such an old fool?"
+
+"I should have thought any dealer would have taken him back for the
+sake of his character."
+
+"Any dealer would; but--I bought him of a gentleman."
+
+"Mr. Chaffanbrass!"
+
+"I ought to have known better, oughtn't I? Caveat emptor."
+
+"It was just giving away your money, you know."
+
+"A great deal worse than that. I could have given the--gentleman--a
+hundred and fifty pounds, and not have minded it much. I ought to
+have had the horse killed, and gone to a dealer for another. Instead
+of that,--I went to an attorney."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Chaffanbrass;--the idea of your going to an attorney."
+
+"I did then. I never had so much honest truth told me in my life."
+
+"By an attorney!"
+
+"He said that he did think I'd been born long enough to have known
+better than that! I pleaded on my own behalf that the gentleman said
+the horse was all right. 'Gentleman!' exclaimed my friend. 'You go
+to a gentleman for a horse; you buy a horse from a gentleman without
+a warranty; and then you come to me! Didn't you ever hear of Caveat
+emptor, Mr. Chaffanbrass? What can I do for you?' That's what my
+friend, the attorney, said to me."
+
+"And what came of it, Mr. Chaffanbrass? Arbitration, I should say?"
+
+"Just that;--with the horse eating his head off every meal at ever
+so much per week,--till at last I fairly gave in from sheer vexation.
+So the--gentleman--got my money, and I added something to my stock
+of experience. Of course, that's only my story, and it may be that
+the gentleman could tell it another way. But I say that if my story
+be right the doctrine of Caveat emptor does not encourage trade.
+I don't know how we got to all this from Mr. Finn. I'm to see him
+to-morrow."
+
+"Yes;--he is very anxious to speak to you."
+
+"What's the use of it, Wickerby? I hate seeing a client.--What comes
+of it?"
+
+"Of course he wants to tell his own story."
+
+"But I don't want to hear his own story. What good will his own story
+do me? He'll tell me either one of two things. He'll swear he didn't
+murder the man--"
+
+"That's what he'll say."
+
+"Which can have no effect upon me one way or the other; or else he'll
+say that he did,--which would cripple me altogether."
+
+"He won't say that, Mr. Chaffanbrass."
+
+"There's no knowing what they'll say. A man will go on swearing by
+his God that he is innocent, till at last, in a moment of emotion, he
+breaks down, and out comes the truth. In such a case as this I do not
+in the least want to know the truth about the murder."
+
+"That is what the public wants to know."
+
+"Because the public is ignorant. The public should not wish to know
+anything of the kind. What we should all wish to get at is the truth
+of the evidence about the murder. The man is to be hung not because
+he committed the murder,--as to which no positive knowledge is
+attainable; but because he has been proved to have committed the
+murder,--as to which proof, though it be enough for hanging, there
+must always be attached some shadow of doubt. We were delighted to
+hang Palmer,--but we don't know that he killed Cook. A learned man
+who knew more about it than we can know seemed to think that he
+didn't. Now the last man to give us any useful insight into the
+evidence is the prisoner himself. In nineteen cases out of twenty a
+man tried for murder in this country committed the murder for which
+he is tried."
+
+"There really seems to be a doubt in this case."
+
+"I dare say. If there be only nineteen guilty out of twenty, there
+must be one innocent; and why not Mr. Phineas Finn? But, if it be so,
+he, burning with the sense of injustice, thinks that everybody should
+see it as he sees it. He is to be tried, because, on investigation,
+everybody sees it just in a different light. In such case he is
+unfortunate, but he can't assist me in liberating him from his
+misfortune. He sees what is patent and clear to him,--that he walked
+home on that night without meddling with any one. But I can't see
+that, or make others see it, because he sees it."
+
+"His manner of telling you may do something."
+
+"If it do, Mr. Wickerby, it is because I am unfit for my business.
+If he have the gift of protesting well, I am to think him innocent;
+and, therefore, to think him guilty, if he be unprovided with such
+eloquence! I will neither believe or disbelieve anything that a
+client says to me,--unless he confess his guilt, in which case my
+services can be but of little avail. Of course I shall see him, as he
+asks it. We had better meet there,--say at half-past ten." Whereupon
+Mr. Wickerby wrote to the governor of the prison begging that Phineas
+Finn might be informed of the visit.
+
+Phineas had now been in gaol between six and seven weeks, and the
+very fact of his incarceration had nearly broken his spirits. Two
+of his sisters, who had come from Ireland to be near him, saw him
+every day, and his two friends, Mr. Low and Lord Chiltern, were very
+frequently with him; Lady Laura Kennedy had not come to him again;
+but he heard from her frequently through Barrington Erle. Lord
+Chiltern rarely spoke of his sister,--alluding to her merely in
+connection with her father and her late husband. Presents still came
+to him from various quarters,--as to which he hardly knew whence they
+came. But the Duchess and Lady Chiltern and Lady Laura all catered
+for him,--while Mrs. Bunce looked after his wardrobe, and saw that he
+was not cut down to prison allowance of clean shirts and socks. But
+the only friend whom he recognised as such was the friend who would
+freely declare a conviction of his innocence. They allowed him books
+and pens and paper, and even cards, if he chose to play at Patience
+with them or build castles. The paper and pens he could use because
+he could write about himself. From day to day he composed a diary in
+which he was never tired of expatiating on the terrible injustice of
+his position. But he could not read. He found it to be impossible to
+fix his attention on matters outside himself. He assured himself from
+hour to hour that it was not death he feared,--not even death from
+the hangman's hand. It was the condemnation of those who had known
+him that was so terrible to him--the feeling that they with whom he
+had aspired to work and live, the leading men and women of his day,
+Ministers of the Government and their wives, statesmen and their
+daughters, peers and members of the House in which he himself had
+sat;--that these should think that, after all, he had been a base
+adventurer unworthy of their society! That was the sorrow that broke
+him down, and drew him to confess that his whole life had been a
+failure.
+
+Mr. Low had advised him not to see Mr. Chaffanbrass;--but he had
+persisted in declaring that there were instructions which no one
+but himself could give to the counsellor whose duty it would be to
+defend him at the trial. Mr. Chaffanbrass came at the hour fixed,
+and with him came Mr. Wickerby. The old barrister bowed courteously
+as he entered the prison room, and the attorney introduced the two
+gentlemen with more than all the courtesy of the outer world. "I am
+sorry to see you here, Mr. Finn," said the barrister.
+
+"It's a bad lodging, Mr. Chaffanbrass, but the term will soon be
+over. I am thinking a good deal more of my next abode."
+
+"It has to be thought of, certainly," said the barrister. "Let us
+hope that it may be all that you would wish it to be. My services
+shall not be wanting to make it so."
+
+"We are doing all we can, Mr. Finn," said Mr. Wickerby.
+
+"Mr. Chaffanbrass," said Phineas, "there is one special thing that
+I want you to do." The old man, having his own idea as to what was
+coming, laid one of his hands over the other, bowed his head, and
+looked meek. "I want you to make men believe that I am innocent of
+this crime."
+
+This was better than Mr. Chaffanbrass expected. "I trust that we may
+succeed in making twelve men believe it," said he.
+
+"Comparatively I do not care a straw for the twelve men. It is not to
+them especially that I am anxious that you should address yourself--"
+
+"But that will be my bounden duty, Mr. Finn."
+
+"I can well believe, sir, that though I have myself been bred a
+lawyer, I may not altogether understand the nature of an advocate's
+duty to his client. But I would wish something more to be done than
+what you intimate."
+
+"The duty of an advocate defending a prisoner is to get a verdict
+of acquittal if he can, and to use his own discretion in making the
+attempt."
+
+"But I want something more to be attempted, even if in the struggle
+something less be achieved. I have known men to be so acquitted that
+every man in court believed them to be guilty."
+
+"No doubt;--and such men have probably owed much to their advocates."
+
+"It is not such a debt that I wish to owe. I know my own innocence."
+
+"Mr. Chaffanbrass takes that for granted," said Mr. Wickerby.
+
+"To me it is a matter of astonishment that any human being should
+believe me to have committed this murder. I am lost in surprise when
+I remember that I am here simply because I walked home from my club
+with a loaded stick in my pocket. The magistrate, I suppose, thought
+me guilty."
+
+"He did not think about it, Mr. Finn. He went by the evidence;--the
+quarrel, your position in the streets at the time, the colour of the
+coat you wore and that of the coat worn by the man whom Lord Fawn saw
+in the street; the doctor's evidence as to the blows by which the man
+was killed; and the nature of the weapon which you carried. He put
+these things together, and they were enough to entitle the public to
+demand that a jury should decide. He didn't say you were guilty. He
+only said that the circumstances were sufficient to justify a trial."
+
+"If he thought me innocent he would not have sent me here."
+
+"Yes, he would;--if the evidence required that he should do so."
+
+"We will not argue about that, Mr. Chaffanbrass."
+
+"Certainly not, Mr. Finn."
+
+"Here I am, and to-morrow I shall be tried for my life. My life will
+be nothing to me unless it can be made clear to all the world that
+I am innocent. I would be sooner hung for this,--with the certainty
+at my heart that all England on the next day would ring with the
+assurance of my innocence, than be acquitted and afterwards be looked
+upon as a murderer." Phineas, when he was thus speaking, had stepped
+out into the middle of the room, and stood with his head thrown
+back, and his right hand forward. Mr. Chaffanbrass, who was himself
+an ugly, dirty old man, who had always piqued himself on being
+indifferent to appearance, found himself struck by the beauty and
+grace of the man whom he now saw for the first time. And he was
+struck, too, by his client's eloquence, though he had expressly
+declared to the attorney that it was his duty to be superior to any
+such influence. "Oh, Mr. Chaffanbrass, for the love of Heaven, let
+there be no quibbling."
+
+"We never quibble, I hope, Mr. Finn."
+
+"No subterfuges, no escaping by a side wind, no advantage taken of
+little forms, no objection taken to this and that as though delay
+would avail us anything."
+
+"Character will go a great way, we hope."
+
+"It should go for nothing. Though no one would speak a word for me,
+still am I innocent. Of course the truth will be known some day."
+
+"I'm not so sure of that, Mr. Finn."
+
+"It will certainly be known some day. That it should not be known
+as yet is my misfortune. But in defending me I would have you hurl
+defiance at my accusers. I had the stick in my pocket,--having
+heretofore been concerned with ruffians in the street. I did quarrel
+with the man, having been insulted by him at the club. The coat which
+I wore was such as they say. But does that make a murderer of me?"
+
+"Somebody did the deed, and that somebody could probably say all that
+you say."
+
+"No, sir;--he, when he is known, will be found to have been skulking
+in the streets; he will have thrown away his weapon; he will have
+been secret in his movements; he will have hidden his face, and have
+been a murderer in more than the deed. When they came to me in the
+morning did it seem to them that I was a murderer? Has my life been
+like that? They who have really known me cannot believe that I have
+been guilty. They who have not known me, and do believe, will live to
+learn their error."
+
+He then sat down and listened patiently while the old lawyer
+described to him the nature of the case,--wherein lay his danger, and
+wherein what hope there was of safety. There was no evidence against
+him other than circumstantial evidence, and both judges and jury
+were wont to be unwilling to accept such, when uncorroborated, as
+sufficient in cases of life and death. Unfortunately, in this case
+the circumstantial evidence was very strong against him. But, on the
+other hand, his character, as to which men of great mark would speak
+with enthusiasm, would be made to stand very high. "I would not have
+it made to stand higher than it is," said Phineas. As to the opinion
+of the world afterwards, Mr. Chaffanbrass went on to say, of that he
+must take his chance. But surely he himself might fight better for it
+living than any friend could do for him after his death. "You must
+believe me in this, Mr. Finn, that a verdict of acquittal from the
+jury is the one object that we must have before us."
+
+"The one object that I shall have before me is the verdict of the
+public," said Phineas. "I am treated with so much injustice in being
+thought a murderer that they can hardly add anything to it by hanging
+me."
+
+When Mr. Chaffanbrass left the prison he walked back with Mr.
+Wickerby to the attorney's chambers in Hatton Garden, and he lingered
+for awhile on the Viaduct expressing his opinion of his client. "He's
+not a bad fellow, Wickerby."
+
+"A very good sort of fellow, Mr. Chaffanbrass."
+
+"I never did,--and I never will,--express an opinion of my own as
+to the guilt or innocence of a client till after the trial is over.
+But I have sometimes felt as though I would give the blood out of my
+veins to save a man. I never felt in that way more strongly than I do
+now."
+
+"It'll make me very unhappy, I know, if it goes against him," said
+Mr. Wickerby.
+
+"People think that the special branch of the profession into which I
+have chanced to fall is a very low one,--and I do not know whether,
+if the world were before me again, I would allow myself to drift into
+an exclusive practice in criminal courts."
+
+"Yours has been a very useful life, Mr. Chaffanbrass."
+
+"But I often feel," continued the barrister, paying no attention to
+the attorney's last remark, "that my work touches the heart more
+nearly than does that of gentlemen who have to deal with matters of
+property and of high social claims. People think I am savage,--savage
+to witnesses."
+
+"You can frighten a witness, Mr. Chaffanbrass."
+
+"It's just the trick of the trade that you learn, as a girl learns
+the notes of her piano. There's nothing in it. You forget it all the
+next hour. But when a man has been hung whom you have striven to
+save, you do remember that. Good-morning, Mr. Wickerby. I'll be there
+a little before ten. Perhaps you may have to speak to me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXI.
+
+THE BEGINNING OF THE TRIAL.
+
+
+The task of seeing an important trial at the Old Bailey is by no
+means a pleasant business, unless you be what the denizens of the
+Court would call "one of the swells,"--so as to enjoy the privilege
+of being a benchfellow with the judge on the seat of judgment. And
+even in that case the pleasure is not unalloyed. You have, indeed,
+the gratification of seeing the man whom all the world has been
+talking about for the last nine days, face to face; and of being seen
+in a position which causes you to be acknowledged as a man of mark;
+but the intolerable stenches of the Court and its horrid heat come
+up to you there, no doubt, as powerfully as they fall on those below.
+And then the tedium of a prolonged trial, in which the points of
+interest are apt to be few and far between, grows upon you till you
+begin to feel that though the Prime Minister who is out should murder
+the Prime Minister who is in, and all the members of the two Cabinets
+were to be called in evidence, you would not attend the trial, though
+the seat of honour next to the judge were accorded to you. Those
+be-wigged ones, who are the performers, are so insufferably long in
+their parts, so arrogant in their bearing,--so it strikes you, though
+doubtless the fashion of working has been found to be efficient
+for the purposes they have in hand,--and so uninteresting in their
+repetition, that you first admire, and then question, and at last
+execrate the imperturbable patience of the judge, who might, as you
+think, force the thing through in a quarter of the time without any
+injury to justice. And it will probably strike you that the length
+of the trial is proportioned not to the complicity but to the
+importance, or rather to the public interest, of the case,--so
+that the trial which has been suggested of a disappointed and
+bloody-minded ex-Prime Minister would certainly take at least a
+fortnight, even though the Speaker of the House of Commons and the
+Lord Chancellor had seen the blow struck, whereas a collier may knock
+his wife's brains out in the dark and be sent to the gallows with
+a trial that shall not last three hours. And yet the collier has
+to be hung,--if found guilty,--and no one thinks that his life is
+improperly endangered by reckless haste. Whether lives may not be
+improperly saved by the more lengthened process is another question.
+
+But the honours of such benchfellowship can be accorded but to few,
+and the task becomes very tiresome when the spectator has to enter
+the Court as an ordinary mortal. There are two modes open to him,
+either of which is subject to grievous penalties. If he be the
+possessor of a decent coat and hat, and can scrape any acquaintance
+with any one concerned, he may get introduced to that overworked and
+greatly perplexed official, the under-sheriff, who will stave him off
+if possible,--knowing that even an under-sheriff cannot make space
+elastic,--but, if the introduction has been acknowledged as good,
+will probably find a seat for him if he persevere to the end. But
+the seat when obtained must be kept in possession from morning to
+evening, and the fight must be renewed from day to day. And the
+benches are hard, and the space is narrow, and you feel that the
+under-sheriff would prod you with his sword if you ventured to
+sneeze, or to put to your lips the flask which you have in your
+pocket. And then, when all the benchfellows go out to lunch at
+half-past one, and you are left to eat your dry sandwich without room
+for your elbows, a feeling of unsatisfied ambition will pervade you.
+It is all very well to be the friend of an under-sheriff, but if you
+could but have known the judge, or have been a cousin of the real
+sheriff, how different it might have been with you!
+
+But you may be altogether independent, and, as a matter of right,
+walk into an open English court of law as one of the British public.
+You will have to stand of course,--and to commence standing very
+early in the morning if you intend to succeed in witnessing any
+portion of the performance. And when you have made once good your
+entrance as one of the British public, you are apt to be a good
+deal knocked about, not only by your public brethren, but also by
+those who have to keep the avenues free for witnesses, and who will
+regard you from first to last as a disagreeable excrescence on the
+officialities of the work on hand. Upon the whole it may be better
+for you, perhaps, to stay at home and read the record of the affair
+as given in the next day's Times. Impartial reporters, judicious
+readers, and able editors between them will preserve for you all the
+kernel, and will save you from the necessity of having to deal with
+the shell.
+
+At this trial there were among the crowd who succeeded in entering
+the Court three persons of our acquaintance who had resolved to
+overcome the various difficulties. Mr. Monk, who had formerly been
+a Cabinet Minister, was seated on the bench,--subject, indeed, to
+the heat and stenches, but priviledged to eat the lunch. Mr. Quintus
+Slide, of The People's Banner,--who knew the Court well, for in
+former days he had worked many an hour in it as a reporter,--had
+obtained the good graces of the under-sheriff. And Mr. Bunce, with
+all the energy of the British public, had forced his way in among the
+crowd, and had managed to wedge himself near to the dock, so that he
+might be able by a hoist of the neck to see his lodger as he stood
+at the bar. Of these three men, Bunce was assured that the prisoner
+was innocent,--led to such assurance partly by belief in the man,
+and partly by an innate spirit of opposition to all exercise of
+restrictive power. Mr. Quintus Slide was certain of the prisoner's
+guilt, and gave himself considerable credit for having assisted in
+running down the criminal. It seemed to be natural to Mr. Quintus
+Slide that a man who had openly quarrelled with the Editor of The
+People's Banner should come to the gallows. Mr. Monk, as Phineas
+himself well knew, had doubted. He had received the suspected
+murderer into his warmest friendship, and was made miserable even
+by his doubts. Since the circumstances of the case had come to his
+knowledge, they had weighed upon his mind so as to sadden his whole
+life. But he was a man who could not make his reason subordinate to
+his feelings. If the evidence against his friend was strong enough
+to send his friend for trial, how should he dare to discredit the
+evidence because the man was his friend? He had visited Phineas in
+prison, and Phineas had accused him of doubting. "You need not answer
+me," the unhappy man had said, "but do not come unless you are able
+to tell me from your heart that you are sure of my innocence. There
+is no person living who could comfort me by such assurance as you
+could do." Mr. Monk had thought about it very much, but he had not
+repeated his visit.
+
+At a quarter past ten the Chief Justice was on the bench, with a
+second judge to help him, and with lords and distinguished commoners
+and great City magnates crowding the long seat between him and the
+doorway; the Court was full, so that you would say that another
+head could not be made to appear; and Phineas Finn, the member
+for Tankerville, was in the dock. Barrington Erle, who was there
+to see,--as one of the great ones, of course,--told the Duchess
+of Omnium that night that Phineas was thin and pale, and in many
+respects an altered man,--but handsomer than ever.
+
+"He bore himself well?" asked the Duchess.
+
+"Very well,--very well indeed. We were there for six hours, and he
+maintained the same demeanour throughout. He never spoke but once,
+and that was when Chaffanbrass began his fight about the jury."
+
+"What did he say?"
+
+"He addressed the judge, interrupting Slope, who was arguing that
+some man would make a very good juryman, and declared that it was not
+by his wish that any objection was raised against any gentleman."
+
+"What did the judge say?"
+
+"Told him to abide by his counsel. The Chief Justice was very civil
+to him,--indeed better than civil."
+
+"We'll have him down to Matching, and make ever so much of him," said
+the Duchess.
+
+"Don't go too fast, Duchess, for he may have to hang poor Phineas
+yet."
+
+"Oh dear; I wish you wouldn't use that word. But what did he say?"
+
+"He told Finn that as he had thought fit to employ counsel for his
+defence,--in doing which he had undoubtedly acted wisely,--he must
+leave the case to the discretion of his counsel."
+
+"And then poor Phineas was silenced?"
+
+"He spoke another word. 'My lord,' said he, 'I for my part wish
+that the first twelve men on the list might be taken.' But old
+Chaffanbrass went on just the same. It took them two hours and a half
+before they could swear a jury."
+
+"But, Mr. Erle,--taking it altogether,--which way is it going?"
+
+"Nobody can even guess as yet. There was ever so much delay besides
+that about the jury. It seemed that somebody had called him Phinees
+instead of Phineas, and that took half an hour. They begin with the
+quarrel at the club, and are to call the first witness to-morrow
+morning. They are to examine Ratler about the quarrel, and
+Fitzgibbon, and Monk, and, I believe, old Bouncer, the man who
+writes, you know. They all heard what took place."
+
+"So did you?"
+
+"I have managed to escape that. They can't very well examine all the
+club. But I shall be called afterwards as to what took place at the
+door. They will begin with Ratler."
+
+"Everybody knows there was a quarrel, and that Mr. Bonteen had been
+drinking, and that he behaved as badly as a man could behave."
+
+"It must all be proved, Duchess."
+
+"I'll tell you what, Mr. Erle. If,--if,--if this ends badly for
+Mr. Finn I'll wear mourning to the day of my death. I'll go to the
+Drawing Room in mourning, to show what I think of it."
+
+Lord Chiltern, who was also on the bench, took his account of the
+trial home to his wife and sister in Portman Square. At this time
+Miss Palliser was staying with them, and the three ladies were
+together when the account was brought to them. In that house it was
+taken as doctrine that Phineas Finn was innocent. In the presence of
+her brother, and before her sister-in-law's visitor, Lady Laura had
+learned to be silent on the subject, and she now contented herself
+with listening, knowing that she could relieve herself by speech
+when alone with Lady Chiltern. "I never knew anything so tedious in
+my life," said the Master of the Brake hounds. "They have not done
+anything yet."
+
+"I suppose they have made their speeches?" said his wife.
+
+"Sir Gregory Grogram opened the case, as they call it; and a very
+strong case he made of it. I never believe anything that a lawyer
+says when he has a wig on his head and a fee in his hand. I prepare
+myself beforehand to regard it all as mere words, supplied at so much
+the thousand. I know he'll say whatever he thinks most likely to
+forward his own views. But upon my word he put it very strongly. He
+brought it all within so very short a space of time! Bonteen and Finn
+left the club within a minute of each other. Bonteen must have been
+at the top of the passage five minutes afterwards, and Phineas at
+that moment could not have been above two hundred yards from him.
+There can be no doubt of that."
+
+"Oswald, you don't mean to say that it's going against him!"
+exclaimed Lady Chiltern.
+
+"It's not going any way at present. The witnesses have not been
+examined. But so far, I suppose, the Attorney-General was right. He
+has got to prove it all, but so much no doubt he can prove. He can
+prove that the man was killed with some blunt weapon, such as Finn
+had. And he can prove that exactly at the same time a man was running
+to the spot very like to Finn, and that by a route which would not
+have been his route, but by using which he could have placed himself
+at that moment where the man was seen."
+
+"How very dreadful!" said Miss Palliser.
+
+"And yet I feel that I know it was that other man," said Lady
+Chiltern. Lady Laura sat silent through it all, listening with her
+eyes intent on her brother's face, with her elbow on the table and
+her brow on her hand. She did not speak a word till she found herself
+alone with her sister-in-law, and then it was hardly more than a
+word. "Violet, they will murder him!" Lady Chiltern endeavoured to
+comfort her, telling her that as yet they had heard but one side of
+the case; but the wretched woman only shook her head. "I know they
+will murder him," she said, "and then when it is too late they will
+find out what they have done!"
+
+
+[Illustration: "Violet, they will murder him."]
+
+
+On the following day the crowd in Court was if possible greater, so
+that the benchfellows were very much squeezed indeed. But it was
+impossible to exclude from the high seat such men as Mr. Ratler and
+Lord Fawn when they were required in the Court as witnesses;--and
+not a man who had obtained a seat on the first day was willing to be
+excluded on the second. And even then the witnesses were not called
+at once. Sir Gregory Grogram began the work of the day by saying
+that he had heard that morning for the first time that one of
+his witnesses had been,--"tampered with" was the word that he
+unfortunately used,--by his learned friend on the other side. He
+alluded, of course, to Lord Fawn, and poor Lord Fawn, sitting up
+there on the seat of honour, visible to all the world, became very
+hot and very uncomfortable. Then there arose a vehement dispute
+between Sir Gregory, assisted by Sir Simon, and old Mr. Chaffanbrass,
+who rejected with disdain any assistance from the gentler men who
+were with him. "Tampered with! That word should be recalled by the
+honourable gentleman who was at the head of the bar, or--or--" Had
+Mr. Chaffanbrass declared that as an alternative he would pull the
+Court about their ears, it would have been no more than he meant.
+Lord Fawn had been invited,--not summoned to attend; and why? In
+order that no suspicion of guilt might be thrown on another man,
+unless the knowledge that was in Lord Fawn's bosom, and there alone,
+would justify such a line of defence. Lord Fawn had been attended by
+his own solicitor, and might have brought the Attorney-General with
+him had he so pleased. There was a great deal said on both sides, and
+something said also by the judge. At last Sir Gregory withdrew the
+objectionable word, and substituted in lieu of it an assertion that
+his witness had been "indiscreetly questioned." Mr. Chaffanbrass
+would not for a moment admit the indiscretion, but bounced about in
+his place, tearing his wig almost off his head, and defying every one
+in the Court. The judge submitted to Mr. Chaffanbrass that he had
+been indiscreet.--"I never contradicted the Bench yet, my lord," said
+Mr. Chaffanbrass,--at which there was a general titter throughout the
+bar,--"but I must claim the privilege of conducting my own practice
+according to my own views. In this Court I am subject to the Bench.
+In my own chamber I am subject only to the law of the land." The
+judge looking over his spectacles said a mild word about the
+profession at large. Mr. Chaffanbrass, twisting his wig quite on
+one side, so that it nearly fell on Mr. Serjeant Birdbolt's face,
+muttered something as to having seen more work done in that Court
+than any other living lawyer, let his rank be what it might. When
+the little affair was over, everybody felt that Sir Gregory had been
+vanquished.
+
+Mr. Ratler, and Laurence Fitzgibbon, and Mr. Monk, and Mr. Bouncer
+were examined about the quarrel at the club, and proved that the
+quarrel had been a very bitter quarrel. They all agreed that Mr.
+Bonteen had been wrong, and that the prisoner had had cause for
+anger. Of the three distinguished legislators and statesmen above
+named Mr. Chaffanbrass refused to take the slightest notice. "I have
+no question to put to you," he said to Mr. Ratler. "Of course there
+was a quarrel. We all know that." But he did ask a question or two of
+Mr. Bouncer. "You write books, I think, Mr. Bouncer?"
+
+"I do," said Mr. Bouncer, with dignity. Now there was no peculiarity
+in a witness to which Mr. Chaffanbrass was so much opposed as an
+assumption of dignity.
+
+"What sort of books, Mr. Bouncer?"
+
+"I write novels," said Mr. Bouncer, feeling that Mr. Chaffanbrass
+must have been ignorant indeed of the polite literature of the day to
+make such a question necessary.
+
+"You mean fiction."
+
+"Well, yes; fiction,--if you like that word better."
+
+"I don't like either, particularly. You have to find plots, haven't
+you?"
+
+Mr. Bouncer paused a moment. "Yes; yes," he said. "In writing a novel
+it is necessary to construct a plot."
+
+"Where do you get 'em from?"
+
+"Where do I get 'em from?"
+
+"Yes,--where do you find them? You take them from the French
+mostly;--don't you?" Mr. Bouncer became very red. "Isn't that the way
+our English writers get their plots?"
+
+"Sometimes,--perhaps."
+
+"Your's ain't French then?"
+
+"Well;--no;--that is--I won't undertake to say that--that--"
+
+"You won't undertake to say that they're not French."
+
+"Is this relevant to the case before us, Mr. Chaffanbrass?" asked the
+judge.
+
+"Quite so, my lud. We have a highly-distinguished novelist before us,
+my lud, who, as I have reason to believe, is intimately acquainted
+with the French system of the construction of plots. It is a business
+which the French carry to perfection. The plot of a novel should, I
+imagine, be constructed in accordance with human nature?"
+
+"Certainly," said Mr. Bouncer.
+
+"You have murders in novels?"
+
+"Sometimes," said Mr. Bouncer, who had himself done many murders in
+his time.
+
+"Did you ever know a French novelist have a premeditated murder
+committed by a man who could not possibly have conceived the murder
+ten minutes before he committed it;--with whom the cause of the
+murder anteceded the murder no more than ten minutes?" Mr. Bouncer
+stood thinking for a while. "We will give you your time, because an
+answer to the question from you will be important testimony."
+
+"I don't think I do," said Mr. Bouncer, who in his confusion had been
+quite unable to think of the plot of a single novel.
+
+"And if there were such a French plot that would not be the plot that
+you would borrow?"
+
+"Certainly not," said Mr. Bouncer.
+
+"Did you ever read poetry, Mr. Bouncer?"
+
+"Oh yes;--I read a great deal of poetry."
+
+"Shakespeare, perhaps?" Mr. Bouncer did not condescend to do more
+than nod his head. "There is a murder described in _Hamlet_. Was that
+supposed by the poet to have been devised suddenly?"
+
+"I should say not."
+
+"So should I, Mr. Bouncer. Do you remember the arrangements for the
+murder in _Macbeth_? That took a little time in concocting;--didn't
+it?"
+
+"No doubt it did."
+
+"And when Othello murdered Desdemona, creeping up to her in her
+sleep, he had been thinking of it for some time?"
+
+"I suppose he had."
+
+"Do you ever read English novels as well as French, Mr. Bouncer?" The
+unfortunate author again nodded his head. "When Amy Robsart was lured
+to her death, there was some time given to the preparation,--eh?"
+
+"Of course there was."
+
+"Of course there was. And Eugene Aram, when he murdered a man in
+Bulwer's novel, turned the matter over in his mind before he did it?"
+
+"He was thinking a long time about it, I believe."
+
+"Thinking about it a long time! I rather think he was. Those great
+masters of human nature, those men who knew the human heart, did not
+venture to describe a secret murder as coming from a man's brain
+without premeditation?"
+
+"Not that I can remember."
+
+"Such also is my impression. But now, I bethink me of a murder that
+was almost as sudden as this is supposed to have been. Didn't a Dutch
+smuggler murder a Scotch lawyer, all in a moment as it were?"
+
+"Dirk Hatteraick did murder Glossop in _The Antiquary_ very
+suddenly;--but he did it from passion."
+
+"Just so, Mr. Bouncer. There was no plot there, was there? No
+arrangement; no secret creeping up to his victim; no escape even?"
+
+"He was chained."
+
+"So he was; chained like a dog;--and like a dog he flew at his enemy.
+If I understand you, then, Mr. Bouncer, you would not dare so to
+violate probability in a novel, as to produce a murderer to the
+public who should contrive a secret hidden murder,--contrive it and
+execute it, all within a quarter of an hour?"
+
+Mr. Bouncer, after another minute's consideration, said that he
+thought he would not do so. "Mr. Bouncer," said Mr. Chaffanbrass,
+"I am uncommonly obliged to our excellent friend, Sir Gregory, for
+having given us the advantage of your evidence."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXII.
+
+LORD FAWN'S EVIDENCE.
+
+
+A crowd of witnesses were heard on the second day after Mr.
+Chaffanbrass had done with Mr. Bouncer, but none of them were of much
+interest to the public. The three doctors were examined as to the
+state of the dead man's head when he was picked up, and as to the
+nature of the instrument with which he had probably been killed; and
+the fact of Phineas Finn's life-preserver was proved,--in the middle
+of which he begged that the Court would save itself some little
+trouble, as he was quite ready to acknowledge that he had walked
+home with the short bludgeon, which was then produced, in his pocket.
+"We would acknowledge a great deal if they would let us," said Mr.
+Chaffanbrass. "We acknowledge the quarrel, we acknowledge the walk
+home at night, we acknowledge the bludgeon, and we acknowledge a grey
+coat." But that happened towards the close of the second day, and
+they had not then reached the grey coat. The question of the grey
+coat was commenced on the third morning,--on the Saturday,--which
+day, as was well known, would be opened with the examination of
+Lord Fawn. The anxiety to hear Lord Fawn undergo his penance was
+intense, and had been greatly increased by the conviction that
+Mr. Chaffanbrass would resent upon him the charge made by the
+Attorney-General as to tampering with a witness. "I'll tamper with
+him by-and-bye," Mr. Chaffanbrass had whispered to Mr. Wickerby, and
+the whispered threat had been spread abroad. On the table before Mr.
+Chaffanbrass, when he took his place in the Court on the Saturday,
+was laid a heavy grey coat, and on the opposite side of the table,
+just before the Solicitor-General, was laid another grey coat, of
+much lighter material. When Lord Fawn saw the two coats as he took
+his seat on the bench his heart failed him.
+
+He was hardly allowed to seat himself before he was called upon to be
+sworn. Sir Simon Slope, who was to examine him, took it for granted
+that his lordship could give his evidence from his place on the
+bench, but to this Mr. Chaffanbrass objected. He was very well aware,
+he said, that such a practice was usual. He did not doubt but that in
+his time he had examined some hundreds of witnesses from the bench.
+In nineteen cases out of twenty there could be no objection to such a
+practice. But in this case the noble lord would have to give evidence
+not only as to what he had seen, but as to what he then saw. It would
+be expedient that he should see colours as nearly as possible in
+the same light as the jury, which he would do if he stood in the
+witness-box. And there might arise questions of identity, in speaking
+of which it would be well that the noble lord should be as near as
+possible to the thing or person to be identified. He was afraid that
+he must trouble the noble lord to come down from the Elysium of
+the bench. Whereupon Lord Fawn descended, and was sworn in at the
+witness-box.
+
+His treatment from Sir Simon Slope was all that was due from a
+Solicitor-General to a distinguished peer who was a member of
+the same Government as himself. Sir Simon put his questions so
+as almost to reassure the witness; and very quickly,--only too
+quickly,--obtained from him all the information that was needed on
+the side of the prosecution. Lord Fawn, when he had left the club,
+had seen both Mr. Bonteen and Mr. Finn preparing to follow him, but
+he had gone alone, and had never seen Mr. Bonteen since. He walked
+very slowly down into Curzon Street and Bolton Row, and when there,
+as he was about to cross the road at the top of Clarges Street,--as
+he believed, just as he was crossing the street,--he saw a man come
+at a very fast pace out of the mews which runs into Bolton Row,
+opposite to Clarges Street, and from thence hurry very quickly
+towards the passage which separates the gardens of Devonshire and
+Lansdowne Houses. It had already been proved that had Phineas Finn
+retraced his steps after Erle and Fitzgibbon had turned their backs
+upon him, his shortest and certainly most private way to the spot
+on which Lord Fawn had seen the man would have been by the mews in
+question. Lord Fawn went on to say that the man wore a grey coat,--as
+far as he could judge it was such a coat as Sir Simon now showed him;
+he could not at all identify the prisoner; he could not say whether
+the man he had seen was as tall as the prisoner; he thought that as
+far as he could judge, there was not much difference in the height.
+He had not thought of Mr. Finn when he saw the man hurrying along,
+nor had he troubled his mind about the man. That was the end of Lord
+Fawn's evidence-in-chief, which he would gladly have prolonged to the
+close of the day could he thereby have postponed the coming horrors
+of his cross-examination. But there he was,--in the clutches of
+the odious, dirty, little man, hating the little man, despising
+him because he was dirty, and nothing better than an Old Bailey
+barrister,--and yet fearing him with so intense a fear!
+
+Mr. Chaffanbrass smiled at his victim, and for a moment was quite
+soft with him,--as a cat is soft with a mouse. The reporters
+could hardly hear his first question,--"I believe you are an
+Under-Secretary of State?" Lord Fawn acknowledged the fact. Now it
+was the case that in the palmy days of our hero's former career he
+had filled the very office which Lord Fawn now occupied, and that
+Lord Fawn had at the time filled a similar position in another
+department. These facts Mr. Chaffanbrass extracted from his
+witness,--not without an appearance of unwillingness, which was
+produced, however, altogether by the natural antagonism of the
+victim to his persecutor; for Mr. Chaffanbrass, even when asking the
+simplest questions, in the simplest words, even when abstaining from
+that sarcasm of tone under which witnesses were wont to feel that
+they were being flayed alive, could so look at a man as to create an
+antagonism which no witness could conceal. In asking a man his name,
+and age, and calling, he could produce an impression that the man
+was unwilling to tell anything, and that, therefore, the jury were
+entitled to regard his evidence with suspicion. "Then," continued Mr.
+Chaffanbrass, "you must have met him frequently in the intercourse of
+your business?"
+
+"I suppose I did,--sometimes."
+
+"Sometimes? You belonged to the same party?"
+
+"We didn't sit in the same House."
+
+"I know that, my lord. I know very well what House you sat in. But
+I suppose you would condescend to be acquainted with even a commoner
+who held the very office which you hold now. You belonged to the same
+club with him."
+
+"I don't go much to the clubs," said Lord Fawn.
+
+"But the quarrel of which we have heard so much took place at a
+club in your presence?" Lord Fawn assented. "In fact you cannot but
+have been intimately and accurately acquainted with the personal
+appearance of the gentleman who is now on his trial. Is that so?"
+
+"I never was intimate with him."
+
+Mr. Chaffanbrass looked up at the jury and shook his head sadly.
+"I am not presuming, Lord Fawn, that you so far derogated as to be
+intimate with this gentleman,--as to whom, however, I shall be able
+to show by and by that he was the chosen friend of the very man under
+whose mastership you now serve. I ask whether his appearance is not
+familiar to you?" Lord Fawn at last said that it was. "Do you know
+his height? What should you say was his height?" Lord Fawn altogether
+refused to give an opinion on such a subject, but acknowledged that
+he should not be surprised if he were told that Mr. Finn was over six
+feet high. "In fact you consider him a tall man, my lord? There he
+is, you can look at him. Is he a tall man?" Lord Fawn did look, but
+wouldn't give an answer. "I'll undertake to say, my lord, that there
+isn't a person in the Court at this moment, except yourself, who
+wouldn't be ready to express an opinion on his oath that Mr. Finn is
+a tall man. Mr. Chief Constable, just let the prisoner step out from
+the dock for a moment. He won't run away. I must have his lordship's
+opinion as to Mr. Finn's height." Poor Phineas, when this was said,
+clutched hold of the front of the dock, as though determined that
+nothing but main force should make him exhibit himself to the Court
+in the manner proposed.
+
+But the need for exhibition passed away. "I know that he is a very
+tall man," said Lord Fawn.
+
+"You know that he is a very tall man. We all know it. There can be
+no doubt about it. He is, as you say, a very tall man,--with whose
+personal appearance you have long been familiar? I ask again, my
+lord, whether you have not been long familiar with his personal
+appearance?" After some further agonising delay Lord Fawn at last
+acknowledged that it had been so. "Now we shall get on like a house
+on fire," said Mr. Chaffanbrass.
+
+But still the house did not burn very quickly. A string of questions
+was then asked as to the attitude of the man who had been seen coming
+out of the mews wearing a grey great coat,--as to his attitude, and
+as to his general likeness to Phineas Finn. In answer to these Lord
+Fawn would only say that he had not observed the man's attitude,
+and had certainly not thought of the prisoner when he saw the man.
+"My lord," said Mr. Chaffanbrass, very solemnly, "look at your late
+friend and colleague, and remember that his life depends probably on
+the accuracy of your memory. The man you saw--murdered Mr. Bonteen.
+With all my experience in such matters,--which is great; and with all
+my skill,--which is something, I cannot stand against that fact. It
+is for me to show that that man and my client were not one and the
+same person, and I must do so by means of your evidence,--by sifting
+what you say to-day, and by comparing it with what you have already
+said on other occasions. I understand you now to say that there is
+nothing in your remembrance of the man you saw, independently of the
+colour of the coat, to guide you to an opinion whether that man was
+or was not one and the same with the prisoner?"
+
+In all the crowd then assembled there was no man more thoroughly
+under the influence of conscience as to his conduct than was Lord
+Fawn in reference to the evidence which he was called upon to give.
+Not only would the idea of endangering the life of a human being have
+been horrible to him, but the sanctity of an oath was imperative to
+him. He was essentially a truth-speaking man, if only he knew how
+to speak the truth. He would have sacrificed much to establish the
+innocence of Phineas Finn,--not for the love of Phineas, but for
+the love of innocence;--but not even to do that would he have lied.
+But he was a bad witness, and by his slowness, and by a certain
+unsustained pomposity which was natural to him, had already taught
+the jury to think that he was anxious to convict the prisoner. Two
+men in the Court, and two only, thoroughly understood his condition.
+Mr. Chaffanbrass saw it all, and intended without the slightest
+scruple to take advantage of it. And the Chief Justice saw it all,
+and was already resolving how he could set the witness right with the
+jury.
+
+"I didn't think of Mr. Finn at the time," said Lord Fawn in answer to
+the last question.
+
+"So I understand. The man didn't strike you as being tall."
+
+"I don't think that he did."
+
+"But yet in the evidence you gave before the magistrate in Bow Street
+I think you expressed a very strong opinion that the man you saw
+running out of the mews was Mr. Finn?" Lord Fawn was again silent. "I
+am asking your lordship a question to which I must request an answer.
+Here is the Times report of the examination, with which you can
+refresh your memory, and you are of course aware that it was mainly
+on your evidence as here reported that my client stands there in
+jeopardy of his life."
+
+"I am not aware of anything of the kind," said the witness.
+
+"Very well. We will drop that then. But such was your evidence,
+whether important or not important. Of course your lordship can take
+what time you please for recollection."
+
+Lord Fawn tried very hard to recollect, but would not look at the
+newspaper which had been handed to him. "I cannot remember what words
+I used. It seems to me that I thought it must have been Mr. Finn
+because I had been told that Mr. Finn could have been there by
+running round."
+
+"Surely, my lord, that would not have sufficed to induce you to give
+such evidence as is there reported?"
+
+"And the colour of the coat," said Lord Fawn.
+
+"In fact you went by the colour of the coat, and that only?"
+
+"Then there had been the quarrel."
+
+"My lord, is not that begging the question? Mr. Bonteen quarrelled
+with Mr. Finn. Mr. Bonteen was murdered by a man,--as we all
+believe,--whom you saw at a certain spot. Therefore you identified
+the man whom you saw as Mr. Finn. Was that so?"
+
+"I didn't identify him."
+
+"At any rate you do not do so now? Putting aside the grey coat there
+is nothing to make you now think that that man and Mr. Finn were one
+and the same? Come, my lord, on behalf of that man's life, which is
+in great jeopardy,--is in great jeopardy because of the evidence
+given by you before the magistrate,--do not be ashamed to speak the
+truth openly, though it be at variance with what you may have said
+before with ill-advised haste."
+
+"My lord, is it proper that I should be treated in this way?" said
+the witness, appealing to the Bench.
+
+"Mr. Chaffanbrass," said the judge, again looking at the barrister
+over his spectacles, "I think you are stretching the privilege of
+your position too far."
+
+"I shall have to stretch it further yet, my lord. His lordship in his
+evidence before the magistrate gave on his oath a decided opinion
+that the man he saw was Mr. Finn;--and on that evidence Mr. Finn was
+committed for murder. Let him say openly, now, to the jury,--when Mr.
+Finn is on his trial for his life before the Court, and for all his
+hopes in life before the country,--whether he thinks as then he
+thought, and on what grounds he thinks so."
+
+"I think so because of the quarrel, and because of the grey coat."
+
+"For no other reasons?"
+
+"No;--for no other reasons."
+
+"Your only ground for suggesting identity is the grey coat?"
+
+"And the quarrel," said Lord Fawn.
+
+"My lord, in giving evidence as to identity, I fear that you do not
+understand the meaning of the word." Lord Fawn looked up at the
+judge, but the judge on this occasion said nothing. "At any rate we
+have it from you at present that there was nothing in the appearance
+of the man you saw like to that of Mr. Finn except the colour of the
+coat."
+
+"I don't think there was," said Lord Fawn, slowly.
+
+Then there occurred a scene in the Court which no doubt was
+gratifying to the spectators, and may in part have repaid them for
+the weariness of the whole proceeding. Mr. Chaffanbrass, while Lord
+Fawn was still in the witness-box, requested permission for a certain
+man to stand forward, and put on the coat which was lying on the
+table before him,--this coat being in truth the identical garment
+which Mr. Meager had brought home with him on the morning of the
+murder. This man was Mr. Wickerby's clerk, Mr. Scruby, and he put on
+the coat,--which seemed to fit him well. Mr. Chaffanbrass then asked
+permission to examine Mr. Scruby, explaining that much time might be
+saved, and declaring that he had but one question to ask him. After
+some difficulty this permission was given him, and Mr. Scruby was
+asked his height. Mr. Scruby was five feet eight inches, and had
+been accurately measured on the previous day with reference to the
+question. Then the examination of Lord Fawn was resumed, and Mr.
+Chaffanbrass referred to that very irregular interview to which he
+had so improperly enticed the witness in Mr. Wickerby's chambers. For
+a long time Sir Gregory Grogram declared that he would not permit any
+allusion to what had taken place at a most improper conference,--a
+conference which he could not stigmatize in sufficiently strong
+language. But Mr. Chaffanbrass, smiling blandly,--smiling very
+blandly for him,--suggested that the impropriety of the conference,
+let it have been ever so abominable, did not prevent the fact of the
+conference, and that he was manifestly within his right in alluding
+to it. "Suppose, my lord, that Lord Fawn had confessed in Mr.
+Wickerby's chambers that he had murdered Mr. Bonteen himself, and
+had since repented of that confession, would Mr. Camperdown and Mr.
+Wickerby, who were present, and would I, be now debarred from stating
+that confession in evidence, because, in deference to some fanciful
+rules of etiquette, Lord Fawn should not have been there?" Mr.
+Chaffanbrass at last prevailed, and the evidence was resumed.
+
+"You saw Mr. Scruby wear that coat in Mr. Wickerby's chambers." Lord
+Fawn said that he could not identify the coat. "We'll take care to
+have it identified. We shall get a great deal out of that coat yet.
+You saw that man wear a coat like that."
+
+"Yes; I did."
+
+"And you see him now."
+
+"Yes, I do."
+
+"Does he remind you of the figure of the man you saw come out of the
+mews?" Lord Fawn paused. "We can't make him move about here as we did
+in Mr. Wickerby's room; but remembering that as you must do, does he
+look like the man?"
+
+"I don't remember what the man looked like."
+
+"Did you not tell us in Mr. Wickerby's room that Mr. Scruby with the
+grey coat on was like the figure of the man?"
+
+Questions of this nature were prolonged for near half an hour, during
+which Sir Gregory made more than one attempt to defend his witness
+from the weapons of their joint enemies; but Lord Fawn at last
+admitted that he had acknowledged the resemblance, and did, in some
+faint ambiguous fashion, acknowledge it in his present evidence.
+
+"My lord," said Mr. Chaffanbrass as he allowed Lord Fawn to go down,
+"you have no doubt taken a note of Mr. Scruby's height." Whereupon
+the judge nodded his head.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIII.
+
+MR. CHAFFANBRASS FOR THE DEFENCE.
+
+
+The case for the prosecution was completed on the Saturday evening,
+Mrs. Bunce having been examined as the last witness on that side.
+She was only called upon to say that her lodger had been in the
+habit of letting himself in and out of her house at all hours with
+a latch-key;--but she insisted on saying more, and told the judge
+and the jury and the barristers that if they thought that Mr. Finn
+had murdered anybody they didn't know anything about the world in
+general. Whereupon Mr. Chaffanbrass said that he would like to ask
+her a question or two, and with consummate flattery extracted from
+her her opinion of her lodger. She had known him for years, and
+thought that, of all the gentlemen that ever were born, he was the
+least likely to do such a bloody-minded action. Mr. Chaffanbrass was,
+perhaps, right in thinking that her evidence might be as serviceable
+as that of the lords and countesses.
+
+During the Sunday the trial was, as a matter of course, the talk
+of the town. Poor Lord Fawn shut himself up, and was seen by no
+one;--but his conduct and evidence were discussed everywhere. At
+the clubs it was thought that he had escaped as well as could be
+expected; but he himself felt that he had been disgraced for ever.
+There was a very common opinion that Mr. Chaffanbrass had admitted
+too much when he had declared that the man whom Lord Fawn had seen
+was doubtless the murderer. To the minds of men generally it seemed
+to be less evident that the man so seen should have done the deed,
+than that Phineas Finn should have been that man. Was it probable
+that there should be two men going about in grey coats, in exactly
+the same vicinity, and at exactly the same hour of the night? And
+then the evidence which Lord Fawn had given before the magistrates
+was to the world at large at any rate as convincing as that given in
+the Court. The jury would, of course, be instructed to regard only
+the latter; whereas the general public would naturally be guided by
+the two combined. At the club it was certainly believed that the case
+was going against the prisoner.
+
+"You have read it all, of course," said the Duchess of Omnium to her
+husband, as she sat with the Observer in her hand on that Sunday
+morning. The Sunday papers were full of the report, and were enjoying
+a very extended circulation.
+
+"I wish you would not think so much about it," said the Duke.
+
+"That's very easily said, but how is one to help thinking about it?
+Of course I am thinking about it. You know all about the coat. It
+belonged to the man where Mealyus was lodging."
+
+"I will not talk about the coat, Glencora. If Mr. Finn did commit the
+murder it is right that he should be convicted."
+
+"But if he didn't?"
+
+"It would be doubly right that he should be acquitted. But the jury
+will have means of arriving at a conclusion without prejudice, which
+you and I cannot have; and therefore we should be prepared to take
+their verdict as correct."
+
+"If they find him guilty, their verdict will be damnable and false,"
+said the Duchess. Whereupon the Duke turned away in anger, and
+resolved that he would say nothing more about the trial,--which
+resolution, however, he was compelled to break before the trial was
+over.
+
+"What do you think about it, Mr. Erle?" asked the other Duke.
+
+"I don't know what to think;--I only hope."
+
+"That he may be acquitted?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"Whether guilty or innocent?"
+
+"Well;--yes. But if he is acquitted I shall believe him to have been
+innocent. Your Grace thinks--?"
+
+"I am as unwilling to think as you are, Mr. Erle." It was thus that
+people spoke of it. With the exception of some very few, all those
+who had known Phineas were anxious for an acquittal, though they
+could not bring themselves to believe that an innocent man had been
+put in peril of his life.
+
+On the Monday morning the trial was recommenced, and the whole day
+was taken up by the address which Mr. Chaffanbrass made to the jury.
+He began by telling them the history of the coat which lay before
+them, promising to prove by evidence all the details which he stated.
+It was not his intention, he said, to accuse any one of the murder.
+It was his business to defend the prisoner, not to accuse others.
+But, as he should prove to them, two persons had been arrested as
+soon as the murder had been discovered,--two persons totally unknown
+to each other, and who were never for a moment supposed to have acted
+together,--and the suspicion of the police had in the first instance
+pointed, not to his client, but to the other man. That other man
+had also quarrelled with Mr. Bonteen, and that other man was now in
+custody on a charge of bigamy chiefly through the instrumentality of
+Mr. Bonteen, who had been the friend of the victim of the supposed
+bigamist. With the accusation of bigamy they would have nothing to
+do, but he must ask them to take cognisance of that quarrel as well
+as of the quarrel at the club. He then named that formerly popular
+preacher, the Rev. Mr. Emilius, and explained that he would prove
+that this man, who had incurred the suspicion of the police in
+the first instance, had during the night of the murder been so
+circumstanced as to have been able to use the coat produced. He would
+prove also that Mr. Emilius was of precisely the same height as the
+man whom they had seen wearing the coat. God forbid that he should
+bring an accusation of murder against a man on such slight testimony.
+But if the evidence, as grounded on the coat, was slight against
+Emilius, how could it prevail at all against his client? The two
+coats were as different as chalk from cheese, the one being what
+would be called a gentleman's fashionable walking coat, and the other
+the wrap-rascal of such a fellow as was Mr. Meager. And yet Lord
+Fawn, who attempted to identify the prisoner only by his coat, could
+give them no opinion as to which was the coat he had seen! But Lord
+Fawn, who had found himself to be debarred by his conscience from
+repeating the opinion he had given before the magistrate as to the
+identity of Phineas Finn with the man he had seen, did tell them that
+the figure of that man was similar to the figure of him who had worn
+the coat on Saturday in presence of them all. This man in the street
+had therefore been like Mr. Emilius, and could not in the least
+have resembled the prisoner. Mr. Chaffanbrass would not tell the
+jury that this point bore strongly against Mr. Emilius, but he took
+upon himself to assert that it was quite sufficient to snap asunder
+the thin thread of circumstantial evidence by which his client was
+connected with the murder. A great deal more was said about Lord
+Fawn, which was not complimentary to that nobleman. "His lordship is
+an honest, slow man, who has doubtless meant to tell you the truth,
+but who does not understand the meaning of what he himself says. When
+he swore before the magistrate that he thought he could identify my
+client with the man in the street, he really meant that he thought
+that there must be identity, because he believed from other reasons
+that Mr. Finn was the man in the street. Mr. Bonteen had been
+murdered;--according to Lord Fawn's thinking had probably been
+murdered by Mr. Finn. And it was also probable to him that Mr.
+Bonteen had been murdered by the man in the street. He came thus to
+the conclusion that the prisoner was the man in the street. In fact,
+as far as the process of identifying is concerned, his lordship's
+evidence is altogether in favour of the prisoner. The figure seen by
+him we must suppose was the figure of a short man, and not of one
+tall and commanding in his presence, as is that of the prisoner."
+
+There were many other points on which Mr. Chaffanbrass insisted at
+great length;--but, chiefly, perhaps, on the improbability, he might
+say impossibility, that the plot for a murder so contrived should
+have entered into a man's head, have been completed and executed, all
+within a few minutes. "But under no hypothesis compatible with the
+allegations of the prosecution can it be conceived that the murder
+should have been contemplated by my client before the quarrel at the
+club. No, gentlemen;--the murderer had been at his work for days. He
+had examined the spot and measured the distances. He had dogged the
+steps of his victim on previous nights. In the shade of some dark
+doorway he had watched him from his club, and had hurried by his
+secret path to the spot which he had appointed for the deed. Can any
+man doubt that the murder has thus been committed, let who will have
+been the murderer? But, if so, then my client could not have done
+the deed." Much had been made of the words spoken at the club door.
+Was it probable,--was it possible,--that a man intending to commit
+a murder should declare how easily he could do it, and display the
+weapon he intended to use? The evidence given as to that part of the
+night's work was, he contended, altogether in the prisoner's favour.
+Then he spoke of the life-preserver, and gave a rather long account
+of the manner in which Phineas Finn had once taken two garotters
+prisoner in the street. All this lasted till the great men on the
+bench trooped out to lunch. And then Mr. Chaffanbrass, who had been
+speaking for nearly four hours, retired to a small room and there
+drank a pint of port wine. While he was doing so, Mr. Serjeant
+Birdbolt spoke a word to him, but he only shook his head and snarled.
+He was telling himself at the moment how quick may be the resolves
+of the eager mind,--for he was convinced that the idea of attacking
+Mr. Bonteen had occurred to Phineas Finn after he had displayed the
+life-preserver at the club door; and he was telling himself also
+how impossible it is for a dull conscientious man to give accurate
+evidence as to what he had himself seen,--for he was convinced that
+Lord Fawn had seen Phineas Finn in the street. But to no human being
+had he expressed this opinion; nor would he express it,--unless his
+client should be hung.
+
+After lunch he occupied nearly three hours in giving to the jury,
+and of course to the whole assembled Court, the details of about two
+dozen cases, in which apparently strong circumstantial evidence had
+been wrong in its tendency. In some of the cases quoted, the persons
+tried had been acquitted; in some, convicted and afterwards pardoned;
+in one pardoned after many years of punishment;--and in one the poor
+victim had been hung. On this he insisted with a pathetic eloquence
+which certainly would not have been expected from his appearance, and
+spoke with tears in his eyes,--real unaffected tears,--of the misery
+of those wretched jurymen who, in the performance of their duty,
+had been led into so frightful an error. Through the whole of this
+long recital he seemed to feel no fatigue, and when he had done with
+his list of judicial mistakes about five o'clock in the afternoon,
+went on to make what he called the very few remarks necessary as to
+the evidence which on the next day he proposed to produce as to the
+prisoner's character. He ventured to think that evidence as to the
+character of such a nature,--so strong, so convincing, so complete,
+and so free from all objection, had never yet been given in a
+criminal court. At six o'clock he completed his speech, and it
+was computed that the old man had been on his legs very nearly
+seven hours. It was said of him afterwards that he was taken home
+speechless by one of his daughters and immediately put to bed, that
+he roused himself about eight and ate his dinner and drank a bottle
+of port in his bedroom, that he then slept,--refusing to stir even
+when he was waked, till half-past nine in the morning, and that then
+he scrambled into his clothes, breakfasted, and got down to the Court
+in half an hour. At ten o'clock he was in his place, and nobody knew
+that he was any the worse for the previous day's exertion.
+
+This was on a Tuesday, the fifth day of the trial, and upon the
+whole perhaps the most interesting. A long array of distinguished
+persons,--of women as well as men,--was brought up to give to the
+jury their opinion as to the character of Mr. Finn. Mr. Low was the
+first, who having been his tutor when he was studying at the bar,
+knew him longer than any other Londoner. Then came his countryman
+Laurence Fitzgibbon, and Barrington Erle, and others of his own party
+who had been intimate with him. And men, too, from the opposite side
+of the House were brought up, Sir Orlando Drought among the number,
+all of whom said that they had known the prisoner well, and from
+their knowledge would have considered it impossible that he should
+have become a murderer. The two last called were Lord Cantrip and Mr.
+Monk, one of whom was, and the other had been, a Cabinet Minister.
+But before them came Lady Cantrip,--and Lady Chiltern, whom we once
+knew as Violet Effingham, whom this very prisoner had in early days
+fondly hoped to make his wife, who was still young and beautiful, and
+who had never before entered a public Court.
+
+There had of course been much question as to the witnesses to be
+selected. The Duchess of Omnium had been anxious to be one, but the
+Duke had forbidden it, telling his wife that she really did not know
+the man, and that she was carried away by a foolish enthusiasm. Lady
+Cantrip when asked had at once consented. She had known Phineas Finn
+when he had served under her husband, and had liked him much. Then
+what other woman's tongue should be brought to speak of the man's
+softness and tender bearing! It was out of the question that Lady
+Laura Kennedy should appear. She did not even propose it when her
+brother with unnecessary sternness told her it could not be so. Then
+his wife looked at him. "You shall go," said Lord Chiltern, "if you
+feel equal to it. It seems to be nonsense, but they say that it is
+important."
+
+"I will go," said Violet, with her eyes full of tears. Afterwards
+when her sister-in-law besought her to be generous in her testimony,
+she only smiled as she assented. Could generosity go beyond hers?
+
+Lord Chiltern preceded his wife. "I have," he said, "known Mr. Finn
+well, and have loved him dearly. I have eaten with him and drank with
+him, have ridden with him, have lived with him, and have quarrelled
+with him; and I know him as I do my own right hand." Then he
+stretched forth his arm with the palm extended.
+
+"Irrespectively of the evidence in this case you would not have
+thought him to be a man likely to commit such a crime?" asked
+Serjeant Birdbolt.
+
+"I am quite sure from my knowledge of the man that he could not
+commit a murder," said Lord Chiltern; "and I don't care what the
+evidence is."
+
+Then came his wife, and it certainly was a pretty sight to see as her
+husband led her up to the box and stood close beside her as she gave
+her evidence. There were many there who knew much of the history of
+her life,--who knew that passage in it of her early love,--for the
+tale had of course been told when it was whispered about that Lady
+Chiltern was to be examined as a witness. Every ear was at first
+strained to hear her words;--but they were audible in every corner
+of the Court without any effort. It need hardly be said that she was
+treated with the greatest deference on every side. She answered the
+questions very quietly, but apparently without nervousness. "Yes; she
+had known Mr. Finn long, and intimately, and had very greatly valued
+his friendship. She did so still,--as much as ever. Yes; she had
+known him for some years, and in circumstances which she thought
+justified her in saying that she understood his character. She
+regarded him as a man who was brave and tender-hearted, soft in
+feeling and manly in disposition. To her it was quite incredible that
+he should have committed a crime such as this. She knew him to be a
+man prone to forgive offences, and of a sweet nature." And it was
+pretty too to watch the unwonted gentleness of old Chaffanbrass as
+he asked the questions, and carefully abstained from putting any one
+that could pain her. Sir Gregory said that he had heard her evidence
+with great pleasure, but that he had no question to ask her himself.
+Then she stepped down, again took her husband's arm, and left the
+Court amidst a hum of almost affectionate greeting.
+
+And what must he have thought as he stood there within the dock,
+looking at her and listening to her? There had been months in his
+life when he had almost trusted that he would succeed in winning that
+fair, highly-born, and wealthy woman for his wife; and though he
+had failed, and now knew that he had never really touched her heart,
+that she had always loved the man whom,--though she had rejected him
+time after time because of the dangers of his ways,--she had at last
+married, yet it must have been pleasant to him, even in his peril, to
+hear from her own lips how well she had esteemed him. She left the
+Court with her veil down, and he could not catch her eye; but Lord
+Chiltern nodded to him in his old pleasant familiar way, as though to
+bid him take courage, and to tell him that all things would even yet
+be well with him.
+
+The evidence given by Lady Cantrip and her husband and by Mr. Monk
+was equally favourable. She had always regarded him as a perfect
+gentleman. Lord Cantrip had found him to be devoted to the service
+of the country,--modest, intelligent, and high-spirited. Perhaps the
+few words which fell from Mr. Monk were as strong as any that were
+spoken. "He is a man whom I have delighted to call my friend, and I
+have been happy to think that his services have been at the disposal
+of his country."
+
+Sir Gregory Grogram replied. It seemed to him that the evidence was
+as he had left it. It would be for the jury to decide, under such
+directions as his lordship might be pleased to give them, how far
+that evidence brought the guilt home to the prisoner. He would use no
+rhetoric in pushing the case against the prisoner; but he must submit
+to them that his learned friend had not shown that acquaintance with
+human nature which the gentleman undoubtedly possessed in arguing
+that there had lacked time for the conception and execution of the
+crime. Then, at considerable length, he strove to show that Mr.
+Chaffanbrass had been unjustly severe upon Lord Fawn.
+
+It was late in the afternoon when Sir Gregory had finished his
+speech, and the judge's charge was reserved for a sixth day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIV.
+
+CONFUSION IN THE COURT.
+
+
+On the following morning it was observed that before the judges took
+their seats Mr. Chaffanbrass entered the Court with a manner much
+more brisk than was expected from him now that his own work was done.
+As a matter of course he would be there to hear the charge, but,
+almost equally as a matter of course, he would be languid, silent,
+cross, and unenergetic. They who knew him were sure, when they saw
+his bearing on this morning, that he intended to do something more
+before the charge was given. The judges entered the Court nearly half
+an hour later than usual, and it was observed with surprise that they
+were followed by the Duke of Omnium. Mr. Chaffanbrass was on his feet
+before the Chief Justice had taken his seat, but the judge was the
+first to speak. It was observed that he held a scrap of paper in his
+hand, and that the barrister held a similar scrap. Then every man
+in the Court knew that some message had come suddenly by the wires.
+"I am informed, Mr. Chaffanbrass, that you wish to address the Court
+before I begin my charge."
+
+"Yes, my lud; and I am afraid, my lud, that I shall have to ask
+your ludship to delay your charge for some days, and to subject the
+jury to the very great inconvenience of prolonged incarceration for
+another week;--either to do that or to call upon the jury to acquit
+the prisoner. I venture to assert, on my own peril, that no jury can
+convict the prisoner after hearing me read that which I hold in my
+hand." Then Mr. Chaffanbrass paused, as though expecting that the
+judge would speak;--but the judge said not a word, but sat looking
+at the old barrister over his spectacles.
+
+Every eye was turned upon Phineas Finn, who up to this moment had
+heard nothing of these new tidings,--who did not in the least know
+on what was grounded the singularly confident,--almost insolently
+confident assertion which Mr. Chaffanbrass had made in his favour. On
+him the effect was altogether distressing. He had borne the trying
+week with singular fortitude, having stood there in the place of
+shame hour after hour, and day after day, expecting his doom. It had
+been to him as a lifetime of torture. He had become almost numb from
+the weariness of his position and the agonising strain upon his mind.
+The gaoler had offered him a seat from day to day, but he had always
+refused it, preferring to lean upon the rail and gaze upon the Court.
+He had almost ceased to hope for anything except the end of it. He
+had lost count of the days, and had begun to feel that the trial was
+an eternity of torture in itself. At nights he could not sleep, but
+during the Sunday, after Mass, he had slept all day. Then it had
+begun again, and when the Tuesday came he hardly knew how long it had
+been since that vacant Sunday. And now he heard the advocate declare,
+without knowing on what ground the declaration was grounded, that
+the trial must be postponed, or that the jury must be instructed to
+acquit him.
+
+"This telegram has reached us only this morning," continued Mr.
+Chaffanbrass. "'Mealyus had a house door-key made in Prague. We have
+the mould in our possession, and will bring the man who made the
+key to England.' Now, my lud, the case in the hands of the police,
+as against this man Mealyus, or Emilius, as he has chosen to call
+himself, broke down altogether on the presumption that he could not
+have let himself in and out of the house in which he had put himself
+to bed on the night of the murder. We now propose to prove that he
+had prepared himself with the means of doing so, and had done so
+after a fashion which is conclusive as to his having required the key
+for some guilty purpose. We assert that your ludship cannot allow the
+case to go to the jury without taking cognisance of this telegram;
+and we go further, and say that those twelve men, as twelve human
+beings with hearts in their bosoms and ordinary intelligence at their
+command, cannot ignore the message, even should your ludship insist
+upon their doing so with all the energy at your disposal."
+
+Then there was a scene in Court, and it appeared that no less
+than four messages had been received from Prague, all to the same
+effect. One had been addressed by Madame Goesler to her friend the
+Duchess,--and that message had caused the Duke's appearance on the
+scene. He had brought his telegram direct to the Old Bailey, and the
+Chief Justice now held it in his hand. The lawyer's clerk who had
+accompanied Madame Goesler had telegraphed to the Governor of the
+gaol, to Mr. Wickerby, and to the Attorney-General. Sir Gregory,
+rising with the telegram in his hand, stated that he had received the
+same information. "I do not see," said he, "that it at all alters the
+evidence as against the prisoner."
+
+"Let your evidence go to the jury, then," said Mr. Chaffanbrass,
+"with such observations as his lordship may choose to make on the
+telegram. I shall be contented. You have already got your other man
+in prison on a charge of bigamy."
+
+"I could not take notice of the message in charging the jury, Mr.
+Chaffanbrass," said the judge. "It has come, as far as we know,
+from the energy of a warm friend,--from that hearty friendship with
+which it seemed yesterday that this gentleman, the prisoner at the
+bar, has inspired so many men and women of high character. But it
+proves nothing. It is an assertion. And where should we all be, Mr.
+Chaffanbrass, if it should appear hereafter that the assertion is
+fictitious,--prepared purposely to aid the escape of a criminal?"
+
+"I defy you to ignore it, my lord."
+
+"I can only suggest, Mr. Chaffanbrass," continued the judge, "that
+you should obtain the consent of the gentlemen on the other side to
+a postponement of my charge."
+
+Then spoke out the foreman of the jury. Was it proposed that they
+should be locked up till somebody should come from Prague, and that
+then the trial should be recommenced? The system, said the foreman,
+under which Middlesex juries were chosen for service in the City was
+known to be most horribly cruel;--but cruelty to jurymen such as this
+had never even been heard of. Then a most irregular word was spoken.
+One of the jurymen declared that he was quite willing to believe the
+telegram. "Every one believes it," said Mr. Chaffanbrass. Then the
+Chief Justice scolded the juryman, and Sir Gregory Grogram scolded
+Mr. Chaffanbrass. It seemed as though all the rules of the Court
+were to be set at defiance. "Will my learned friend say that he
+doesn't believe it?" asked Mr. Chaffanbrass. "I neither believe nor
+disbelieve it; but it cannot affect the evidence," said Sir Gregory.
+"Then send the case to the jury," said Mr. Chaffanbrass. It seemed
+that everybody was talking, and Mr. Wickerby, the attorney, tried
+to explain it all to the prisoner over the bar of the dock, not in
+the lowest possible voice. The Chief Justice became angry, and the
+guardian of the silence of the Court bestirred himself energetically.
+"My lud," said Mr. Chaffanbrass, "I maintain that it is proper that
+the prisoner should be informed of the purport of these telegrams.
+Mercy demands it, and justice as well." Phineas Finn, however, did
+not understand, as he had known nothing about the latch-key of the
+house in Northumberland Street.
+
+Something, however, must be done. The Chief Justice was of opinion
+that, although the preparation of a latch-key in Prague could not
+really affect the evidence against the prisoner,--although the facts
+against the prisoner would not be altered, let the manufacture
+of that special key be ever so clearly proved,--nevertheless the
+jury were entitled to have before them the facts now tendered in
+evidence before they could be called upon to give a verdict, and
+that therefore they should submit themselves, in the service of
+their country, to the very serious additional inconvenience which
+they would be called upon to endure. Sundry of the jury altogether
+disagreed with this, and became loud in their anger. They had already
+been locked up for a week. "And we are quite prepared to give a
+verdict," said one. The judge again scolded him very severely; and
+as the Attorney-General did at last assent, and as the unfortunate
+jurymen had no power in the matter, so it was at last arranged.
+The trial should be postponed till time should be given for Madame
+Goesler and the blacksmith to reach London from Prague.
+
+If the matter was interesting to the public before, it became doubly
+interesting now. It was of course known to everybody that Madame
+Goesler had undertaken a journey to Bohemia,--and, as many supposed,
+a roving tour through all the wilder parts of unknown Europe, Poland,
+Hungary, and the Principalities for instance,--with the object of
+looking for evidence to save the life of Phineas Finn; and grandly
+romantic tales were told of her wit, her wealth, and her beauty.
+The story was published of the Duke of Omnium's will, only not
+exactly the true story. The late Duke had left her everything at his
+disposal, and, it was hinted that they had been privately married
+just before the Duke's death. Of course Madame Goesler became very
+popular, and the blacksmith from Prague who had made the key was
+expected with an enthusiasm which almost led to preparation for a
+public reception.
+
+And yet, let the blacksmith from Prague be ever so minute in his
+evidence as to the key, let it be made as clear as running water that
+Mealyus had caused to be constructed for him in Prague a key that
+would open the door of the house in Northumberland Street, the facts
+as proved at the trial would not be at all changed. The lawyers were
+much at variance with their opinions on the matter, some thinking
+that the judge had been altogether wrong in delaying his charge.
+According to them he should not have allowed Mr. Chaffanbrass to have
+read the telegram in Court. The charge should have been given, and
+the sentence of the Court should have been pronounced if a verdict
+of guilty were given. The Home Secretary should then have granted
+a respite till the coming of the blacksmith, and have extended
+this respite to a pardon, if advised that the circumstances of the
+latch-key rendered doubtful the propriety of the verdict. Others,
+however, maintained that in this way a grievous penalty would be
+inflicted on a man who, by general consent, was now held to be
+innocent. Not only would he, by such an arrangement of circumstances,
+have been left for some prolonged period under the agony of a
+condemnation, but, by the necessity of the case, he would lose his
+seat for Tankerville. It would be imperative upon the House to
+declare vacant by its own action a seat held by a man condemned to
+death for murder, and no pardon from the Queen or from the Home
+Secretary would absolve the House from that duty. The House, as a
+House of Parliament, could only recognise the verdict of the jury
+as to the man's guilt. The Queen, of course, might pardon whom she
+pleased, but no pardon from the Queen would remove the guilt implied
+by the sentence. Many went much further than this, and were prepared
+to prove that were he once condemned he could not afterwards sit in
+the House, even if re-elected.
+
+Now there was unquestionably an intense desire,--since the arrival of
+these telegrams,--that Phineas Finn should retain his seat. It may be
+a question whether he would not have been the most popular man in the
+House could he have sat there on the day after the telegrams arrived.
+The Attorney-General had declared,--and many others had declared
+with him,--that this information about the latch-key did not in
+the least affect the evidence as given against Mr. Finn. Could it
+have been possible to convict the other man, merely because he had
+surreptitiously caused a door-key of the house in which he lived
+to be made for him? And how would this new information have been
+received had Lord Fawn sworn unreservedly that the man he had seen
+running out of the mews had been Phineas Finn? It was acknowledged
+that the latch-key could not be accepted as sufficient evidence
+against Mealyus. But nevertheless the information conveyed by the
+telegrams altogether changed the opinion of the public as to the
+guilt or innocence of Phineas Finn. His life now might have been
+insured, as against the gallows, at a very low rate. It was felt
+that no jury could convict him, and he was much more pitied in
+being subjected to a prolonged incarceration than even those twelve
+unfortunate men who had felt sure that the Wednesday would have been
+the last day of their unmerited martyrdom.
+
+Phineas in his prison was materially circumstanced precisely as
+he had been before the trial. He was supplied with a profusion of
+luxuries, could they have comforted him; and was allowed to receive
+visitors. But he would see no one but his sisters,--except that he
+had one interview with Mr. Low. Even Mr. Low found it difficult to
+make him comprehend the exact condition of the affair, and could not
+induce him to be comforted when he did understand it. What had he to
+do,--how could his innocence or his guilt be concerned,--with the
+manufacture of a paltry key by such a one as Mealyus? How would it
+have been with him and with his name for ever if this fact had not
+been discovered? "I was to be hung or saved from hanging according to
+the chances of such a thing as this! I do not care for my life in a
+country where such injustice can be done." His friend endeavoured to
+assure him that even had nothing been heard of the key the jury would
+have acquitted him. But Phineas would not believe him. It had seemed
+to him as he had listened to the whole proceeding that the Court had
+been against him. The Attorney and Solicitor-General had appeared to
+him resolved upon hanging him,--men who had been, at any rate, his
+intimate acquaintances, with whom he had sat on the same bench, who
+ought to have known him. And the judge had taken the part of Lord
+Fawn, who had seemed to Phineas to be bent on swearing away his life.
+He had borne himself very gallantly during that week, having in all
+his intercourse with his attorney, spoken without a quaver in his
+voice, and without a flaw in the perspicuity of his intelligence.
+But now, when Mr. Low came to him, explaining to him that it was
+impossible that a verdict should be found against him, he was quite
+broken down. "There is nothing left of me," he said at the end of the
+interview. "I feel that I had better take to my bed and die. Even
+when I think of all that friends have done for me, it fails to cheer
+me. In this matter I should not have had to depend on friends. Had
+not she gone for me to that place every one would have believed me to
+be a murderer."
+
+And yet in his solitude he thought very much of the marvellous love
+shown to him by his friends. Words had been spoken which had been
+very sweet to him in all his misery,--words such as neither men nor
+women can say to each other in the ordinary intercourse of life,
+much as they may wish that their purport should be understood. Lord
+Chiltern, Lord Cantrip, and Mr. Monk had alluded to him as a man
+specially singled out by them for their friendship. Lady Cantrip,
+than whom no woman in London was more discreet, had been equally
+enthusiastic. Then how gracious, how tender, how inexpressibly sweet
+had been the words of her who had been Violet Effingham! And now the
+news had reached him of Madame Goesler's journey to the continent.
+"It was a wonderful thing for her to do," Mr. Low had said. Yes,
+indeed! Remembering all that had passed between them he acknowledged
+to himself that it was very wonderful. Were it not that his back was
+now broken, that he was prostrate and must remain so, a man utterly
+crushed by what he had endured, it might have been possible that she
+should do more for him even than she yet had done.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXV.
+
+"I HATE HER!"
+
+
+Lady Laura Kennedy had been allowed to take no active part in the
+manifestations of friendship which at this time were made on behalf
+of Phineas Finn. She had, indeed, gone to him in his prison, and made
+daily efforts to administer to his comfort; but she could not go up
+into the Court and speak for him. And now this other woman, whom she
+hated, would have the glory of his deliverance! She already began
+to see a fate before her, which would make even her past misery as
+nothing to that which was to come. She was a widow,--not yet two
+months a widow; and though she did not and could not mourn the death
+of a husband as do other widows,--though she could not sorrow in
+her heart for a man whom she had never loved, and from whom she had
+been separated during half her married life,--yet the fact of her
+widowhood and the circumstances of her weeds were heavy on her. That
+she loved this man, Phineas Finn, with a passionate devotion of which
+the other woman could know nothing she was quite sure. Love him! Had
+she not been true to him and to his interests from the very first
+day in which he had come among them in London, with almost more than
+a woman's truth? She knew and recalled to her memory over and over
+again her own one great sin,--the fault of her life. When she was, as
+regarded her own means, a poor woman, she had refused to be this poor
+man's wife, and had given her hand to a rich suitor. But she had done
+this with a conviction that she could so best serve the interests of
+the man in regard to whom she had promised herself that her feeling
+should henceforth be one of simple and purest friendship. She had
+made a great effort to carry out that intention, but the effort had
+been futile. She had striven to do her duty to a husband whom she
+disliked,--but even in that she had failed. At one time she had been
+persistent in her intercourse with Phineas Finn, and at another had
+resolved that she would not see him. She had been madly angry with
+him when he came to her with the story of his love for another woman,
+and had madly shown her anger; but yet she had striven to get for him
+the wife he wanted, though in doing so she would have abandoned one
+of the dearest purposes of her life. She had moved heaven and earth
+for him,--her heaven and earth,--when there was danger that he would
+lose his seat in Parliament. She had encountered the jealousy of
+her husband with scorn,--and had then deserted him because he was
+jealous. And all this she did with a consciousness of her own virtue
+which was almost as sublime as it was ill-founded. She had been
+wrong. She confessed so much to herself with bitter tears. She had
+marred the happiness of three persons by the mistake she had made in
+early life. But it had not yet occurred to her that she had sinned.
+To her thinking the jealousy of her husband had been preposterous and
+abominable, because she had known,--and had therefore felt that he
+should have known,--that she would never disgrace him by that which
+the world calls falsehood in a wife. She had married him without
+loving him, but it seemed to her that he was in fault for that. They
+had become wretched, but she had never pitied his wretchedness. She
+had left him, and thought herself to be ill-used because he had
+ventured to reclaim his wife. Through it all she had been true in her
+regard to the one man she had ever loved, and,--though she admitted
+her own folly and knew her own shipwreck,--yet she had always drawn
+some woman's consolation from the conviction of her own constancy.
+He had vanished from her sight for a while with a young wife,--never
+from her mind,--and then he had returned a widower. Through silence,
+absence, and distance she had been true to him. On his return to
+his old ways she had at once welcomed him and strove to aid him.
+Everything that was hers should be his,--if only he would open his
+hands to take it. And she would tell it him all,--let him know every
+corner of her heart. She was a married woman, and could not be his
+wife. She was a woman of virtue, and would not be his mistress. But
+she would be to him a friend so tender that no wife, no mistress
+should ever have been fonder! She did tell him everything as they
+stood together on the ramparts of the old Saxon castle. Then he had
+kissed her, and pressed her to his heart,--not because he loved her,
+but because he was generous. She had partly understood it all,--but
+yet had not understood it thoroughly. He did not assure her of his
+love,--but then she was a wife, and would have admitted no love that
+was sinful. When she returned to Dresden that night she stood gazing
+at herself in the glass and saw that there was nothing there to
+attract the love of such a man as Phineas Finn,--of one who was
+himself glorious with manly beauty; but yet for her sadness there was
+some cure, some possibility of consolation in the fact that she was
+a wife. Why speak of love at all when marriage was so far out of the
+question? But now she was a widow and as free as he was,--a widow
+endowed with ample wealth; and she was the woman to whom he had sworn
+his love when they had stood together, both young, by the falls
+of the Linter! How often might they stand there again if only his
+constancy would equal hers?
+
+She had seen him once since Fate had made her a widow; but then she
+had been but a few days a widow, and his life had at that moment been
+in strange jeopardy. There had certainly been no time then for other
+love than that which the circumstances and the sorrow of the hour
+demanded from their mutual friendship. From that day, from the first
+moment in which she had heard of his arrest, every thought, every
+effort of her mind had been devoted to his affairs. So great was his
+peril and so strange, that it almost wiped out from her mind the
+remembrance of her own condition. Should they hang him,--undoubtedly
+she would die. Such a termination to all her aspirations for him whom
+she had selected as her god upon earth would utterly crush her. She
+had borne much, but she could never bear that. Should he escape, but
+escape ingloriously;--ah, then he should know what the devotion of
+a woman could do for a man! But if he should leave his prison with
+flying colours, and come forth a hero to the world, how would it be
+with her then? She could foresee and understand of what nature would
+be the ovation with which he would be greeted. She had already heard
+what the Duchess was doing and saying. She knew how eager on his
+behalf were Lord and Lady Cantrip. She discussed the matter daily
+with her sister-in-law, and knew what her brother thought. If the
+acquittal were perfect, there would certainly be an ovation,--in
+which, was it not certain to her, that she would be forgotten? And
+she heard much, too, of Madame Goesler. And now there came the
+news. Madame Goesler had gone to Prague, to Cracow,--and where
+not?--spending her wealth, employing her wits, bearing fatigue,
+openly before the world on this man's behalf; and had done so
+successfully. She had found this evidence of the key, and now because
+the tracings of a key had been discovered by a woman, people were
+ready to believe that he was innocent, as to whose innocence she,
+Laura Kennedy, would have been willing to stake her own life from the
+beginning of the affair!
+
+Why had it not been her lot to go to Prague? Would not she have drunk
+up Esil, or swallowed a crocodile against any she-Laertes that would
+have thought to rival and to parallel her great love? Would not
+she have piled up new Ossas, had the opportunity been given her?
+Womanlike she had gone to him in her trouble,--had burst through
+his prison doors, had thrown herself on his breast, and had wept
+at his feet. But of what avail had been that? This strange female,
+this Moabitish woman, had gone to Prague, and had found a key,--and
+everybody said that the thing was done! How she hated the strange
+woman, and remembered all the evil things that had been said of the
+intruder! She told herself over and over again that had it been
+any one else than this half-foreigner, this German Jewess, this
+intriguing unfeminine upstart, she could have borne it. Did not all
+the world know that the woman for the last two years had been the
+mistress of that old doting Duke who was now dead? Had one ever heard
+who was her father or who was her mother? Had it not always been
+declared of her that she was a pushing, dangerous, scheming creature?
+And then she was old enough to be his mother, though by some Medean
+tricks known to such women, she was able to postpone,--not the
+ravages of age,--but the manifestation of them to the eyes of the
+world. In all of which charges poor Lady Laura wronged her rival
+foully;--in that matter of age especially, for, as it happened,
+Madame Goesler was by some months the younger of the two. But Lady
+Laura was a blonde, and trouble had told upon her outwardly, as it
+is wont to do upon those who are fair-skinned, and, at the same time,
+high-hearted. But Madame Goesler was a brunette,--swarthy, Lady Laura
+would have called her,--with bright eyes and glossy hair and thin
+cheeks, and now being somewhat over thirty she was at her best. Lady
+Laura hated her as a fair woman who has lost her beauty can hate the
+dark woman who keeps it.
+
+"What made her think of the key?" said Lady Chiltern.
+
+"I don't believe she did think of it. It was an accident."
+
+"Then why did she go?"
+
+"Oh, Violet, do not talk to me about that woman any more, or I shall
+be mad."
+
+"She has done him good service."
+
+"Very well;--so be it. Let him have the service. I know they would
+have acquitted him if she had never stirred from London. Oswald says
+so. But no matter. Let her have her triumph. Only do not talk to me
+about her. You know what I have thought about her ever since she
+first came up in London. Nothing ever surprised me so much as that
+you should take her by the hand."
+
+"I do not know that I took her specially by the hand."
+
+"You had her down at Harrington."
+
+"Yes; I did. And I do like her. And I know nothing against her. I
+think you are prejudiced against her, Laura."
+
+"Very well. Of course you think and can say what you please. I hate
+her, and that is sufficient." Then, after a pause, she added, "Of
+course he will marry her. I know that well enough. It is nothing to
+me whom he marries--only,--only,--only, after all that has passed it
+seems hard upon me that his wife should be the only woman in London
+that I could not visit."
+
+"Dear Laura, you should control your thoughts about this young man."
+
+"Of course I should;--but I don't. You mean that I am disgracing
+myself."
+
+"No."
+
+"Yes, you do. Oswald is more candid, and tells me so openly. And
+yet what have I done? The world has been hard upon me, and I have
+suffered. Do I desire anything except that he shall be happy and
+respectable? Do I hope for anything? I will go back and linger
+out my life at Dresden, where my disgrace can hurt no one." Her
+sister-in-law with all imaginable tenderness said what she could to
+console the miserable woman;--but there was no consolation possible.
+They both knew that Phineas Finn would never renew the offer which he
+had once made.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXVI.
+
+THE FOREIGN BLUDGEON.
+
+
+In the meantime Madame Goesler, having accomplished the journey from
+Prague in considerably less than a week, reached London with the
+blacksmith, the attorney's clerk, and the model of the key. The trial
+had been adjourned on Wednesday, the 24th of June, and it had been
+suggested that the jury should be again put into their box on that
+day week. All manner of inconvenience was to be endured by various
+members of the legal profession, and sundry irregularities were of
+necessity sanctioned on this great occasion. The sitting of the Court
+should have been concluded, and everybody concerned should have been
+somewhere else, but the matter was sufficient to justify almost any
+departure from routine. A member of the House of Commons was in
+custody, and it had already been suggested that some action should
+be taken by the House as to his speedy deliverance. Unless a jury
+could find him guilty, let him be at once restored to his duties and
+his privileges. The case was involved in difficulties, but in the
+meantime the jury, who had been taken down by train every day to have
+a walk in the country in the company of two sheriff's officers, and
+who had been allowed to dine at Greenwich one day and at Richmond on
+another in the hope that whitebait with lamb and salad might in some
+degree console them for their loss of liberty, were informed that
+they would be once again put into their box on Wednesday. But Madame
+Goesler reached London on the Sunday morning, and on the Monday the
+whole affair respecting the key was unravelled in the presence of the
+Attorney-General, and with the personal assistance of our old friend,
+Major Mackintosh. Without a doubt the man Mealyus had caused to be
+made for him in Prague a key which would open the door of the house
+in Northumberland Street. A key was made in London from the model now
+brought which did open the door. The Attorney-General seemed to think
+that it would be his duty to ask the judge to call upon the jury to
+acquit Phineas Finn, and that then the matter must rest for ever,
+unless further evidence could be obtained against Yosef Mealyus.
+It would not be possible to hang a man for a murder simply because
+he had fabricated a key,--even though he might possibly have
+obtained the use of a grey coat for a few hours. There was no tittle
+of evidence to show that he had ever had the great coat on his
+shoulders, or that he had been out of the house on that night. Lord
+Fawn, to his infinite disgust, was taken to the prison in which
+Mealyus was detained, and was confronted with the man, but he could
+say nothing. Mealyus, at his own suggestion, put on the coat, and
+stalked about the room in it. But Lord Fawn would not say a word. The
+person whom he now saw might have been the man in the street, or Mr.
+Finn might have been the man, or any other man might have been the
+man. Lord Fawn was very dignified, very reserved, and very unhappy.
+To his thinking he was the great martyr of this trial. Phineas Finn
+was becoming a hero. Against the twelve jurymen the finger of scorn
+would never be pointed. But his sufferings must endure for his
+life--might probably embitter his life to the very end. Looking into
+his own future from his present point of view he did not see how
+he could ever again appear before the eye of the public. And yet
+with what persistency of conscience had he struggled to be true and
+honest! On the present occasion he would say nothing. He had seen
+a man in a grey coat, and for the future would confine himself to
+that. "You did not see me, my lord," said Mr. Emilius with touching
+simplicity.
+
+So the matter stood on the Monday afternoon, and the jury had
+already been told that they might be released on the following
+Tuesday,--might at any rate hear the judge's charge on that
+day,--when another discovery was made more wonderful than that of the
+key. And this was made without any journey to Prague, and might, no
+doubt, have been made on any day since the murder had been committed.
+And it was a discovery for not having made which the police force
+generally was subjected to heavy censure. A beautiful little boy was
+seen playing in one of those gardens through which the passage runs
+with a short loaded bludgeon in his hand. He came into the house with
+the weapon, the maid who was with him having asked the little lord no
+question on the subject. But luckily it attracted attention, and his
+little lordship took two gardeners and a coachman and all the nurses
+to the very spot at which he found it. Before an hour was over he was
+standing at his father's knee, detailing the fact with great open
+eyes to two policemen, having by this time become immensely proud of
+his adventure. This occurred late on the Monday afternoon, when the
+noble family were at dinner, and the noble family was considerably
+disturbed, and at the same time very much interested, by the
+occurrence. But on the Tuesday morning there was the additional fact
+established that a bludgeon loaded with lead had been found among the
+thick grass and undergrowth of shrubs in a spot to which it might
+easily have been thrown by any one attempting to pitch it over the
+wall. The news flew about the town like wildfire, and it was now
+considered certain that the real murderer would be discovered.
+
+
+[Illustration: The boy who found the bludgeon.]
+
+
+But the renewal of the trial was again postponed till the Wednesday,
+as it was necessary that an entire day should be devoted to the
+bludgeon. The instrument was submitted to the eyes and hands of
+persons experienced in such matters, and it was declared on all sides
+that the thing was not of English manufacture. It was about a foot
+long, with a leathern thong to the handle, with something of a spring
+in the shaft, and with the oval loaded knot at the end cased with
+leathern thongs very minutely and skilfully cut. They who understood
+modern work in leather gave it as their opinion that the weapon had
+been made in Paris. It was considered that Mealyus had brought it
+with him, and concealed it in preparation for this occasion. If the
+police could succeed in tracing the bludgeon into his hands, or in
+proving that he had purchased any such instrument, then,--so it was
+thought,--there would be evidence to justify a police magistrate in
+sending Mr. Emilius to occupy the place so lately and so long held
+by poor Phineas Finn. But till that had been done, there could be
+nothing to connect the preacher with the murder. All who had heard
+the circumstances of the case were convinced that Mr. Bonteen had
+been murdered by the weapon lately discovered, and not by that which
+Phineas had carried in his pocket,--but no one could adduce proof
+that it was so. This second bludgeon would no doubt help to remove
+the difficulty in regard to Phineas, but would not give atonement to
+the shade of Mr. Bonteen.
+
+Mealyus was confronted with the weapon in the presence of Major
+Mackintosh, and was told its story;--how it was found in the
+nobleman's garden by the little boy. At the first moment, with
+instant readiness, he took the thing in his hand, and looked at it
+with feigned curiosity. He must have studied his conduct so as to
+have it ready for such an occasion, thinking that it might some
+day occur. But with all his presence of mind he could not keep the
+tell-tale blood from mounting.
+
+"You don't know anything about it, Mr. Mealyus?" said one of the
+policemen present, looking closely into his face. "Of course you need
+not criminate yourself."
+
+"What should I know about it? No;--I know nothing about the stick. I
+never had such a stick, or, as I believe, saw one before." He did it
+very well, but he could not keep the blood from rising to his cheeks.
+The policemen were sure that he was the murderer,--but what could
+they do?
+
+"You saved his life, certainly," said the Duchess to her friend on
+the Sunday afternoon. That had been before the bludgeon was found.
+
+"I do not believe that they could have touched a hair of his head,"
+said Madame Goesler.
+
+"Would they not? Everybody felt sure that he would be hung. Would
+it not have been awful? I do not see how you are to help becoming
+man and wife now, for all the world are talking about you." Madame
+Goesler smiled, and said that she was quite indifferent to the
+world's talk. On the Tuesday after the bludgeon was found, the two
+ladies met again. "Now it was known that it was the clergyman," said
+the Duchess.
+
+"I never doubted it."
+
+"He must have been a brave man for a foreigner,--to have attacked Mr.
+Bonteen all alone in the street, when any one might have seen him.
+I don't feel to hate him so very much after all. As for that little
+wife of his, she has got no more than she deserved."
+
+"Mr. Finn will surely be acquitted now."
+
+"Of course he'll be acquitted. Nobody doubts about it. That is all
+settled, and it is a shame that he should be kept in prison even
+over to-day. I should think they'll make him a peer, and give him a
+pension,--or at the very least appoint him secretary to something.
+I do wish Plantagenet hadn't been in such a hurry about that nasty
+Board of Trade, and then he might have gone there. He couldn't very
+well be Privy Seal, unless they do make him a peer. You wouldn't
+mind,--would you, my dear?"
+
+"I think you'll find that they will console Mr. Finn with something
+less gorgeous than that. You have succeeded in seeing him, of
+course?"
+
+"Plantagenet wouldn't let me, but I know who did."
+
+"Some lady?"
+
+"Oh, yes,--a lady. Half the men about the clubs went to him, I
+believe."
+
+"Who was she?"
+
+"You won't be ill-natured?"
+
+"I'll endeavour at any rate to keep my temper, Duchess."
+
+"It was Lady Laura."
+
+"I supposed so."
+
+"They say she is frantic about him, my dear."
+
+"I never believe those things. Women do not get frantic about men
+in these days. They have been very old friends, and have known each
+other for many years. Her brother, Lord Chiltern, was his particular
+friend. I do not wonder that she should have seen him."
+
+"Of course you know that she is a widow."
+
+"Oh, yes;--Mr. Kennedy had died long before I left England."
+
+"And she is very rich. She has got all Loughlinter for her life, and
+her own fortune back again. I will bet you anything you like that she
+offers to share it with him."
+
+"It may be so," said Madame Goesler, while the slightest blush in the
+world suffused her cheek.
+
+"And I'll make you another bet, and give you any odds."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"That he refuses her. It is quite a common thing nowadays for ladies
+to make the offer, and for gentlemen to refuse. Indeed, it was felt
+to be so inconvenient while it was thought that gentlemen had not the
+alternative, that some men became afraid of going into society. It is
+better understood now."
+
+"Such things have been done, I do not doubt," said Madame Goesler,
+who had contrived to avert her face without making the motion
+apparent to her friend.
+
+"When this is all over we'll get him down to Matching, and manage
+better than that. I should think they'll hardly go on with the
+Session, as nobody has done anything since the arrest. While Mr. Finn
+has been in prison legislation has come to a standstill altogether.
+Even Plantagenet doesn't work above twelve hours a day, and I'm
+told that poor Lord Fawn hasn't been near his office for the last
+fortnight. When the excitement is over they'll never be able to get
+back to their business before the grouse. There'll be a few dinners
+of course, just as a compliment to the great man,--but London will
+break up after that, I should think. You won't come in for so much
+of the glory as you would have done if they hadn't found the stick.
+Little Lord Frederick must have his share, you know."
+
+"It's the most singular case I ever knew," said Sir Simon Slope that
+night to one of his friends. "We certainly should have hanged him but
+for the two accidents, and yet neither of them brings us a bit nearer
+to hanging any one else."
+
+"What a pity!"
+
+"It shows the danger of circumstantial evidence,--and yet without it
+one never could get at any murder. I'm very glad, you know, that the
+key and the stick did turn up. I never thought much about the coat."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXVII.
+
+THE VERDICT.
+
+
+On the Wednesday morning Phineas Finn was again brought into the
+Court, and again placed in the dock. There was a general feeling
+that he should not again have been so disgraced; but he was still a
+prisoner under a charge of murder, and it was explained to him that
+the circumstances of the case and the stringency of the law did not
+admit of his being seated elsewhere during his trial. He treated the
+apology with courteous scorn. He should not have chosen, he said,
+to have made any change till after the trial was over, even had any
+change been permitted. When he was brought up the steps into the dock
+after the judges had taken their seats there was almost a shout of
+applause. The crier was very angry, and gave it to be understood that
+everybody would be arrested unless everybody was silent; but the
+Chief Justice said not a word, nor did those great men the Attorney
+and Solicitor-General express any displeasure. The bench was again
+crowded with Members of Parliament from both Houses, and on this
+occasion Mr. Gresham himself had accompanied Lord Cantrip. The two
+Dukes were there, and men no bigger than Laurence Fitzgibbon were
+forced to subject themselves to the benevolence of the Under-Sheriff.
+
+Phineas himself was pale and haggard. It was observed that he leaned
+forward on the rail of the dock all the day, not standing upright
+as he had done before; and they who watched him closely said that
+he never once raised his eyes on this day to meet those of the men
+opposite to him on the bench, although heretofore throughout the
+trial he had stood with his face raised so as to look directly at
+those who were there seated. On this occasion he kept his eyes fixed
+upon the speaker. But the whole bearing of the man, his gestures, his
+gait, and his countenance were changed. During the first long week
+of his trial, his uprightness, the manly beauty of his countenance,
+and the general courage and tranquillity of his deportment had been
+conspicuous. Whatever had been his fatigue, he had managed not to
+show the outward signs of weariness. Whatever had been his fears,
+no mark of fear had disfigured his countenance. He had never once
+condescended to the exhibition of any outward show of effrontery.
+Through six weary days he had stood there, supported by a manhood
+sufficient for the terrible emergency. But now it seemed that at any
+rate the outward grace of his demeanour had deserted him. But it
+was known that he had been ill during the last few days, and it had
+been whispered through the Court that he had not slept at nights.
+Since the adjournment of the Court there had been bulletins as to his
+health, and everybody knew that the confinement was beginning to tell
+upon him.
+
+On the present occasion the proceedings of the day were opened by the
+Attorney-General, who began by apologising to the jury. Apologies to
+the jury had been very frequent during the trial, and each apology
+had called forth fresh grumbling. On this occasion the foreman
+expressed a hope that the Legislature would consider the condition
+of things which made it possible that twelve gentlemen all concerned
+extensively in business should be confined for fourteen days because
+a mistake had been made in the evidence as to a murder. Then the
+Chief Justice, bowing down his head and looking at them over the rim
+of his spectacles with an expression of wisdom that almost convinced
+them, told them that he was aware of no mistake in the evidence. It
+might become their duty, on the evidence which they had heard and the
+further evidence which they would hear, to acquit the prisoner at the
+bar; but not on that account would there have been any mistake or
+erroneous procedure in the Court, other than such error on the part
+of the prosecution in regard to the alleged guilt of the prisoner
+as it was the general and special duty of jurors to remedy. Then he
+endeavoured to reconcile them to their sacrifice by describing the
+importance and glorious British nature of their position. "My lord,"
+said one of the jurors, "if you was a salesman, and hadn't got no
+partner, only a very young 'un, you'd know what it was to be kept
+out of your business for a fortnight." Then that salesman wagged his
+head, and put his handkerchief up to his eyes, and there was pity
+also for him in the Court.
+
+After that the Attorney-General went on. His learned friend on
+the other side,--and he nodded to Mr. Chaffanbrass,--had got some
+further evidence to submit to them on behalf of the prisoner who was
+still on his trial before them. He now addressed them with the view
+of explaining to them that if that evidence should be such as he
+believed, it would become his duty on behalf of the Crown to join
+with his learned friend in requesting the Court to direct the jury
+to acquit the prisoner. Not the less on that account would it be the
+duty of the jury to form their own opinion as to the credibility of
+the fresh evidence which would be brought before them.
+
+"There won't be much doubt about the credibility," said Mr.
+Chaffanbrass, rising in his place. "I am not a bit afraid about the
+credibility, gentlemen; and I don't think that you need be afraid
+either. You must understand, gentlemen, that I am now going on
+calling evidence for the defence. My last witness was the Right
+Honourable Mr. Monk, who spoke as to character. My next will be a
+Bohemian blacksmith named Praska,--Peter Praska,--who naturally can't
+speak a word of English, and unfortunately can't speak a word of
+German either. But we have got an interpreter, and I daresay we shall
+find out without much delay what Peter Praska has to tell us." Then
+Peter Praska was handed up to the rostrum for the witnesses, and the
+man learned in Czech and also in English was placed close to him, and
+sworn to give a true interpretation.
+
+Mealyus the unfortunate one was also in Court, brought in between
+two policemen, and the Bohemian blacksmith swore that he had made a
+certain key on the instructions of the man he now saw. The reader
+need not be further troubled with all the details of the evidence
+about the key. It was clearly proved that in a village near to
+Prague a key had been made such as would open Mr. Meager's door in
+Northumberland Street, and it was also proved that it was made from
+a mould supplied by Mealyus. This was done by the joint evidence of
+Mr. Meager and of the blacksmith. "And if I lose my key," said the
+reverend gentleman, "why should I not have another made? Did I ever
+deny it? This, I think, is very strange." But Mr. Emilius was very
+quickly walked back out of the Court between the two policemen, as
+his presence would not be required in regard to the further evidence
+regarding the bludgeon.
+
+Mr. Chaffanbrass, having finished his business with the key, at once
+began with the bludgeon. The bludgeon was produced, and was handed
+up to the bench, and inspected by the Chief Justice. The instrument
+excited great interest. Men rose on tiptoe to look at it even from a
+distance, and the Prime Minister was envied because for a moment it
+was placed in his hands. As the large-eyed little boy who had found
+it was not yet six years old, there was a difficulty in perfecting
+the thread of the evidence. It was not held to be proper to
+administer an oath to an infant. But in a roundabout way it was
+proved that the identical bludgeon had been picked up in the garden.
+There was an elaborate surveyor's plan produced of the passage, the
+garden, and the wall,--with the steps on which it was supposed that
+the blow had been struck; and the spot was indicated on which the
+child had said that he had found the weapon. Then certain workers
+in leather were questioned, who agreed in asserting that no such
+instrument as that handed to them had ever been made in England.
+After that, two scientific chemists told the jury that they had
+minutely examined the knob of the instrument with reference to the
+discovery of human blood,--but in vain. They were, however, of
+opinion that the man might very readily have been killed by the
+instrument without any effusion of blood at the moment of the blows.
+This seemed to the jury to be the less necessary, as three or four
+surgeons who had examined the murdered man's head had already told
+them that in all probability there had been no such effusion. When
+the judges went out to lunch at two o'clock the jury were trembling
+as to their fate for another night.
+
+The fresh evidence, however, had been completed, and on the return of
+the Court Mr. Chaffanbrass said that he should only speak a very few
+words. For a few words he must ask indulgence, though he knew them to
+be irregular. But it was the speciality of this trial that everything
+in it was irregular, and he did not think that his learned friend the
+Attorney-General would dispute the privilege. The Attorney-General
+said nothing, and Mr. Chaffanbrass went on with his little
+speech,--with which he took up the greatest part of an hour. It was
+thought to have been unnecessary, as nearly all that he said was said
+again--and was sure to have been so said,--by the judge. It was not
+his business,--the business of him, Mr. Chaffanbrass,--to accuse
+another man of the murder of Mr. Bonteen. It was not for him to tell
+the jury whether there was or was not evidence on which any other man
+should be sent to trial. But it was his bounden duty in defence of
+his client to explain to them that a collection of facts tending
+to criminate another man,--which when taken together made a fair
+probability that another man had committed the crime,--rendered it
+quite out of the question that they should declare his client to be
+guilty. He did not believe that there was a single person in the
+Court who was not now convinced of the innocence of his client;--but
+it was not permitted to him to trust himself solely to that belief.
+It was his duty to show them that, of necessity, they must acquit his
+client. When Mr. Chaffanbrass sat down, the Attorney-General waived
+any right he might have of further reply.
+
+It was half-past three when the judge began his charge. He would, he
+said, do his best to enable the jury to complete their tedious duty,
+so as to return to their families on that night. Indeed he would
+certainly finish his charge before he rose from the seat, let the
+hour be what it might; and though time must be occupied by him in
+going through the evidence and explaining the circumstances of
+this very singular trial, it might not be improbable that the jury
+would be able to find their verdict without any great delay among
+themselves. "There won't be any delay at all, my lord," said the
+suffering and very irrational salesman. The poor man was again
+rebuked, mildly, and the Chief Justice continued his charge.
+
+As it occupied four hours in the delivery, of which by far the
+greater part was taken up in recapitulating and sifting evidence
+with which the careful reader, if such there be, has already been
+made too intimately acquainted, the account of it here shall be
+very short. The nature of circumstantial evidence was explained,
+and the truth of much that had been said in regard to such evidence
+by Mr. Chaffanbrass admitted;--but, nevertheless, it would be
+impossible,--so said his lordship,--to administer justice if guilt
+could never be held to have been proved by circumstantial evidence
+alone. In this case it might not improbably seem to them that the
+gentleman who had so long stood before them as a prisoner at the
+bar had been the victim of a most singularly untoward chain of
+circumstances, from which he would have to be liberated, should he
+be at last liberated, by another chain of circumstances as singular;
+but it was his duty to inform them now, after they had heard what he
+might call the double evidence, that he could not have given it to
+them as his opinion that the charge had been brought home against the
+prisoner, even had those circumstances of the Bohemian key and of the
+foreign bludgeon never been brought to light. He did not mean to say
+that the evidence had not justified the trial. He thought that the
+trial had been fully justified. Nevertheless, had nothing arisen to
+point to the possibility of guilt in another man, he should not the
+less have found himself bound in duty to explain to them that the
+thread of the evidence against Mr. Finn had been incomplete,--or,
+he would rather say, the weight of it had been, to his judgment,
+insufficient. He was the more intent on saying so much, as he was
+desirous of making it understood that, even had the bludgeon still
+remained buried beneath the leaves, had the manufacturer of that
+key never been discovered, the great evil would not, he thought,
+have fallen upon them of punishing the innocent instead of the
+guilty,--that most awful evil of taking innocent blood in their just
+attempt to punish murder by death. As far as he knew, to the best of
+his belief, that calamity had never fallen upon the country in his
+time. The administration of the law was so careful of life that the
+opposite evil was fortunately more common. He said so much because he
+would not wish that this case should be quoted hereafter as showing
+the possible danger of circumstantial evidence. It had been a case in
+which the evidence given as to character alone had been sufficient
+to make him feel that the circumstances which seemed to affect the
+prisoner injuriously could not be taken as establishing his guilt.
+But now other and imposing circumstances had been brought to light,
+and he was sure that the jury would have no difficulty with their
+verdict. A most frightful murder had no doubt been committed in the
+dead of the night. A gentleman coming home from his club had been
+killed,--probably by the hand of one who had himself moved in the
+company of gentlemen. A plot had been made,--had probably been
+thought of for days and weeks before,--and had been executed with
+extreme audacity, in order that an enemy might be removed. There
+could, he thought, be but little doubt that Mr. Bonteen had been
+killed by the instrument found in the garden, and if so, he certainly
+had not been killed by the prisoner, who could not be supposed
+to have carried two bludgeons in his pocket, and whose quarrel
+with the murdered man had been so recent as to have admitted of no
+preparation. They had heard the story of Mr. Meager's grey coat, and
+of the construction of the duplicate key for Mr. Meager's house-door.
+It was not for him to tell them on the present occasion whether these
+stories, and the evidence by which they had been supported, tended
+to affix guilt elsewhere. It was beyond his province to advert to
+such probability or possibility; but undoubtedly the circumstances
+might be taken by them as an assistance, if assistance were needed,
+in coming to a conclusion on the charge against the prisoner.
+"Gentlemen," he said at last, "I think you will find no difficulty in
+acquitting the prisoner of the murder laid to his charge," whereupon
+the jurymen put their heads together; and the foreman, without half
+a minute's delay, declared that they were unanimous, and that they
+found the prisoner Not Guilty. "And we are of opinion," said the
+foreman, "that Mr. Finn should not have been put upon his trial on
+such evidence as has been brought before us."
+
+The necessity of liberating poor Phineas from the horrors of his
+position was too urgent to allow of much attention being given at
+the moment to this protest. "Mr. Finn," said the judge, addressing
+the poor broken wretch, "you have been acquitted of the odious and
+abominable charge brought against you, with the concurrence, I am
+sure, not only of those who have heard this trial, but of all your
+countrymen and countrywomen. I need not say that you will leave that
+dock with no stain on your character. It has, I hope, been some
+consolation to you in your misfortune to hear the terms in which
+you have been spoken of by such friends as they who came here to
+give their testimony on your behalf. It is, and it has been, a great
+sorrow to me to see such a one as you subjected to so unmerited an
+ignominy; but a man educated in the laws of his country, as you
+have been, and understanding its constitution fundamentally, as you
+do, will probably have acknowledged that, great as has been the
+misfortune to you personally, nothing more than a proper attempt has
+been made to execute justice. I trust that you may speedily find
+yourself able to resume your place among the legislators of the
+country." Thus Phineas Finn was acquitted, and the judges, collecting
+up their robes, trooped off from the bench, following the long line
+of their assessors who had remained even to that hour to hear the
+last word of the trial. Mr. Chaffanbrass collected his papers, with
+the assistance of Mr. Wickerby,--totally disregardful of his junior
+counsel, and the Attorney and Solicitor-General congratulated each
+other on the successful termination of a very disagreeable piece of
+business.
+
+And Phineas was discharged. According to the ordinary meaning of the
+words he was now to go about his business as he pleased, the law
+having no further need of his person. We can understand how in common
+cases the prisoner discharged on his acquittal,--who probably in
+nine cases out of ten is conscious of his own guilt,--may feel the
+sweetness of his freedom and enjoy his immunity from danger with a
+light heart. He is received probably by his wife or young woman,--or
+perhaps, having no wife or young woman to receive him, betakes
+himself to his usual haunts. The interest which has been felt in his
+career is over, and he is no longer the hero of an hour;--but he is a
+free man, and may drink his gin-and-water where he pleases. Perhaps
+a small admiring crowd may welcome him as he passes out into the
+street, but he has become nobody before he reaches the corner. But it
+could not be so with this discharged prisoner,--either as regarded
+himself and his own feelings, or as regarded his friends. When
+the moment came he had hardly as yet thought about the immediate
+future,--had not considered how he would live, or where, during
+the next few months. The sensations of the moment had been so full,
+sometimes of agony and at others of anticipated triumph, that he had
+not attempted as yet to make for himself any schemes. The Duchess
+of Omnium had suggested that he would be received back into society
+with an elaborate course of fashionable dinners; but that view of his
+return to the world had certainly not occurred to him. When he was
+led down from the dock he hardly knew whither he was being taken, and
+when he found himself in a small room attached to the Court, clasped
+on one arm by Mr. Low and on the other by Lord Chiltern, he did not
+know what they would propose to him,--nor had he considered what
+answer he would make to any proposition. "At last you are safe," said
+Mr. Low.
+
+"But think what he has suffered," said Lord Chiltern.
+
+Phineas looked round to see if there was any other friend present.
+Certainly among all his friends he had thought most of her who had
+travelled half across Europe for evidence to save him. He had seen
+Madame Goesler last on the evening preceding the night of the murder,
+and had not even heard from her since. But he had been told what she
+had done for him, and now he had almost fancied that he would have
+found her waiting for him. He smiled first at the one man and then
+at the other, and made an effort to carry himself with his ordinary
+tranquillity. "It will be all right now, I dare say," he said. "I
+wonder whether I could have a glass of water."
+
+He sat down while the water was brought to him, and his two friends
+stood over him, hardly knowing how to do more than support him by
+their presence.
+
+Then Lord Cantrip made his way into the room. He had sat on the bench
+to the last, whereas the other two had gone down to receive the
+prisoner when acquitted;--and with him came Sir Harry Coldfoot, the
+Home Secretary. "My friend," said the former, "the bitter day has
+passed over you, and I hope that the bitterness will soon pass away
+also." Phineas again attempted to smile as he held the hand of the
+man with whom he had formerly been associated in office.
+
+"I should not intrude, Mr. Finn," said Sir Harry, "did I not feel
+myself bound in a special manner to express my regret at the great
+trouble to which you have been subjected." Phineas rose, and
+bowed stiffly. He had conceived that every one connected with the
+administration of the law had believed him to be guilty, and none in
+his present mood could be dear to him but they who from the beginning
+trusted in his innocence. "I am requested by Mr. Gresham," continued
+Sir Harry, "to express to you his entire sympathy, and his joy that
+all this is at last over." Phineas tried to make some little speech,
+but utterly failed. Then Sir Harry left them, and he burst out into
+tears.
+
+"Who can be surprised?" said Lord Cantrip. "The marvel is that he
+should have been able to bear it so long."
+
+"It would have crushed me utterly, long since," said the other lord.
+Then there was a question asked as to what he would do, and Mr. Low
+proposed that he should be allowed to take Phineas to his own house
+for a few days. His wife, he said, had known their friend so long and
+so intimately that she might perhaps be able to make herself more
+serviceable than any other lady, and at their house Phineas could
+receive his sisters just as he would at his own. His sisters had been
+lodging near the prison almost ever since the committal, and it had
+been thought well to remove them to Mr. Low's house in order that
+they might meet their brother there.
+
+"I think I'll go to my--own room--in Marlborough Street." These were
+the first intelligible words he had uttered since he had been led out
+of the dock, and to that resolution he adhered. Lord Cantrip offered
+the retirements of a country house belonging to himself within an
+hour's journey of London, and Lord Chiltern declared that Harrington
+Hall, which Phineas knew, was altogether at his service,--but Phineas
+decided in favour of Mrs. Bunce, and to Great Marlborough Street he
+was taken by Mr. Low.
+
+"I'll come to you to-morrow,--with my wife,"--said Lord Chiltern, as
+he was going.
+
+"Not to-morrow, Chiltern. But tell your wife how deeply I value her
+friendship." Lord Cantrip also offered to come, but was asked to
+wait awhile. "I am afraid I am hardly fit for visitors yet. All the
+strength seems to have been knocked out of me this last week."
+
+Mr. Low accompanied him to his lodgings, and then handed him over to
+Mrs. Bunce, promising that his two sisters should come to him early
+on the following morning. On that evening he would prefer to be quite
+alone. He would not allow the barrister even to go upstairs with him;
+and when he had entered his room, almost rudely begged his weeping
+landlady to leave him.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Phineas, let me do something for you," said the poor woman.
+"You have not had a bit of anything all day. Let me get you just a
+cup of tea and a chop."
+
+In truth he had dined when the judges went out to their lunch,--dined
+as he had been wont to dine since the trial had been commenced,--and
+wanted nothing. She might bring him tea, he said, if she would leave
+him for an hour. And then at last he was alone. He stood up in the
+middle of the room, stretching forth his hands, and putting one
+first to his breast and then to his brow, feeling himself as though
+doubting his own identity. Could it be that the last week had been
+real,--that everything had not been a dream? Had he in truth been
+suspected of a murder and tried for his life? And then he thought of
+him who had been murdered, of Mr. Bonteen, his enemy. Was he really
+gone,--the man who the other day was to have been Chancellor of
+the Exchequer,--the scornful, arrogant, loud, boastful man? He had
+hardly thought of Mr. Bonteen before, during these weeks of his own
+incarceration. He had heard all the details of the murder with a
+fulness that had been at last complete. The man who had oppressed
+him, and whom he had at times almost envied, was indeed gone, and the
+world for awhile had believed that he, Phineas Finn, had been the
+man's murderer!
+
+And now what should be his own future life? One thing seemed certain
+to him. He could never again go into the House of Commons, and sit
+there, an ordinary man of business, with other ordinary men. He had
+been so hacked and hewed about, so exposed to the gaze of the vulgar,
+so mauled by the public, that he could never more be anything but the
+wretched being who had been tried for the murder of his enemy. The
+pith had been taken out of him, and he was no longer a man fit for
+use. He could never more enjoy that freedom from self-consciousness,
+that inner tranquillity of spirit, which are essential to public
+utility. Then he remembered certain lines which had long been
+familiar to him, and he repeated them aloud, with some conceit that
+they were apposite to him:--
+
+   The true gods sigh for the cost and pain,--
+   For the reed that grows never more again
+      As a reed with the reeds in the river.
+
+He sat drinking his tea, still thinking of himself,--knowing how
+infinitely better it would be for him that he should indulge in no
+such thought, till an idea struck him, and he got up, and, drawing
+back the blinds from the open window, looked out into the night. It
+was the last day of June, and the weather was very sultry; but the
+night was dark, and it was now near midnight. On a sudden he took
+his hat, and feeling with a smile for the latch-key which he always
+carried in his pocket,--thinking of the latch-key which had been made
+at Prague for the lock of a house in Northumberland Street, New Road,
+he went down to the front door. "You'll be back soon, Mr. Finn, won't
+you now?" said Mrs. Bunce, who had heard his step, and had remained
+up, thinking it better this, the first night of his return, not to
+rest till he had gone to his bed.
+
+"Why should I be back soon?" he said, turning upon her. But then
+he remembered that she had been one of those who were true to him,
+and he took her hand and was gracious to her. "I will be back soon,
+Mrs. Bunce, and you need fear nothing. But recollect how little
+I have had of liberty lately. I have not even had a walk for six
+weeks. You cannot wonder that I should wish to roam about a little."
+Nevertheless she would have preferred that he should not have gone
+out all alone on that night.
+
+He had taken off the black morning coat which he had worn during the
+trial, and had put on that very grey garment by which it had been
+sought to identify him with the murderer. So clad he crossed Regent
+Street into Hanover Square, and from thence went a short way down
+Bond Street, and by Bruton Street into Berkeley Square. He took
+exactly the reverse of the route by which he had returned home
+from the club on the night of the murder. Every now and then he
+trembled as he passed some figure which might be that of a man who
+would recognise him. But he walked fast, and went on till he came
+to the spot at which the steps descend from the street into the
+passage,--the very spot at which the murder had been committed. He
+looked down it with an awful dread, and stood there as though he were
+fascinated, thinking of all the details which he had heard throughout
+the trial. Then he looked around him, and listened whether there were
+any step approaching through the passage. Hearing none and seeing no
+one he at last descended, and for the first time in his life passed
+through that way into Bolton Row. Here it was that the wretch of whom
+he had now heard so much had waited for his enemy,--the wretch for
+whom during the last six weeks he had been mistaken. Heavens!--that
+men who had known him should have believed him to have done such a
+deed as that! He remembered well having shown the life-preserver to
+Erle and Fitzgibbon at the door of the club; and it had been thought
+that after having so shown it he had used it for the purpose to which
+in his joke he had alluded! Were men so blind, so ignorant of nature,
+so little capable of discerning the truth as this? Then he went on
+till he came to the end of Clarges Street, and looked up the mews
+opposite to it,--the mews from which the man had been seen to hurry.
+The place was altogether unknown to him. He had never thought whither
+it had led when passing it on his way up from Piccadilly to the club.
+But now he entered the mews so as to test the evidence that had been
+given, and found that it brought him by a turn close up to the spot
+at which he had been described as having been last seen by Erle
+and Fitzgibbon. When there he went on, and crossed the street, and
+looking back saw the club was lighted up. Then it struck him for the
+first time that it was the night of the week on which the members
+were wont to assemble. Should he pluck up courage, and walk in among
+them? He had not lost his right of entry there because he had been
+accused of murder. He was the same now as heretofore,--if he could
+only fancy himself to be the same. Why not go in, and have done with
+all this? He would be the wonder of the club for twenty minutes, and
+then it would all be over. He stood close under the shade of a heavy
+building as he thought of this, but he found that he could not do it.
+He had known from the beginning that he could not do it. How callous,
+how hard, how heartless, must he have been, had such a course been
+possible to him! He again repeated the lines to himself--
+
+   The reed that grows never more again
+      As a reed with the reeds in the river.
+
+He felt sure that never again would he enter that room, in which no
+doubt all those assembled were now talking about him.
+
+As he returned home he tried to make out for himself some plan for
+his future life,--but, interspersed with any idea that he could weave
+were the figures of two women, Lady Laura Kennedy and Madame Max
+Goesler. The former could be nothing to him but a friend; and though
+no other friend would love him as she loved him, yet she could not
+influence his life. She was very wealthy, but her wealth could be
+nothing to him. She would heap it all upon him if he would take
+it. He understood and knew that. Taking no pride to himself that
+it was so, feeling no conceit in her love, he was conscious of her
+devotion to him. He was poor, broken in spirit, and almost without a
+future;--and yet could her devotion avail him nothing!
+
+But how might it be with that other woman? Were she, after all that
+had passed between them, to consent to be his wife,--and it might be
+that she would consent,--how would the world be with him then? He
+would be known as Madame Goesler's husband, and have to sit at the
+bottom of her table,--and be talked of as the man who had been tried
+for the murder of Mr. Bonteen. Look at it in which way he might, he
+thought that no life could any longer be possible to him in London.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXVIII.
+
+PHINEAS AFTER THE TRIAL.
+
+
+Ten days passed by, and Phineas Finn had not been out of his lodgings
+till after daylight, and then he only prowled about in the manner
+described in the last chapter. His sisters had returned to Ireland,
+and he saw no one, even in his own room, but two or three of his most
+intimate friends. Among those Mr. Low and Lord Chiltern were the most
+frequently with him, but Fitzgibbon, Barrington Erle, and Mr. Monk
+had also been admitted. People had called by the hundred, till Mrs.
+Bunce was becoming almost tired of her lodger's popularity; but they
+came only to inquire,--because it had been reported that Mr. Finn was
+not well after his imprisonment. The Duchess of Omnium had written
+to him various notes, asking when he would come to her, and what
+she could do for him. Would he dine, would he spend a quiet evening,
+would he go to Matching? Finally, would he become her guest and the
+Duke's next September for the partridge shooting? They would have a
+few friends with them, and Madame Goesler would be one of the number.
+Having had this by him for a week, he had not as yet answered the
+invitation. He had received two or three notes from Lady Laura, who
+had frankly explained to him that if he were really ill she would
+of course go to him, but that as matters stood she could not do so
+without displeasing her brother. He had answered each note by an
+assurance that his first visit should be made in Portman Square. To
+Madame Goesler he had written a letter of thanks,--a letter which had
+in truth cost him some pains. "I know," he said, "for how much I have
+to thank you, but I do not know in what words to do it. I ought to
+be with you telling you in person of my gratitude; but I must own to
+you that for the present what has occurred has so unmanned me that
+I am unfit for the interview. I should only weep in your presence
+like a school-girl, and you would despise me." It was a long letter,
+containing many references to the circumstances of the trial, and to
+his own condition of mind throughout its period. Her answer to him,
+which was very short, was as follows:--
+
+
+   Park Lane, Sunday--.
+
+   MY DEAR MR. FINN,
+
+   I can well understand that for a while you should be too
+   agitated by what has passed to see your friends. Remember,
+   however, that you owe it to them as well as to yourself
+   not to sink into seclusion. Send me a line when you think
+   that you can come to me that I may be at home. My journey
+   to Prague was nothing. You forget that I am constantly
+   going to Vienna on business connected with my own property
+   there. Prague lies but a few hours out of the route.
+
+   Most sincerely yours,
+
+   M. M. G.
+
+
+His friends who did see him urged him constantly to bestir himself,
+and Mr. Monk pressed him very much to come down to the House. "Walk
+in with me to-night, and take your seat as though nothing had
+happened," said Mr. Monk.
+
+"But so much has happened."
+
+"Nothing has happened to alter your outward position as a man. No
+doubt many will flock round you to congratulate you, and your first
+half-hour will be disagreeable; but then the thing will have been
+done. You owe it to your constituents to do so." Then Phineas for the
+first time expressed an opinion that he would resign his seat,--that
+he would take the Chiltern Hundreds, and retire altogether from
+public life.
+
+"Pray do nothing of the kind," said Mr. Monk.
+
+"I do not think you quite understand," said Phineas, "how such an
+ordeal as this works upon a man, how it may change a man, and knock
+out of him what little strength there ever was there. I feel that I
+am broken, past any patching up or mending. Of course it ought not to
+be so. A man should be made of better stuff;--but one is only what
+one is."
+
+"We'll put off the discussion for another week," said Mr. Monk.
+
+"There came a letter to me when I was in prison from one of the
+leading men in Tankerville, saying that I ought to resign. I know
+they all thought that I was guilty. I do not care to sit for a place
+where I was so judged,--even if I was fit any longer for a seat in
+Parliament." He had never felt convinced that Mr. Monk had himself
+believed with confidence his innocence, and he spoke with soreness,
+and almost with anger.
+
+"A letter from one individual should never be allowed to create
+interference between a member and his constituents. It should simply
+be answered to that effect, and then ignored. As to the belief of the
+townspeople in your innocence,--what is to guide you? I believed you
+innocent with all my heart."
+
+"Did you?"
+
+"But there was always sufficient possibility of your guilt to prevent
+a rational man from committing himself to the expression of an
+absolute conviction." The young member's brow became black as he
+heard this. "I can see that I offend you by saying so,--but if you
+will think of it, I must be right. You were on your trial; and I as
+your friend was bound to await the result,--with much confidence,
+because I knew you; but with no conviction, because both you and I
+are human and fallible. If the electors at Tankerville, or any great
+proportion of them, express a belief that you are unfit to represent
+them because of what has occurred, I shall be the last to recommend
+you to keep your seat;--but I shall be surprised indeed if they
+should do so. If there were a general election to-morrow, I should
+regard your seat as one of the safest in England."
+
+Both Mr. Low and Lord Chiltern were equally urgent with him to
+return to his usual mode of life,--using different arguments for
+their purpose. Lord Chiltern told him plainly that he was weak and
+womanly,--or rather that he would be were he to continue to dread
+the faces of his fellow-creatures. The Master of the Brake hounds
+himself was a man less gifted than Phineas Finn, and therefore hardly
+capable of understanding the exaggerated feelings of the man who had
+recently been tried for his life. Lord Chiltern was affectionate,
+tender-hearted, and true;--but there were no vacillating fibres in
+his composition. The balance which regulated his conduct was firmly
+set, and went well. The clock never stopped, and wanted but little
+looking after. But the works were somewhat rough, and the seconds
+were not scored. He had, however, been quite true to Phineas during
+the dark time, and might now say what he pleased. "I am womanly,"
+said Phineas. "I begin to feel it. But I can't alter my nature."
+
+"I never was so much surprised in my life," said Lord Chiltern. "When
+I used to look at you in the dock, by heaven I envied you your pluck
+and strength."
+
+"I was burning up the stock of coals, Chiltern."
+
+"You'll come all right after a few weeks. You've been knocked out of
+time;--that's the truth of it."
+
+Mr. Low treated his patient with more indulgence; but he also was
+surprised, and hardly understood the nature of the derangement of the
+mechanism in the instrument which he was desirous of repairing. "I
+should go abroad for a few months if I were you," said Mr. Low.
+
+"I should stick at the first inn I got to," said Phineas. "I think I
+am better here. By and bye I shall travel, I dare say,--all over the
+world, as far as my money will last. But for the present I am only
+fit to sit still."
+
+Mrs. Low had seen him more than once, and had been very kind to him;
+but she also failed to understand. "I always thought that he was such
+a manly fellow," she said to her husband.
+
+"If you mean personal courage, there is no doubt that he possesses
+it,--as completely now, probably, as ever."
+
+"Oh yes;--he could go over to Flanders and let that lord shoot at
+him; and he could ride brutes of horses, and not care about breaking
+his neck. That's not what I mean. I thought that he could face the
+world with dignity;--but now it seems that he breaks down."
+
+"He has been very roughly used, my dear."
+
+"So he has,--and tenderly used too. Nobody has had better friends. I
+thought he would have been more manly."
+
+The property of manliness in a man is a great possession, but perhaps
+there is none that is less understood,--which is more generally
+accorded where it does not exist, or more frequently disallowed where
+it prevails. There are not many who ever make up their minds as to
+what constitutes manliness, or even inquire within themselves upon
+the subject. The woman's error, occasioned by her natural desire for
+a master, leads her to look for a certain outward magnificence of
+demeanour, a pretended indifference to stings and little torments,
+a would-be superiority to the bread-and-butter side of life, an
+unreal assumption of personal grandeur. But a robe of State such as
+this,--however well the garment may be worn with practice,--can never
+be the raiment natural to a man; and men, dressing themselves in
+women's eyes, have consented to walk about in buckram. A composure of
+the eye, which has been studied, a reticence as to the little things
+of life, a certain slowness of speech unless the occasion call for
+passion, an indifference to small surroundings, these,--joined, of
+course, with personal bravery,--are supposed to constitute manliness.
+That personal bravery is required in the composition of manliness
+must be conceded, though, of all the ingredients needed, it is the
+lowest in value. But the first requirement of all must be described
+by a negative. Manliness is not compatible with affectation. Women's
+virtues, all feminine attributes, may be marred by affectation, but
+the virtues and the vice may co-exist. An affected man, too, may
+be honest, may be generous, may be pious;--but surely he cannot
+be manly. The self-conscious assumption of any outward manner,
+the striving to add,--even though it be but a tenth of a cubit to
+the height,--is fatal, and will at once banish the all but divine
+attribute. Before the man can be manly, the gifts which make him
+so must be there, collected by him slowly, unconsciously, as are
+his bones, his flesh, and his blood. They cannot be put on like a
+garment for the nonce,--as may a little learning. A man cannot become
+faithful to his friends, unsuspicious before the world, gentle with
+women, loving with children, considerate to his inferiors, kindly
+with servants, tender-hearted with all,--and at the same time be
+frank, of open speech, with springing eager energies,--simply because
+he desires it. These things, which are the attributes of manliness,
+must come of training on a nature not ignoble. But they are the very
+opposites, the antipodes, the direct antagonism, of that staring,
+posed, bewhiskered and bewigged deportment, that _nil admirari_,
+self-remembering assumption of manliness, that endeavour of twopence
+halfpenny to look as high as threepence, which, when you prod it
+through, has in it nothing deeper than deportment. We see the two
+things daily, side by side, close to each other. Let a man put
+his hat down, and you shall say whether he has deposited it with
+affectation or true nature. The natural man will probably be manly.
+The affected man cannot be so.
+
+Mrs. Low was wrong when she accused our hero of being unmanly. Had
+his imagination been less alert in looking into the minds of men, and
+in picturing to himself the thoughts of others in reference to the
+crime with which he had been charged, he would not now have shrunk
+from contact with his fellow-creatures as he did. But he could not
+pretend to be other than he was. During the period of his danger,
+when men had thought that he would be hung,--and when he himself had
+believed that it would be so,--he had borne himself bravely without
+any conscious effort. When he had confronted the whole Court with
+that steady courage which had excited Lord Chiltern's admiration, and
+had looked the Bench in the face as though he at least had no cause
+to quail, he had known nothing of what he was doing. His features had
+answered the helm from his heart, but had not been played upon by his
+intellect. And it was so with him now. The reaction had overcome him,
+and he could not bring himself to pretend that it was not so. The
+tears would come to his eyes, and he would shiver and shake like one
+struck by palsy.
+
+Mr. Monk came to him often, and was all but forgiven for the apparent
+defection in his faith. "I have made up my mind to one thing,"
+Phineas said to him at the end of the ten days.
+
+"And what is the one thing?"
+
+"I will give up my seat."
+
+"I do not see a shadow of a reason for it."
+
+"Nevertheless I will do it. Indeed, I have already written to Mr.
+Ratler for the Hundreds. There may be and probably are men down
+at Tankerville who still think that I am guilty. There is an
+offensiveness in murder which degrades a man even by the accusation.
+I suppose it wouldn't do for you to move for the new writ."
+
+"Ratler will do it, as a matter of course. No doubt there will be
+expressions of great regret, and my belief is that they will return
+you again."
+
+"If so, they'll have to do it without my presence."
+
+Mr. Ratler did move for a new writ for the borough of Tankerville,
+and within a fortnight of his restoration to liberty Phineas Finn was
+no longer a Member of Parliament. It cannot be alleged that there
+was any reason for what he did, and yet the doing of it for the time
+rather increased than diminished his popularity. Both Mr. Gresham and
+Mr. Daubeny expressed their regret in the House, and Mr. Monk said a
+few words respecting his friend, which were very touching. He ended
+by expressing a hope that they soon might see him there again, and an
+opinion that he was a man peculiarly fitted by the tone of his mind,
+and the nature of his intellect, for the duties of Parliament.
+
+Then at last, when all this had been settled, he went to Lord
+Brentford's house in Portman Square. He had promised that that should
+be the first house he would visit, and he was as good as his word.
+One evening he crept out, and walked slowly along Oxford Street, and
+knocked timidly at the door. As he did so he longed to be told that
+Lady Laura was not at home. But Lady Laura was at home,--as a matter
+of course. In those days she never went into society, and had not
+passed an evening away from her father's house since Mr. Kennedy's
+death. He was shown up into the drawing-room in which she sat, and
+there he found her--alone. "Oh, Phineas, I am so glad you have come."
+
+"I have done as I said, you see."
+
+"I could not go to you when they told me that you were ill. You will
+have understood all that?"
+
+"Yes; I understand."
+
+"People are so hard, and cold, and stiff, and cruel, that one can
+never do what one feels, oneself, to be right. So you have given up
+your seat."
+
+"Yes,--I am no longer a Member of Parliament."
+
+"Barrington says that they will certainly re-elect you."
+
+"We shall see. You may be sure at any rate of this,--that I shall
+never ask them to do so. Things seem to be so different now from what
+they did. I don't care for the seat. It all seems to be a bore and a
+trouble. What does it matter who sits in Parliament? The fight goes
+on just the same. The same falsehoods are acted. The same mock truths
+are spoken. The same wrong reasons are given. The same personal
+motives are at work."
+
+"And yet, of all believers in Parliament, you used to be the most
+faithful."
+
+"One has time to think of things, Lady Laura, when one lies in
+Newgate. It seems to me to be an eternity of time since they locked
+me up. And as for that trial, which they tell me lasted a week, I
+look back at it till the beginning is so distant that I can hardly
+remember it. But I have resolved that I will never talk of it again.
+Lady Chiltern is out probably."
+
+"Yes;--she and Oswald are dining with the Baldocks."
+
+"She is well?"
+
+"Yes;--and most anxious to see you. Will you go to their place in
+September?"
+
+He had almost made up his mind that if he went anywhere in September
+he would go to Matching Priory, accepting the offer of the Duchess
+of Omnium; but he did not dare to say so to Lady Laura, because she
+would have known that Madame Goesler also would be there. And he had
+not as yet accepted the invitation, and was still in doubt whether he
+would not escape by himself instead of attempting to return into the
+grooves of society. "I think not;--I am hardly as yet sufficiently
+master of myself to know what I shall do."
+
+"They will be much disappointed."
+
+"And you?--what will you do?"
+
+"I shall not go there. I am told that I ought to visit Loughlinter,
+and I suppose I shall. Oswald has promised to go down with me before
+the end of the month, but he will not remain above a day or two."
+
+"And your father?"
+
+"We shall leave him at Saulsby. I cannot look it all in the face
+yet. It is not possible that I should remain all alone in that great
+house. The people all around would hate and despise me. I think
+Violet will come down with me, but of course she cannot remain there.
+Oswald must go to Harrington because of the hunting. It has become
+the business of his life. And she must go with him."
+
+"You will return to Saulsby."
+
+"I cannot say. They seem to think that I should live at
+Loughlinter;--but I cannot live there alone."
+
+He soon took leave of her, and did so with no warmer expressions of
+regard on either side than have here been given. Then he crept back
+to his lodgings, and she sat weeping alone in her father's house.
+When he had come to her during her husband's lifetime at Dresden, or
+even when she had visited him at his prison, it had been better than
+this.
+
+
+[Illustration: And she sat weeping alone in her father's house.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIX.
+
+THE DUKE'S FIRST COUSIN.
+
+
+Our pages have lately been taken up almost exclusively with the
+troubles of Phineas Finn, and indeed have so far not unfairly
+represented the feelings and interest of people generally at the
+time. Not to have talked of Phineas Finn from the middle of May to
+the middle of July in that year would have exhibited great ignorance
+or a cynical disposition. But other things went on also. Moons
+waxed and waned; children were born; marriages were contracted; and
+the hopes and fears of the little world around did not come to an
+end because Phineas Finn was not to be hung. Among others who had
+interests of their own there was poor Adelaide Palliser, whom we last
+saw under the affliction of Mr. Spooner's love,--but who before that
+had encountered the much deeper affliction of a quarrel with her own
+lover. She had desired him to free her,--and he had gone. Indeed,
+as to his going at that moment there had been no alternative, as
+he considered himself to have been turned out of Lord Chiltern's
+house. The red-headed lord, in the fierceness of his defence of Miss
+Palliser, had told the lover that under such and such circumstances
+he could not be allowed to remain at Harrington Hall. Lord Chiltern
+had said something about "his roof." Now, when a host questions the
+propriety of a guest remaining under his roof, the guest is obliged
+to go. Gerard Maule had gone; and, having offended his sweetheart
+by a most impolite allusion to Boulogne, had been forced to go as
+a rejected lover. From that day to this he had done nothing,--not
+because he was contented with the lot assigned to him, for every
+morning, as he lay on his bed, which he usually did till twelve,
+he swore to himself that nothing should separate him from Adelaide
+Palliser,--but simply because to do nothing was customary with him.
+"What is a man to do?" he not unnaturally asked his friend Captain
+Boodle at the club. "Let her out on the grass for a couple of
+months," said Captain Boodle, "and she'll come up as clean as a
+whistle. When they get these humours there's nothing like giving them
+a run." Captain Boodle undoubtedly had the reputation of being very
+great in council on such matters; but it must not be supposed that
+Gerard Maule was contented to take his advice implicitly. He was
+unhappy, ill at ease, half conscious that he ought to do something,
+full of regrets,--but very idle.
+
+In the meantime Miss Palliser, who had the finer nature of the two,
+suffered grievously. The Spooner affair was but a small addition to
+her misfortune. She could get rid of Mr. Spooner,--of any number of
+Mr. Spooners; but how should she get back to her the man she loved?
+When young ladies quarrel with their lovers it is always presumed,
+especially in books, that they do not wish to get them back. It is to
+be understood that the loss to them is as nothing. Miss Smith begs
+that Mr. Jones may be assured that he is not to consider her at all.
+If he is pleased to separate, she will be at any rate quite as well
+pleased,--probably a great deal better. No doubt she had loved him
+with all her heart, but that will make no difference to her, if he
+wishes,--to be off. Upon the whole Miss Smith thinks that she would
+prefer such an arrangement, in spite of her heart. Adelaide Palliser
+had said something of the kind. As Gerard Maule had regarded her
+as a "trouble," and had lamented that prospect of "Boulogne" which
+marriage had presented to his eyes, she had dismissed him with a few
+easily spoken words. She had assured him that no such troubles need
+weigh upon him. No doubt they had been engaged;--but, as far as she
+was concerned, the remembrance of that need not embarrass him. And so
+she and Lord Chiltern between them had sent him away. But how was she
+to get him back again?
+
+When she came to think it over, she acknowledged to herself that it
+would be all the world to her to have him back. To have him at all
+had been all the world to her. There had been nothing peculiarly
+heroic about him, nor had she ever regarded him as a hero. She
+had known his faults and weaknesses, and was probably aware
+that he was inferior to herself in character and intellect. But,
+nevertheless, she had loved him. To her he had been, though not
+heroic, sufficiently a man to win her heart. He was a gentleman,
+pleasant-mannered, pleasant to look at, pleasant to talk to, not
+educated in the high sense of the word, but never making himself
+ridiculous by ignorance. He was the very antipodes of a Spooner, and
+he was,--or rather had been,--her lover. She did not wish to change.
+She did not recognise the possibility of changing. Though she had
+told him that he might go if he pleased, to her his going would be
+the loss of everything. What would life be without a lover,--without
+the prospect of marriage? And there could be no other lover. There
+could be no further prospect should he take her at her word.
+
+Of all this Lord Chiltern understood nothing, but Lady Chiltern
+understood it all. To his thinking the young man had behaved so badly
+that it was incumbent on them all to send him away and so have done
+with him. If the young man wanted to quarrel with any one, there was
+he to be quarrelled with. The thing was a trouble, and the sooner
+they got to the end of it the better. But Lady Chiltern understood
+more than that. She could not prevent the quarrel as it came,--or was
+coming; but she knew that "the quarrel of lovers is the renewal of
+love." At any rate, the woman always desires that it may be so, and
+endeavours to reconcile the parted ones. "You'll see him in London,"
+Lady Chiltern had said to her friend.
+
+"I do not want to see him," said Adelaide proudly.
+
+"But he'll want to see you, and then,--after a time,--you'll want to
+see him. I don't believe in quarrels, you know."
+
+"It is better that we should part, Lady Chiltern, if marrying will
+cause him--dismay. I begin to feel that we are too poor to be
+married."
+
+"A great deal poorer people than you are married every day. Of course
+people can't be equally rich. You'll do very well if you'll only be
+patient, and not refuse to speak to him when he comes to you." This
+was said at Harrington after Lady Chiltern had returned from her
+first journey up to London. That visit had been very short, and Miss
+Palliser had been left alone at the hall. We already know how Mr.
+Spooner took advantage of her solitude. After that, Miss Palliser was
+to accompany the Chilterns to London, and she was there with them
+when Phineas Finn was acquitted. By that time she had brought herself
+to acknowledge to her friend Lady Chiltern that it would perhaps be
+desirable that Mr. Maule should return. If he did not do so, and that
+at once, there must come an end to her life in England. She must go
+away to Italy,--altogether beyond the reach of Gerard Maule. In such
+case all the world would have collapsed for her, and she would become
+the martyr of a shipwreck. And yet the more that she confessed to
+herself that she loved the man so well that she could not part with
+him, the more angry she was with him for having told her that, when
+married, they must live at Boulogne.
+
+The house in Portman Square had been practically given up by Lord
+Brentford to his son; but nevertheless the old Earl and Lady Laura
+had returned to it when they reached England from Dresden. It was,
+however, large, and now the two families,--if the Earl and his
+daughter can be called a family,--were lodging there together. The
+Earl troubled them but little, living mostly in his own rooms, and
+Lady Laura never went out with them. But there was something in the
+presence of the old man and the widow which prevented the house from
+being gay as it might have been. There were no parties in Portman
+Square. Now and then a few old friends dined there; but at the
+present moment Gerard Maule could not be admitted as an old friend.
+When Adelaide had been a fortnight in London she had not as yet seen
+Gerard Maule or heard a word from him. She had been to balls and
+concerts, to dinner parties and the play; but no one had as yet
+brought them together. She did know that he was in town. She was able
+to obtain so much information of him as that. But he never came to
+Portman Square, and had evidently concluded that the quarrel--was to
+be a quarrel.
+
+Among other balls in London that July there had been one at the
+Duchess of Omnium's. This had been given after the acquittal of
+Phineas Finn, though fixed before that great era. "Nothing on earth
+should have made me have it while he was in prison," the Duchess
+had said. But Phineas was acquitted, and cakes and ale again became
+permissible. The ball had been given, and had been very grand.
+Phineas had been asked, but of course had not gone. Madame Goesler,
+who was a great heroine since her successful return from Prague, had
+shown herself there for a few minutes. Lady Chiltern had gone, and of
+course taken Adelaide. "We are first cousins," the Duke said to Miss
+Palliser,--for the Duke did steal a moment from his work in which to
+walk through his wife's drawing-room. Adelaide smiled and nodded, and
+looked pleased as she gave her hand to her great relative. "I hope we
+shall see more of each other than we have done," said the Duke. "We
+have all been sadly divided, haven't we?" Then he said a word to his
+wife, expressing his opinion that Adelaide Palliser was a nice girl,
+and asking her to be civil to so near a relative.
+
+The Duchess had heard all about Gerard Maule and the engagement. She
+always did hear all about everything. And on this evening she asked a
+question or two from Lady Chiltern. "Do you know," she said, "I have
+an appointment to-morrow with your husband?"
+
+"I did not know;--but I won't interfere to prevent it, now you are
+generous enough to tell me."
+
+"I wish you would, because I don't know what to say to him. He is to
+come about that horrid wood, where the foxes won't get themselves
+born and bred as foxes ought to do. How can I help it? I'd send down
+a whole Lying-in Hospital for the foxes if I thought that that would
+do any good."
+
+"Lord Chiltern thinks it's the shooting."
+
+"But where is a person to shoot if he mayn't shoot in his own woods?
+Not that the Duke cares about the shooting for himself. He could not
+hit a pheasant sitting on a haystack, and wouldn't know one if he saw
+it. And he'd rather that there wasn't such a thing as a pheasant in
+the world. He cares for nothing but farthings. But what is a man to
+do? Or, rather, what is a woman to do?--for he tells me that I must
+settle it."
+
+"Lord Chiltern says that Mr. Fothergill has the foxes destroyed. I
+suppose Mr. Fothergill may do as he pleases if the Duke gives him
+permission."
+
+"I hate Mr. Fothergill, if that'll do any good," said the Duchess;
+"and we wish we could get rid of him altogether. But that, you know,
+is impossible. When one has an old man on one's shoulders one never
+can get rid of him. He is my incubus; and then you see Trumpeton Wood
+is such a long way from us at Matching that I can't say I want the
+shooting for myself. And I never go to Gatherum if I can help it.
+Suppose we made out that the Duke wanted to let the shooting?"
+
+"Lord Chiltern would take it at once."
+
+"But the Duke wouldn't really let it, you know. I'll lay awake at
+night and think about it. And now tell me about Adelaide Palliser. Is
+she to be married?"
+
+"I hope so,--sooner or later."
+
+"There's a quarrel or something;--isn't there? She's the Duke's first
+cousin, and we should be so sorry that things shouldn't go pleasantly
+with her. And she's a very good-looking girl, too. Would she like to
+come down to Matching?"
+
+"She has some idea of going back to Italy."
+
+"And leaving her lover behind her! Oh, dear, that will be very bad.
+She'd much better come to Matching, and then I'd ask the man to come
+too. Mr. Maud, isn't he?"
+
+"Gerard Maule."
+
+"Ah, yes; Maule. If it's the kind of thing that ought to be, I'd
+manage it in a week. If you get a young man down into a country
+house, and there has been anything at all between them, I don't see
+how he is to escape. Isn't there some trouble about money?"
+
+"They wouldn't be very rich, Duchess."
+
+"What a blessing for them! But then, perhaps, they'd be very poor."
+
+"They would be rather poor."
+
+"Which is not a blessing. Isn't there some proverb about going
+safely in the middle? I'm sure it's true about money,--only perhaps
+you ought to be put a little beyond the middle. I don't know why
+Plantagenet shouldn't do something for her."
+
+As to this conversation Lady Chiltern said very little to Adelaide,
+but she did mention the proposed visit to Matching.
+
+"The Duchess said nothing to me," replied Adelaide, proudly.
+
+"No; I don't suppose she had time. And then she is so very odd;
+sometimes taking no notice of one, and at others so very loving."
+
+"I hate that."
+
+"But with her it is neither impudence nor affectation. She says
+exactly what she thinks at the time, and she is always as good as her
+word. There are worse women than the Duchess."
+
+"I am sure I wouldn't like going to Matching," said Adelaide.
+
+Lady Chiltern was right in saying that the Duchess of Omnium was
+always as good as her word. On the next day, after that interview
+with Lord Chiltern about Mr. Fothergill and the foxes,--as to which
+no present further allusion need be made here,--she went to work and
+did learn a good deal about Gerard Maule and Miss Palliser. Something
+she learned from Lord Chiltern,--without any consciousness on his
+lordship's part, something from Madame Goesler, and something from
+the Baldock people. Before she went to bed on the second night she
+knew all about the quarrel, and all about the money. "Plantagenet,"
+she said the next morning, "what are you going to do about the Duke's
+legacy to Marie Goesler?"
+
+"I can do nothing. She must take the things, of course."
+
+"She won't."
+
+"Then the jewels must remain packed up. I suppose they'll be sold at
+last for the legacy duty, and, when that's paid, the balance will
+belong to her."
+
+"But what about the money?"
+
+"Of course it belongs to her."
+
+"Couldn't you give it to that girl who was here last night?"
+
+"Give it to a girl!"
+
+"Yes;--to your cousin. She's as poor as Job, and can't get married
+because she hasn't got any money. It's quite true; and I must say
+that if the Duke had looked after his own relations instead of
+leaving money to people who don't want it and won't have it, it would
+have been much better. Why shouldn't Adelaide Palliser have it?"
+
+"How on earth should I give Adelaide Palliser what doesn't belong to
+me? If you choose to make her a present, you can, but such a sum as
+that would, I should say, be out of the question."
+
+The Duchess had achieved quite as much as she had anticipated. She
+knew her husband well, and was aware that she couldn't carry her
+point at once. To her mind it was "all nonsense" his saying that the
+money was not his. If Madame Goesler wouldn't take it, it must be
+his; and nobody could make a woman take money if she did not choose.
+Adelaide Palliser was the Duke's first cousin, and it was intolerable
+that the Duke's first cousin should be unable to marry because she
+would have nothing to live upon. It became, at least, intolerable
+as soon as the Duchess had taken it into her head to like the first
+cousin. No doubt there were other first cousins as badly off, or
+perhaps worse, as to whom the Duchess would care nothing whether
+they were rich or poor,--married or single; but then they were first
+cousins who had not had the advantage of interesting the Duchess.
+
+"My dear," said the Duchess to her friend, Madame Goesler, "you know
+all about those Maules?"
+
+"What makes you ask?"
+
+"But you do?"
+
+"I know something about one of them," said Madame Goesler. Now, as
+it happened, Mr. Maule, senior, had on that very day asked Madame
+Goesler to share her lot with his, and the request had been--almost
+indignantly, refused. The general theory that the wooing of widows
+should be quick had, perhaps, misled Mr. Maule. Perhaps he did not
+think that the wooing had been quick. He had visited Park Lane with
+the object of making his little proposition once before, and had
+then been stopped in his course by the consternation occasioned by
+the arrest of Phineas Finn. He had waited till Phineas had been
+acquitted, and had then resolved to try his luck. He had heard of the
+lady's journey to Prague, and was acquainted of course with those
+rumours which too freely connected the name of our hero with that of
+the lady. But rumours are often false, and a lady may go to Prague on
+a gentleman's behalf without intending to marry him. All the women in
+London were at present more or less in love with the man who had been
+accused of murder, and the fantasy of Madame Goesler might be only as
+the fantasy of others. And then, rumour also said that Phineas Finn
+intended to marry Lady Laura Kennedy. At any rate a man cannot have
+his head broken for asking a lady to marry him,--unless he is very
+awkward in the doing of it. So Mr. Maule made his little proposition.
+
+"Mr. Maule," said Madame, smiling, "is not this rather sudden?" Mr.
+Maule admitted that it was sudden, but still persisted. "I think,
+if you please, Mr. Maule, we will say no more about it," said the
+lady, with that wicked smile still on her face. Mr. Maule declared
+that silence on the subject had become impossible to him. "Then, Mr.
+Maule, I shall have to leave you to speak to the chairs and tables,"
+said Madame Goesler. No doubt she was used to the thing, and knew how
+to conduct herself well. He also had been refused before by ladies of
+wealth, but had never been treated with so little consideration. She
+had risen from her chair as though about to leave the room, but was
+slow in her movement, showing him that she thought it was well for
+him to leave it instead of her. Muttering some words, half of apology
+and half of self-assertion, he did leave the room; and now she told
+the Duchess that she knew something of one of the Maules.
+
+"That is, the father?"
+
+"Yes,--the father."
+
+"He is one of your tribe, I know. We met him at your house just
+before the murder. I don't much admire your taste, my dear, because
+he's a hundred and fifty years old;--and what there is of him comes
+chiefly from the tailor."
+
+"He's as good as any other old man."
+
+"I dare say,--and I hope Mr. Finn will like his society. But he has
+got a son."
+
+"So he tells me."
+
+"Who is a charming young man."
+
+"He never told me that, Duchess."
+
+"I dare say not. Men of that sort are always jealous of their sons.
+But he has. Now I am going to tell you something and ask you to do
+something."
+
+"What was it the French Minister said. If it is simply difficult it
+is done. If it is impossible, it shall be done."
+
+"The easiest thing in the world. You saw Plantagenet's first cousin
+the other night,--Adelaide Palliser. She is engaged to marry young
+Mr. Maule, and they neither of them have a shilling in the world. I
+want you to give them five-and-twenty thousand pounds."
+
+"Wouldn't that be peculiar?"
+
+"Not in the least."
+
+"At any rate it would be inconvenient."
+
+"No it wouldn't, my dear. It would be the most convenient thing in
+the world. Of course I don't mean out of your pocket. There's the
+Duke's legacy."
+
+"It isn't mine, and never will be."
+
+"But Plantagenet says it never can be anybody else's. If I can get
+him to agree, will you? Of course there will be ever so many papers
+to be signed; and the biggest of all robbers, the Chancellor of the
+Exchequer, will put his fingers into the pudding and pull out a plum,
+and the lawyers will take more plums. But that will be nothing to
+us. The pudding will be very nice for them let ever so many plums be
+taken. The lawyers and people will do it all, and then it will be her
+fortune,--just as though her uncle had left it to her. As it is now,
+the money will never be of any use to anybody." Madame Goesler said
+that if the Duke consented she also would consent. It was immaterial
+to her who had the money. If by signing any receipt she could
+facilitate the return of the money to any one of the Duke's family,
+she would willingly sign it. But Miss Palliser must be made to
+understand that the money did not come to her as a present from
+Madame Goesler.
+
+"But it will be a present from Madame Goesler," said the Duke.
+
+"Plantagenet, if you go and upset everything by saying that, I shall
+think it most ill-natured. Bother about true! Somebody must have the
+money. There's nothing illegal about it." And the Duchess had her own
+way. Lawyers were consulted, and documents were prepared, and the
+whole thing was arranged. Only Adelaide Palliser knew nothing about
+it, nor did Gerard Maule; and the quarrels of lovers had not yet
+become the renewal of love. Then the Duchess wrote the two following
+notes:--
+
+
+   MY DEAR ADELAIDE,
+
+   We shall hope to see you at Matching on the 15th of
+   August. The Duke, as head of the family, expects implicit
+   obedience. You'll meet fifteen young gentlemen from the
+   Treasury and the Board of Trade, but they won't incommode
+   you, as they are kept at work all day. We hope Mr. Finn
+   will be with us, and there isn't a lady in England who
+   wouldn't give her eyes to meet him. We shall stay ever so
+   many weeks at Matching, so that you can do as you please
+   as to the time of leaving us.
+
+   Yours affectionately,
+
+   G. O.
+
+   Tell Lord Chiltern that I have my hopes of making
+   Trumpeton Wood too hot for Mr. Fothergill,--but I have
+   to act with the greatest caution. In the meantime I am
+   sending down dozens of young foxes, all labelled Trumpeton
+   Wood, so that he shall know them.
+
+
+The other was a card rather than a note. The Duke and Duchess of
+Omnium presented their compliments to Mr. Gerard Maule, and requested
+the honour of his company to dinner on,--a certain day named. When
+Gerard Maule received this card at his club he was rather surprised,
+as he had never made the acquaintance either of the Duke or the
+Duchess. But the Duke was the first cousin of Adelaide Palliser, and
+of course he accepted the invitation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXX.
+
+"I WILL NOT GO TO LOUGHLINTER."
+
+
+The end of July came, and it was settled that Lady Laura Kennedy
+should go to Loughlinter. She had been a widow now for nearly three
+months, and it was thought right that she should go down and see the
+house, and the lands, and the dependents whom her husband had left
+in her charge. It was now three years since she had seen Loughlinter,
+and when last she had left it, she had made up her mind that she
+would never place her foot upon the place again. Her wretchedness
+had all come upon her there. It was there that she had first been
+subjected to the unendurable tedium of Sabbath Day observances. It
+was there she had been instructed in the unpalatable duties that
+had been expected from her. It was there that she had been punished
+with the doctor from Callender whenever she attempted escape under
+the plea of a headache. And it was there, standing by the waterfall,
+the noise of which could be heard from the front-door, that Phineas
+Finn had told her of his love. When she accepted the hand of Robert
+Kennedy she had known that she had not loved him; but from the moment
+in which Phineas had spoken to her, she knew well that her heart had
+gone one way, whereas her hand was to go another. From that moment
+her whole life had quickly become a blank. She had had no period of
+married happiness,--not a month, not an hour. From the moment in
+which the thing had been done she had found that the man to whom she
+had bound herself was odious to her, and that the life before her
+was distasteful to her. Things which before had seemed worthy to her,
+and full at any rate of interest, became at once dull and vapid. Her
+husband was in Parliament, as also had been her father, and many of
+her friends,--and, by weight of his own character and her influence,
+was himself placed high in office; but in his house politics lost all
+the flavour which they had possessed for her in Portman Square. She
+had thought that she could at any rate do her duty as the mistress
+of a great household, and as the benevolent lady of a great estate;
+but household duties under the tutelage of Mr. Kennedy had been
+impossible to her, and that part of a Scotch Lady Bountiful which she
+had intended to play seemed to be denied to her. The whole structure
+had fallen to the ground, and nothing had been left to her.
+
+But she would not sin. Though she could not bring herself to love her
+husband, she would at any rate be strong enough to get rid of that
+other love. Having so resolved, she became as weak as water. She at
+one time determined to be the guiding genius of the man she loved,--a
+sort of devoted elder sister, intending him to be the intimate friend
+of her husband; then she had told him not to come to her house, and
+had been weak enough to let him know why it was that she could not
+bear his presence. She had failed altogether to keep her secret, and
+her life during the struggle had become so intolerable to her that
+she had found herself compelled to desert her husband. He had shown
+her that he, too, had discovered the truth, and then she had become
+indignant, and had left him. Every place that she had inhabited
+with him had become disagreeable to her. The house in London had
+been so odious, that she had asked her intimate friends to come to
+her in that occupied by her father. But, of all spots upon earth,
+Loughlinter had been the most distasteful to her. It was there that
+the sermons had been the longest, the lessons in accounts the most
+obstinate, the lectures the most persevering, the dullness the most
+heavy. It was there that her ears had learned the sound of the wheels
+of Dr. Macnuthrie's gig. It was there that her spirit had been nearly
+broken. It was there that, with spirit not broken, she had determined
+to face all that the world might say of her, and fly from a tyranny
+which was insupportable. And now the place was her own, and she was
+told that she must go there as its owner;--go there and be potential,
+and beneficent, and grandly bland with persons, all of whom knew what
+had been the relations between her and her husband.
+
+And though she had been indignant with her husband when at last she
+had left him,--throwing it in his teeth as an unmanly offence that he
+had accused her of the truth; though she had felt him to be a tyrant
+and herself to be a thrall; though the sermons, and the lessons,
+and the doctor had each, severally, seemed to her to be horrible
+cruelties; yet she had known through it all that the fault had
+been hers, and not his. He only did that which she should have
+expected when she married him;--but she had done none of that which
+he was entitled to expect from her. The real fault, the deceit, the
+fraud,--the sin had been with her,--and she knew it. Her life had
+been destroyed,--but not by him. His life had also been destroyed,
+and she had done it. Now he was gone, and she knew that his
+people,--the old mother who was still left alone, his cousins, and
+the tenants who were now to be her tenants, all said that had she
+done her duty by him he would still have been alive. And they must
+hate her the worse, because she had never sinned after such a fashion
+as to liberate him from his bond to her. With a husband's perfect
+faith in his wife, he had, immediately after his marriage, given to
+her for her life the lordship over his people, should he be without
+a child and should she survive him. In his hottest anger he had not
+altered that. His constant demand had been that she should come back
+to him, and be his real wife. And while making that demand,--with a
+persistency which had driven him mad,--he had died; and now the place
+was hers, and they told her that she must go and live there!
+
+It is a very sad thing for any human being to have to say to
+himself,--with an earnest belief in his own assertion,--that all the
+joy of this world is over for him; and is the sadder because such
+conviction is apt to exclude the hope of other joy. This woman had
+said so to herself very often during the last two years, and had
+certainly been sincere. What was there in store for her? She was
+banished from the society of all those she liked. She bore a name
+that was hateful to her. She loved a man whom she could never see.
+She was troubled about money. Nothing in life had any taste for her.
+All the joys of the world were over,--and had been lost by her own
+fault. Then Phineas Finn had come to her at Dresden, and now her
+husband was dead!
+
+Could it be that she was entitled to hope that the sun might rise
+again for her once more and another day be reopened for her with
+a gorgeous morning? She was now rich and still young,--or young
+enough. She was two and thirty, and had known many women,--women
+still honoured with the name of girls,--who had commenced the world
+successfully at that age. And this man had loved her once. He had
+told her so, and had afterwards kissed her when informed of her own
+engagement. How well she remembered it all. He, too, had gone through
+vicissitudes in life, had married and retired out of the world,
+had returned to it, and had gone through fire and water. But now
+everybody was saying good things of him, and all he wanted was the
+splendour which wealth would give him. Why should he not take it at
+her hands, and why should not the world begin again for both of them?
+
+But though she would dream that it might be so, she was quite sure
+that there was no such life in store for her. The nature of the man
+was too well known to her. Fickle he might be;--or rather capable of
+change than fickle; but he was incapable of pretending to love when
+he did not love. She felt that in all the moments in which he had
+been most tender with her. When she had endeavoured to explain to him
+the state of her feelings at Königstein,--meaning to be true in what
+she said, but not having been even then true throughout,--she had
+acknowledged to herself that at every word he spoke she was wounded
+by his coldness. Had he then professed a passion for her she would
+have rebuked him, and told him that he must go from her,--but it
+would have warmed the blood in all her veins, and brought back to
+her a sense of youthful life. It had been the same when she visited
+him in the prison;--the same again when he came to her after his
+acquittal. She had been frank enough to him, but he would not even
+pretend that he loved her. His gratitude, his friendship, his
+services, were all hers. In every respect he had behaved well to her.
+All his troubles had come upon him because he would not desert her
+cause,--but he would never again say he loved her.
+
+She gazed at herself in the glass, putting aside for the moment the
+hideous widow's cap which she now wore, and told herself that it
+was natural that it should be so. Though she was young in years
+her features were hard and worn with care. She had never thought
+herself to be a beauty, though she had been conscious of a certain
+aristocratic grace of manner which might stand in the place of
+beauty. As she examined herself she found that that was not all
+gone;--but she now lacked that roundness of youth which had been hers
+when first she knew Phineas Finn. She sat opposite the mirror, and
+pored over her own features with an almost skilful scrutiny, and told
+herself at last aloud that she had become an old woman. He was in the
+prime of life; but for her was left nothing but its dregs.
+
+
+[Illustration: Lady Laura at the glass.]
+
+
+She was to go to Loughlinter with her brother and her brother's wife,
+leaving her father at Saulsby on the way. The Chilterns were to
+remain with her for one week, and no more. His presence was demanded
+in the Brake country, and it was with difficulty that he had been
+induced to give her so much of his time. But what was she to do when
+they should leave her? How could she live alone in that great house,
+thinking, as she ever must think, of all that had happened to her
+there? It seemed to her that everybody near to her was cruel in
+demanding from her such a sacrifice of her comfort. Her father
+had shuddered when she had proposed to him to accompany her to
+Loughlinter; but her father was one of those who insisted on the
+propriety of her going there. Then, in spite of that lesson which she
+had taught herself while sitting opposite to the glass, she allowed
+her fancy to revel in the idea of having him with her as she wandered
+over the braes. She saw him a day or two before her journey, when
+she told him her plans as she might tell them to any friend. Lady
+Chiltern and her father had been present, and there had been no
+special sign in her outward manner of the mingled tenderness and
+soreness of her heart within. No allusion had been made to any visit
+from him to the North. She would not have dared to suggest it in
+the presence of her brother, and was almost as much cowed by her
+brother's wife. But when she was alone, on the eve of her departure,
+she wrote to him as follows:--
+
+
+   Sunday, 1st August, ----.
+
+   DEAR FRIEND,
+
+   I thought that perhaps you might have come in this
+   afternoon, and I have not left the house all day. I
+   was so wretched that I could not go to church in the
+   morning;--and when the afternoon came, I preferred the
+   chance of seeing you to going out with Violet. We two
+   were alone all the evening, and I did not give you up
+   till nearly ten. I dare say you were right not to come.
+   I should only have bored you with my complaints, and have
+   grumbled to you of evils which you cannot cure.
+
+   We start at nine to-morrow, and get to Saulsby in the
+   afternoon. Such a family party as we shall be! I did fancy
+   that Oswald would escape it; but, like everybody else, he
+   has changed,--and has become domestic and dutiful. Not but
+   that he is as tyrannous as ever; but his tyranny is now
+   that of the responsible father of a family. Papa cannot
+   understand him at all, and is dreadfully afraid of him. We
+   stay two nights at Saulsby, and then go on to Scotland,
+   leaving papa at home.
+
+   Of course it is very good in Violet and Oswald to come
+   with me,--if, as they say, it be necessary for me to go at
+   all. As to living there by myself, it seems to me to be
+   impossible. You know the place well, and can you imagine
+   me there all alone, surrounded by Scotch men and women,
+   who, of course, must hate and despise me, afraid of every
+   face that I see, and reminded even by the chairs and
+   tables of all that is past? I have told papa that I know
+   I shall be back at Saulsby before the middle of the month.
+   He frets, and says nothing; but he tells Violet, and then
+   she lectures me in that wise way of hers which enables her
+   to say such hard things with so much seeming tenderness.
+   She asks me why I do not take a companion with me, as I am
+   so much afraid of solitude. Where on earth should I find a
+   companion who would not be worse than solitude? I do feel
+   now that I have mistaken life in having so little used
+   myself to the small resources of feminine companionship.
+   I love Violet dearly, and I used to be always happy in her
+   society. But even with her now I feel but a half sympathy.
+   That girl that she has with her is more to her than I am,
+   because after the first half-hour I grow tired about her
+   babies. I have never known any other woman with whom I
+   cared to be alone. How then shall I content myself with
+   a companion, hired by the quarter, perhaps from some
+   advertisement in a newspaper?
+
+   No companionship of any kind seems possible to me,--and
+   yet never was a human being more weary of herself. I
+   sometimes wonder whether I could go again and sit in
+   that cage in the House of Commons to hear you and other
+   men speak,--as I used to do. I do not believe that any
+   eloquence in the world would make it endurable to me. I
+   hardly care who is in or out, and do not understand the
+   things which my cousin Barrington tells me,--so long does
+   it seem since I was in the midst of them all. Not but that
+   I am intensely anxious that you should be back. They tell
+   me that you will certainly be re-elected this week, and
+   that all the House will receive you with open arms. I
+   should have liked, had it been possible, to be once more
+   in the cage to see that. But I am such a coward that I did
+   not even dare to propose to stay for it. Violet would have
+   told me that such manifestation of interest was unfit for
+   my condition as a widow. But in truth, Phineas, there is
+   nothing else now that does interest me. If, looking on
+   from a distance, I can see you succeed, I shall try once
+   more to care for the questions of the day. When you have
+   succeeded, as I know you will, it will be some consolation
+   to me to think that I also helped a little.
+
+   I suppose I must not ask you to come to Loughlinter? But
+   you will know best. If you will do so I shall care nothing
+   for what any one may say. Oswald hardly mentions your
+   name in my hearing, and of course I know of what he is
+   thinking. When I am with him I am afraid of him, because
+   it would add infinitely to my grief were I driven to
+   quarrel with him; but I am my own mistress as much as he
+   is his own master, and I will not regulate my conduct by
+   his wishes. If you please to come you will be welcome as
+   the flowers in May. Ah, how weak are such words in giving
+   any idea of the joy with which I should see you!
+
+   God bless you, Phineas.
+
+   Your most affectionate friend,
+
+   LAURA KENNEDY.
+
+   Write to me at Loughlinter. I shall long to hear that you
+   have taken your seat immediately on your re-election. Pray
+   do not lose a day. I am sure that all your friends will
+   advise you as I do.
+
+
+Throughout her whole letter she was struggling to tell him once again
+of her love, and yet to do it in some way of which she need not be
+ashamed. It was not till she had come to the last words that she
+could force her pen to speak of her affection, and then the words did
+not come freely as she would have had them. She knew that he would
+not come to Loughlinter. She felt that were he to do so he could come
+only as a suitor for her hand, and that such a suit, in these early
+days of her widowhood, carried on in her late husband's house, would
+be held to be disgraceful. As regarded herself, she would have faced
+all that for the sake of the thing to be attained. But she knew
+that he would not come. He had become wise by experience, and would
+perceive the result of such coming,--and would avoid it. His answer
+to her letter reached Loughlinter before she did:--
+
+
+   Great Marlborough Street,
+   Monday night.
+
+   DEAR LADY LAURA,--
+
+   I should have called in the Square last night, only that
+   I feel that Lady Chiltern must be weary of the woes of so
+   doleful a person as myself. I dined and spent the evening
+   with the Lows, and was quite aware that I disgraced myself
+   with them by being perpetually lachrymose. As a rule I do
+   not think that I am more given than other people to talk
+   of myself, but I am conscious of a certain incapability of
+   getting rid of myself what has grown upon me since those
+   weary weeks in Newgate and those frightful days in the
+   dock; and this makes me unfit for society. Should I again
+   have a seat in the House I shall be afraid to get up upon
+   my legs, lest I should find myself talking of the time
+   in which I stood before the judge with a halter round my
+   neck.
+
+   I sympathise with you perfectly in what you say about
+   Loughlinter. It may be right that you should go there and
+   show yourself,--so that those who knew the Kennedys in
+   Scotland should not say that you had not dared to visit
+   the place, but I do not think it possible that you should
+   live there as yet. And why should you do so? I cannot
+   conceive that your presence there should do good, unless
+   you took delight in the place.
+
+   I will not go to Loughlinter myself, although I know how
+   warm would be my welcome.
+
+When he had got so far with his letter he found the difficulty of
+going on with it to be almost insuperable. How could he give her any
+reasons for his not making the journey to Scotland? "People would say
+that you and I should not be alone together after all the evil that
+has been spoken of us;--and would be specially eager in saying so
+were I now to visit you, so lately made a widow, and to sojourn with
+you in the house that did belong to your husband. Only think how
+eloquent would be the indignation of The People's Banner were it
+known that I was at Loughlinter." Could he have spoken the truth
+openly, such were the reasons that he would have given; but it was
+impossible that such truths should be written by him in a letter to
+herself. And then it was almost equally difficult for him to tell
+her of a visit which he had resolved to make. But the letter must be
+completed, and at last the words were written.
+
+   I could be of no real service to you there, as will be
+   your brother and your brother's wife, even though their
+   stay with you is to be so short. Were I you I would go
+   out among the people as much as possible, even though
+   they should not receive you cordially at first. Though
+   we hear so much of clanship in the Highlands, I think
+   the Highlanders are prone to cling to any one who has
+   territorial authority among them. They thought a great
+   deal of Mr. Kennedy, but they had never heard his name
+   fifty years ago. I suppose you will return to Saulsby
+   soon, and then, perhaps, I may be able to see you.
+
+   In the meantime I am going to Matching. [This difficulty
+   was worse even than the other.] Both the Duke and Duchess
+   have asked me, and I know that I am bound to make an
+   effort to face my fellow-creatures again. The horror I
+   feel at being stared at, as the man that was not--hung
+   as a murderer, is stronger than I can describe; and I am
+   well aware that I shall be talked to and made a wonder
+   of on that ground. I am told that I am to be re-elected
+   triumphantly at Tankerville without a penny of cost
+   or the trouble of asking for a vote, simply because I
+   didn't knock poor Mr. Bonteen on the head. This to me is
+   abominable, but I cannot help myself, unless I resolve to
+   go away and hide myself. That I know cannot be right, and
+   therefore I had better go through it and have done with
+   it. Though I am to be stared at, I shall not be stared at
+   very long. Some other monster will come up and take my
+   place, and I shall be the only person who will not forget
+   it all. Therefore I have accepted the Duke's invitation,
+   and shall go to Matching some time in the end of August.
+   All the world is to be there.
+
+   This re-election,--and I believe I shall be re-elected
+   to-morrow,--would be altogether distasteful to me were it
+   not that I feel that I should not allow myself to be cut
+   to pieces by what has occurred. I shall hate to go back
+   to the House, and have somehow learned to dislike and
+   distrust all those things that used to be so fine and
+   lively to me. I don't think that I believe any more in the
+   party;--or rather in the men who lead it. I used to have a
+   faith that now seems to me to be marvellous. Even twelve
+   months ago, when I was beginning to think of standing for
+   Tankerville, I believed that on our side the men were
+   patriotic angels, and that Daubeny and his friends were
+   all fiends or idiots,--mostly idiots, but with a strong
+   dash of fiendism to control them. It has all come now to
+   one common level of poor human interests. I doubt whether
+   patriotism can stand the wear and tear and temptation of
+   the front benches in the House of Commons. Men are flying
+   at each other's throats, thrusting and parrying, making
+   false accusations and defences equally false, lying and
+   slandering,--sometimes picking and stealing,--till they
+   themselves become unaware of the magnificence of their own
+   position, and forget that they are expected to be great.
+   Little tricks of sword-play engage all their skill. And
+   the consequence is that there is no reverence now for any
+   man in the House,--none of that feeling which we used to
+   entertain for Mr. Mildmay.
+
+   Of course I write--and feel--as a discontented man; and
+   what I say to you I would not say to any other human
+   being. I did long most anxiously for office, having made
+   up my mind a second time to look to it as a profession.
+   But I meant to earn my bread honestly, and give it up,--as
+   I did before, when I could not keep it with a clear
+   conscience. I knew that I was hustled out of the object
+   of my poor ambition by that unfortunate man who has
+   been hurried to his fate. In such a position I ought to
+   distrust, and do, partly, distrust my own feelings. And
+   I am aware that I have been soured by prison indignities.
+   But still the conviction remains with me that
+   parliamentary interests are not those battles of gods
+   and giants which I used to regard them. Our Gyas with
+   the hundred hands is but a Three-fingered Jack, and I
+   sometimes think that we share our great Jove with the
+   Strand Theatre. Nevertheless I shall go back,--and if they
+   will make me a joint lord to-morrow I shall be in heaven!
+
+   I do not know why I should write all this to you except
+   that there is no one else to whom I can say it. There
+   is no one else who would give a moment of time to such
+   lamentations. My friends will expect me to talk to them of
+   my experiences in the dock rather than politics, and will
+   want to know what rations I had in Newgate. I went to call
+   on the Governor only yesterday, and visited the old room.
+   "I never could really bring myself to think that you did
+   it, Mr. Finn," he said. I looked at him and smiled, but
+   I should have liked to fly at his throat. Why did he not
+   know that the charge was a monstrous absurdity? Talking
+   of that, not even you were truer to me than your brother.
+   One expects it from a woman;--both the truth and the
+   discernment.
+
+   I have written to you a cruelly long letter; but when
+   one's mind is full such relief is sometimes better than
+   talking. Pray answer it before long, and let me know what
+   you intend to do.
+
+   Yours most affectionately,
+
+   PHINEAS FINN.
+
+
+She did read the letter through,--read it probably more than once;
+but there was only one sentence in it that had for her any enduring
+interest. "I will not go to Loughlinter myself." Though she had known
+that he would not come her heart sank within her, as though now, at
+this moment, the really fatal wound had at last been inflicted. But,
+in truth, there was another sentence as a complement to the first,
+which rivetted the dagger in her bosom. "In the meantime I am going
+to Matching." Throughout his letter the name of that woman was not
+mentioned, but of course she would be there. The thing had all been
+arranged in order that they two might be brought together. She
+told herself that she had always hated that intriguing woman, Lady
+Glencora. She read the remainder of the letter and understood it; but
+she read it all in connection with the beauty, and the wealth, and
+the art,--and the cunning of Madame Max Goesler.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXI.
+
+PHINEAS FINN IS RE-ELECTED.
+
+
+The manner in which Phineas Finn was returned a second time for the
+borough of Tankerville was memorable among the annals of English
+elections. When the news reached the town that their member was to be
+tried for murder no doubt every elector believed that he was guilty.
+It is the natural assumption when the police and magistrates and
+lawyers, who have been at work upon the matter carefully, have come
+to that conclusion, and nothing but private knowledge or personal
+affection will stand against such evidence. At Tankerville there was
+nothing of either, and our hero's guilt was taken as a certainty.
+There was an interest felt in the whole matter which was full of
+excitement, and not altogether without delight to the Tankervillians.
+Of course the borough, as a borough, would never again hold up its
+head. There had never been known such an occurrence in the whole
+history of this country as the hanging of a member of the House of
+Commons. And this Member of Parliament was to be hung for murdering
+another member, which, no doubt, added much to the importance of
+the transaction. A large party in the borough declared that it
+was a judgment. Tankerville had degraded itself among boroughs by
+sending a Roman Catholic to Parliament, and had done so at the very
+moment in which the Church of England was being brought into danger.
+This was what had come upon the borough by not sticking to honest
+Mr. Browborough! There was a moment,--just before the trial was
+begun,--in which a large proportion of the electors was desirous
+of proceeding to work at once, and of sending Mr. Browborough back
+to his own place. It was thought that Phineas Finn should be made
+to resign. And very wise men in Tankerville were much surprised
+when they were told that a member of Parliament cannot resign his
+seat,--that when once returned he is supposed to be, as long as that
+Parliament shall endure, the absolute slave of his constituency
+and his country, and that he can escape from his servitude only
+by accepting some office under the Crown. Now it was held to be
+impossible that a man charged with murder should be appointed even to
+the stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds. The House, no doubt, could
+expel a member, and would, as a matter of course, expel the member
+for Tankerville,--but the House could hardly proceed to expulsion
+before the member's guilt could have been absolutely established. So
+it came to pass that there was no escape for the borough from any
+part of the disgrace to which it had subjected itself by its unworthy
+choice, and some Tankervillians of sensitive minds were of opinion
+that no Tankervillian ever again ought to take part in politics.
+
+Then, quite suddenly, there came into the borough the tidings that
+Phineas Finn was an innocent man. This happened on the morning on
+which the three telegrams from Prague reached London. The news
+conveyed by the telegrams was at Tankerville almost as soon as in
+the Court at the Old Bailey, and was believed as readily. The name
+of the lady who had travelled all the way to Bohemia on behalf of
+their handsome young member was on the tongue of every woman in
+Tankerville, and a most delightful romance was composed. Some few
+Protestant spirits regretted the now assured escape of their Roman
+Catholic enemy, and would not even yet allow themselves to doubt that
+the whole murder had been arranged by Divine Providence to bring down
+the scarlet woman. It seemed to them to be so fitting a thing that
+Providence should interfere directly to punish a town in which the
+sins of the scarlet woman were not held to be abominable! But the
+multitude were soon convinced that their member was innocent; and
+as it was certain that he had been in great peril,--as it was known
+that he was still in durance, and as it was necessary that the trial
+should proceed, and that he should still stand at least for another
+day in the dock,--he became more than ever a hero. Then came the
+further delay, and at last the triumphant conclusion of the trial.
+When acquitted, Phineas Finn was still member for Tankerville and
+might have walked into the House on that very night. Instead of doing
+so he had at once asked for the accustomed means of escape from his
+servitude, and the seat for Tankerville was vacant. The most loving
+friends of Mr. Browborough perceived at once that there was not
+a chance for him. The borough was all but unanimous in resolving
+that it would return no one as its member but the man who had been
+unjustly accused of murder.
+
+Mr. Ruddles was at once despatched to London with two other political
+spirits,--so that there might be a real deputation,--and waited upon
+Phineas two days after his release from prison. Ruddles was very
+anxious to carry his member back with him, assuring Phineas of an
+entry into the borough so triumphant that nothing like to it had ever
+been known at Tankerville. But to all this Phineas was quite deaf.
+At first he declined even to be put in nomination. "You can't escape
+from it, Mr. Finn, you can't indeed," said Ruddles. "You don't at all
+understand the enthusiasm of the borough; does he, Mr. Gadmire?"
+
+"I never knew anything like it in my life before," said Gadmire.
+
+"I believe Mr. Finn would poll two-thirds of the Church party
+to-morrow," said Mr. Troddles, a leading dissenter in Tankerville,
+who on this occasion was the third member of the deputation.
+
+"I needn't sit for the borough unless I please, I suppose," pleaded
+Phineas.
+
+"Well, no;--at least I don't know," said Ruddles. "It would be
+throwing us over a good deal, and I'm sure you are not the gentleman
+to do that. And then, Mr. Finn, don't you see that though you have
+been knocked about a little lately--"
+
+"By George, he has,--most cruel," said Troddles.
+
+"You'll miss the House if you give it up; you will, after a bit, Mr.
+Finn. You've got to come round again, Mr. Finn,--if I may be so bold
+as to say so, and you shouldn't put yourself out of the way of coming
+round comfortably."
+
+Phineas knew that there was wisdom in the words of Mr. Ruddles, and
+consented. Though at this moment he was low in heart, disgusted with
+the world, and sick of humanity,--though every joint in his body was
+still sore from the rack on which he had been stretched, yet he knew
+that it would not be so with him always. As others recovered so would
+he, and it might be that he would live to "miss the House," should he
+now refuse the offer made to him. He accepted the offer, but he did
+so with a positive assurance that no consideration should at present
+take him to Tankerville.
+
+"We ain't going to charge you, not one penny," said Mr. Gadmire, with
+enthusiasm.
+
+"I feel all that I owe to the borough," said Phineas, "and to the
+warm friends there who have espoused my cause; but I am not in a
+condition at present, either of mind or body, to put myself forward
+anywhere in public. I have suffered a great deal."
+
+"Most cruel!" said Troddles.
+
+"And am quite willing to confess that I am therefore unfit in my
+present position to serve the borough."
+
+"We can't admit that," said Gadmire, raising his left hand.
+
+"We mean to have you," said Troddles.
+
+"There isn't a doubt about your re-election, Mr. Finn," said Ruddles.
+
+"I am very grateful, but I cannot be there. I must trust to one of
+you gentlemen to explain to the electors that in my present condition
+I am unable to visit the borough."
+
+Messrs. Ruddles, Gadmire, and Troddles returned to
+Tankerville,--disappointed no doubt at not bringing with them him
+whose company would have made their feet glorious on the pavement of
+their native town,--but still with a comparative sense of their own
+importance in having seen the great sufferer whose woes forbade that
+he should be beheld by common eyes. They never even expressed an idea
+that he ought to have come, alluding even to their past convictions
+as to the futility of hoping for such a blessing; but spoke of him as
+a personage made almost sacred by the sufferings which he had been
+made to endure. As to the election, that would be a matter of course.
+He was proposed by Mr. Ruddles himself, and was absolutely seconded
+by the rector of Tankerville,--the staunchest Tory in the place,
+who on this occasion made a speech in which he declared that as an
+Englishman, loving justice, he could not allow any political or even
+any religious consideration to bias his conduct on this occasion. Mr.
+Finn had thrown up his seat under the pressure of a false accusation,
+and it was, the rector thought, for the honour of the borough that
+the seat should be restored to him. So Phineas Finn was re-elected
+for Tankerville without opposition and without expense; and for
+six weeks after the ceremony parcels were showered upon him by
+the ladies of the borough who sent him worked slippers, scarlet
+hunting waistcoats, pocket handkerchiefs, with "P.F." beautifully
+embroidered, and chains made of their own hair.
+
+In this conjunction of affairs the editor of The People's Banner
+found it somewhat difficult to trim his sails. It was a rule of life
+with Mr. Quintus Slide to persecute an enemy. An enemy might at any
+time become a friend, but while an enemy was an enemy he should be
+trodden on and persecuted. Mr. Slide had striven more than once to
+make a friend of Phineas Finn; but Phineas Finn had been conceited
+and stiff-necked. Phineas had been to Mr. Slide an enemy of enemies,
+and by all his ideas of manliness, by all the rules of his life, by
+every principle which guided him, he was bound to persecute Phineas
+to the last. During the trial and the few weeks before the trial he
+had written various short articles with the view of declaring how
+improper it would be should a newspaper express any opinion of the
+guilt or innocence of a suspected person while under trial; and he
+gave two or three severe blows to contemporaries for having sinned in
+the matter; but in all these articles he had contrived to insinuate
+that the member for Tankerville would, as a matter of course, be
+dealt with by the hands of justice. He had been very careful to
+recapitulate all circumstances which had induced Finn to hate the
+murdered man, and had more than once related the story of the
+firing of the pistol at Macpherson's Hotel. Then came the telegram
+from Prague, and for a day or two Mr. Slide was stricken dumb. The
+acquittal followed, and Quintus Slide had found himself compelled to
+join in the general satisfaction evinced at the escape of an innocent
+man. Then came the re-election for Tankerville, and Mr. Slide felt
+that there was opportunity for another reaction. More than enough
+had been done for Phineas Finn in allowing him to elude the gallows.
+There could certainly be no need for crowning him with a political
+chaplet because he had not murdered Mr. Bonteen. Among a few other
+remarks which Mr. Slide threw together, the following appeared in the
+columns of The People's Banner:--
+
+
+   We must confess that we hardly understand the principle on
+   which Mr. Finn has been re-elected for Tankerville with so
+   much enthusiasm,--free of expense,--and without that usual
+   compliment to the constituency which is implied by the
+   personal appearance of the candidate. We have more than
+   once expressed our belief that he was wrongly accused in
+   the matter of Mr. Bonteen's murder. Indeed our readers
+   will do us the justice to remember that, during the trial
+   and before the trial, we were always anxious to allay the
+   very strong feeling against Mr. Finn with which the public
+   mind was then imbued, not only by the facts of the murder,
+   but also by the previous conduct of that gentleman. But we
+   cannot understand why the late member should be thought
+   by the electors of Tankerville to be especially worthy of
+   their confidence because he did not murder Mr. Bonteen. He
+   himself, instigated, we hope, by a proper feeling, retired
+   from Parliament as soon as he was acquitted. His career
+   during the last twelve months has not enhanced his credit,
+   and cannot, we should think, have increased his comfort.
+   We ventured to suggest after that affair in Judd Street,
+   as to which the police were so benignly inefficient, that
+   it would not be for the welfare of the nation that a
+   gentleman should be employed in the public service whose
+   public life had been marked by the misfortune which had
+   attended Mr. Finn. Great efforts were made by various
+   ladies of the old Whig party to obtain official employment
+   for him, but they were made in vain. Mr. Gresham was too
+   wise, and our advice,--we will not say was followed,--but
+   was found to agree with the decision of the Prime
+   Minister. Mr. Finn was left out in the cold in spite
+   of his great friends,--and then came the murder of Mr.
+   Bonteen.
+
+   Can it be that Mr. Finn's fitness for Parliamentary duties
+   has been increased by Mr. Bonteen's unfortunate death, or
+   by the fact that Mr. Bonteen was murdered by other hands
+   than his own? We think not. The wretched husband, who,
+   in the madness of jealousy, fired a pistol at this young
+   man's head, has since died in his madness. Does that
+   incident in the drama give Mr. Finn any special claim
+   to consideration? We think not;--and we think also that
+   the electors of Tankerville would have done better had
+   they allowed Mr. Finn to return to that obscurity which
+   he seems to have desired. The electors of Tankerville,
+   however, are responsible only to their borough, and may
+   do as they please with the seat in Parliament which is
+   at their disposal. We may, however, protest against the
+   employment of an unfit person in the service of his
+   country,--simply because he has not committed a murder.
+   We say so much now because rumours of an arrangement have
+   reached our ears, which, should it come to pass,--would
+   force upon us the extremely disagreeable duty of referring
+   very forcibly to past circumstances, which may otherwise,
+   perhaps, be allowed to be forgotten.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXII.
+
+THE END OF THE STORY OF MR. EMILIUS AND LADY EUSTACE.
+
+
+The interest in the murder by no means came to an end when Phineas
+Finn was acquitted. The new facts which served so thoroughly to prove
+him innocent tended with almost equal weight to prove another man
+guilty. And the other man was already in custody on a charge which
+had subjected him to the peculiar ill-will of the British public. He,
+a foreigner and a Jew, by name Yosef Mealyus,--as every one was now
+very careful to call him,--had come to England, had got himself to be
+ordained as a clergyman, had called himself Emilius, and had married
+a rich wife with a title, although he had a former wife still living
+in his own country. Had he called himself Jones it would have been
+better for him, but there was something in the name of Emilius which
+added a peculiar sting to his iniquities. It was now known that the
+bigamy could be certainly proved, and that his last victim,--our
+old friend, poor little Lizzie Eustace,--would be rescued from his
+clutches. She would once more be a free woman, and as she had been
+strong enough to defend her future income from his grasp, she was
+perhaps as fortunate as she deserved to be. She was still young
+and pretty, and there might come another lover more desirable than
+Yosef Mealyus. That the man would have to undergo the punishment of
+bigamy in its severest form, there was no doubt;--but would law, and
+justice, and the prevailing desire for revenge, be able to get at
+him in such a way that he might be hung? There certainly did exist
+a strong desire to prove Mr. Emilius to have been a murderer, so
+that there might come a fitting termination to his career in Great
+Britain.
+
+The police seemed to think that they could make but little either of
+the coat or of the key, unless other evidence, that would be almost
+sufficient in itself, should be found. Lord Fawn was informed that
+his testimony would probably be required at another trial,--which
+intimation affected him so grievously that his friends for a week
+or two thought that he would altogether sink under his miseries.
+But he would say nothing which would seem to criminate Mealyus. A
+man hurrying along with a grey coat was all that he could swear to
+now,--professing himself to be altogether ignorant whether the man,
+as seen by him, had been tall or short. And then the manufacture of
+the key,--though it was that which made every one feel sure that
+Mealyus was the murderer,--did not, in truth, afford the slightest
+evidence against him. Even had it been proved that he had certainly
+used the false key and left Mrs. Meager's house on the night in
+question, that would not have sufficed at all to prove that therefore
+he had committed a murder in Berkeley Street. No doubt Mr. Bonteen
+had been his enemy,--and Mr. Bonteen had been murdered by an enemy.
+But so great had been the man's luck that no real evidence seemed to
+touch him. Nobody doubted;--but then but few had doubted before as to
+the guilt of Phineas Finn.
+
+There was one other fact by which the truth might, it was hoped,
+still be reached. Mr. Bonteen had, of course, been killed by
+the weapon which had been found in the garden. As to that a
+general certainty prevailed. Mrs. Meager and Miss Meager, and the
+maid-of-all-work belonging to the Meagers, and even Lady Eustace,
+were examined as to this bludgeon. Had anything of the kind ever
+been seen in the possession of the clergyman? The clergyman had been
+so sly that nothing of the kind had been seen. Of the drawers and
+cupboards which he used, Mrs. Meager had always possessed duplicate
+keys, and Miss Meager frankly acknowledged that she had a general and
+fairly accurate acquaintance with the contents of these receptacles;
+but there had always been a big trunk with an impenetrable lock,--a
+lock which required that even if you had the key you should be
+acquainted with a certain combination of letters before you could
+open it,--and of that trunk no one had seen the inside. As a matter
+of course, the weapon, when brought to London, had been kept
+altogether hidden in the trunk. Nothing could be easier. But a man
+cannot be hung because he has had a secret hiding place in which a
+murderous weapon may have been stowed away.
+
+But might it not be possible to trace the weapon? Mealyus, on his
+return from Prague, had certainly come through Paris. So much was
+learned,--and it was also learned as a certainty that the article
+was of French,--and probably of Parisian manufacture. If it could be
+proved that the man had bought this weapon, or even such a weapon, in
+Paris then,--so said all the police authorities,--it might be worth
+while to make an attempt to hang him. Men very skilful in unravelling
+such mysteries were sent to Paris, and the police of that capital
+entered upon the search with most praiseworthy zeal. But the number
+of life-preservers which had been sold altogether baffled them. It
+seemed that nothing was so common as that gentlemen should walk about
+with bludgeons in their pockets covered with leathern thongs. A young
+woman and an old man who thought that they could recollect something
+of a special sale were brought over,--and saw the splendour of London
+under very favourable circumstances;--but when confronted with Mr.
+Emilius, neither could venture to identify him. A large sum of money
+was expended,--no doubt justified by the high position which poor Mr.
+Bonteen had filled in the counsels of the nation; but it was expended
+in vain. Mr. Bonteen had been murdered in the streets at the West End
+of London. The murderer was known to everybody. He had been seen a
+minute or two before the murder. The motive which had induced the
+crime was apparent. The weapon with which it had been perpetrated had
+been found. The murderer's disguise had been discovered. The cunning
+with which he had endeavoured to prove that he was in bed at home
+had been unravelled, and the criminal purpose of his cunning made
+altogether manifest. Every man's eye could see the whole thing from
+the moment in which the murderer crept out of Mrs. Meager's house
+with Mr. Meager's coat upon his shoulders and the life-preserver in
+his pocket, till he was seen by Lord Fawn hurrying out of the mews
+to his prey. The blows from the bludgeon could be counted. The very
+moment in which they had been struck had been ascertained. His very
+act in hurling the weapon over the wall was all but seen. And yet
+nothing could be done. "It is a very dangerous thing hanging a man on
+circumstantial evidence," said Sir Gregory Grogram, who, a couple of
+months since, had felt almost sure that his honourable friend Phineas
+Finn would have to be hung on circumstantial evidence. The police
+and magistrates and lawyers all agreed that it would be useless, and
+indeed wrong, to send the case before a jury. But there had been
+quite sufficient evidence against Phineas Finn!
+
+In the meantime the trial for bigamy proceeded in order that poor
+little Lizzie Eustace might be freed from the incubus which afflicted
+her. Before the end of July she was made once more a free woman, and
+the Rev. Joseph Emilius,--under which name it was thought proper that
+he should be tried,--was convicted and sentenced to penal servitude
+for five years. A very touching appeal was made for him to the jury
+by a learned serjeant, who declared that his client was to lose his
+wife and to be punished with extreme severity as a bigamist, because
+it was found to be impossible to bring home against him a charge of
+murder. There was, perhaps, some truth in what the learned serjeant
+said, but the truth had no effect upon the jury. Mr. Emilius was
+found guilty as quickly as Phineas Finn had been acquitted, and was,
+perhaps, treated with a severity which the single crime would hardly
+have elicited. But all this happened in the middle of the efforts
+which were being made to trace the purchase of the bludgeon, and
+when men hoped two or five or twenty-five years of threatened
+incarceration might be all the same to Mr. Emilius. Could they have
+succeeded in discovering where he had bought the weapon, his years
+of penal servitude would have afflicted him but little. They did not
+succeed; and though it cannot be said that any mystery was attached
+to the Bonteen murder, it has remained one of those crimes which are
+unavenged by the flagging law. And so the Rev. Mr. Emilius will pass
+away from our story.
+
+There must be one or two words further respecting poor little
+Lizzie Eustace. She still had her income almost untouched, having
+been herself unable to squander it during her late married life,
+and having succeeded in saving it from the clutches of her pseudo
+husband. And she had her title, of which no one could rob her, and
+her castle down in Ayrshire,--which, however, as a place of residence
+she had learned to hate most thoroughly. Nor had she done anything
+which of itself must necessarily have put her out of the pale of
+society. As a married woman she had had no lovers; and, when a widow,
+very little fault in that line had been brought home against her. But
+the world at large seemed to be sick of her. Mrs. Bonteen had been
+her best friend, and, while it was still thought that Phineas Finn
+had committed the murder, with Mrs. Bonteen she had remained. But
+it was impossible that the arrangement should be continued when it
+became known,--for it was known,--that Mr. Bonteen had been murdered
+by the man who was still Lizzie's reputed husband. Not that Lizzie
+perceived this,--though she was averse to the idea of her husband
+having been a murderer. But Mrs. Bonteen perceived it, and told her
+friend that she must--go. It was most unwillingly that the wretched
+widow changed her faith as to the murderer; but at last she found
+herself bound to believe as the world believed; and then she hinted
+to the wife of Mr. Emilius that she had better find another home.
+
+"I don't believe it a bit," said Lizzie.
+
+"It is not a subject I can discuss," said the widow.
+
+"And I don't see that it makes any difference. He isn't my husband.
+You have said that yourself very often, Mrs. Bonteen."
+
+"It is better that we shouldn't be together, Lady Eustace."
+
+"Oh, I can go, of course, Mrs. Bonteen. There needn't be the
+slightest trouble about that. I had thought perhaps it might be
+convenient; but of course you know best."
+
+She went forth into lodgings in Half Moon Street, close to the scene
+of the murder, and was once more alone in the world. She had a child
+indeed, the son of her first husband, as to whom it behoved many to
+be anxious, who stood high in rank and high in repute; but such had
+been Lizzie's manner of life that neither her own relations nor those
+of her husband could put up with her, or endure her contact. And yet
+she was conscious of no special sins, and regarded herself as one who
+with a tender heart of her own, and a too-confiding spirit, had been
+much injured by the cruelty of those with whom she had been thrown.
+Now she was alone, weeping in solitude, pitying herself with deepest
+compassion; but it never occurred to her that there was anything in
+her conduct that she need alter. She would still continue to play her
+game as before, would still scheme, would still lie; and might still,
+at last, land herself in that Elysium of life of which she had been
+always dreaming. Poor Lizzie Eustace! Was it nature or education
+which had made it impossible to her to tell the truth, when a lie
+came to her hand? Lizzie, the liar! Poor Lizzie!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXIII.
+
+PHINEAS FINN RETURNS TO HIS DUTIES.
+
+
+The election at Tankerville took place during the last week in July;
+and as Parliament was doomed to sit that year as late as the 10th
+of August, there was ample time for Phineas to present himself and
+take the oaths before the Session was finished. He had calculated
+that this could hardly be so when the matter of re-election was
+first proposed to him, and had hoped that his reappearance might be
+deferred till the following year. But there he was, once more member
+for Tankerville, while yet there was nearly a fortnight's work to be
+done, pressed by his friends, and told by one or two of those whom he
+most trusted, that he would neglect his duty and show himself to be
+a coward, if he abstained from taking his place. "Coward is a hard
+word," he said to Mr. Low, who had used it.
+
+"So men think when this or that other man is accused of running away
+in battle or the like. Nobody will charge you with cowardice of that
+kind. But there is moral cowardice as well as physical."
+
+"As when a man lies. I am telling no lie."
+
+"But you are afraid to meet the eyes of your fellow-creatures."
+
+"Yes, I am. You may call me a coward if you like. What matters the
+name, if the charge be true? I have been so treated that I am afraid
+to meet the eyes of my fellow-creatures. I am like a man who has had
+his knees broken, or his arms cut off. Of course I cannot be the same
+afterwards as I was before." Mr. Low said a great deal more to him on
+the subject, and all that Mr. Low said was true; but he was somewhat
+rough, and did not succeed. Barrington Erle and Lord Cantrip also
+tried their eloquence upon him; but it was Mr. Monk who at last drew
+from him a promise that he would go down to the House and be sworn
+in early on a certain Tuesday afternoon. "I am quite sure of this,"
+Mr. Monk had said, "that the sooner you do it the less will be the
+annoyance. Indeed there will be no trouble in the doing of it. The
+trouble is all in the anticipation, and is therefore only increased
+and prolonged by delay." "Of course it is your duty to go at once,"
+Mr. Monk had said again, when his friend argued that he had never
+undertaken to sit before the expiration of Parliament. "You did
+consent to be put in nomination, and you owe your immediate services
+just as does any other member."
+
+"If a man's grandmother dies he is held to be exempted."
+
+"But your grandmother has not died, and your sorrow is not of the
+kind that requires or is supposed to require retirement." He gave way
+at last, and on the Tuesday afternoon Mr. Monk called for him at Mrs.
+Bunce's house, and went down with him to Westminster. They reached
+their destination somewhat too soon, and walked the length of
+Westminster Hall two or three times while Phineas tried to justify
+himself. "I don't think," said he, "that Low quite understands my
+position when he calls me a coward."
+
+"I am sure, Phineas, he did not mean to do that."
+
+"Do not suppose that I am angry with him. I owe him a great deal too
+much for that. He is one of the few friends I have who are entitled
+to say to me just what they please. But I think he mistakes the
+matter. When a man becomes crooked from age it is no good telling him
+to be straight. He'd be straight if he could. A man can't eat his
+dinner with a diseased liver as he could when he was well."
+
+"But he may follow advice as to getting his liver in order again."
+
+"And so am I following advice. But Low seems to think the disease
+shouldn't be there. The disease is there, and I can't banish it by
+simply saying that it is not there. If they had hung me outright it
+would be almost as reasonable to come and tell me afterwards to shake
+myself and be again alive. I don't think that Low realises what it is
+to stand in the dock for a week together, with the eyes of all men
+fixed on you, and a conviction at your heart that every one there
+believes you to have been guilty of an abominable crime of which you
+know yourself to have been innocent. For weeks I lived under the
+belief that I was to be made away by the hangman, and to leave behind
+me a name that would make every one who has known me shudder."
+
+"God in His mercy has delivered you from that."
+
+"He has;--and I am thankful. But my back is not strong enough to bear
+the weight without bending under it. Did you see Ratler going in?
+There is a man I dread. He is intimate enough with me to congratulate
+me, but not friend enough to abstain, and he will be sure to say
+something about his murdered colleague. Very well;--I'll follow you.
+Go up rather quick, and I'll come close after you." Whereupon Mr.
+Monk entered between the two lamp-posts in the hall, and, hurrying
+along the passages, soon found himself at the door of the House.
+Phineas, with an effort at composure, and a smile that was almost
+ghastly at the door-keeper, who greeted him with some muttered word
+of recognition, held on his way close behind his friend, and walked
+up the House hardly conscious that the benches on each side were
+empty. There were not a dozen members present, and the Speaker had
+not as yet taken the chair. Mr. Monk stood by him while he took the
+oath, and in two minutes he was on a back seat below the gangway,
+with his friend by him, while the members, in slowly increasing
+numbers, took their seats. Then there were prayers, and as yet not a
+single man had spoken to him. As soon as the doors were again open
+gentlemen streamed in, and some few whom Phineas knew well came and
+sat near him. One or two shook hands with him, but no one said a word
+to him of the trial. No one at least did so in this early stage of
+the day's proceedings; and after half an hour he almost ceased to be
+afraid.
+
+Then came up an irregular debate on the great Church question of the
+day, as to which there had been no cessation of the badgering with
+which Mr. Gresham had been attacked since he came into office. He
+had thrown out Mr. Daubeny by opposing that gentleman's stupendous
+measure for disestablishing the Church of England altogether,
+although,--as was almost daily asserted by Mr. Daubeny and his
+friends,--he was himself in favour of such total disestablishment.
+Over and over again Mr. Gresham had acknowledged that he was in
+favour of disestablishment, protesting that he had opposed Mr.
+Daubeny's Bill without any reference to its merits,--solely on
+the ground that such a measure should not be accepted from such a
+quarter. He had been stout enough, and, as his enemies had said,
+insolent enough, in making these assurances. But still he was accused
+of keeping his own hand dark, and of omitting to say what bill he
+would himself propose to bring in respecting the Church in the next
+Session. It was essentially necessary,--so said Mr. Daubeny and his
+friends,--that the country should know and discuss the proposed
+measure during the vacation. There was, of course, a good deal of
+retaliation. Mr. Daubeny had not given the country, or even his own
+party, much time to discuss his Church Bill. Mr. Gresham assured Mr.
+Daubeny that he would not feel himself equal to producing a measure
+that should change the religious position of every individual in the
+country, and annihilate the traditions and systems of centuries,
+altogether complete out of his own unaided brain; and he went on
+to say that were he to do so, he did not think that he should find
+himself supported in such an effort by the friends with whom he
+usually worked. On this occasion he declared that the magnitude of
+the subject and the immense importance of the interests concerned
+forbade him to anticipate the passing of any measure of general
+Church reform in the next Session. He was undoubtedly in favour of
+Church reform, but was by no means sure that the question was one
+which required immediate settlement. Of this he was sure,--that
+nothing in the way of legislative indiscretion could be so injurious
+to the country, as any attempt at a hasty and ill-considered measure
+on this most momentous of all questions.
+
+The debate was irregular, as it originated with a question asked by
+one of Mr. Daubeny's supporters,--but it was allowed to proceed for a
+while. In answer to Mr. Gresham, Mr. Daubeny himself spoke, accusing
+Mr. Gresham of almost every known Parliamentary vice in having talked
+of a measure coming, like Minerva, from his, Mr. Daubeny's, own
+brain. The plain and simple words by which such an accusation might
+naturally be refuted would be unparliamentary; but it would not be
+unparliamentary to say that it was reckless, unfounded, absurd,
+monstrous, and incredible. Then there were various very spirited
+references to Church matters, which concern us chiefly because
+Mr. Daubeny congratulated the House upon seeing a Roman Catholic
+gentleman with whom they were all well acquainted, and whose presence
+in the House was desired by each side alike, again take his seat for
+an English borough. And he hoped that he might at the same time take
+the liberty of congratulating that gentleman on the courage and manly
+dignity with which he had endured the unexampled hardships of the
+cruel position in which he had been placed by an untoward combination
+of circumstances. It was thought that Mr. Daubeny did the thing very
+well, and that he was right in doing it;--but during the doing of
+it poor Phineas winced in agony. Of course every member was looking
+at him, and every stranger in the galleries. He did not know at
+the moment whether it behoved him to rise and make some gesture to
+the House, or to say a word, or to keep his seat and make no sign.
+There was a general hum of approval, and the Prime Minister turned
+round and bowed graciously to the newly-sworn member. As he said
+afterwards, it was just this which he had feared. But there must
+surely have been something of consolation in the general respect
+with which he was treated. At the moment he behaved with natural
+instinctive dignity, though himself doubting the propriety of his own
+conduct. He said not a word, and made no sign, but sat with his eyes
+fixed upon the member from whom the compliment had come. Mr. Daubeny
+went on with his tirade, and was called violently to order. The
+Speaker declared that the whole debate had been irregular, but had
+been allowed by him in deference to what seemed to be the general
+will of the House. Then the two leaders of the two parties composed
+themselves, throwing off their indignation while they covered
+themselves well up with their hats,--and, in accordance with the
+order of the day, an honourable member rose to propose a pet measure
+of his own for preventing the adulteration of beer by the publicans.
+He had made a calculation that the annual average mortality of
+England would be reduced one and a half per cent., or in other words
+that every English subject born would live seven months longer if the
+action of the Legislature could provide that the publicans should
+sell the beer as it came from the brewers. Immediately there was
+such a rush of members to the door that not a word said by the
+philanthropic would-be purifier of the national beverage could be
+heard. The quarrels of rival Ministers were dear to the House, and as
+long as they could be continued the benches were crowded by gentlemen
+enthralled by the interest of the occasion. But to sink from that
+to private legislation about beer was to fall into a bathos which
+gentlemen could not endure; and so the House was emptied, and at
+about half-past seven there was a count-out. That gentleman whose
+statistics had been procured with so much care, and who had been at
+work for the last twelve months on his effort to prolong the lives
+of his fellow-countrymen, was almost broken-hearted. But he knew the
+world too well to complain. He would try again next year, if by dint
+of energetic perseverance he could procure a day.
+
+Mr. Monk and Phineas Finn, behaving no better than the others,
+slipped out in the crowd. It had indeed been arranged that they
+should leave the House early, so that they might dine together at
+Mr. Monk's house. Though Phineas had been released from his prison
+now for nearly a month, he had not as yet once dined out of his own
+rooms. He had not been inside a club, and hardly ventured during the
+day into the streets about Pall Mall and Piccadilly. He had been
+frequently to Portman Square, but had not even seen Madame Goesler.
+Now he was to dine out for the first time; but there was to be no
+guest but himself.
+
+"It wasn't so bad after all," said Mr. Monk, when they were seated
+together.
+
+"At any rate it has been done."
+
+"Yes;--and there will be no doing of it over again. I don't like Mr.
+Daubeny, as you know; but he is happy at that kind of thing."
+
+"I hate men who are what you call happy, but who are never in
+earnest," said Phineas.
+
+"He was earnest enough, I thought."
+
+"I don't mean about myself, Mr. Monk. I suppose he thought that it
+was suitable to the occasion that he should say something, and he
+said it neatly. But I hate men who can make capital out of occasions,
+who can be neat and appropriate at the spur of the moment,--having,
+however, probably had the benefit of some forethought,--but whose
+words never savour of truth. If I had happened to have been hung at
+this time,--as was so probable,--Mr. Daubeny would have devoted one
+of his half hours to the composition of a dozen tragic words which
+also would have been neat and appropriate. I can hear him say them
+now, warning young members around him to abstain from embittered
+words against each other, and I feel sure that the funereal grace
+of such an occasion would have become him even better than the
+generosity of his congratulations."
+
+"It is rather grim matter for joking, Phineas."
+
+"Grim enough; but the grimness and the jokes are always running
+through my mind together. I used to spend hours in thinking what my
+dear friends would say about it when they found that I had been hung
+in mistake;--how Sir Gregory Grogram would like it, and whether men
+would think about it as they went home from The Universe at night.
+I had various questions to ask and answer for myself,--whether they
+would pull up my poor body, for instance, from what unhallowed ground
+is used for gallows corpses, and give it decent burial, placing 'M.P.
+for Tankerville' after my name on some more or less explicit tablet."
+
+"Mr. Daubeny's speech was, perhaps, preferable on the whole."
+
+"Perhaps it was;--though I used to feel assured that the explicit
+tablet would be as clear to my eyes in purgatory as Mr. Daubeny's
+words have been to my ears this afternoon. I never for a moment
+doubted that the truth would be known before long,--but did doubt so
+very much whether it would be known in time. I'll go home now, Mr.
+Monk, and endeavour to get the matter off my mind. I will resolve,
+at any rate, that nothing shall make me talk about it any more."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXIV.
+
+AT MATCHING.
+
+
+For about a week in the August heat of a hot summer, Phineas attended
+Parliament with fair average punctuality, and then prepared for his
+journey down to Matching Priory. During that week he spoke no word
+to any one as to his past tribulation, and answered all allusions to
+it simply by a smile. He had determined to live exactly as though
+there had been no such episode in his life as that trial at the Old
+Bailey, and in most respects he did so. During this week he dined at
+the club, and called at Madame Goesler's house in Park Lane,--not,
+however, finding the lady at home. Once, and once only, did he break
+down. On the Wednesday evening he met Barrington Erle, and was asked
+by him to go to The Universe. At the moment he became very pale, but
+he at once said that he would go. Had Erle carried him off in a cab
+the adventure might have been successful; but as they walked, and
+as they went together through Clarges Street and Bolton Row and
+Curzon Street, and as the scenes which had been so frequently and so
+graphically described in Court appeared before him one after another,
+his heart gave way, and he couldn't do it. "I know I'm a fool,
+Barrington; but if you don't mind I'll go home. Don't mind me, but
+just go on." Then he turned and walked home, passing through the
+passage in which the murder had been committed.
+
+"I brought him as far as the next street," Barrington Erle said to
+one of their friends at the club, "but I couldn't get him in. I doubt
+if he'll ever be here again."
+
+It was past six o'clock in the evening when he reached Matching
+Priory. The Duchess had especially assured him that a brougham should
+be waiting for him at the nearest station, and on arriving there he
+found that he had the brougham to himself. He had thought a great
+deal about it, and had endeavoured to make his calculations. He knew
+that Madame Goesler would be at Matching, and it would be necessary
+that he should say something of his thankfulness at their first
+meeting. But how should he meet her,--and in what way should he
+greet her when they met? Would any arrangement be made, or would all
+be left to chance? Should he go at once to his own chamber,--so as
+to show himself first when dressed for dinner, or should he allow
+himself to be taken into any of the morning rooms in which the other
+guests would be congregated? He had certainly not sufficiently
+considered the character of the Duchess when he imagined that she
+would allow these things to arrange themselves. She was one of those
+women whose minds were always engaged on such matters, and who are
+able to see how things will go. It must not be asserted of her
+that her delicacy was untainted, or her taste perfect; but she was
+clever,--discreet in the midst of indiscretions,--thoughtful, and
+good-natured. She had considered it all, arranged it all, and given
+her orders with accuracy. When Phineas entered the hall,--the
+brougham with the luggage having been taken round to some back
+door,--he was at once ushered by a silent man in black into the
+little sitting-room on the ground floor in which the old Duke
+used to take delight. Here he found two ladies,--but only two
+ladies,--waiting to receive him. The Duchess came forward to welcome
+him, while Madame Goesler remained in the background, with composed
+face,--as though she by no means expected his arrival and he had
+chanced to come upon them as she was standing by the window. He was
+thinking of her much more than of her companion, though he knew
+also how much he owed to the kindness of the Duchess. But what she
+had done for him had come from caprice, whereas the other had been
+instigated and guided by affection. He understood all that, and must
+have shown his feeling on his countenance. "Yes, there she is," said
+the Duchess, laughing. She had already told him that he was welcome
+to Matching, and had spoken some short word of congratulation at his
+safe deliverance from his troubles. "If ever one friend was grateful
+to another, you should be grateful to her, Mr. Finn." He did not
+speak, but walking across the room to the window by which Marie
+Goesler stood, took her right hand in his, and passing his left arm
+round her waist, kissed her first on one cheek and then on the other.
+The blood flew to her face and suffused her forehead, but she did not
+speak, or resist him or make any effort to escape from his embrace.
+As for him, he had no thought of it at all. He had made no plan. No
+idea of kissing her when they should meet had occurred to him till
+the moment came. "Excellently well done," said the Duchess, still
+laughing with silent pleasant laughter. "And now tell us how you are,
+after all your troubles."
+
+
+[Illustration: "Yes, there she is."]
+
+
+He remained with them for half an hour, till the ladies went to
+dress, when he was handed over to some groom of the chambers to show
+him his room. "The Duke ought to be here to welcome you, of course,"
+said the Duchess; "but you know official matters too well to expect
+a President of the Board of Trade to do his domestic duties. We dine
+at eight; five minutes before that time he will begin adding up his
+last row of figures for the day. You never added up rows of figures,
+I think. You only managed colonies." So they parted till dinner, and
+Phineas remembered how very little had been spoken by Madame Goesler,
+and how few of the words which he had spoken had been addressed to
+her. She had sat silent, smiling, radiant, very beautiful as he had
+thought, but contented to listen to her friend the Duchess. She, the
+Duchess, had asked questions of all sorts, and made many statements;
+and he had found that with those two women he could speak without
+discomfort, almost with pleasure, on subjects which he could not bear
+to have touched by men. "Of course you knew all along who killed the
+poor man," the Duchess had said. "We did;--did we not, Marie?--just
+as well as if we had seen it. She was quite sure that he had got out
+of the house and back into it, and that he must have had a key. So
+she started off to Prague to find the key; and she found it. And we
+were quite sure too about the coat;--weren't we. That poor blundering
+Lord Fawn couldn't explain himself, but we knew that the coat he saw
+was quite different from any coat you would wear in such weather.
+We discussed it all over so often;--every point of it. Poor Lord
+Fawn! They say it has made quite an old man of him. And as for those
+policemen who didn't find the life-preserver; I only think that
+something ought to be done to them."
+
+"I hope that nothing will ever be done to anybody, Duchess."
+
+"Not to the Reverend Mr. Emilius;--poor dear Lady Eustace's Mr.
+Emilius? I do think that you ought to desire that an end should
+be put to his enterprising career! I'm sure I do." This was said
+while the attempt was still being made to trace the purchase of the
+bludgeon in Paris. "We've got Sir Gregory Grogram here on purpose to
+meet you, and you must fraternise with him immediately, to show that
+you bear no grudge."
+
+"He only did his duty."
+
+"Exactly;--though I think he was an addle-pated old ass not to see
+the thing more clearly. As you'll be coming into the Government
+before long, we thought that things had better be made straight
+between you and Sir Gregory. I wonder how it was that nobody but
+women did see it clearly? Look at that delightful woman, Mrs. Bunce.
+You must bring Mrs. Bunce to me some day,--or take me to her."
+
+"Lord Chiltern saw it clearly enough," said Phineas.
+
+"My dear Mr. Finn, Lord Chiltern is the best fellow in the world, but
+he has only one idea. He was quite sure of your innocence because
+you ride to hounds. If it had been found possible to accuse poor
+Mr. Fothergill, he would have been as certain that Mr. Fothergill
+committed the murder, because Mr. Fothergill thinks more of his
+shooting. However, Lord Chiltern is to be here in a day or two, and
+I mean to go absolutely down on my knees to him,--and all for your
+sake. If foxes can be had, he shall have foxes. We must go and dress
+now, Mr. Finn, and I'll ring for somebody to show you your room."
+
+Phineas, as soon as he was alone, thought, not of what the Duchess
+had said, but of the manner in which he had greeted his friend,
+Madame Goesler. As he remembered what he had done, he also blushed.
+Had she been angry with him, and intended to show her anger by her
+silence? And why had he done it? What had he meant? He was quite sure
+that he would not have given those kisses had he and Madame Goesler
+been alone in the room together. The Duchess had applauded him,--but
+yet he thought that he regretted it. There had been matters between
+him and Marie Goesler of which he was quite sure that the Duchess
+knew nothing.
+
+When he went downstairs he found a crowd in the drawing-room, from
+among whom the Duke came forward to welcome him. "I am particularly
+happy to see you at Matching," said the Duke. "I wish we had shooting
+to offer you, but we are too far south for the grouse. That was
+a bitter passage of arms the other day, wasn't it? I am fond of
+bitterness in debate myself, but I do regret the roughness of the
+House of Commons. I must confess that I do." The Duke did not say a
+word about the trial, and the Duke's guests followed their host's
+example.
+
+The house was full of people, most of whom had before been known
+to Phineas, and many of whom had been asked specially to meet him.
+Lord and Lady Cantrip were there, and Mr. Monk, and Sir Gregory his
+accuser, and the Home Secretary, Sir Harry Coldfoot, with his wife.
+Sir Harry had at one time been very keen about hanging our hero,
+and was now of course hot with reactionary zeal. To all those who
+had been in any way concerned in the prosecution, the accidents by
+which Phineas had been enabled to escape had been almost as fortunate
+as to Phineas himself. Sir Gregory himself quite felt that had he
+prosecuted an innocent and very popular young Member of Parliament to
+the death, he could never afterwards have hoped to wear his ermine in
+comfort. Barrington Erle was there, of course, intending, however,
+to return to the duties of his office on the following day,--and our
+old friend Laurence Fitzgibbon with a newly-married wife, a lady
+possessing a reputed fifty thousand pounds, by which it was hoped
+that the member for Mayo might be placed steadily upon his legs
+for ever. And Adelaide Palliser was there also,--the Duke's first
+cousin,--on whose behalf the Duchess was anxious to be more than
+ordinarily good-natured. Mr. Maule, Adelaide's rejected lover, had
+dined on one occasion with the Duke and Duchess in London. There
+had been nothing remarkable at the dinner, and he had not at all
+understood why he had been asked. But when he took his leave the
+Duchess had told him that she would hope to see him at Matching. "We
+expect a friend of yours to be with us," the Duchess had said. He had
+afterwards received a written invitation and had accepted it; but he
+was not to reach Matching till the day after that on which Phineas
+arrived. Adelaide had been told of his coming only on this morning,
+and had been much flurried by the news.
+
+"But we have quarrelled," she said. "Then the best thing you can do
+is to make it up again, my dear," said the Duchess. Miss Palliser was
+undoubtedly of that opinion herself, but she hardly believed that so
+terrible an evil as a quarrel with her lover could be composed by so
+rough a remedy as this. The Duchess, who had become used to all the
+disturbing excitements of life, and who didn't pay so much respect as
+some do to the niceties of a young lady's feelings, thought that it
+would be only necessary to bring the young people together again. If
+she could do that, and provide them with an income, of course they
+would marry. On the present occasion Phineas was told off to take
+Miss Palliser down to dinner. "You saw the Chilterns before they left
+town, I know," she said.
+
+"Oh, yes. I am constantly in Portman Square."
+
+"Of course. Lady Laura has gone down to Scotland;--has she not;--and
+all alone?"
+
+"She is alone now, I believe."
+
+"How dreadful! I do not know any one that I pity so much as I do her.
+I was in the house with her some time, and she gave me the idea of
+being the most unhappy woman I had ever met with. Don't you think
+that she is very unhappy?"
+
+"She has had very much to make her so," said Phineas. "She was
+obliged to leave her husband because of the gloom of his
+insanity;--and now she is a widow."
+
+"I don't suppose she ever really--cared for him; did she?" The
+question was no sooner asked than the poor girl remembered the
+whole story which she had heard some time back,--the rumour of the
+husband's jealousy and of the wife's love, and she became as red as
+fire, and unable to help herself. She could think of no word to say,
+and confessed her confusion by her sudden silence.
+
+Phineas saw it all, and did his best for her. "I am sure she cared
+for him," he said, "though I do not think it was a well-assorted
+marriage. They had different ideas about religion, I fancy. So you
+saw the hunting in the Brake country to the end? How is our old
+friend, Mr. Spooner?"
+
+"Don't talk of him, Mr. Finn."
+
+"I rather like Mr. Spooner;--and as for hunting the country, I don't
+think Chiltern could get on without him. What a capital fellow your
+cousin the Duke is."
+
+"I hardly know him."
+
+"He is such a gentleman;--and, at the same time, the most abstract
+and the most concrete man that I know."
+
+"Abstract and concrete!"
+
+"You are bound to use adjectives of that sort now, Miss Palliser, if
+you mean to be anybody in conversation."
+
+"But how is my cousin concrete? He is always abstracted when I speak
+to him, I know."
+
+"No Englishman whom I have met is so broadly and intuitively and
+unceremoniously imbued with the simplicity of the character of a
+gentleman. He could no more lie than he could eat grass."
+
+"Is that abstract or concrete?"
+
+"That's abstract. And I know no one who is so capable of throwing
+himself into one matter for the sake of accomplishing that one thing
+at a time. That's concrete." And so the red colour faded away from
+poor Adelaide's face, and the unpleasantness was removed.
+
+"What do you think of Laurence's wife?" Erle said to him late in the
+evening.
+
+"I have only just seen her. The money is there, I suppose."
+
+"The money is there, I believe; but then it will have to remain
+there. He can't touch it. There's about £2,000 a-year, which will
+have to go back to her family unless they have children."
+
+"I suppose she's--forty?"
+
+"Well; yes, or perhaps forty-five. You were locked up at the time,
+poor fellow,--and had other things to think of; but all the interest
+we had for anything beyond you through May and June was devoted to
+Laurence and his prospects. It was off and on, and on and off, and he
+was in a most wretched condition. At last she wouldn't consent unless
+she was to be asked here."
+
+"And who managed it?"
+
+"Laurence came and told it all to the Duchess, and she gave him the
+invitation at once."
+
+"Who told you?"
+
+"Not the Duchess,--nor yet Laurence. So it may be untrue, you
+know;--but I believe it. He did ask me whether he'd have to stand
+another election at his marriage. He has been going in and out of
+office so often, and always going back to the Co. Mayo at the expense
+of half a year's salary, that his mind had got confused, and he
+didn't quite know what did and what did not vacate his seat. We
+must all come to it sooner or later, I suppose, but the question is
+whether we could do better than an annuity of £2,000 a year on the
+life of the lady. Office isn't very permanent, but one has not to
+attend the House above six months a year, while you can't get away
+from a wife much above a week at a time. It has crippled him in
+appearance very much, I think."
+
+"A man always looks changed when he's married."
+
+"I hope, Mr. Finn, that you owe me no grudge," said Sir Gregory, the
+Attorney-General.
+
+"Not in the least; why should I?"
+
+"It was a very painful duty that I had to perform,--the most painful
+that ever befel me. I had no alternative but to do it, of course, and
+to do it in the hope of reaching the truth. But a counsel for the
+prosecution must always appear to the accused and his friends like
+a hound running down his game, and anxious for blood. The habitual
+and almost necessary acrimony of the defence creates acrimony in the
+attack. If you were accustomed as I am to criminal courts you would
+observe this constantly. A gentleman gets up and declares in perfect
+faith that he is simply anxious to lay before the jury such evidence
+as has been placed in his hands. And he opens his case in that
+spirit. Then his witnesses are cross-examined with the affected
+incredulity and assumed indignation which the defending counsel is
+almost bound to use on behalf of his client, and he finds himself
+gradually imbued with pugnacity. He becomes strenuous, energetic, and
+perhaps eager for what must after all be regarded as success, and at
+last he fights for a verdict rather than for the truth."
+
+"The judge, I suppose, ought to put all that right?"
+
+"So he does;--and it comes right. Our criminal practice does not sin
+on the side of severity. But a barrister employed on the prosecution
+should keep himself free from that personal desire for a verdict
+which must animate those engaged on the defence."
+
+"Then I suppose you wanted to--hang me, Sir Gregory."
+
+"Certainly not. I wanted the truth. But you in your position must
+have regarded me as a bloodhound."
+
+"I did not. As far as I can analyse my own feelings, I entertained
+anger only against those who, though they knew me well, thought that
+I was guilty."
+
+"You will allow me, at any rate, to shake hands with you," said Sir
+Gregory, "and to assure you that I should have lived a broken-hearted
+man if the truth had been known too late. As it is I tremble and
+shake in my shoes as I walk about and think of what might have been
+done." Then Phineas gave his hand to Sir Gregory, and from that time
+forth was inclined to think well of Sir Gregory.
+
+Throughout the whole evening he was unable to speak to Madame
+Goesler, but to the other people around him he found himself talking
+quite at his ease, as though nothing peculiar had happened to him.
+Almost everybody, except the Duke, made some slight allusion to his
+adventure, and he, in spite of his resolution to the contrary, found
+himself driven to talk of it. It had seemed quite natural that Sir
+Gregory,--who had in truth been eager for his condemnation, thinking
+him to have been guilty,--should come to him and make peace with him
+by telling him of the nature of the work that had been imposed upon
+him;--and when Sir Harry Coldfoot assured him that never in his life
+had his mind been relieved of so heavy a weight as when he received
+the information about the key,--that also was natural. A few days ago
+he had thought that these allusions would kill him. The prospect of
+them had kept him a prisoner in his lodgings; but now he smiled and
+chatted, and was quiet and at ease.
+
+"Good-night, Mr. Finn," the Duchess said to him, "I know the people
+have been boring you."
+
+"Not in the least."
+
+"I saw Sir Gregory at it, and I can guess what Sir Gregory was
+talking about."
+
+"I like Sir Gregory, Duchess."
+
+"That shows a very Christian disposition on your part. And then there
+was Sir Harry. I understood it all, but I could not hinder it. But it
+had to be done, hadn't it?--And now there will be an end of it."
+
+"Everybody has treated me very well," said Phineas, almost in tears.
+"Some people have been so kind to me that I cannot understand why it
+should have been so."
+
+"Because some people are your very excellent good friends. We,--that
+is, Marie and I, you know,--thought it would be the best thing for
+you to come down and get through it all here. We could see that you
+weren't driven too hard. By the bye, you have hardly seen her,--have
+you?"
+
+"Hardly, since I was upstairs with your Grace."
+
+"My Grace will manage better for you to-morrow. I didn't like to tell
+you to take her out to dinner, because it would have looked a little
+particular after her very remarkable journey to Prague. If you ain't
+grateful you must be a wretch."
+
+"But I am grateful."
+
+"Well; we shall see. Good-night. You'll find a lot of men going to
+smoke somewhere, I don't doubt."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXV.
+
+THE TRUMPETON FEUD IS SETTLED.
+
+
+In these fine early autumn days spent at Matching, the great
+Trumpeton Wood question was at last settled. During the summer
+considerable acerbity had been added to the matter by certain
+articles which had appeared in certain sporting papers, in which the
+new Duke of Omnium was accused of neglecting his duty to the county
+in which a portion of his property lay. The question was argued at
+considerable length. Is a landed proprietor bound, or is he not,
+to keep foxes for the amusement of his neighbours? To ordinary
+thinkers, to unprejudiced outsiders,--to Americans, let us say, or
+Frenchmen,--there does not seem to be room even for an argument. By
+what law of God or man can a man be bound to maintain a parcel of
+injurious vermin on his property, in the pursuit of which he finds no
+sport himself, and which are highly detrimental to another sport in
+which he takes, perhaps, the keenest interest? Trumpeton Wood was the
+Duke's own,--to do just as he pleased with it. Why should foxes be
+demanded from him then any more than a bear to be baited, or a badger
+to be drawn, in, let us say, his London dining-room? But a good deal
+had been said which, though not perhaps capable of convincing the
+unprejudiced American or Frenchman, had been regarded as cogent
+arguments to country-bred Englishmen. The Brake Hunt had been
+established for a great many years, and was the central attraction of
+a district well known for its hunting propensities. The preservation
+of foxes might be an open question in such counties as Norfolk and
+Suffolk, but could not be so in the Brake country. Many things are,
+no doubt, permissible under the law, which, if done, would show the
+doer of them to be the enemy of his species,--and this destruction
+of foxes in a hunting country may be named as one of them. The Duke
+might have his foxes destroyed if he pleased, but he could hardly
+do so and remain a popular magnate in England. If he chose to put
+himself in opposition to the desires and very instincts of the people
+among whom his property was situated, he must live as a "man forbid."
+That was the general argument, and then there was the argument
+special to this particular case. As it happened, Trumpeton Wood
+was, and always had been, the great nursery of foxes for that side
+of the Brake country. Gorse coverts make, no doubt, the charm of
+hunting, but gorse coverts will not hold foxes unless the woodlands
+be preserved. The fox is a travelling animal. Knowing well that
+"home-staying youths have ever homely wits," he goes out and sees the
+world. He is either born in the woodlands, or wanders thither in his
+early youth. If all foxes so wandering be doomed to death, if poison,
+and wires, and traps, and hostile keepers await them there instead
+of the tender welcome of the loving fox-preserver, the gorse coverts
+will soon be empty, and the whole country will be afflicted with a
+wild dismay. All which Lord Chiltern understood well when he became
+so loud in his complaint against the Duke.
+
+But our dear old friend, only the other day a duke, Planty Pall as he
+was lately called, devoted to work and to Parliament, an unselfish,
+friendly, wise man, who by no means wanted other men to cut their
+coats according to his pattern, was the last man in England to put
+himself forward as the enemy of an established delight. He did not
+hunt himself,--but neither did he shoot, or fish, or play cards. He
+recreated himself with Blue Books, and speculations on Adam Smith had
+been his distraction;--but he knew that he was himself peculiar, and
+he respected the habits of others. It had fallen out in this wise. As
+the old Duke had become very old, the old Duke's agent had gradually
+acquired more than an agent's proper influence in the property; and
+as the Duke's heir would not shoot himself, or pay attention to the
+shooting, and as the Duke would not let the shooting of his wood, Mr.
+Fothergill, the steward, had gradually become omnipotent. Now Mr.
+Fothergill was not a hunting man,--but the mischief did not at all
+lie there. Lord Chiltern would not communicate with Mr. Fothergill.
+Lord Chiltern would write to the Duke, and Mr. Fothergill became an
+established enemy. Hinc illæ iræ. From this source sprung all those
+powerfully argued articles in _The Field_, _Bell's Life_, and _Land
+and Water_;--for on this matter all the sporting papers were of one
+mind.
+
+There is something doubtless absurd in the intensity of the worship
+paid to the fox by hunting communities. The animal becomes sacred,
+and his preservation is a religion. His irregular destruction is a
+profanity, and words spoken to his injury are blasphemous. Not long
+since a gentleman shot a fox running across a woodland ride in a
+hunting country. He had mistaken it for a hare, and had done the deed
+in the presence of keepers, owner, and friends. His feelings were so
+acute and his remorse so great that, in their pity, they had resolved
+to spare him; and then, on the spot, entered into a solemn compact
+that no one should be told. Encouraged by the forbearing tenderness,
+the unfortunate one ventured to return to the house of his friend,
+the owner of the wood, hoping that, in spite of the sacrilege
+committed, he might be able to face a world that would be ignorant
+of his crime. As the vulpicide, on the afternoon of the day of the
+deed, went along the corridor to his room, one maid-servant whispered
+to another, and the poor victim of an imperfect sight heard the
+words--"That's he as shot the fox!" The gentleman did not appear at
+dinner, nor was he ever again seen in those parts.
+
+Mr. Fothergill had become angry. Lord Chiltern, as we know, had been
+very angry. And even the Duke was angry. The Duke was angry because
+Lord Chiltern had been violent;--and Lord Chiltern had been violent
+because Mr. Fothergill's conduct had been, to his thinking, not only
+sacrilegious, but one continued course of wilful sacrilege. It may
+be said of Lord Chiltern that in his eagerness as a master of hounds
+he had almost abandoned his love of riding. To kill a certain number
+of foxes in the year, after the legitimate fashion, had become to
+him the one great study of life;--and he did it with an energy equal
+to that which the Duke devoted to decimal coinage. His huntsman was
+always well mounted, with two horses; but Lord Chiltern would give
+up his own to the man and take charge of a weary animal as a common
+groom when he found that he might thus further the object of the
+day's sport. He worked as men work only at pleasure. He never missed
+a day, even when cub-hunting required that he should leave his bed at
+3 A.M. He was constant at his kennel. He was always thinking about
+it. He devoted his life to the Brake Hounds. And it was too much for
+him that such a one as Mr. Fothergill should be allowed to wire foxes
+in Trumpeton Wood! The Duke's property, indeed! Surely all that was
+understood in England by this time. Now he had consented to come
+to Matching, bringing his wife with him, in order that the matter
+might be settled. There had been a threat that he would give up the
+country, in which case it was declared that it would be impossible
+to carry on the Brake Hunt in a manner satisfactory to masters,
+subscribers, owners of coverts, or farmers, unless a different order
+of things should be made to prevail in regard to Trumpeton Wood.
+
+The Duke, however, had declined to interfere personally. He had
+told his wife that he should be delighted to welcome Lord and Lady
+Chiltern,--as he would any other friends of hers. The guests, indeed,
+at the Duke's house were never his guests, but always hers. But he
+could not allow himself to be brought into an argument with Lord
+Chiltern as to the management of his own property. The Duchess was
+made to understand that she must prevent any such awkwardness. And
+she did prevent it. "And now, Lord Chiltern," she said, "how about
+the foxes?" She had taken care there should be a council of war
+around her. Lady Chiltern and Madame Goesler were present, and also
+Phineas Finn.
+
+"Well;--how about them?" said the lord, showing by the fiery
+eagerness of his eye, and the increased redness of his face, that
+though the matter had been introduced somewhat jocosely, there could
+not really be any joke about it.
+
+"Why couldn't you keep it all out of the newspapers?"
+
+"I don't write the newspapers, Duchess. I can't help the newspapers.
+When two hundred men ride through Trumpeton Wood, and see one fox
+found, and that fox with only three pads, of course the newspapers
+will say that the foxes are trapped."
+
+"We may have traps if we like it, Lord Chiltern."
+
+"Certainly;--only say so, and we shall know where we are." He looked
+very angry, and poor Lady Chiltern was covered with dismay. "The Duke
+can destroy the hunt if he pleases, no doubt," said the lord.
+
+"But we don't like traps, Lord Chiltern;--nor yet poison, nor
+anything that is wicked. I'd go and nurse the foxes myself if I knew
+how, wouldn't I, Marie?"
+
+"They have robbed the Duchess of her sleep for the last six months,"
+said Madame Goesler.
+
+"And if they go on being not properly brought up and educated,
+they'll make an old woman of me. As for the Duke, he can't be
+comfortable in his arithmetic for thinking of them. But what can one
+do?"
+
+"Change your keepers," said Lord Chiltern energetically.
+
+"It is easy to say,--change your keepers. How am I to set about it?
+To whom can I apply to appoint others? Don't you know what vested
+interests mean, Lord Chiltern?"
+
+"Then nobody can manage his own property as he pleases?"
+
+"Nobody can,--unless he does the work himself. If I were to go and
+live in Trumpeton Wood I could do it; but you see I have to live
+here. I vote that we have an officer of State, to go in and out with
+the Government,--with a seat in the Cabinet or not according as
+things go, and that we call him Foxmaster-General. It would be just
+the thing for Mr. Finn."
+
+"There would be a salary, of course," said Phineas.
+
+"Then I suppose that nothing can be done," said Lord Chiltern.
+
+"My dear Lord Chiltern, everything has been done. Vested interests
+have been attended to. Keepers shall prefer foxes to pheasants, wires
+shall be unheard of, and Trumpeton Wood shall once again be the glory
+of the Brake Hunt. It won't cost the Duke above a thousand or two a
+year."
+
+"I should be very sorry indeed to put the Duke to any unnecessary
+expense," said Lord Chiltern solemnly,--still fearing that the
+Duchess was only playing with him. It made him angry that he could
+not imbue other people with his idea of the seriousness of the
+amusement of a whole county.
+
+"Do not think of it. We have pensioned poor Mr. Fothergill, and he
+retires from the administration."
+
+"Then it'll be all right," said Lord Chiltern.
+
+"I am so glad," said his wife.
+
+"And so the great Mr. Fothergill falls from power, and goes down into
+obscurity," said Madame Goesler.
+
+"He was an impudent old man, and that's the truth," said the
+Duchess;--"and he has always been my thorough detestation. But if you
+only knew what I have gone through to get rid of him,--and all on
+account of Trumpeton Wood,--you'd send me every brush taken in the
+Brake country during the next season."
+
+"Your Grace shall at any rate have one of them," said Lord Chiltern.
+
+On the next day Lord and Lady Chiltern went back to Harrington Hall.
+When the end of August comes, a Master of Hounds,--who is really a
+master,--is wanted at home. Nothing short of an embassy on behalf of
+the great coverts of his country would have kept this master away at
+present; and now, his diplomacy having succeeded, he hurried back to
+make the most of its results. Lady Chiltern, before she went, made a
+little speech to Phineas Finn.
+
+"You'll come to us in the winter, Mr. Finn?"
+
+"I should like."
+
+"You must. No one was truer to you than we were, you know. Indeed,
+regarding you as we do, how should we not have been true? It was
+impossible to me that my old friend should have been--"
+
+"Oh, Lady Chiltern!"
+
+"Of course you'll come. You owe it to us to come. And may I say this?
+If there be anybody to come with you, that will make it only so much
+the better. If it should be so, of course there will be letters
+written?" To this question, however, Phineas Finn made no answer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXVI.
+
+MADAME GOESLER'S LEGACY.
+
+
+One morning, very shortly after her return to Harrington, Lady
+Chiltern was told that Mr. Spooner of Spoon Hall had called, and
+desired to see her. She suggested that the gentleman had probably
+asked for her husband,--who, at that moment, was enjoying his
+recovered supremacy in the centre of Trumpeton Wood; but she was
+assured that on this occasion Mr. Spooner's mission was to herself.
+She had no quarrel with Mr. Spooner, and she went to him at once.
+After the first greeting he rushed into the subject of the great
+triumph. "So we've got rid of Mr. Fothergill, Lady Chiltern."
+
+"Yes; Mr. Fothergill will not, I believe, trouble us any more. He
+is an old man, it seems, and has retired from the Duke's service."
+
+"I can't tell you how glad I am, Lady Chiltern. We were afraid that
+Chiltern would have thrown it up, and then I don't know where we
+should have been. England would not have been England any longer, to
+my thinking, if we hadn't won the day. It'd have been just like a
+French revolution. Nobody would have known what was coming or where
+he was going."
+
+That Mr. Spooner should be enthusiastic on any hunting question was a
+matter of course; but still it seemed to be odd that he should have
+driven himself over from Spoon Hall to pour his feelings into Lady
+Chiltern's ear. "We shall go on very nicely now, I don't doubt," said
+she; "and I'm sure that Lord Chiltern will be glad to find that you
+are pleased."
+
+"I am very much pleased, I can tell you." Then he paused, and the
+tone of his voice was changed altogether when he spoke again. "But
+I didn't come over only about that, Lady Chiltern. Miss Palliser has
+not come back with you, Lady Chiltern?"
+
+"We left Miss Palliser at Matching. You know she is the Duke's
+cousin."
+
+"I wish she wasn't, with all my heart."
+
+"Why should you want to rob her of her relations, Mr. Spooner?"
+
+"Because-- because--. I don't want to say a word against her, Lady
+Chiltern. To me she is perfect as a star;--beautiful as a rose."
+Mr. Spooner as he said this pointed first to the heavens and then
+to the earth. "But perhaps she wouldn't have been so proud of her
+grandfather hadn't he been a Duke."
+
+"I don't think she is proud of that."
+
+"People do think of it, Lady Chiltern; and I don't say that they
+ought not. Of course it makes a difference, and when a man lives
+altogether in the country, as I do, it seems to signify so much
+more. But if you go back to old county families, Lady Chiltern, the
+Spooners have been here pretty nearly as long as the Pallisers,--if
+not longer. The Desponders, from whom we come, came over with William
+the Conqueror."
+
+"I have always heard that there isn't a more respectable family in
+the county."
+
+"That there isn't. There was a grant of land, which took their name,
+and became the Manor of Despond; there's where Spoon Hall is now. Sir
+Thomas Desponder was one of those who demanded the Charter, though
+his name wasn't always given because he wasn't a baron. Perhaps Miss
+Palliser does not know all that."
+
+"I doubt whether she cares about those things."
+
+"Women do care about them,--very much. Perhaps she has heard of the
+two spoons crossed, and doesn't know that that was a stupid vulgar
+practical joke. Our crest is a knight's head bowed, with the motto,
+'Desperandum.' Soon after the Conquest one of the Desponders fell in
+love with the Queen, and never would give it up, though it wasn't
+any good. Her name was Matilda, and so he went as a Crusader and got
+killed. But wherever he went he had the knight's head bowed, and the
+motto on the shield."
+
+"What a romantic story, Mr. Spooner!"
+
+"Isn't it? And it's quite true. That's the way we became Spooners. I
+never told her of it, but, somehow I wish I had now. It always seemed
+that she didn't think that I was anybody."
+
+"The truth is, Mr. Spooner, that she was always thinking that
+somebody else was everything. When a gentleman is told that a lady's
+affections have been pre-engaged, however much he may regret the
+circumstances, he cannot, I think, feel any hurt to his pride. If I
+understand the matter, Miss Palliser explained to you that she was
+engaged when first you spoke to her."
+
+"You are speaking of young Gerard Maule."
+
+"Of course I am speaking of Mr. Maule."
+
+"But she has quarrelled with him, Lady Chiltern."
+
+"Don't you know what such quarrels come to?"
+
+"Well, no. That is to say, everybody tells me that it is really
+broken off, and that he has gone nobody knows where. At any rate he
+never shows himself. He doesn't mean it, Lady Chiltern."
+
+"I don't know what he means."
+
+"And he can't afford it, Lady Chiltern. I mean it, and I can afford
+it. Surely that might go for something."
+
+"I cannot say what Mr. Maule may mean to do, Mr. Spooner, but I think
+it only fair to tell you that he is at present staying at Matching,
+under the same roof with Miss Palliser."
+
+"Maule staying at the Duke's!" When Mr. Spooner heard this there
+came a sudden change over his face. His jaw fell, and his mouth was
+opened, and the redness of his cheeks flew up to his forehead.
+
+"He was expected there yesterday, and I need hardly suggest to you
+what will be the end of the quarrel."
+
+"Going to the Duke's won't give him an income."
+
+"I know nothing about that, Mr. Spooner. But it really seems to me
+that you misinterpret the nature of the affections of such a girl as
+Miss Palliser. Do you think it likely that she should cease to love a
+man because he is not so rich as another?"
+
+"People, when they are married, want a house to live in, Lady
+Chiltern. Now at Spoon Hall--"
+
+"Believe me, that is in vain, Mr. Spooner."
+
+"You are quite sure of it?"
+
+"Quite sure."
+
+"I'd have done anything for her,--anything! She might have had what
+settlements she pleased. I told Ned that he must go, if she made a
+point of it. I'd have gone abroad, or lived just anywhere. I'd come
+to that, that I didn't mind the hunting a bit."
+
+"I'm sorry for you,--I am indeed."
+
+"It cuts a fellow all to pieces so! And yet what is it all about? A
+slip of a girl that isn't anything so very much out of the way after
+all. Lady Chiltern, I shouldn't care if the horse kicked the trap all
+to pieces going back to Spoon Hall, and me with it."
+
+"You'll get over it, Mr. Spooner."
+
+"Get over it! I suppose I shall; but I shall never be as I was. I've
+been always thinking of the day when there must be a lady at Spoon
+Hall, and putting it off, you know. There'll never be a lady there
+now;--never. You don't think there's any chance at all?"
+
+"I'm sure there is none."
+
+"I'd give half I've got in all the world," said the wretched man,
+"just to get it out of my head. I know what it will come to." Though
+he paused, Lady Chiltern could ask no question respecting Mr.
+Spooner's future prospects. "It'll be two bottles of champagne at
+dinner, and two bottles of claret afterwards, every day. I only hope
+she'll know that she did it. Good-bye, Lady Chiltern. I thought that
+perhaps you'd have helped me."
+
+"I cannot help you."
+
+"Good-bye." So he went down to his trap, and drove himself violently
+home,--without, however, achieving the ruin which he desired. Let
+us hope that as time cures his wound that threat as to increased
+consumption of wine may fall to the ground unfulfilled.
+
+In the meantime Gerard Maule had arrived at Matching Priory.
+
+"We have quarrelled," Adelaide had said when the Duchess told her
+that her lover was to come. "Then you had better make it up again,"
+the Duchess had answered,--and there had been an end of it. Nothing
+more was done; no arrangement was made, and Adelaide was left to
+meet the man as best she might. The quarrel to her had been as the
+disruption of the heavens. She had declared to herself that she would
+bear it; but the misfortune to be borne was a broken world falling
+about her own ears. She had thought of a nunnery, of Ophelia among
+the water-lilies, and of an early death-bed. Then she had pictured
+to herself the somewhat ascetic and very laborious life of an old
+maiden lady whose only recreation fifty years hence should consist
+in looking at the portrait of him who had once been her lover. And
+now she was told that he was coming to Matching as though nothing
+had been the matter! She tried to think whether it was not her duty
+to have her things at once packed, and ask for a carriage to take
+her to the railway station. But she was in the house of her nearest
+relative,--of him and also of her who were bound to see that things
+were right; and then there might be a more pleasureable existence
+than that which would have to depend on a photograph for its keenest
+delight. But how should she meet him? In what way should she address
+him? Should she ignore the quarrel, or recognize it, or take some
+milder course? She was half afraid of the Duchess, and could not ask
+for assistance. And the Duchess, though good-natured, seemed to her
+to be rough. There was nobody at Matching to whom she could say a
+word;--so she lived on, and trembled, and doubted from hour to hour
+whether the world would not come to an end.
+
+The Duchess was rough, but she was very good-natured. She had
+contrived that the two lovers should be brought into the same house,
+and did not doubt at all but what they would be able to adjust their
+own little differences when they met. Her experiences of the world
+had certainly made her more alive to the material prospects than to
+the delicate aroma of a love adventure. She had been greatly knocked
+about herself, and the material prospects had come uppermost. But all
+that had happened to her had tended to open her hand to other people,
+and had enabled her to be good-natured with delight, even when
+she knew that her friends imposed upon her. She didn't care much
+for Laurence Fitzgibbon; but when she was told that the lady with
+money would not consent to marry the aristocratic pauper except on
+condition that she should be received at Matching, the Duchess at
+once gave the invitation. And now, though she couldn't go into the
+"fal-lallery,"--as she called it, to Madame Goesler,--of settling
+a meeting between two young people who had fallen out, she worked
+hard till she accomplished something perhaps more important to their
+future happiness. "Plantagenet," she said, "there can be no objection
+to your cousin having that money."
+
+"My dear!"
+
+"Oh come; you must remember about Adelaide, and that young man who is
+coming here to-day."
+
+"You told me that Adelaide is to be married. I don't know anything
+about the young man."
+
+"His name is Maule, and he is a gentleman, and all that. Some day
+when his father dies he'll have a small property somewhere."
+
+"I hope he has a profession."
+
+"No, he has not. I told you all that before."
+
+"If he has nothing at all, Glencora, why did he ask a young lady to
+marry him?"
+
+"Oh, dear; what's the good of going into all that? He has got
+something. They'll do immensely well, if you'll only listen. She is
+your first cousin."
+
+"Of course she is," said Plantagenet, lifting up his hand to his
+hair.
+
+"And you are bound to do something for her."
+
+"No; I am not bound. But I'm very willing,--if you wish it. Put the
+thing on a right footing."
+
+"I hate footings,--that is, right footings. We can manage this
+without taking money out of your pocket."
+
+"My dear Glencora, if I am to give my cousin money I shall do so by
+putting my hand into my own pocket in preference to that of any other
+person."
+
+"Madame Goesler says that she'll sign all the papers about the Duke's
+legacy,--the money, I mean,--if she may be allowed to make it over to
+the Duke's niece."
+
+"Of course Madame Goesler may do what she likes with her own. I
+cannot hinder her. But I would rather that you should not interfere.
+Twenty-five thousand pounds is a very serious sum of money."
+
+"You won't take it."
+
+"Certainly not."
+
+"Nor will Madame Goesler; and therefore there can be no reason why
+these young people should not have it. Of course Adelaide being the
+Duke's niece does make a difference. Why else should I care about it?
+She is nothing to me,--and as for him, I shouldn't know him again if
+I were to meet him in the street."
+
+And so the thing was settled. The Duke was powerless against the
+energy of his wife, and the lawyer was instructed that Madame Goesler
+would take the proper steps for putting herself into possession of
+the Duke's legacy,--as far as the money was concerned,--with the view
+of transferring it to the Duke's niece, Miss Adelaide Palliser. As
+for the diamonds, the difficulty could not be solved. Madame Goesler
+still refused to take them, and desired her lawyer to instruct her
+as to the form by which she could most thoroughly and conclusively
+renounce that legacy.
+
+Gerard Maule had his ideas about the meeting which would of course
+take place at Matching. He would not, he thought, have been asked
+there had it not been intended that he should marry Adelaide. He did
+not care much for the grandeur of the Duke and Duchess, but he was
+conscious of certain profitable advantages which might accrue from
+such an acknowledgement of his position from the great relatives of
+his intended bride. It would be something to be married from the
+house of the Duchess, and to receive his wife from the Duke's hand.
+His father would probably be driven to acquiesce, and people who were
+almost omnipotent in the world would at any rate give him a start.
+He expected no money; nor did he possess that character, whether it
+be good or bad, which is given to such expectation. But there would
+be encouragement, and the thing would probably be done. As for the
+meeting,--he would take her in his arms if he found her alone, and
+beg her pardon for that cross word about Boulogne. He would assure
+her that Boulogne itself would be a heaven to him if she were with
+him,--and he thought that she would believe him. When he reached the
+house he was asked into a room in which a lot of people were playing
+billiards or crowded round a billiard-table. The Chilterns were gone,
+and he was at first ill at ease, finding no friend. Madame Goesler,
+who had met him at Harrington, came up to him, and told him that
+the Duchess would be there directly, and then Phineas, who had been
+playing at the moment of his entrance, shook hands with him, and said
+a word or two about the Chilterns. "I was so delighted to hear of
+your acquittal," said Maule.
+
+"We never talk about that now," said Phineas, going back to his
+stroke. Adelaide Palliser was not present, and the difficulty of
+the meeting had not yet been encountered. They all remained in the
+billiard-room till it was time for the ladies to dress, and Adelaide
+had not yet ventured to show herself. Somebody offered to take him to
+his room, and he was conducted upstairs, and told that they dined at
+eight,--but nothing had been arranged. Nobody had as yet mentioned
+her name to him. Surely it could not be that she had gone away when
+she heard that he was coming, and that she was really determined to
+make the quarrel perpetual? He had three quarters of an hour in which
+to get ready for dinner, and he felt himself to be uncomfortable and
+out of his element. He had been sent to his chamber prematurely,
+because nobody had known what to do with him; and he wished
+himself back in London. The Duchess, no doubt, had intended to be
+good-natured, but she had made a mistake. So he sat by his open
+window, and looked out on the ruins of the old Priory, which were
+close to the house, and wondered why he mightn't have been allowed to
+wander about the garden instead of being shut up there in a bedroom.
+But he felt that it would be unwise to attempt any escape now. He
+would meet the Duke or the Duchess, or perhaps Adelaide herself, in
+some of the passages,--and there would be an embarrassment. So he
+dawdled away the time, looking out of the window as he dressed, and
+descended to the drawing room at eight o'clock. He shook hands with
+the Duke, and was welcomed by the Duchess, and then glanced round the
+room. There she was, seated on a sofa between two other ladies,--of
+whom one was his friend, Madame Goesler. It was essentially necessary
+that he should notice her in some way, and he walked up to her, and
+offered her his hand. It was impossible that he should allude to what
+was past, and he merely muttered something as he stood over her. She
+had blushed up to her eyes, and was absolutely dumb. "Mr. Maule,
+perhaps you'll take our cousin Adelaide out to dinner," said the
+Duchess, a moment afterwards, whispering in his ear.
+
+"Have you forgiven me?" he said to her, as they passed from one room
+to the other.
+
+"I will,--if you care to be forgiven." The Duchess had been quite
+right, and the quarrel was all over without any arrangement.
+
+On the following morning he was allowed to walk about the grounds
+without any impediment, and to visit the ruins which had looked so
+charming to him from the window. Nor was he alone. Miss Palliser was
+now by no means anxious as she had been yesterday to keep out of the
+way, and was willingly persuaded to show him all the beauties of the
+place.
+
+"I shouldn't have said what I did, I know," pleaded Maule.
+
+"Never mind it now, Gerard."
+
+"I mean about going to Boulogne."
+
+"It did sound so melancholy."
+
+"But I only meant that we should have to be very careful how we
+lived. I don't know quite whether I am so good at being careful about
+money as a fellow ought to be."
+
+"You must take a lesson from me, sir."
+
+"I have sent the horses to Tattersall's," he said in a tone that was
+almost funereal.
+
+"What!--already?"
+
+"I gave the order yesterday. They are to be sold,--I don't know when.
+They won't fetch anything. They never do. One always buys bad horses
+there for a lot of money, and sells good ones for nothing. Where the
+difference goes to I never could make out."
+
+"I suppose the man gets it who sells them."
+
+"No; he don't. The fellows get it who have their eyes open. My eyes
+never were open,--except as far as seeing you went."
+
+"Perhaps if you had opened them wider you wouldn't have to go to--"
+
+"Don't, Adelaide. But, as I was saying about the horses, when they're
+sold of course the bills won't go on. And I suppose things will come
+right. I don't owe so very much."
+
+"I've got something to tell you," she said.
+
+"What about?"
+
+"You're to see my cousin to-day at two o'clock."
+
+"The Duke?"
+
+"Yes,--the Duke; and he has got a proposition. I don't know that you
+need sell your horses, as it seems to make you so very unhappy. You
+remember Madame Goesler?"
+
+"Of course I do. She was at Harrington."
+
+"There's something about a legacy which I can't understand at all. It
+is ever so much money, and it did belong to the old Duke. They say
+it is to be mine,--or yours rather, if we should ever be married.
+And then you know, Gerard, perhaps, after all, you needn't go to
+Boulogne." So she took her revenge, and he had his as he pressed his
+arm round her waist and kissed her among the ruins of the old Priory.
+
+Precisely at two to the moment he had his interview with the Duke,
+and very disagreeable it was to both of them. The Duke was bound
+to explain that the magnificent present which was being made to
+his cousin was a gift, not from him, but from Madame Goesler; and,
+though he was intent on making this as plain as possible, he did
+not like the task. "The truth is, Mr. Maule, that Madame Goesler is
+unwilling, for reasons with which I need not trouble you, to take
+the legacy which was left to her by my uncle. I think her reasons to
+be insufficient, but it is a matter in which she must, of course,
+judge for herself. She has decided,--very much, I fear, at my wife's
+instigation, which I must own I regret,--to give the money to one
+of our family, and has been pleased to say that my cousin Adelaide
+shall be the recipient of her bounty. I have nothing to do with it.
+I cannot stop her generosity if I would, nor can I say that my cousin
+ought to refuse it. Adelaide will have the entire sum as her fortune,
+short of the legacy duty, which, as you are probably aware, will be
+ten per cent., as Madame Goesler was not related to my uncle. The
+money will, of course, be settled on my cousin and on her children.
+I believe that will be all I shall have to say, except that Lady
+Glencora,--the Duchess, I mean,--wishes that Adelaide should be
+married from our house. If this be so I shall, of course, hope to
+have the honour of giving my cousin away." The Duke was by no means
+a pompous man, and probably there was no man in England of so high
+rank who thought so little of his rank. But he was stiff and somewhat
+ungainly, and the task which he was called upon to execute had been
+very disagreeable to him. He bowed when he had finished his speech,
+and Gerard Maule felt himself bound to go, almost without expressing
+his thanks.
+
+"My dear Mr. Maule," said Madame Goesler, "you literally must not
+say a word to me about it. The money was not mine, and under no
+circumstances would or could be mine. I have given nothing, and could
+not have presumed to make such a present. The money, I take it, does
+undoubtedly belong to the present Duke, and, as he does not want it,
+it is very natural that it should go to his cousin. I trust that you
+may both live to enjoy it long, but I cannot allow any thanks to be
+given to me by either of you."
+
+After that he tried the Duchess, who was somewhat more gracious. "The
+truth is, Mr. Maule, you are a very lucky man to find twenty thousand
+pounds and more going begging about the country in that way."
+
+"Indeed I am, Duchess."
+
+"And Adelaide is lucky, too, for I doubt whether either of you are
+given to any very penetrating economies. I am told that you like
+hunting."
+
+"I have sent my horses to Tattersall's."
+
+"There is enough now for a little hunting, I suppose, unless you
+have a dozen children. And now you and Adelaide must settle when
+it's to be. I hate things to be delayed. People go on quarrelling
+and fancying this and that, and thinking that the world is full of
+romance and poetry. When they get married they know better."
+
+"I hope the romance and poetry do not all vanish."
+
+"Romance and poetry are for the most part lies, Mr. Maule, and are
+very apt to bring people into difficulty. I have seen something of
+them in my time, and I much prefer downright honest figures. Two and
+two make four; idleness is the root of all evil; love your neighbour
+like yourself, and the rest of it. Pray remember that Adelaide is to
+be married from here, and that we shall be very happy that you should
+make every use you like of our house until then."
+
+We may so far anticipate in our story as to say that Adelaide
+Palliser and Gerard Maule were married from Matching Priory at
+Matching Church early in that October, and that as far as the
+coming winter was concerned, there certainly was no hunting for
+the gentleman. They went to Naples instead of Boulogne, and there
+remained till the warm weather came in the following spring. Nor was
+that peremptory sale at Tattersall's countermanded as regarded any of
+the horses. What prices were realised the present writer has never
+been able to ascertain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXVII.
+
+PHINEAS FINN'S SUCCESS.
+
+
+When Phineas Finn had been about a week at Matching, he received a
+letter, or rather a very short note, from the Prime Minister, asking
+him to go up to London; and on the same day the Duke of Omnium
+spoke to him on the subject of the letter. "You are going up to
+see Mr. Gresham. Mr. Gresham has written to me, and I hope that we
+shall be able to congratulate ourselves in having your assistance
+next Session." Phineas declared that he had no idea whatever of
+Mr. Gresham's object in summoning him up to London. "I have his
+permission to inform you that he wishes you to accept office."
+Phineas felt that he was becoming very red in the face, but he did
+not attempt to make any reply on the spur of the moment. "Mr. Gresham
+thinks it well that so much should be said to you before you see him,
+in order that you may turn the matter over in your own mind. He would
+have written to you probably, making the offer at once, had it not
+been that there must be various changes, and that one man's place
+must depend on another. You will go, I suppose."
+
+"Yes; I shall go, certainly. I shall be in London this evening."
+
+"I will take care that a carriage is ready for you. I do not presume
+to advise, Mr. Finn, but I hope that there need be no doubt as to
+your joining us." Phineas was somewhat confounded, and did not know
+the Duke well enough to give expression to his thoughts at the
+moment. "Of course you will return to us, Mr. Finn." Phineas said
+that he would return and trespass on the Duke's hospitality for yet a
+few days. He was quite resolved that something must be said to Madame
+Goesler before he left the roof under which she was living. In the
+course of the autumn she purposed, as she had told him, to go to
+Vienna, and to remain there almost up to Christmas. Whatever there
+might be to be said should be said at any rate before that.
+
+He did speak a few words to her before his journey to London, but in
+those words there was no allusion made to the great subject which
+must be discussed between them. "I am going up to London," he said.
+
+"So the Duchess tells me."
+
+"Mr. Gresham has sent for me,--meaning, I suppose, to offer me the
+place which he would not give me while that poor man was alive."
+
+"And you will accept it of course, Mr. Finn?"
+
+"I am not at all so sure of that."
+
+"But you will. You must. You will hardly be so foolish as to let the
+peevish animosity of an ill-conditioned man prejudice your prospects
+even after his death."
+
+"It will not be any remembrance of Mr. Bonteen that will induce me to
+refuse."
+
+"It will be the same thing;--rancour against Mr. Gresham because he
+had allowed the other man's counsel to prevail with him. The action
+of no individual man should be to you of sufficient consequence to
+guide your conduct. If you accept office, you should not take it as a
+favour conferred by the Prime Minister; nor if you refuse it, should
+you do so from personal feelings in regard to him. If he selects you,
+he is presumed to do so because he finds that your services will be
+valuable to the country."
+
+"He does so because he thinks that I should be safe to vote for him."
+
+"That may be so, or not. You can't read his bosom quite
+distinctly;--but you may read your own. If you go into office you
+become the servant of the country,--not his servant, and should
+assume his motive in selecting you to be the same as your own in
+submitting to the selection. Your foot must be on the ladder before
+you can get to the top of it."
+
+"The ladder is so crooked."
+
+"Is it more crooked now than it was three years ago;--worse than it
+was six months ago, when you and all your friends looked upon it as
+certain that you would be employed? There is nothing, Mr. Finn, that
+a man should fear so much as some twist in his convictions arising
+from a personal accident to himself. When we heard that the Devil
+in his sickness wanted to be a monk, we never thought that he would
+become a saint in glory. When a man who has been rejected by a lady
+expresses a generally ill opinion of the sex, we are apt to ascribe
+his opinions to disappointment rather than to judgment. A man
+falls and breaks his leg at a fence, and cannot be induced to ride
+again,--not because he thinks the amusement to be dangerous, but
+because he cannot keep his mind from dwelling on the hardship that
+has befallen himself. In all such cases self-consciousness gets the
+better of the judgment."
+
+"You think it will be so with me?"
+
+"I shall think so if you now refuse--because of the misfortune which
+befell you--that which I know you were most desirous of possessing
+before that accident. To tell you the truth, Mr. Finn, I wish Mr.
+Gresham had delayed his offer till the winter."
+
+"And why?"
+
+"Because by that time you will have recovered your health. Your mind
+now is morbid, and out of tune."
+
+"There was something to make it so, Madame Goesler."
+
+"God knows there was; and the necessity which lay upon you of bearing
+a bold front during those long and terrible weeks of course consumed
+your strength. The wonder is that the fibres of your mind should
+have retained any of their elasticity after such an ordeal. But as
+you are so strong, it would be a pity that you should not be strong
+altogether. This thing that is now to be offered to you is what you
+have always desired."
+
+"A man may have always desired that which is worthless."
+
+"You tried it once, and did not find it worthless. You found yourself
+able to do good work when you were in office. If I remember right,
+you did not give it up then because it was irksome to you, or
+contemptible, or, as you say, worthless; but from difference of
+opinion on some political question. You can always do that again."
+
+"A man is not fit for office who is prone to do so."
+
+"Then do not you be prone. It means success or failure in the
+profession which you have chosen, and I shall greatly regret to see
+you damage your chance of success by yielding to scruples which have
+come upon you when you are hardly as yet yourself."
+
+She had spoken to him very plainly, and he had found it to be
+impossible to answer her, and yet she had hardly touched the motives
+by which he believed himself to be actuated. As he made his journey
+up to London he thought very much of her words. There had been
+nothing said between them about money. No allusion had been made to
+the salary of the office which would be offered to him, or to the
+terrible shortness of his own means of living. He knew well enough
+himself that he must take some final step in life, or very shortly
+return into absolute obscurity. This woman who had been so strongly
+advising him to take a certain course as to his future life, was very
+rich;--and he had fully decided that he would sooner or later ask
+her to be his wife. He knew well that all her friends regarded their
+marriage as certain. The Duchess had almost told him so in as many
+words. Lady Chiltern, who was much more to him than the Duchess,
+had assured him that if he should have a wife to bring with him to
+Harrington, the wife would be welcome. Of what other wife could Lady
+Chiltern have thought? Laurence Fitzgibbon, when congratulated on
+his own marriage, had returned counter congratulations. Mr. Low had
+said that it would of course come to pass. Even Mrs. Bunce had hinted
+at it, suggesting that she would lose her lodger and be a wretched
+woman. All the world had heard of the journey to Prague, and all the
+world expected the marriage. And he had come to love the woman with
+excessive affection, day by day, ever since the renewal of their
+intimacy at Broughton Spinnies. His mind was quite made up;--but
+he was by no means so sure of her mind as the rest of the world might
+be. He knew of her, what nobody else in all the world knew,--except
+himself. In that former period of his life, on which he now sometimes
+looked back as though it had been passed in another world, this woman
+had offered her hand and fortune to him. She had done so in the
+enthusiasm of her love, knowing his ambition and knowing his poverty,
+and believing that her wealth was necessary to the success of his
+career in life. He had refused the offer,--and they had parted
+without a word. Now they had come together again, and she was
+certainly among the dearest of his friends. Had she not taken that
+wondrous journey to Prague in his behalf, and been the first among
+those who had striven,--and had striven at last successfully,--to
+save his neck from the halter? Dear to her! He knew well as he sat
+with his eyes closed in the railway carriage that he must be dear to
+her! But might it not well be that she had resolved that friendship
+should take the place of love? And was it not compatible with her
+nature,--with all human nature,--that in spite of her regard for him
+she should choose to be revenged for the evil which had befallen her,
+when she offered her hand in vain? She must know by this time that he
+intended to throw himself at her feet; and would hardly have advised
+him as she had done as to the necessity of following up that success
+which had hitherto been so essential to him, had she intended to
+give him all that she had once offered him before. It might well be
+that Lady Chiltern, and even the Duchess, should be mistaken. Marie
+Goesler was not a woman, he thought, to reveal the deeper purposes of
+her life to any such friend as the Duchess of Omnium.
+
+Of his own feelings in regard to the offer which was about to be made
+to him he had hardly succeeded in making her understand anything.
+That a change had come upon himself was certain, but he did not
+at all believe that it had sprung from any weakness caused by his
+sufferings in regard to the murder. He rather believed that he
+had become stronger than weaker from all that he had endured. He
+had learned when he was younger,--some years back,--to regard
+the political service of his country as a profession in which a
+man possessed of certain gifts might earn his bread with more
+gratification to himself than in any other. The work would be hard,
+and the emolument only intermittent; but the service would in
+itself be pleasant; and the rewards of that service,--should he be
+so successful as to obtain reward,--would be dearer to him than
+anything which could accrue to him from other labours. To sit in
+the Cabinet for one Session would, he then thought, be more to him
+than to preside over the Court of Queen's Bench as long as did Lord
+Mansfield. But during the last few months a change had crept across
+his dream,--which he recognized but could hardly analyse. He had
+seen a man whom he despised promoted, and the place to which the man
+had been exalted had at once become contemptible in his eyes. And
+there had been quarrels and jangling, and the speaking of evil words
+between men who should have been quiet and dignified. No doubt Madame
+Goesler was right in attributing the revulsion in his hopes to Mr.
+Bonteen and Mr. Bonteen's enmity; but Phineas Finn himself did not
+know that it was so.
+
+He arrived in town in the evening, and his appointment with Mr.
+Gresham was for the following morning. He breakfasted at his club,
+and there he received the following letter from Lady Laura Kennedy:--
+
+
+   Saulsby, 28th August, 18--.
+
+   MY DEAR PHINEAS,
+
+   I have just received a letter from Barrington in which he
+   tells me that Mr. Gresham is going to offer you your old
+   place at the Colonies. He says that Lord Fawn has been so
+   upset by this affair of Lady Eustace's husband, that he
+   is obliged to resign and go abroad. [This was the first
+   intimation that Phineas had heard of the nature of the
+   office to be offered to him.--] But Barrington goes on to
+   say that he thinks you won't accept Mr. Gresham's offer,
+   and he asks me to write to you. Can this possibly be true?
+   Barrington writes most kindly,--with true friendship,--and
+   is most anxious for you to join. But he thinks that
+   you are angry with Mr. Gresham because he passed you
+   over before, and that you will not forgive him for
+   having yielded to Mr. Bonteen. I can hardly believe this
+   possible. Surely you will not allow the shade of that
+   unfortunate man to blight your prospects? And, after all,
+   of what matter to you is the friendship or enmity of Mr.
+   Gresham? You have to assert yourself, to make your own
+   way, to use your own opportunities, and to fight your own
+   battle without reference to the feelings of individuals.
+   Men act together in office constantly, and with constancy,
+   who are known to hate each other. When there are so many
+   to get what is going, and so little to be given, of course
+   there will be struggling and trampling. I have no doubt
+   that Lord Cantrip has made a point of this with Mr.
+   Gresham;--has in point of fact insisted upon it. If so,
+   you are lucky to have such an ally as Lord Cantrip. He and
+   Mr. Gresham are, as you know, sworn friends, and if you
+   get on well with the one you certainly may with the other
+   also. Pray do not refuse without asking for time to think
+   about it;--and if so, pray come here, that you may consult
+   my father.
+
+   I spent two weary weeks at Loughlinter, and then could
+   stand it no longer. I have come here, and here I shall
+   remain for the autumn and winter. If I can sell my
+   interest in the Loughlinter property I shall do so, as I
+   am sure that neither the place nor the occupation is fit
+   for me. Indeed I know not what place or what occupation
+   will suit me! The dreariness of the life before me is
+   hardly preferable to the disappointments I have already
+   endured. There seems to be nothing left for me but to
+   watch my father to the end. The world would say that such
+   a duty in life is fit for a widowed childless daughter;
+   but to you I cannot pretend to say that my bereavements or
+   misfortunes reconcile me to such a fate. I cannot cease
+   to remember my age, my ambition, and I will say, my love.
+   I suppose that everything is over for me,--as though
+   I were an old woman, going down into the grave, but at
+   my time of life I find it hard to believe that it must
+   be so. And then the time of waiting may be so long! I
+   suppose I could start a house in London, and get people
+   around me by feeding and flattering them, and by little
+   intrigues,--like that woman of whom you are so fond. It
+   is money that is chiefly needed for that work, and of
+   money I have enough now. And people would know at any rate
+   who I am. But I could not flatter them, and I should wish
+   the food to choke them if they did not please me. And you
+   would not come, and if you did,--I may as well say it
+   boldly,--others would not. An ill-natured sprite has been
+   busy with me, which seems to deny me everything which is
+   so freely granted to others.
+
+   As for you, the world is at your feet. I dread two things
+   for you,--that you should marry unworthily, and that
+   you should injure your prospects in public life by an
+   uncompromising stiffness. On the former subject I can say
+   nothing to you. As to the latter, let me implore you to
+   come down here before you decide upon anything. Of course
+   you can at once accept Mr. Gresham's offer; and that is
+   what you should do unless the office proposed to you be
+   unworthy of you. No friend of yours will think that your
+   old place at the Colonies should be rejected. But if your
+   mind is still turned towards refusing, ask Mr. Gresham to
+   give you three or four days for decision, and then come
+   here. He cannot refuse you,--nor after all that is passed
+   can you refuse me.
+
+   Yours affectionately,
+
+   L. K.
+
+
+When he had read this letter he at once acknowledged to himself
+that he could not refuse her request. He must go to Saulsby, and he
+must do so at once. He was about to see Mr. Gresham immediately,
+--within half an hour; and as he could not expect at the most above
+twenty-four hours to be allowed to him for consideration, he must
+go down to Saulsby on the same evening. As he walked to the Prime
+Minister's house he called at a telegraph office and sent down his
+message. "I will be at Saulsby by the train arriving at 7 P.M. Send
+to meet me." Then he went on, and in a few minutes found himself in
+the presence of the great man.
+
+The great man received him with an excellent courtesy. It is the
+special business of Prime Ministers to be civil in detail, though
+roughness, and perhaps almost rudeness in the gross, becomes not
+unfrequently a necessity of their position. To a proposed incoming
+subordinate a Prime Minister is, of course, very civil, and to a
+retreating subordinate he is generally more so,--unless the retreat
+be made under unfavourable circumstances. And to give good things
+is always pleasant, unless there be a suspicion that the good thing
+will be thought to be not good enough. No such suspicion as that now
+crossed the mind of Mr. Gresham. He had been pressed very much by
+various colleagues to admit this young man into the Paradise of his
+government, and had been pressed very much also to exclude him; and
+this had been continued till he had come to dislike the name of the
+young man. He did believe that the young man had behaved badly to Mr.
+Robert Kennedy, and he knew that the young man on one occasion had
+taken to kicking in harness, and running a course of his own. He had
+decided against the young man,--very much no doubt at the instance of
+Mr. Bonteen,--and he believed that in so doing he closed the Gates of
+Paradise against a Peri most anxious to enter it. He now stood with
+the key in his hand and the gate open,--and the seat to be allotted
+to the re-accepted one was that which he believed the Peri would
+most gratefully fill. He began by making a little speech about Mr.
+Bonteen. That was almost unavoidable. And he praised in glowing words
+the attitude which Phineas had maintained during the trial. He had
+been delighted with the re-election at Tankerville, and thought
+that the borough had done itself much honour. Then came forth his
+proposition. Lord Fawn had retired, absolutely broken down by
+repeated examinations respecting the man in the grey coat, and the
+office which Phineas had before held with so much advantage to the
+public, and comfort to his immediate chief, Lord Cantrip, was there
+for his acceptance. Mr. Gresham went on to express an ardent hope
+that he might have the benefit of Mr. Finn's services. It was quite
+manifest from his manner that he did not in the least doubt the
+nature of the reply which he would receive.
+
+Phineas had come primed with his answer,--so ready with it that it
+did not even seem to be the result of any hesitation at the moment.
+"I hope, Mr. Gresham, that you will be able to give me a few hours to
+think of this." Mr. Gresham's face fell, for, in truth, he wanted an
+immediate answer; and though he knew from experience that Secretaries
+of State, and First Lords, and Chancellors, do demand time, and will
+often drive very hard bargains before they will consent to get into
+harness, he considered that Under-Secretaries, Junior Lords, and the
+like, should skip about as they were bidden, and take the crumbs
+offered them without delay. If every underling wanted a few hours to
+think about it, how could any Government ever be got together? "I
+am sorry to put you to inconvenience," continued Phineas, seeing
+that the great man was but ill-satisfied, "but I am so placed that I
+cannot avail myself of your flattering kindness without some little
+time for consideration."
+
+"I had hoped that the office was one which you would like."
+
+"So it is, Mr. Gresham."
+
+"And I was told that you are now free from any scruples,--political
+scruples, I mean,--which might make it difficult for you to support
+the Government."
+
+"Since the Government came to our way of thinking,--a year or two
+ago,--about Tenant Right, I mean,--I do not know that there is any
+subject on which I am likely to oppose it. Perhaps I had better tell
+you the truth, Mr. Gresham."
+
+"Oh, certainly," said the Prime Minister, who knew very well that
+on such occasions nothing could be worse than the telling of
+disagreeable truths.
+
+"When you came into office, after beating Mr. Daubeny on the Church
+question, no man in Parliament was more desirous of place than
+I was,--and I am sure that none of the disappointed ones felt
+their disappointment so keenly. It was aggravated by various
+circumstances,--by calumnies in newspapers, and by personal
+bickerings. I need not go into that wretched story of Mr. Bonteen,
+and the absurd accusation which grew out of those calumnies. These
+things have changed me very much. I have a feeling that I have been
+ill-used,--not by you, Mr. Gresham, specially, but by the party; and
+I look upon the whole question of office with altered eyes."
+
+"In filling up the places at his disposal, a Prime Minister, Mr.
+Finn, has a most unenviable task."
+
+"I can well believe it."
+
+"When circumstances, rather than any selection of his own, indicate
+the future occupant of any office, this abrogation of his patronage
+is the greatest blessing in the world to him."
+
+"I can believe that also."
+
+"I wish it were so with every office under the Crown. A Minister is
+rarely thanked, and would as much look for the peace of heaven in his
+office as for gratitude."
+
+"I am sorry that I should have made no exception to such
+thanklessness."
+
+"We shall neither of us get on by complaining;--shall we, Mr. Finn?
+You can let me have an answer perhaps by this time to-morrow."
+
+"If an answer by telegraph will be sufficient."
+
+"Quite sufficient. Yes or No. Nothing more will be wanted. You
+understand your own reasons, no doubt, fully; but if they were stated
+at length they would perhaps hardly enlighten me. Good-morning." Then
+as Phineas was turning his back, the Prime Minister remembered that
+it behoved him as Prime Minister to repress his temper. "I shall
+still hope, Mr. Finn, for a favourable answer." Had it not been for
+that last word Phineas would have turned again, and at once rejected
+the proposition.
+
+From Mr. Gresham's house he went by appointment to Mr. Monk's, and
+told him of the interview. Mr. Monk's advice to him had been exactly
+the same as that given by Madame Goesler and Lady Laura. Phineas,
+indeed, understood perfectly that no friend could or would give him
+any other advice. "He has his troubles, too," said Mr. Monk, speaking
+of the Prime Minister.
+
+"A man can hardly expect to hold such an office without trouble."
+
+"Labour of course there must be,--though I doubt whether it is
+so great as that of some other persons;--and responsibility. The
+amount of trouble depends on the spirit and nature of the man.
+Do you remember old Lord Brock? He was never troubled. He had
+a triple shield,--a thick skin, an equable temper, and perfect
+self-confidence. Mr. Mildmay was of a softer temper, and would have
+suffered had he not been protected by the idolatry of a large class
+of his followers. Mr. Gresham has no such protection. With a finer
+intellect than either, and a sense of patriotism quite as keen, he
+has a self-consciousness which makes him sore at every point. He
+knows the frailty of his temper, and yet cannot control it. And he
+does not understand men as did these others. Every word from an enemy
+is a wound to him. Every slight from a friend is a dagger in his
+side. But I can fancy that self-accusations make the cross on which
+he is really crucified. He is a man to whom I would extend all my
+mercy, were it in my power to be merciful."
+
+"You will hardly tell me that I should accept office under him by way
+of obliging him."
+
+"Were I you I should do so,--not to oblige him, but because I know
+him to be an honest man."
+
+"I care but little for honesty," said Phineas, "which is at the
+disposal of those who are dishonest. What am I to think of a Minister
+who could allow himself to be led by Mr. Bonteen?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXVIII.
+
+THE LAST VISIT TO SAULSBY.
+
+
+Phineas, as he journeyed down to Saulsby, knew that he had in truth
+made up his mind. He was going thither nominally that he might
+listen to the advice of almost his oldest political friend before he
+resolved on a matter of vital importance to himself; but in truth he
+was making the visit because he felt that he could not excuse himself
+from it without unkindness and ingratitude. She had implored him to
+come, and he was bound to go, and there were tidings to be told which
+he must tell. It was not only that he might give her his reasons for
+not becoming an Under-Secretary of State that he went to Saulsby.
+He felt himself bound to inform her that he intended to ask Marie
+Goesler to be his wife. He might omit to do so till he had asked
+the question,--and then say nothing of what he had done should
+his petition be refused; but it seemed to him that there would be
+cowardice in this. He was bound to treat Lady Laura as his friend
+in a special degree, as something more than his sister,--and he was
+bound above all things to make her understand in some plainest manner
+that she could be nothing more to him than such a friend. In his
+dealings with her he had endeavoured always to be honest,--gentle as
+well as honest; but now it was specially his duty to be honest to
+her. When he was young he had loved her, and had told her so,--and
+she had refused him. As a friend he had been true to her ever since,
+but that offer could never be repeated. And the other offer,--to the
+woman whom she was now accustomed to abuse,--must be made. Should
+Lady Laura choose to quarrel with him it must be so; but the quarrel
+should not be of his seeking.
+
+He was quite sure that he would refuse Mr. Gresham's offer, although
+by doing so he would himself throw away the very thing which he had
+devoted his life to acquire. In a foolish, soft moment,--as he now
+confessed to himself,--he had endeavoured to obtain for his own
+position the sympathy of the Minister. He had spoken of the calumnies
+which had hurt him, and of his sufferings when he found himself
+excluded from place in consequence of the evil stories which had
+been told of him. Mr. Gresham had, in fact, declined to listen to
+him;--had said Yes or No was all that he required, and had gone on to
+explain that he would be unable to understand the reasons proposed to
+be given even were he to hear them. Phineas had felt himself to be
+repulsed, and would at once have shown his anger, had not the Prime
+Minister silenced him for the moment by a civilly-worded repetition
+of the offer made.
+
+But the offer should certainly be declined. As he told himself that
+it must be so, he endeavoured to analyse the causes of this decision,
+but was hardly successful. He had thought that he could explain the
+reasons to the Minister, but found himself incapable of explaining
+them to himself. In regard to means of subsistence he was no better
+off now than when he began the world. He was, indeed, without
+incumbrance, but was also without any means of procuring an income.
+For the last twelve months he had been living on his little capital,
+and two years more of such life would bring him to the end of all
+that he had. There was, no doubt, one view of his prospects which was
+bright enough. If Marie Goesler accepted him, he need not, at any
+rate, look about for the means of earning a living. But he assured
+himself with perfect confidence that no hope in that direction would
+have any influence upon the answer he would give to Mr. Gresham. Had
+not Marie Goesler herself been most urgent with him in begging him to
+accept the offer; and was he not therefore justified in concluding
+that she at least had thought it necessary that he should earn his
+bread? Would her heart be softened towards him,--would any further
+softening be necessary,--by his obstinate refusal to comply with her
+advice? The two things had no reference to each other,--and should be
+regarded by him as perfectly distinct. He would refuse Mr. Gresham's
+offer,--not because he hoped that he might live in idleness on the
+wealth of the woman he loved,--but because the chicaneries and
+intrigues of office had become distasteful to him. "I don't know
+which are the falser," he said to himself, "the mock courtesies or
+the mock indignations of statesmen."
+
+He found the Earl's carriage waiting for him at the station, and
+thought of many former days, as he was carried through the little
+town for which he had sat in Parliament, up to the house which he
+had once visited in the hope of wooing Violet Effingham. The women
+whom he had loved had all, at any rate, become his friends, and his
+thorough friendships were almost all with women. He and Lord Chiltern
+regarded each other with warm affection; but there was hardly
+ground for real sympathy between them. It was the same with Mr. Low
+and Barrington Erle. Were he to die there would be no gap in their
+lives;--were they to die there would be none in his. But with Violet
+Effingham,--as he still loved to call her to himself,--he thought it
+would be different. When the carriage stopped at the hall door he was
+thinking of her rather than of Lady Laura Kennedy.
+
+He was shown at once to his bedroom,--the very room in which he had
+written the letter to Lord Chiltern which had brought about the duel
+at Blankenberg. He was told that he would find Lady Laura in the
+drawing-room waiting for dinner for him. The Earl had already dined.
+
+"I am so glad you are come," said Lady Laura, welcoming him. "Papa is
+not very well and dined early, but I have waited for you, of course.
+Of course I have. You did not suppose I would let you sit down alone?
+I would not see you before you dressed because I knew that you must
+be tired and hungry, and that the sooner you got down the better. Has
+it not been hot?"
+
+"And so dusty! I only left Matching yesterday, and seem to have been
+on the railway ever since."
+
+"Government officials have to take frequent journeys, Mr. Finn. How
+long will it be before you have to go down to Scotland twice in one
+week, and back as often to form a Ministry? Your next journey must be
+into the dining-room;--in making which will you give me your arm?"
+
+She was, he thought, lighter in heart and pleasanter in manner than
+she had been since her return from Dresden. When she had made her
+little joke about his future ministerial duties the servant had been
+in the room, and he had not, therefore, stopped her by a serious
+answer. And now she was solicitous about his dinner,--anxious that
+he should enjoy the good things set before him, as is the manner of
+loving women, pressing him to take wine, and playing the good hostess
+in all things. He smiled, and ate, and drank, and was gracious
+under her petting; but he had a weight on his bosom, knowing, as
+he did, that he must say that before long which would turn all
+her playfulness either to anger or to grief. "And who had you at
+Matching?" she asked.
+
+"Just the usual set."
+
+"Minus the poor old Duke?"
+
+"Yes; minus the old Duke certainly. The greatest change is in the
+name. Lady Glencora was so specially Lady Glencora that she ought to
+have been Lady Glencora to the end. Everybody calls her Duchess, but
+it does not sound half so nice."
+
+"And is he altered?"
+
+"Not in the least. You can trace the lines of lingering regret upon
+his countenance when people be-Grace him; but that is all. There was
+always about him a simple dignity which made it impossible that any
+one should slap him on the back; and that of course remains. He is
+the same Planty Pall; but I doubt whether any man ever ventured to
+call him Planty Pall to his face since he left Eton."
+
+"The house was full, I suppose?"
+
+"There were a great many there; among others Sir Gregory Grogram, who
+apologised to me for having tried to--put an end to my career."
+
+"Oh, Phineas!"
+
+"And Sir Harry Coldfoot, who seemed to take some credit to himself
+for having allowed the jury to acquit me. And Chiltern and his wife
+were there for a day or two."
+
+"What could take Oswald there?"
+
+"An embassy of State about the foxes. The Duke's property runs into
+his country. She is one of the best women that ever lived."
+
+"Violet?"
+
+"And one of the best wives."
+
+"She ought to be, for she is one of the happiest. What can she wish
+for that she has not got? Was your great friend there?"
+
+He knew well what great friend she meant. "Madame Max Goesler was
+there."
+
+"I suppose so. I can never quite forgive Lady Glencora for her
+intimacy with that woman."
+
+"Do not abuse her, Lady Laura."
+
+"I do not intend,--not to you at any rate. But I can better
+understand that she should receive the admiration of a gentleman than
+the affectionate friendship of a lady. That the old Duke should have
+been infatuated was intelligible."
+
+"She was very good to the old Duke."
+
+"But it was a kind of goodness which was hardly likely to recommend
+itself to his nephew's wife. Never mind; we won't talk about her now.
+Barrington was there?"
+
+"For a day or two."
+
+"He seems to be wasting his life."
+
+"Subordinates in office generally do, I think."
+
+"Do not say that, Phineas."
+
+"Some few push through, and one can almost always foretell who
+the few will be. There are men who are destined always to occupy
+second-rate places, and who seem also to know their fate. I never
+heard Erle speak even of an ambition to sit in the Cabinet."
+
+"He likes to be useful."
+
+"All that part of the business which distresses me is pleasant
+to him. He is fond of arrangements, and delights in little party
+successes. Either to effect or to avoid a count-out is a job of
+work to his taste, and he loves to get the better of the Opposition
+by keeping it in the dark. A successful plot is as dear to him as
+to a writer of plays. And yet he is never bitter as is Ratler, or
+unscrupulous as was poor Mr. Bonteen, or full of wrath as is Lord
+Fawn. Nor is he idle like Fitzgibbon. Erle always earns his salary."
+
+"When I said he was wasting his life, I meant that he did not marry.
+But perhaps a man in his position had better remain unmarried."
+Phineas tried to laugh, but hardly succeeded well. "That, however, is
+a delicate subject, and we will not touch it now. If you won't drink
+any wine we might as well go into the other room."
+
+Nothing had as yet been said on either of the subjects which had
+brought him to Saulsby, but there had been words which made the
+introduction of them peculiarly unpleasant. His tidings, however,
+must be told. "I shall not see Lord Brentford to-night?" he asked,
+when they were together in the drawing-room.
+
+"If you wish it you can go up to him. He will not come down."
+
+"Oh, no. It is only because I must return to-morrow."
+
+"To-morrow, Phineas!"
+
+"I must do so. I have pledged myself to see Mr. Monk,--and others
+also."
+
+"It is a short visit to make to us on my first return home! I hardly
+expected you at Loughlinter, but I thought that you might have
+remained a few nights under my father's roof." He could only reassert
+his assurance that he was bound to be back in London, and explain as
+best he might that he had come to Saulsby for a single night, only
+because he would not refuse her request to him. "I will not trouble
+you, Phineas, by complaints," she said.
+
+"I would give you no cause for complaint if I could avoid it."
+
+"And now tell me what has passed between you and Mr. Gresham," she
+said as soon as the servant had given them coffee. They were sitting
+by a window which opened down to the ground, and led on to the
+terrace and to the lawns below. The night was soft, and the air was
+heavy with the scent of many flowers. It was now past nine, and the
+sun had set; but there was a bright harvest moon, and the light,
+though pale, was clear as that of day. "Will you come and take a turn
+round the garden? We shall be better there than sitting here. I will
+get my hat; can I find yours for you?" So they both strolled out,
+down the terrace steps, and went forth, beyond the gardens, into the
+park, as though they had both intended from the first that it should
+be so. "I know you have not accepted Mr. Gresham's offer, or you
+would have told me so."
+
+"I have not accepted."
+
+"Nor have you refused?"
+
+"No; it is still open. I must send my answer by telegram
+to-morrow--Yes or No,--Mr. Gresham's time is too precious to admit of
+more."
+
+"Phineas, for Heaven's sake do not allow little feelings to injure
+you at such a time as this. It is of your own career, not of Mr.
+Gresham's manners, that you should think."
+
+"I have nothing to object to in Mr. Gresham. Yes or No will be quite
+sufficient."
+
+"It must be Yes."
+
+"It cannot be Yes, Lady Laura. That which I desired so ardently six
+months ago has now become so distasteful to me that I cannot accept
+it. There is an amount of hustling on the Treasury Bench which makes
+a seat there almost ignominious."
+
+"Do they hustle more than they did three years ago?"
+
+"I think they do, or if not it is more conspicuous to my eyes. I
+do not say that it need be ignominious. To such a one as was Mr.
+Palliser it certainly is not so. But it becomes so when a man goes
+there to get his bread, and has to fight his way as though for bare
+life. When office first comes, unasked for, almost unexpected, full
+of the charms which distance lends, it is pleasant enough. The
+new-comer begins to feel that he too is entitled to rub his shoulders
+among those who rule the world of Great Britain. But when it has been
+expected, longed for as I longed for it, asked for by my friends
+and refused, when all the world comes to know that you are a suitor
+for that which should come without any suit,--then the pleasantness
+vanishes."
+
+"I thought it was to be your career."
+
+"And I hoped so."
+
+"What will you do, Phineas? You cannot live without an income."
+
+"I must try," he said, laughing.
+
+"You will not share with your friend, as a friend should?"
+
+"No, Lady Laura. That cannot be done."
+
+"I do not see why it cannot. Then you might be independent."
+
+"Then I should indeed be dependent."
+
+"You are too proud to owe me anything."
+
+He wanted to tell her that he was too proud to owe such obligation as
+she had suggested to any man or any woman; but he hardly knew how to
+do so, intending as he did to inform her before they returned to the
+house of his intention to ask Madame Goesler to be his wife. He could
+discern the difference between enjoying his wife's fortune and taking
+gifts of money from one who was bound to him by no tie;--but to her
+in her present mood he could explain no such distinction. On a sudden
+he rushed at the matter in his mind. It had to be done, and must be
+done before he brought her back to the house. He was conscious that
+he had in no degree ill-used her. He had in nothing deceived her. He
+had kept back from her nothing which the truest friendship had called
+upon him to reveal to her. And yet he knew that her indignation would
+rise hot within her at his first word. "Laura," he said, forgetting
+in his confusion to remember her rank, "I had better tell you at once
+that I have determined to ask Madame Goesler to be my wife."
+
+"Oh, then;--of course your income is certain."
+
+"If you choose to regard my conduct in that light I cannot help it. I
+do not think that I deserve such reproach."
+
+"Why not tell it all? You are engaged to her?"
+
+"Not so. I have not asked her yet."
+
+"And why do you come to me with the story of your intentions,--to me
+of all persons in the world? I sometimes think that of all the hearts
+that ever dwelt within a man's bosom yours is the hardest."
+
+"For God's sake do not say that of me."
+
+"Do you remember when you came to me about Violet,--to me,--to me? I
+could bear it then because she was good and earnest, and a woman that
+I could love even though she robbed me. And I strove for you even
+against my own heart,--against my own brother. I did; I did. But how
+am I to bear it now? What shall I do now? She is a woman I loathe."
+
+"Because you do not know her."
+
+"Not know her! And are your eyes so clear at seeing that you must
+know her better than others? She was the Duke's mistress."
+
+"That is untrue, Lady Laura."
+
+"But what difference does it make to me? I shall be sure that you
+will have bread to eat, and horses to ride, and a seat in Parliament
+without being forced to earn it by your labour. We shall meet no
+more, of course."
+
+"I do not think that you can mean that."
+
+"I will never receive that woman, nor will I cross the sill of her
+door. Why should I?"
+
+"Should she become my wife,--that I would have thought might have
+been the reason why."
+
+"Surely, Phineas, no man ever understood a woman so ill as you do."
+
+"Because I would fain hope that I need not quarrel with my oldest
+friend?"
+
+"Yes, sir; because you think you can do this without quarrelling. How
+should I speak to her of you; how listen to what she would tell me?
+Phineas, you have killed me at last." Why could he not tell her that
+it was she who had done the wrong when she gave her hand to Robert
+Kennedy? But he could not tell her, and he was dumb. "And so it's
+settled!"
+
+"No; not settled."
+
+"Psha! I hate your mock modesty! It is settled. You have become far
+too cautious to risk fortune in such an adventure. Practice has
+taught you to be perfect. It was to tell me this that you came down
+here."
+
+"Partly so."
+
+"It would have been more generous of you, sir, to have remained
+away."
+
+"I did not mean to be ungenerous."
+
+Then she suddenly turned upon him, throwing her arms round his neck,
+and burying her face upon his bosom. They were at the moment in the
+centre of the park, on the grass beneath the trees, and the moon was
+bright over their heads. He held her to his breast while she sobbed,
+and then relaxed his hold as she raised herself to look into his
+face. After a moment she took his hat from his head with one hand,
+and with the other swept the hair back from his brow. "Oh, Phineas,"
+she said, "Oh, my darling! My idol that I have worshipped when I
+should have worshipped my God!"
+
+
+[Illustration: Then she suddenly turned upon him, throwing
+her arms round his neck.]
+
+
+After that they roamed for nearly an hour backwards and forwards
+beneath the trees, till at last she became calm and almost
+reasonable. She acknowledged that she had long expected such a
+marriage, looking forward to it as a great sorrow. She repeated
+over and over again her assertion that she could not "know" Madame
+Goesler as the wife of Phineas, but abstained from further evil words
+respecting the lady. "It is better that we should be apart," she said
+at last. "I feel that it is better. When we are both old, if I should
+live, we may meet again. I knew that it was coming, and we had better
+part." And yet they remained out there, wandering about the park for
+a long portion of the summer night. She did not reproach him again,
+nor did she speak much of the future; but she alluded to all the
+incidents of their past life, showing him that nothing which he had
+done, no words which he had spoken, had been forgotten by her. "Of
+course it has been my fault," she said, as at last she parted with
+him in the drawing-room. "When I was younger I did not understand
+how strong the heart can be. I should have known it, and I pay
+for my ignorance with the penalty of my whole life." Then he left
+her, kissing her on both cheeks and on her brow, and went to his
+bedroom with the understanding that he would start for London on the
+following morning before she was up.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXIX.
+
+AT LAST--AT LAST.
+
+
+As he took his ticket Phineas sent his message to the Prime Minister,
+taking that personage literally at his word. The message was, No.
+When writing it in the office it seemed to him to be uncourteous, but
+he found it difficult to add any other words that should make it less
+so. He supplemented it with a letter on his arrival in London, in
+which he expressed his regret that certain circumstances of his life
+which had occurred during the last month or two made him unfit to
+undertake the duties of the very pleasant office to which Mr. Gresham
+had kindly offered to appoint him. That done, he remained in town
+but one night, and then set his face again towards Matching. When
+he reached that place it was already known that he had refused to
+accept Mr. Gresham's offer, and he was met at once with regrets and
+condolements. "I am sorry that it must be so," said the Duke,--who
+was sorry, for he liked the man, but who said not a word more
+upon the subject. "You are still young, and will have further
+opportunities," said Lord Cantrip, "but I wish that you could have
+consented to come back to your old chair." "I hope that at any
+rate we shall not have you against us," said Sir Harry Coldfoot.
+Among themselves they declared one to another that he had been so
+completely upset by his imprisonment and subsequent trial as to be
+unable to undertake the work proposed to him. "It is not a very nice
+thing, you know, to be accused of murder," said Sir Gregory, "and to
+pass a month or two under the full conviction that you are going to
+be hung. He'll come right again some day. I only hope it may not be
+too late."
+
+"So you have decided for freedom?" said Madame Goesler to him that
+evening,--the evening of the day on which he had returned.
+
+"Yes, indeed."
+
+"I have nothing to say against your decision now. No doubt your
+feelings have prompted you right."
+
+"Now that it is done, of course I am full of regrets," said Phineas.
+
+"That is simple human nature, I suppose."
+
+"Simple enough; and the worst of it is that I cannot quite explain
+even to myself why I have done it. Every friend I had in the world
+told me that I was wrong, and yet I could not help myself. The thing
+was offered to me, not because I was thought to be fit for it, but
+because I had become wonderful by being brought near to a violent
+death! I remember once, when I was a child, having a rocking-horse
+given to me because I had fallen from the top of the house to the
+bottom without breaking my neck. The rocking-horse was very well
+then, but I don't care now to have one bestowed upon me for any such
+reason."
+
+"Still, if the rocking-horse is in itself a good rocking-horse--"
+
+"But it isn't."
+
+"I don't mean to say a word against your decision."
+
+"It isn't good. It is one of those toys which look to be so very
+desirable in the shop-windows, but which give no satisfaction when
+they are brought home. I'll tell you what occurred the other day. The
+circumstances happen to be known to me, though I cannot tell you my
+authority. My dear old friend Laurence Fitzgibbon, in the performance
+of his official duties, had to give an opinion on a matter affecting
+an expenditure of some thirty or forty thousand pounds of public
+money. I don't think that Laurence has generally a very strong bias
+this way or that on such questions, but in the case in question he
+took upon himself to be very decided. He wrote, or got some one to
+write, a report proving that the service of the country imperatively
+demanded that the money should be spent, and in doing so was strictly
+within his duty."
+
+"I am glad to hear that he can be so energetic."
+
+"The Chancellor of the Exchequer got hold of the matter, and told
+Fitzgibbon that the thing couldn't be done."
+
+"That was all right and constitutional, I suppose."
+
+"Quite right and constitutional. But something had to be said about
+it in the House, and Laurence, with all his usual fluency and
+beautiful Irish brogue, got up and explained that the money would be
+absolutely thrown away if expended on a purpose so futile as that
+proposed. I am assured that the great capacity which he has thus
+shown for official work and official life will cover a multitude of
+sins."
+
+"You would hardly have taken Mr. Fitzgibbon as your model statesman."
+
+"Certainly not;--and if the story affected him only it would hardly
+be worth telling. But the point of it lies in this;--that he
+disgusted no one by what he did. The Chancellor of the Exchequer
+thinks him a very convenient man to have about him, and Mr. Gresham
+feels the comfort of possessing tools so pliable."
+
+"Do you think that public life then is altogether a mistake, Mr.
+Finn?"
+
+"For a poor man I think that it is, in this country. A man of fortune
+may be independent; and because he has the power of independence
+those who are higher than he will not expect him to be subservient.
+A man who takes to parliamentary office for a living may live by it,
+but he will have but a dog's life of it."
+
+"If I were you, Mr. Finn, I certainly would not choose a dog's life."
+
+He said not a word to her on that occasion about herself, having
+made up his mind that a certain period of the following day should
+be chosen for the purpose, and he had hardly yet arranged in his
+mind what words he would use on that occasion. It seemed to him that
+there would be so much to be said that he must settle beforehand some
+order of saying it. It was not as though he had merely to tell her of
+his love. There had been talk of love between them before, on which
+occasion he had been compelled to tell her that he could not accept
+that which she offered to him. It would be impossible, he knew, not
+to refer to that former conversation. And then he had to tell her
+that he, now coming to her as a suitor and knowing her to be a very
+rich woman, was himself all but penniless. He was sure, or almost
+sure, that she was as well aware of this fact as he was himself; but,
+nevertheless, it was necessary that he should tell her of it,--and if
+possible so tell her as to force her to believe him when he assured
+her that he asked her to be his wife, not because she was rich, but
+because he loved her. It was impossible that all this should be said
+as they sat side by side in the drawing-room with a crowd of people
+almost within hearing, and Madame Goesler had just been called upon
+to play, which she always did directly she was asked. He was invited
+to make up a rubber, but he could not bring himself to care for cards
+at the present moment. So he sat apart and listened to the music.
+
+If all things went right with him to-morrow that music,--or the
+musician who made it,--would be his own for the rest of his life. Was
+he justified in expecting that she would give him so much? Of her
+great regard for him as a friend he had no doubt. She had shown it in
+various ways, and after a fashion that had made it known to all the
+world. But so had Lady Laura regarded him when he first told her of
+his love at Loughlinter. She had been his dearest friend, but she had
+declined to become his wife; and it had been partly so with Violet
+Effingham, whose friendship to him had been so sweet as to make him
+for a while almost think that there was more than friendship. Marie
+Goesler had certainly once loved him;--but so had he once loved Laura
+Standish. He had been wretched for a while because Lady Laura had
+refused him. His feelings now were altogether changed, and why should
+not the feelings of Madame Goesler have undergone a similar change?
+There was no doubt of her friendship; but then neither was there any
+doubt of his for Lady Laura. And in spite of her friendship, would
+not revenge be dear to her,--revenge of that nature which a slighted
+woman must always desire? He had rejected her, and would it not be
+fair also that he should be rejected? "I suppose you'll be in your
+own room before lunch to-morrow," he said to her as they separated
+for the night. It had come to pass from the constancy of her visits
+to Matching in the old Duke's time, that a certain small morning-room
+had been devoted to her, and this was still supposed to be her
+property,--so that she was not driven to herd with the public or to
+remain in her bedroom during all the hours of the morning. "Yes," she
+said; "I shall go out immediately after breakfast, but I shall soon
+be driven in by the heat, and then I shall be there till lunch. The
+Duchess always comes about half-past twelve, to complain generally of
+the guests." She answered him quite at her ease, making arrangement
+for privacy if he should desire it, but doing so as though she
+thought that he wanted to talk to her about his trial, or about
+politics, or the place he had just refused. Surely she would hardly
+have answered him after such a fashion had she suspected that he
+intended to ask her to be his wife.
+
+At a little before noon the next morning he knocked at her door, and
+was told to enter. "I didn't go out after all," she said. "I hadn't
+courage to face the sun."
+
+"I saw that you were not in the garden."
+
+"If I could have found you I would have told you that I should be
+here all the morning. I might have sent you a message, only--only
+I didn't."
+
+"I have come--"
+
+"I know why you have come."
+
+"I doubt that. I have come to tell you that I love you."
+
+"Oh Phineas;--at last, at last!" And in a moment she was in his arms.
+
+It seemed to him that from that moment all the explanations, and all
+the statements, and most of the assurances were made by her and not
+by him. After this first embrace he found himself seated beside her,
+holding her hand. "I do not know that I am right," said he.
+
+"Why not right?"
+
+"Because you are rich and I have nothing."
+
+"If you ever remind me of that again I will strike you," she said,
+raising up her little fist and bringing it down with gentle pressure
+on his shoulder. "Between you and me there must be nothing more about
+that. It must be an even partnership. There must be ever so much
+about money, and you'll have to go into dreadful details, and make
+journeys to Vienna to see that the houses don't tumble down;--but
+there must be no question between you and me of whence it came."
+
+"You will not think that I have to come to you for that?"
+
+"Have you ever known me to have a low opinion of myself? Is it
+probable that I shall account myself to be personally so mean and of
+so little value as to imagine that you cannot love me? I know you
+love me. But Phineas, I have not been sure till very lately that you
+would ever tell me so. As for me--! Oh, heavens! when I think of it."
+
+"Tell me that you love me now."
+
+"I think I have said so plainly enough. I have never ceased to love
+you since I first knew you well enough for love. And I'll tell you
+more,--though perhaps I shall say what you will think condemns
+me;--you are the only man I ever loved. My husband was very good
+to me,--and I was, I think, good to him. But he was many years my
+senior, and I cannot say I loved him,--as I do you." Then she turned
+to him, and put her head on his shoulder. "And I loved the old Duke,
+too, after a fashion. But it was a different thing from this. I will
+tell you something about him some day that I have never yet told to a
+human being."
+
+"Tell me now."
+
+"No; not till I am your wife. You must trust me. But I will tell
+you," she said, "lest you should be miserable. He asked me to be his
+wife."
+
+"The old Duke?"
+
+"Yes, indeed, and I refused to be a--duchess. Lady Glencora knew it
+all, and, just at the time I was breaking my heart,--like a fool, for
+you! Yes, for you! But I got over it, and am not broken-hearted a
+bit. Oh, Phineas, I am so happy now."
+
+Exactly at the time she had mentioned on the previous evening, at
+half-past twelve, the door was opened, and the Duchess entered the
+room. "Oh dear," she exclaimed, "perhaps I am in the way; perhaps I
+am interrupting secrets."
+
+"No, Duchess."
+
+"Shall I retire? I will at once if there be anything confidential
+going on."
+
+"It has gone on already, and been completed," said Madame Goesler
+rising from her seat. "It is only a trifle. Mr. Finn has asked me to
+be his wife."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I couldn't refuse Mr. Finn a little thing like that."
+
+"I should think not, after going all the way to Prague to find a
+latch-key! I congratulate you, Mr. Finn, with all my heart."
+
+"Thanks, Duchess."
+
+"And when is it to be?"
+
+"We have not thought about that yet, Mr. Finn,--have we?" said Madame
+Goesler.
+
+"Adelaide Palliser is going to be married from here some time in the
+autumn," said the Duchess, "and you two had better take advantage of
+the occasion." This plan, however, was considered as being too rapid
+and rash. Marriage is a very serious affair, and many things would
+require arrangement. A lady with the wealth which belonged to Madame
+Goesler cannot bestow herself off-hand as may a curate's daughter,
+let her be ever so willing to give her money as well as herself. It
+was impossible that a day should be fixed quite at once; but the
+Duchess was allowed to understand that the affair might be mentioned.
+Before dinner on that day every one of the guests at Matching Priory
+knew that the man who had refused to be made Under-Secretary of State
+had been accepted by that possessor of fabulous wealth who was well
+known to the world as Madame Goesler of Park Lane. "I am very glad
+that you did not take office under Mr. Gresham," she said to him when
+they first met each other again in London. "Of course when I was
+advising you I could not be sure that this would happen. Now you can
+bide your time, and if the opportunity offers you can go to work
+under better auspices."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXX.
+
+CONCLUSION.
+
+
+There remains to us the very easy task of collecting together the
+ends of the thread of our narrative, and tying them into a simple
+knot, so that there may be no unravelling. Of Mr. Emilius it has been
+already said that his good fortune clung to him so far that it was
+found impossible to connect him with the tragedy of Bolton Row. But
+he was made to vanish for a certain number of years from the world,
+and dear little Lizzie Eustace was left a free woman. When last we
+heard of her she was at Naples, and there was then a rumour that
+she was about to join her fate to that of Lord George de Bruce
+Carruthers, with whom pecuniary matters had lately not been going
+comfortably. Let us hope that the match, should it be a match, may
+lead to the happiness and respectability of both of them.
+
+As all the world knows, Lord and Lady Chiltern still live at
+Harrington Hall, and he has been considered to do very well with
+the Brake country. He still grumbles about Trumpeton Wood, and says
+that it will take a lifetime to repair the injuries done by Mr.
+Fothergill;--but then who ever knew a Master of Hounds who wasn't
+ill-treated by the owners of coverts?
+
+Of Mr. Tom Spooner it can only be said that he is still a bachelor,
+living with his cousin Ned, and that none of the neighbours expect
+to see a lady at Spoon Hall. In one winter, after the period of his
+misfortune, he became slack about his hunting, and there were rumours
+that he was carrying out that terrible threat of his as to the
+crusade which he would go to find a cure for his love. But his cousin
+took him in hand somewhat sharply, made him travel abroad during the
+summer, and brought him out the next season, "as fresh as paint,"
+as the members of the Brake Hunt declared. It was known to every
+sportsman in the country that poor Mr. Spooner had been in love; but
+the affair was allowed to be a mystery, and no one ever spoke to
+Spooner himself upon the subject. It is probable that he now reaps no
+slight amount of gratification from his memory of the romance.
+
+The marriage between Gerard Maule and Adelaide Palliser was
+celebrated with great glory at Matching, and was mentioned in all the
+leading papers as an alliance in high life. When it became known to
+Mr. Maule, Senior, that this would be so, and that the lady would
+have a very considerable fortune from the old Duke, he reconciled
+himself to the marriage altogether, and at once gave way in that
+matter of Maule Abbey. Nothing he thought would be more suitable than
+that the young people should live at the old family place. So Maule
+Abbey was fitted up, and Mr. and Mrs. Maule have taken up their
+residence there. Under the influence of his wife he has promised to
+attend to his farming, and proposes to do no more than go out and see
+the hounds when they come into his neighbourhood. Let us hope that he
+may prosper. Should the farming come to a good end more will probably
+have been due to his wife's enterprise than to his own. The energetic
+father is, as all the world knows, now in pursuit of a widow with
+three thousand a year who has lately come out in Cavendish Square.
+
+Of poor Lord Fawn no good account can be given. To his thinking,
+official life had none of those drawbacks with which the fantastic
+feelings of Phineas Finn had invested it. He could have been happy
+for ever at the India Board or at the Colonial Office;--but his life
+was made a burden to him by the affair of the Bonteen murder. He was
+charged with having nearly led to the fatal catastrophe of Phineas
+Finn's condemnation by his erroneous evidence, and he could not bear
+the accusation. Then came the further affair of Mr. Emilius, and his
+mind gave way;--and he disappeared. Let us hope that he may return
+some day with renewed health, and again be of service to his country.
+
+Poetical justice reached Mr. Quintus Slide of The People's Banner.
+The acquittal and following glories of Phineas Finn were gall and
+wormwood to him; and he continued his attack upon the member for
+Tankerville even after it was known that he had refused office, and
+was about to be married to Madame Goesler. In these attacks he made
+allusions to Lady Laura which brought Lord Chiltern down upon him,
+and there was an action for libel. The paper had to pay damages and
+costs, and the proprietors resolved that Mr. Quintus Slide was too
+energetic for their purposes. He is now earning his bread in some
+humble capacity on the staff of The Ballot Box,--which is supposed
+to be the most democratic daily newspaper published in London. Mr.
+Slide has, however, expressed his intention of seeking his fortune in
+New York.
+
+Laurence Fitzgibbon certainly did himself a good turn by his obliging
+deference to the opinion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He has
+been in office ever since. It must be acknowledged of all our leading
+statesmen that gratitude for such services is their characteristic.
+It is said that he spends much of his eloquence in endeavouring to
+make his wife believe that the air of County Mayo is the sweetest in
+the world. Hitherto, since his marriage, this eloquence has been
+thrown away, for she has always been his companion through the
+Session in London.
+
+It is rumoured that Barrington Erle is to be made Secretary for
+Ireland, but his friends doubt whether the office will suit him.
+
+The marriage between Marie Goesler and our hero did not take place
+till October, and then they went abroad for the greater part of the
+winter, Phineas having received leave of absence officially from
+the Speaker and unofficially from his constituents. After all that
+he had gone through it was acknowledged that so much ease should
+be permitted to him. They went first to Vienna, and then back into
+Italy, and were unheard of by their English friends for nearly six
+months. In April they reappeared in London, and the house in Park
+Lane was opened with great _éclat_. Of Phineas every one says that
+of all living men he has been the most fortunate. The present writer
+will not think so unless he shall soon turn his hand to some useful
+task. Those who know him best say that he will of course go into
+office before long.
+
+Of poor Lady Laura hardly a word need be said. She lives at Saulsby
+the life of a recluse, and the old Earl her father is still alive.
+
+The Duke, as all the world knows, is on the very eve of success with
+the decimal coinage. But his hair is becoming grey, and his back is
+becoming bent; and men say that he will never live as long as his
+uncle. But then he will have done a great thing,--and his uncle did
+only little things. Of the Duchess no word need be said. Nothing will
+ever change the Duchess.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PHINEAS REDUX***
+
+
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+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Phineas Redux, by Anthony Trollope</h1>
+<p class="noindent">This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a
+href="http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></p>
+<p class="noindent">Title: Phineas Redux</p>
+<p class="noindent">Author: Anthony Trollope</p>
+<p class="noindent">Release Date: June 21, 2006  [eBook #18640]<br />
+This revision posted April 6, 2014</p>
+<p class="noindent">Language: English</p>
+<p class="noindent">Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p class="noindent">***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PHINEAS REDUX***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>E-text prepared by Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.<br />
+    <br />
+    The original illustrations were generously provided by<br />
+    Internet Archive (<a href="https://archive.org">https://archive.org</a>).</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<table border="0" style="background-color: #ccccff;margin: 0 auto;" cellpadding="10">
+  <tr>
+    <td valign="top">
+      Editorial Note:<br />
+      <br />
+      <i>Phineas Redux</i> was published first in serial form in the
+      <i>Graphic: An Illustrated Weekly Newspaper</i> from July, 1873,
+      to January, 1874, and then in book form by Chapman and Hall
+      in 1874.<br />
+      <br />
+      The <i>Graphic</i> version contained 26 illustrations by Frank
+      (Francis Montague) Holl (1845-1888). Twenty-four of those
+      were published in the Chapman and Hall first edition and are
+      included in this e-book.<br />
+      <br />
+      Images of the original illustrations are available through
+      Internet Archive. See
+      <a href="https://archive.org/details/phineasredux00trolrich">
+      https://archive.org/details/phineasredux00trolrich</a>
+   </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h1>PHINEAS REDUX</h1>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h4>by</h4>
+
+<h2>ANTHONY TROLLOPE</h2>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CONTENTS</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="center">
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="1">
+<tr><td colspan="2" align="center"><b>Volume I</b><br />&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">I.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>      <td><a href="#c1" >TEMPTATION.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">II.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>     <td><a href="#c2" >HARRINGTON HALL.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">III.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>    <td><a href="#c3" >GERARD MAULE.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">IV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>     <td><a href="#c4" >TANKERVILLE.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">V.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>      <td><a href="#c5" >MR. DAUBENY'S GREAT MOVE.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">VI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>     <td><a href="#c6" >PHINEAS AND HIS OLD FRIENDS.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">VII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>    <td><a href="#c7" >COMING HOME FROM HUNTING.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">VIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>   <td><a href="#c8" >THE ADDRESS.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">IX.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>     <td><a href="#c9" >THE DEBATE.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">X.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>      <td><a href="#c10" >THE DESERTED HUSBAND.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>     <td><a href="#c11" >THE TRUANT WIFE.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>    <td><a href="#c12" >K&Ouml;NIGSTEIN.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>   <td><a href="#c13" >"I HAVE GOT THE SEAT."</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XIV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>    <td><a href="#c14" >TRUMPETON WOOD.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>     <td><a href="#c15" >"HOW WELL YOU KNEW!"</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XVI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>    <td><a href="#c16" >COPPERHOUSE CROSS AND BROUGHTON SPINNIES.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XVII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>   <td><a href="#c17" >MADAME GOESLER'S STORY.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XVIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>  <td><a href="#c18" >SPOONER OF SPOON HALL.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XIX.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>    <td><a href="#c19" >SOMETHING OUT OF THE WAY.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XX.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>     <td><a href="#c20" >PHINEAS AGAIN IN LONDON.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XXI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>    <td><a href="#c21" >MR. MAULE, SENIOR.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XXII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>   <td><a href="#c22" >"PURITY OF MORALS, FINN."</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XXIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>  <td><a href="#c23" >MACPHERSON'S HOTEL.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XXIV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>   <td><a href="#c24" >MADAME GOESLER IS SENT FOR.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XXV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>    <td><a href="#c25" >"I WOULD DO IT NOW."</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XXVI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>   <td><a href="#c26" >THE DUKE'S WILL.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XXVII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>  <td><a href="#c27" >AN EDITOR'S WRATH.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XXVIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td> <td><a href="#c28" >THE FIRST THUNDERBOLT.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XXIX.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>   <td><a href="#c29" >THE SPOONER CORRESPONDENCE.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XXX.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>    <td><a href="#c30" >REGRETS.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XXXI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>   <td><a href="#c31" >THE DUKE AND DUCHESS IN TOWN.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XXXII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>  <td><a href="#c32" >THE WORLD BECOMES COLD.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XXXIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td> <td><a href="#c33" >THE TWO GLADIATORS.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XXXIV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>  <td><a href="#c34" >THE UNIVERSE.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XXXV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>   <td><a href="#c35" >POLITICAL VENOM.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XXXVI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>  <td><a href="#c36" >SEVENTY-TWO.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XXXVII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td> <td><a href="#c37" >THE CONSPIRACY.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XXXVIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td><a href="#c38" >ONCE AGAIN IN PORTMAN SQUARE.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XXXIX.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>  <td><a href="#c39" >CAGLIOSTRO.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XL.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>     <td><a href="#c40" >THE PRIME MINISTER IS HARD PRESSED.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align="center">&nbsp;<br /><b>Volume II</b><br />&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XLI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>    <td><a href="#c41" >"I HOPE I'M NOT DISTRUSTED."</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XLII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>   <td><a href="#c42" >BOULOGNE.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XLIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>  <td><a href="#c43" >THE SECOND THUNDERBOLT.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XLIV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>   <td><a href="#c44" >THE BROWBOROUGH TRIAL.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XLV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>    <td><a href="#c45" >SOME PASSAGES IN THE LIFE OF MR. EMILIUS.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XLVI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>   <td><a href="#c46" >THE QUARREL.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XLVII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>  <td><a href="#c47" >WHAT CAME OF THE QUARREL.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XLVIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td> <td><a href="#c48" >MR. MAULE'S ATTEMPT.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XLIX.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>   <td><a href="#c49" >SHOWING WHAT MRS. BUNCE SAID TO THE POLICEMAN.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">L.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>      <td><a href="#c50" >WHAT THE LORDS AND COMMONS SAID ABOUT THE MURDER.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">LI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>     <td><a href="#c51" >"YOU THINK IT SHAMEFUL."</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">LII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>    <td><a href="#c52" >MR. KENNEDY'S WILL.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">LIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>   <td><a href="#c53" >NONE BUT THE BRAVE DESERVE THE FAIR.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">LIV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>    <td><a href="#c54" >THE DUCHESS TAKES COUNSEL.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">LV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>     <td><a href="#c55" >PHINEAS IN PRISON.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">LVI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>    <td><a href="#c56" >THE MEAGER FAMILY.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">LVII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>   <td><a href="#c57" >THE BEGINNING OF THE SEARCH FOR THE KEY AND THE COAT.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">LVIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>  <td><a href="#c58" >THE TWO DUKES.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">LIX.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>    <td><a href="#c59" >MRS. BONTEEN.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">LX.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>     <td><a href="#c60" >TWO DAYS BEFORE THE TRIAL.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">LXI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>    <td><a href="#c61" >THE BEGINNING OF THE TRIAL.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">LXII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>   <td><a href="#c62" >LORD FAWN'S EVIDENCE.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">LXIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>  <td><a href="#c63" >MR. CHAFFANBRASS FOR THE DEFENCE.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">LXIV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>   <td><a href="#c64" >CONFUSION IN THE COURT.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">LXV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>    <td><a href="#c65" >"I HATE HER!"</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">LXVI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>   <td><a href="#c66" >THE FOREIGN BLUDGEON.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">LXVII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>  <td><a href="#c67" >THE VERDICT.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">LXVIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td> <td><a href="#c68" >PHINEAS AFTER THE TRIAL.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">LXIX.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>   <td><a href="#c69" >THE DUKE'S FIRST COUSIN.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">LXX.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>    <td><a href="#c70" >"I WILL NOT GO TO LOUGHLINTER."</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">LXXI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>   <td><a href="#c71" >PHINEAS FINN IS RE-ELECTED.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">LXXII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>  <td><a href="#c72" >THE END OF THE STORY OF MR. EMILIUS AND LADY EUSTACE.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">LXXIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td> <td><a href="#c73" >PHINEAS FINN RETURNS TO HIS DUTIES.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">LXXIV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>  <td><a href="#c74" >AT MATCHING.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">LXXV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>   <td><a href="#c75" >THE TRUMPETON FEUD IS SETTLED.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">LXXVI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>  <td><a href="#c76" >MADAME GOESLER'S LEGACY.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">LXXVII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td> <td><a href="#c77" >PHINEAS FINN'S SUCCESS.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">LXXVIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td><a href="#c78" >THE LAST VISIT TO SAULSBY.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">LXXIX.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>  <td><a href="#c79" >AT LAST&mdash;AT LAST.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right" valign="top">LXXX.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>   <td><a href="#c80" >CONCLUSION.</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>ILLUSTRATIONS</h3>
+<div class="center">
+<table class="med" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="3">
+<tr><td colspan="2" align="center">&nbsp;<br /><b>Volume I</b><br />&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#ill02">LADY CHILTERN AND HER BABY.</a> </td><td valign="top">&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="nowrap">CHAPTER II.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#ill06">"WELL, THEN, I WON'T MENTION HER NAME AGAIN."</a> </td><td valign="top">&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="nowrap">CHAPTER VI.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#ill07">ADELAIDE PALLISER.</a> </td><td valign="top">&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="nowrap">CHAPTER VII.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#ill10">THE LAIRD OF LOUGHLINTER.</a> </td><td valign="top">&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="nowrap">CHAPTER X.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#ill15">"I SUPPOSE I SHALL SHAKE IT OFF."</a> </td><td valign="top">&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="nowrap">CHAPTER XV.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#ill18">"YOU KNOW IT'S THE KEEPERS DO IT ALL."</a> </td><td valign="top">&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="nowrap">CHAPTER XVIII.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#ill19">HE SAT DOWN FOR A MOMENT TO THINK OF IT ALL.</a> </td><td valign="top">&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="nowrap">CHAPTER XIX.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#ill23">"THEN, SIR, YOU SHALL ABIDE MY WRATH."</a> </td><td valign="top">&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="nowrap">CHAPTER XXIII.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#ill25">"I WOULD; I WOULD."</a> </td><td valign="top">&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="nowrap">CHAPTER XXV.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#ill30">"LADY GLEN WILL TELL YOU THAT I CAN BE VERY OBSTINATE WHEN I PLEASE."</a> </td><td valign="top">&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="nowrap">CHAPTER XXX.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#ill31">"I SHOULD HAVE HAD SOME ENJOYMENT, I SUPPOSE."</a> </td><td valign="top">&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="nowrap">CHAPTER XXXI.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#ill38">"I MUST HAVE ONE WORD WITH YOU."</a> </td><td valign="top">&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="nowrap"><span class="nowrap">CHAPTER XXXVIII.</span></span></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align="center">&nbsp;<br /><b>Volume II</b><br />&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#ill45">"THEY SEEM TO THINK THAT MR. BONTEEN MUST BE PRIME MINISTER."</a> </td><td valign="top">&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="nowrap">CHAPTER XLV.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#ill48">"WHAT IS THE USE OF STICKING TO A MAN WHO DOES NOT WANT YOU?"</a> </td><td valign="top">&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="nowrap">CHAPTER XLVIII.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#ill49">"HE HAS BEEN MURDERED," SAID MR. LOW.</a> </td><td valign="top">&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="nowrap">CHAPTER XLIX.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#ill52">"HE MAY SOFTEN HER HEART."</a> </td><td valign="top">&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="nowrap">CHAPTER LII.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#ill55">OF COURSE IT WAS LADY LAURA.</a> </td><td valign="top">&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="nowrap">CHAPTER LV.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#ill59">LIZZIE EUSTACE.</a> </td><td valign="top">&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="nowrap">CHAPTER LIX.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#ill61">"VIOLET, THEY WILL MURDER HIM."</a> </td><td valign="top">&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="nowrap">CHAPTER LXI.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#ill66">THE BOY WHO FOUND THE BLUDGEON.</a> </td><td valign="top">&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="nowrap">CHAPTER LXVI.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#ill68">AND SHE SAT WEEPING ALONE IN HER FATHER'S HOUSE.</a> </td><td valign="top">&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="nowrap">CHAPTER LXVIII.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#ill70">LADY LAURA AT THE GLASS.</a> </td><td valign="top">&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="nowrap">CHAPTER LXX.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#ill74">"YES, THERE SHE IS."</a> </td><td valign="top">&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="nowrap">CHAPTER LXXIV.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#ill79">THEN SHE SUDDENLY TURNED UPON HIM, THROWING HER ARMS ROUND HIS NECK.</a> </td><td valign="top">&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="nowrap">CHAPTER LXXIX.</span></td></tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c1"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>VOLUME I.</h3>
+<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+<h4>TEMPTATION.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>The circumstances of the general election of 18&mdash; will be well
+remembered by all those who take an interest in the political matters
+of the country. There had been a coming in and a going out of
+Ministers previous to that,&mdash;somewhat rapid, very exciting, and, upon
+the whole, useful as showing the real feeling of the country upon
+sundry questions of public interest. Mr. Gresham had been Prime
+Minister of England, as representative of the Liberal party in
+politics. There had come to be a split among those who should have
+been his followers on the terribly vexed question of the Ballot. Then
+Mr. Daubeny for twelve months had sat upon the throne distributing
+the good things of the Crown amidst Conservative birdlings, with
+beaks wide open and craving maws, who certainly for some years
+previous had not received their share of State honours or State
+emoluments. And Mr. Daubeny was still so sitting, to the infinite
+dismay of the Liberals, every man of whom felt that his party was
+entitled by numerical strength to keep the management of the
+Government within its own hands.</p>
+
+<p>Let a man be of what side he may in politics,&mdash;unless he be much more
+of a partisan than a patriot,&mdash;he will think it well that there
+should be some equity of division in the bestowal of crumbs of
+comfort. Can even any old Whig wish that every Lord Lieutenant of a
+county should be an old Whig? Can it be good for the administration
+of the law that none but Liberal lawyers should become
+Attorney-Generals, and from thence Chief Justices or Lords of Appeal?
+Should no Conservative Peer ever represent the majesty of England in
+India, in Canada, or at St. Petersburgh? So arguing, moderate
+Liberals had been glad to give Mr. Daubeny and his merry men a
+chance. Mr. Daubeny and his merry men had not neglected the chance
+given them. Fortune favoured them, and they made their hay while the
+sun shone with an energy that had never been surpassed, improving
+upon Fortune, till their natural enemies waxed impatient. There had
+been as yet but one year of it, and the natural enemies, who had at
+first expressed themselves as glad that the turn had come, might have
+endured the period of spoliation with more equanimity. For to them,
+the Liberals, this cutting up of the Whitehall cake by the
+Conservatives was spoliation when the privilege of cutting was found
+to have so much exceeded what had been expected. Were not they, the
+Liberals, the real representatives of the people, and, therefore, did
+not the cake in truth appertain to them? Had not they given up the
+cake for a while, partly, indeed, through idleness and mismanagement,
+and quarrelling among themselves; but mainly with a feeling that a
+moderate slicing on the other side would, upon the whole, be
+advantageous? But when the cake came to be mauled like that&mdash;oh,
+heavens! So the men who had quarrelled agreed to quarrel no more, and
+it was decided that there should be an end of mismanagement and
+idleness, and that this horrid sight of the weak pretending to be
+strong, or the weak receiving the reward of strength, should be
+brought to an end. Then came a great fight, in the last agonies of
+which the cake was sliced manfully. All the world knew how the fight
+would go; but in the meantime lord-lieutenancies were arranged; very
+ancient judges retired upon pensions; vice-royal Governors were sent
+out in the last gasp of the failing battle; great places were filled
+by tens, and little places by twenties; private secretaries were
+established here and there; and the hay was still made even after the
+sun had gone down.</p>
+
+<p>In consequence of all this the circumstances of the election of 18&mdash;
+were peculiar. Mr. Daubeny had dissolved the House, not probably with
+any idea that he could thus retrieve his fortunes, but feeling that
+in doing so he was occupying the last normal position of a
+properly-fought Constitutional battle. His enemies were resolved,
+more firmly than they were resolved before, to knock him altogether
+on the head at the general election which he had himself called into
+existence. He had been disgracefully out-voted in the House of
+Commons on various subjects. On the last occasion he had gone into
+his lobby with a minority of 37, upon a motion brought forward by Mr.
+Palliser, the late Liberal Chancellor of the Exchequer, respecting
+decimal coinage. No politician, not even Mr. Palliser himself, had
+expected that he would carry his Bill in the present session. It was
+brought forward as a trial of strength; and for such a purpose
+decimal coinage was as good a subject as any other. It was Mr.
+Palliser's hobby, and he was gratified at having this further
+opportunity of ventilating it. When in power, he had not succeeded in
+carrying his measure, awed, and at last absolutely beaten, by the
+infinite difficulty encountered in arranging its details. But his
+mind was still set upon it, and it was allowed by the whole party to
+be as good as anything else for the purpose then required. The
+Conservative Government was beaten for the third or fourth time, and
+Mr. Daubeny dissolved the House.</p>
+
+<p>The whole world said that he might as well have resigned at once. It
+was already the end of July, and there must be an autumn Session with
+the new members. It was known to be impossible that he should find
+himself supported by a majority after a fresh election. He had been
+treated with manifest forbearance; the cake had been left in his
+hands for twelve months; the House was barely two years old; he had
+no "cry" with which to meet the country; the dissolution was
+factious, dishonest, and unconstitutional. So said all the Liberals,
+and it was deduced also that the Conservatives were in their hearts
+as angry as were their opponents. What was to be gained but the poor
+interval of three months? There were clever men who suggested that
+Mr. Daubeny had a scheme in his head&mdash;some sharp trick of political
+conjuring, some "hocus-pocus presto" sleight of hand, by which he
+might be able to retain power, let the elections go as they would.
+But, if so, he certainly did not make his scheme known to his own
+party.</p>
+
+<p>He had no cry with which to meet the country, nor, indeed, had the
+leaders of the Opposition. Retrenchment, army reform, navy
+excellence, Mr. Palliser's decimal coinage, and general good
+government gave to all the old-Whig moderate Liberals plenty of
+matter for speeches to their future constituents. Those who were more
+advanced could promise the Ballot, and suggest the disestablishment
+of the Church. But the Government of the day was to be turned out on
+the score of general incompetence. They were to be made to go,
+because they could not command majorities. But there ought to have
+been no dissolution, and Mr. Daubeny was regarded by his opponents,
+and indeed by very many of his followers also, with an enmity that
+was almost ferocious. A seat in Parliament, if it be for five or six
+years, is a blessing; but the blessing becomes very questionable if
+it have to be sought afresh every other Session.</p>
+
+<p>One thing was manifest to thoughtful, working, eager political
+Liberals. They must have not only a majority in the next Parliament,
+but a majority of good men&mdash;of men good and true. There must be no
+more mismanagement; no more quarrelling; no more idleness. Was it to
+be borne that an unprincipled so-called Conservative Prime Minister
+should go on slicing the cake after such a fashion as that lately
+adopted? Old bishops had even talked of resigning, and Knights of the
+Garter had seemed to die on purpose. So there was a great stir at the
+Liberal political clubs, and every good and true man was summoned to
+the battle.</p>
+
+<p>Now no Liberal soldier, as a young soldier, had been known to be more
+good and true than Mr. Finn, the Irishman, who had held office two
+years ago to the satisfaction of all his friends, and who had retired
+from office because he had found himself compelled to support a
+measure which had since been carried by those very men from whom he
+had been obliged on this account to divide himself. It had always
+been felt by his old friends that he had been, if not ill-used, at
+least very unfortunate. He had been twelve months in advance of his
+party, and had consequently been driven out into the cold. So when
+the names of good men and true were mustered, and weighed, and
+discussed, and scrutinised by some active members of the Liberal
+party in a certain very private room not far removed from our great
+seat of parliamentary warfare; and when the capabilities, and
+expediencies, and possibilities were tossed to and fro among these
+active members, it came to pass that the name of Mr. Finn was
+mentioned more than once. Mr. Phineas Finn was the gentleman's
+name&mdash;which statement may be necessary to explain the term of
+endearment which was occasionally used in speaking of him.</p>
+
+<p>"He has got some permanent place," said Mr. Ratler, who was living on
+the well-founded hope of being a Treasury Secretary under the new
+dispensation; "and of course he won't leave it."</p>
+
+<p>It must be acknowledged that Mr. Ratler, than whom no judge in such
+matters possessed more experience, had always been afraid of Phineas
+Finn.</p>
+
+<p>"He'll lave it fast enough, if you'll make it worth his while," said
+the Honourable Laurence Fitzgibbon, who also had his expectations.</p>
+
+<p>"But he married when he went away, and he can't afford it," said Mr.
+Bonteen, another keen expectant.</p>
+
+<p>"Devil a bit," said the Honourable Laurence; "or, anyways, the poor
+thing died of her first baby before it was born. Phinny hasn't an
+impidiment, no more than I have."</p>
+
+<p>"He's the best Irishman we ever got hold of," said Barrington
+Erle&mdash;"present company always excepted, Laurence."</p>
+
+<p>"Bedad, you needn't except me, Barrington. I know what a man's made
+of, and what a man can do. And I know what he can't do. I'm not bad
+at the outside skirmishing. I'm worth me salt. I say that with a just
+reliance on me own powers. But Phinny is a different sort of man.
+Phinny can stick to a desk from twelve to seven, and wish to come
+back again after dinner. He's had money left him, too, and 'd like to
+spend some of it on an English borough."</p>
+
+<p>"You never can quite trust him," said Bonteen. Now Mr. Bonteen had
+never loved Mr. Finn.</p>
+
+<p>"At any rate we'll try him again," said Barrington Erle, making a
+little note to that effect. And they did try him again.</p>
+
+<p>Phineas Finn, when last seen by the public, was departing from
+parliamentary life in London to the enjoyment of a modest place under
+Government in his own country, with something of a shattered
+ambition. After various turmoils he had achieved a competency, and
+had married the girl of his heart. But now his wife was dead, and he
+was again alone in the world. One of his friends had declared that
+money had been left to him. That was true, but the money had not been
+much. Phineas Finn had lost his father as well as his wife, and had
+inherited about four thousand pounds. He was not at this time much
+over thirty; and it must be acknowledged in regard to him that, since
+the day on which he had accepted place and retired from London, his
+very soul had sighed for the lost glories of Westminster and Downing
+Street.</p>
+
+<p>There are certain modes of life which, if once adopted, make
+contentment in any other circumstances almost an impossibility. In
+old age a man may retire without repining, though it is often beyond
+the power even of the old man to do so; but in youth, with all the
+faculties still perfect, with the body still strong, with the hopes
+still buoyant, such a change as that which had been made by Phineas
+Finn was more than he, or than most men, could bear with equanimity.
+He had revelled in the gas-light, and could not lie quiet on a sunny
+bank. To the palate accustomed to high cookery, bread and milk is
+almost painfully insipid. When Phineas Finn found himself discharging
+in Dublin the routine duties of his office,&mdash;as to which there was no
+public comment, no feeling that such duties were done in the face of
+the country,&mdash;he became sick at heart and discontented. Like the
+warhorse out at grass he remembered the sound of the battle and the
+noise of trumpets. After five years spent in the heat and full
+excitement of London society, life in Ireland was tame to him, and
+cold, and dull. He did not analyse the difference between
+metropolitan and quasi-metropolitan manners; but he found that men
+and women in Dublin were different from those to whom he had been
+accustomed in London. He had lived among lords, and the sons and
+daughters of lords; and though the official secretaries and assistant
+commissioners among whom his lot now threw him were for the most part
+clever fellows, fond of society, and perhaps more than his equals in
+the kind of conversation which he found to be prevalent, still they
+were not the same as the men he had left behind him,&mdash;men alive with
+the excitement of parliamentary life in London. When in London he had
+often told himself that he was sick of it, and that he would better
+love some country quiet life. Now Dublin was his Tibur, and the
+fickle one found that he could not be happy unless he were back again
+at Rome. When, therefore, he received the following letter from his
+friend, Barrington Erle, he neighed like the old warhorse, and
+already found himself shouting "Ha, ha," among the
+trumpets.<br />&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="jright">&mdash;&mdash; <i>Street, 9th July,
+18&mdash;</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smallcaps">My dear Finn</span>,</p>
+
+<p>Although you are not now immediately concerned in such trifling
+matters you have no doubt heard that we are all to be sent back at
+once to our constituents, and that there will be a general election
+about the end of September. We are sure that we shall have such a
+majority as we never had before; but we are determined to make it as
+strong as possible, and to get in all the good men that are to be
+had. Have you a mind to try again? After all, there is nothing like
+it.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps you may have some Irish seat in your eye for which you would
+be safe. To tell the truth we know very little of the Irish
+seats&mdash;not so much as, I think, we ought to do. But if you are not so
+lucky I would suggest Tankerville in Durham. Of course there would be
+a contest, and a little money will be wanted; but the money would not
+be much. Browborough has sat for the place now for three Parliaments,
+and seems to think it all his own. I am told that nothing could be
+easier than to turn him out. You will remember the man&mdash;a great,
+hulking, heavy, speechless fellow, who always used to sit just over
+Lord Macaw's shoulder. I have made inquiry, and I am told that he
+must walk if anybody would go down who could talk to the colliers
+every night for a week or so. It would just be the work for you. Of
+course, you should have all the assistance we could give you, and
+Molescroft would put you into the hands of an agent who wouldn't
+spend money for you. &pound;500 would do it all.</p>
+
+<p>I am very sorry to hear of your great loss, as also was Lady Laura,
+who, as you are aware, is still abroad with her father. We have all
+thought that the loneliness of your present life might perhaps make
+you willing to come back among us. I write instead of Ratler, because
+I am helping him in the Northern Counties. But you will understand
+all about that.</p>
+
+<p class="ind10">Yours, ever faithfully,</p>
+
+<p class="ind12"><span class="smallcaps">Barrington Erle</span>.</p>
+
+<p>Of course Tankerville has been dirty. Browborough has spent a fortune
+there. But I do not think that that need dishearten you. You will go
+there with clean hands. It must be understood that there shall not be
+as much as a glass of beer. I am told that the fellows won't vote for
+Browborough unless he spends money, and I fancy he will be afraid to
+do it heavily after all that has come and gone. If he does you'll
+have him out on a petition. Let us have an answer as soon as
+possible.<br />&nbsp;</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+<p>He at once resolved that he would go over and see; but, before he
+replied to Erle's letter, he walked half-a-dozen times the length of
+the pier at Kingston meditating on his answer. He had no one
+belonging to him. He had been deprived of his young bride, and left
+desolate. He could ruin no one but himself. Where could there be a
+man in all the world who had a more perfect right to play a trick
+with his own prospects? If he threw up his place and spent all his
+money, who could blame him? Nevertheless, he did tell himself that,
+when he should have thrown up his place and spent all his money,
+there would remain to him his own self to be disposed of in a manner
+that might be very awkward to him. A man owes it to his country, to
+his friends, even to his acquaintance, that he shall not be known to
+be going about wanting a dinner, with never a coin in his pocket. It
+is very well for a man to boast that he is lord of himself, and that
+having no ties he may do as he pleases with that possession. But it
+is a possession of which, unfortunately, he cannot rid himself when
+he finds that there is nothing advantageous to be done with it.
+Doubtless there is a way of riddance. There is the bare bodkin. Or a
+man may fall overboard between Holyhead and Kingston in the dark, and
+may do it in such a cunning fashion that his friends shall think that
+it was an accident. But against these modes of riddance there is a
+canon set, which some men still fear to disobey.</p>
+
+<p>The thing that he was asked to do was perilous. Standing in his
+present niche of vantage he was at least safe. And added to his
+safety there were material comforts. He had more than enough for his
+wants. His work was light; he lived among men and women with whom he
+was popular. The very fact of his past parliamentary life had caused
+him to be regarded as a man of some note among the notables of the
+Irish capital. Lord Lieutenants were gracious to him, and the wives
+of judges smiled upon him at their tables. He was encouraged to talk
+of those wars of the gods at which he had been present, and was so
+treated as to make him feel that he was somebody in the world of
+Dublin. Now he was invited to give all this up; and for what?</p>
+
+<p>He answered that question to himself with enthusiastic eloquence. The
+reward offered to him was the thing which in all the world he liked
+best. It was suggested to him that he should again have within his
+reach that parliamentary renown which had once been the very breath
+of his nostrils. We all know those arguments and quotations,
+antagonistic to prudence, with which a man fortifies himself in
+rashness. "None but the brave deserve the fair." "Where there's a
+will there's a way." "Nothing venture nothing have." "The sword is to
+him who can use it." "Fortune favours the bold." But on the other
+side there is just as much to be said. "A bird in the hand is worth
+two in the bush." "Look before you leap." "Thrust not out your hand
+further than you can draw it back again." All which maxims of life
+Phineas Finn revolved within his own heart, if not carefully, at
+least frequently, as he walked up and down the long pier of Kingston
+Harbour.</p>
+
+<p>But what matter such revolvings? A man placed as was our Phineas
+always does that which most pleases him at the moment, being but poor
+at argument if he cannot carry the weight to that side which best
+satisfies his own feelings. Had not his success been very great when
+he before made the attempt? Was he not well aware at every moment of
+his life that, after having so thoroughly learned his lesson in
+London, he was throwing away his hours amidst his present pursuits in
+Dublin? Did he not owe himself to his country? And then, again, what
+might not London do for him? Men who had begun as he begun had lived
+to rule over Cabinets, and to sway the Empire. He had been happy for
+a short twelvemonth with his young bride,&mdash;for a short
+twelvemonth,&mdash;and then she had been taken from him. Had she been
+spared to him he would never have longed for more than Fate had given
+him. He would never have sighed again for the glories of Westminster
+had his Mary not gone from him. Now he was alone in the world; and,
+though he could look forward to possible and not improbable events
+which would make that future disposition of himself a most difficult
+question for him, still he would dare to try.</p>
+
+<p>As the first result of Erle's letter Phineas was over in London early
+in August. If he went on with this matter, he must, of course, resign
+the office for holding which he was now paid a thousand a year. He
+could retain that as long as he chose to earn the money, but the
+earning of it would not be compatible with a seat in Parliament. He
+had a few thousand pounds with which he could pay for the contest at
+Tankerville, for the consequent petition which had been so generously
+suggested to him, and maintain himself in London for a session or two
+should he be so fortunate as to carry his election. Then he would be
+penniless, with the world before him as a closed oyster to be again
+opened, and he knew,&mdash;no one better,&mdash;that this oyster becomes
+harder and harder in the opening as the man who has to open it becomes
+older. It is an oyster that will close to again with a snap, after
+you have got your knife well into it, if you withdraw your point but
+for a moment. He had had a rough tussle with the oyster already, and
+had reached the fish within the shell. Nevertheless, the oyster which
+he had got was not the oyster which he wanted. So he told himself
+now, and here had come to him the chance of trying again.</p>
+
+<p>Early in August he went over to England, saw Mr. Molescroft, and
+made his first visit to Tankerville. He did not like the look of
+Tankerville; but nevertheless he resigned his place before the month
+was over. That was the one great step, or rather the leap in the
+dark,&mdash;and that he took. Things had been so arranged that the
+election at Tankerville was to take place on the 20th of October.
+When the dissolution had been notified to all the world by Mr.
+Daubeny an earlier day was suggested; but Mr. Daubeny saw reasons for
+postponing it for a fortnight. Mr. Daubeny's enemies were again very
+ferocious. It was all a trick. Mr. Daubeny had no right to continue
+Prime Minister a day after the decided expression of opinion as to
+unfitness which had been pronounced by the House of Commons. Men were
+waxing very wrath. Nevertheless, so much power remained in Mr.
+Daubeny's hand, and the election was delayed. That for Tankerville
+would not be held till the 20th of October. The whole House could not
+be chosen till the end of the month,&mdash;hardly by that time&mdash;and
+yet there was to be an autumn Session. The Ratlers and Bonteens were at
+any rate clear about the autumn Session. It was absolutely impossible
+that Mr. Daubeny should be allowed to remain in power over Christmas,
+and up to February.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Molescroft, whom Phineas saw in London, was not a comfortable
+counsellor. "So you are going down to Tankerville?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"They seem to think I might as well try."</p>
+
+<p>"Quite right;&mdash;quite right. Somebody ought to try it, no doubt.
+It would be a disgrace to the whole party if Browborough were allowed to
+walk over. There isn't a borough in England more sure to return a
+Liberal than Tankerville if left to itself. And yet that lump of a
+legislator has sat there as a Tory for the last dozen years by dint
+of money and brass."</p>
+
+<p>"You think we can unseat him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't say that. He hasn't come to the end of his money, and as to
+his brass that is positively without end."</p>
+
+<p>"But surely he'll have some fear of consequences after what has been
+done?"</p>
+
+<p>"None in the least. What has been done? Can you name a single
+Parliamentary aspirant who has been made to suffer?"</p>
+
+<p>"They have suffered in character," said Phineas. "I should not like
+to have the things said of me that have been said of them."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know a man of them who stands in a worse position among his
+own friends than he occupied before. And men of that sort don't want
+a good position among their enemies. They know they're safe. When the
+seat is in dispute everybody is savage enough; but when it is merely
+a question of punishing a man, what is the use of being savage? Who
+knows whose turn it may be next?"</p>
+
+<p>"He'll play the old game, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course he'll play the old game," said Mr. Molescroft. "He doesn't
+know any other game. All the purists in England wouldn't teach him to
+think that a poor man ought not to sell his vote, and that a rich man
+oughtn't to buy it. You mean to go in for purity?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly I do."</p>
+
+<p>"Browborough will think just as badly of you as you will of him.
+He'll hate you because he'll think you are trying to rob him of what
+he has honestly bought; but he'll hate you quite as much because you
+try to rob the borough. He'd tell you if you asked him that he
+doesn't want his seat for nothing, any more than he wants his house
+or his carriage-horses for nothing. To him you'll be a mean, low
+interloper. But you won't care about that."</p>
+
+<p>"Not in the least, if I can get the seat."</p>
+
+<p>"But I'm afraid you won't. He will be elected. You'll petition. He'll
+lose his seat. There will be a commission. And then the borough will
+be disfranchised. It's a fine career, but expensive; and then there
+is no reward beyond the self-satisfaction arising from a good action.
+However, Ruddles will do the best he can for you, and it certainly is
+possible that you may creep through." This was very disheartening,
+but Barrington Erle assured our hero that such was Mr. Molescroft's
+usual way with candidates, and that it really meant little or
+nothing. At any rate, Phineas Finn was pledged to stand.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c2"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+<h4>HARRINGTON HALL.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>Phineas, on his first arrival in London, found a few of his old
+friends, men who were still delayed by business though the Session
+was over. He arrived on the 10th of August, which may be considered
+as the great day of the annual exodus, and he remembered how he, too,
+in former times had gone to Scotland to shoot grouse, and what he had
+done there besides shooting. He had been a welcome guest at
+Loughlinter, the magnificent seat of Mr. Kennedy, and indeed there
+had been that between him and Mr. Kennedy which ought to make him a
+welcome guest there still. But of Mr. Kennedy he had heard nothing
+directly since he had left London. From Mr. Kennedy's wife, Lady
+Laura, who had been his great friend, he had heard occasionally; but
+she was separated from her husband, and was living abroad with her
+father, the Earl of Brentford. Has it not been written in a former
+book how this Lady Laura had been unhappy in her marriage, having
+wedded herself to a man whom she had never loved, because he was rich
+and powerful, and how this very Phineas had asked her to be his bride
+after she had accepted the rich man's hand? Thence had come great
+trouble, but nevertheless there had been that between Mr. Kennedy and
+our hero which made Phineas feel that he ought still to be welcomed
+as a guest should he show himself at the door of Loughlinter Castle.
+The idea came upon him simply because he found that almost every man
+for whom he inquired had just started, or was just starting, for the
+North; and he would have liked to go where others went. He asked a
+few questions as to Mr. Kennedy from Barrington Erle and others, who
+had known him, and was told that the man now lived quite alone. He
+still kept his seat in Parliament, but had hardly appeared during the
+last Session, and it was thought that he would not come forward
+again. Of his life in the country nothing was known. "No one fishes
+his rivers, or shoots his moors, as far as I can learn," said
+Barrington Erle. "I suppose he looks after the sheep and says his
+prayers, and keeps his money together."</p>
+
+<p>"And there has been no attempt at a reconciliation?" Phineas asked.</p>
+
+<p>"She went abroad to escape his attempts, and remains there in order
+that she may be safe. Of all hatreds that the world produces, a
+wife's hatred for her husband, when she does hate him, is the
+strongest."</p>
+
+<p>In September Finn was back in Ireland, and about the end of that
+month he made his first visit to Tankerville. He remained there for
+three or four days, and was terribly disgusted while staying at the
+"Yellow" inn, to find that the people of the town would treat him as
+though he were rolling in wealth. He was soon tired of Tankerville,
+and as he could do nothing further, on the spot, till the time for
+canvassing should come on, about ten days previous to the election,
+he returned to London, somewhat at a loss to know how to bestir
+himself. But in London he received a letter from another old friend,
+which decided <span class="nowrap">him:&mdash;</span></p>
+
+<p>"My dear Mr. Finn," said the letter,<br />&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="noindent"> of course you know that Oswald is
+now master of the Brake hounds. Upon my word, I think it is the place
+in the world for which he is most fit. He is a great martinet in the
+field, and works at it as though it were for his bread. We have been
+here looking after the kennels and getting up the horses since the
+beginning of August, and have been cub-hunting ever so long. Oswald
+wants to know whether you won't come down to him till the election
+begins in earnest.</p>
+
+<p>We were so glad to hear that you were going to appear again. I have
+always known that it would be so. I have told Oswald scores of times
+that I was sure you would never be happy out of Parliament, and that
+your real home must be somewhere near the Treasury Chambers. You
+can't alter a man's nature. Oswald was born to be a master of hounds,
+and you were born to be a Secretary of State. He works the hardest
+and gets the least pay for it; but then, as he says, he does not run
+so great a risk of being turned out.</p>
+
+<p>We haven't much of a house, but we have plenty of room for you. As
+for the house, it was a matter of course, whether good or bad. It
+goes with the kennels, and I should as little think of having a
+choice as though I were one of the horses. We have very good stables,
+and such a stud! I can't tell you how many there are. In October it
+seems as though their name were legion. In March there is never
+anything for any body to ride on. I generally find then that mine are
+taken for the whips. Do come and take advantage of the flush. I can't
+tell you how glad we shall be to see you. Oswald ought to have
+written himself, but he says&mdash;; I won't tell you what he says. We
+shall take no refusal. You can have nothing to do before you are
+wanted at Tankerville.</p>
+
+<p>I was so sorry to hear of your great loss. I hardly know whether to
+mention it or to be silent in writing. If you were here of course I
+should speak of her. And I would rather renew your grief for a time
+than allow you to think that I am indifferent. Pray come to us.</p>
+
+<p class="ind10">Yours ever most sincerely,</p>
+
+<p class="ind12"><span class="smallcaps">Violet Chiltern</span>.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">Harrington Hall, Wednesday.<br />&nbsp;</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+<p>Phineas Finn at once made up his mind that he would go to Harrington
+Hall. There was the prospect in this of an immediate return to some
+of the most charming pleasures of the old life, which was very
+grateful to him. It pleased him much that he should have been so
+thought of by this lady,&mdash;that she should have sought him out at
+once, at the moment of his reappearance. That she would have
+remembered him, he was quite sure, and that her husband, Lord
+Chiltern, should remember him also, was beyond a doubt. There had
+been passages in their joint lives which people cannot forget. But it
+might so well have been the case that they should not have cared to
+renew their acquaintance with him. As it was, they must have made
+close inquiry, and had sought him at the first day of his
+reappearance. The letter had reached him through the hands of
+Barrington Erle, who was a cousin of Lord Chiltern, and was at once
+answered as follows:&mdash;<br />&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="jright">Fowler's Hotel, Jermyn Street,<br />
+October 1st.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smallcaps">My dear Lady
+Chiltern</span>,</p>
+
+<p>I cannot tell you how much pleasure the very sight of your
+handwriting gave me. Yes, here I am again, trying my hand at the old
+game. They say that you can never cure a gambler or a politician;
+and, though I had very much to make me happy till that great blow
+came upon me, I believe that it is so. I am uneasy till I can see
+once more the Speaker's wig, and hear bitter things said of this
+"right honourable gentleman," and of that noble friend. I want to be
+once more in the midst of it; and as I have been left singularly
+desolate in the world, without a tie by which I am bound to aught but
+an honourable mode of living, I have determined to run the risk, and
+have thrown up the place which I held under Government. I am to stand
+for Tankerville, as you have heard, and I am told by those to whose
+tender mercies I have been confided by B. E. that I have not a chance
+of success.</p>
+
+<p>Your invitation is so tempting that I cannot refuse it. As you say, I
+have nothing to do till the play begins. I have issued my address,
+and must leave my name and my fame to be discussed by the
+Tankervillians till I make my appearance among them on the 10th of
+this month. Of course, I had heard that Chiltern has the Brake, and I
+have heard also that he is doing it uncommonly well. Tell him that I
+have hardly seen a hound since the memorable day on which I pulled
+him out from under his horse in the brook at Wissindine. I don't know
+whether I can ride a yard now. I will get to you on the 4th, and will
+remain if you will keep me till the 9th. If Chiltern can put me up on
+anything a little quieter than Bonebreaker, I'll go out steadily, and
+see how he does his cubbing. I may, perhaps, be justified in opining
+that Bonebreaker has before this left the establishment. If so I may,
+perhaps, find myself up to a little very light work.</p>
+
+<p>Remember me very kindly to him. Does he make a good nurse with the
+baby?</p>
+
+<p class="ind10">Yours, always faithfully,</p>
+
+<p class="ind14"><span class="smallcaps">Phineas Finn</span>.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">I cannot tell you with what pleasure I look
+forward to seeing you both again.<br />&nbsp;</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+<p>The next few days went very heavily with him. There had, indeed, been
+no real reason why he should not have gone to Harrington Hall at
+once, except that he did not wish to seem to be utterly homeless. And
+yet were he there, with his old friends, he would not scruple for a
+moment in owning that such was the case. He had fixed his day,
+however, and did remain in London till the 4th. Barrington Erle and
+Mr. Ratler he saw occasionally, for they were kept in town on the
+affairs of the election. The one was generally full of hope; but the
+other was no better than a Job's comforter. "I wouldn't advise you to
+expect too much at Tankerville, you know," said Mr. Ratler.</p>
+
+<p>"By no means," said Phineas, who had always disliked Ratler, and had
+known himself to be disliked in return. "I expect nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"Browborough understands such a place as Tankerville so well! He has
+been at it all his life. Money is no object to him, and he doesn't
+care a straw what anybody says of him. I don't think it's possible to
+unseat him."</p>
+
+<p>"We'll try at least," said Phineas, upon whom, however, such remarks
+as these cast a gloom which he could not succeed in shaking off,
+though he could summon vigour sufficient to save him from showing the
+gloom. He knew very well that comfortable words would be spoken to
+him at Harrington Hall, and that then the gloom would go. The
+comforting words of his friends would mean quite as little as the
+discourtesies of Mr. Ratler. He understood that thoroughly, and felt
+that he ought to hold a stronger control over his own impulses. He
+must take the thing as it would come, and neither the flatterings of
+friends nor the threatenings of enemies could alter it; but he knew
+his own weakness, and confessed to himself that another week of life
+by himself at Fowler's Hotel, refreshed by occasional interviews with
+Mr. Ratler, would make him altogether unfit for the coming contest at
+Tankerville.</p>
+
+<p>He reached Harrington Hall in the afternoon about four, and found
+Lady Chiltern alone. As soon as he saw her he told himself that she
+was not in the least altered since he had last been with her, and yet
+during the period she had undergone that great change which turns a
+girl into a mother. She had the baby with her when he came into the
+room, and at once greeted him as an old friend,&mdash;as a loved and
+loving friend who was to be made free at once to all the inmost
+privileges of real friendship, which are given to and are desired by
+so few. "Yes, here we are again," said Lady Chiltern, "settled, as
+far as I suppose we ever shall be settled, for ever so many years to
+come. The place belongs to old Lord Gunthorpe, I fancy, but really I
+hardly know. I do know that we should give it up at once if we gave
+up the hounds, and that we can't be turned out as long as we have
+them. Doesn't it seem odd to have to depend on a lot of yelping
+dogs?"</p>
+
+
+<div class="center"><a id="ill02"></a>
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4px">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/ill02.jpg">
+      <img src="images/ill02-t.jpg" height="600"
+      alt="LADY CHILTERN AND HER BABY." /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption"><span class="smallcaps">Lady
+      Chiltern and her baby.</span><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/ill02.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>"Only that the yelping dogs depend on you."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a kind of give and take, I suppose, like other things in the
+world. Of course, he's a beautiful baby. I had him in just that you
+might see him. I show Baby, and Oswald shows the hounds. We've
+nothing else to interest anybody. But nurse shall take him now. Come
+out and have a turn in the shrubbery before Oswald comes back.
+They're gone to-day as far as Trumpeton Wood, out of which no fox was
+ever known to break, and they won't be home till six."</p>
+
+<p>"Who are 'they'?" asked Phineas, as he took his hat.</p>
+
+<p>"The 'they' is only Adelaide Palliser. I don't think you ever knew
+her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never. Is she anything to the other Pallisers?"</p>
+
+<p>"She is everything to them all; niece and grand-niece, and first
+cousin and grand-daughter. Her father was the fourth brother, and as
+she was one of six her share of the family wealth is small. Those
+Pallisers are very peculiar, and I doubt whether she ever saw the old
+duke. She has no father or mother, and lives when she is at home with
+a married sister, about seventy years older than herself, Mrs.
+Attenbury."</p>
+
+<p>"I remember Mrs. Attenbury."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you do. Who does not? Adelaide was a child then, I
+suppose. Though I don't know why she should have been, as she calls
+herself one-and-twenty now. You'll think her pretty. I don't. But she
+is my great new friend, and I like her immensely. She rides to
+hounds, and talks Italian, and writes for the <i>Times</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Writes for the <i>Times</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"I won't swear that she does, but she could. There's only one other
+thing about her. She's engaged to be married."</p>
+
+<p>"To whom?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know that I shall answer that question, and indeed I'm not
+sure that she is engaged. But there's a man dying for her."</p>
+
+<p>"You must know, if she's your friend."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I know; but there are ever so many ins and outs, and I
+ought not to have said a word about it. I shouldn't have done so to
+any one but you. And now we'll go in and have some tea, and go to
+bed."</p>
+
+<p>"Go to bed!"</p>
+
+<p>"We always go to bed here before dinner on hunting days. When the
+cubbing began Oswald used to be up at three."</p>
+
+<p>"He doesn't get up at three now."</p>
+
+<p>"Nevertheless we go to bed. You needn't if you don't like, and I'll
+stay with you if you choose till you dress for dinner. I did know so
+well that you'd come back to London, Mr. Finn. You are not a bit
+altered."</p>
+
+<p>"I feel to be changed in everything."</p>
+
+<p>"Why should you be altered? It's only two years. I am altered because
+of Baby. That does change a woman. Of course I'm thinking always of
+what he will do in the world; whether he'll be a master of hounds or
+a Cabinet Minister or a great farmer;&mdash;or perhaps a miserable
+spendthrift, who will let everything that his grandfathers and
+grandmothers have done for him go to the dogs."</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you think of anything so wretched, Lady Chiltern?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who can help thinking? Men do do so. It seems to me that that is the
+line of most young men who come to their property early. Why should I
+dare to think that my boy should be better than others? But I do; and
+I fancy that he will be a great statesman. After all, Mr. Finn, that
+is the best thing that a man can be, unless it is given him to be a
+saint and a martyr and all that kind of thing,&mdash;which is not just
+what a mother looks for."</p>
+
+<p>"That would only be better than the spendthrift and gambler."</p>
+
+<p>"Hardly better you'll say, perhaps. How odd that is! We all profess
+to believe when we're told that this world should be used merely as a
+preparation for the next; and yet there is something so cold and
+comfortless in the theory that we do not relish the prospect even for
+our children. I fancy your people have more real belief in it than
+ours."</p>
+
+<p>Now Phineas Finn was a Roman Catholic. But the discussion was stopped
+by the noise of an arrival in the hall.</p>
+
+<p>"There they are," said Lady Chiltern; "Oswald never comes in without
+a sound of trumpets to make him audible throughout the house." Then
+she went to meet her husband, and Phineas followed her out of the
+drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p>Lord Chiltern was as glad to see him as she had been, and in a very
+few minutes he found himself quite at home. In the hall he was
+introduced to Miss Palliser, but he was hardly able to see her as she
+stood there a moment in her hat and habit. There was ever so much
+said about the day's work. The earths had not been properly stopped,
+and Lord Chiltern had been very angry, and the owner of Trumpeton
+Wood, who was a great duke, had been much abused, and things had not
+gone altogether straight.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord Chiltern was furious," said Miss Palliser, laughing, "and
+therefore, of course, I became furious too, and swore that it was an
+awful shame. Then they all swore that it was an awful shame, and
+everybody was furious. And you might hear one man saying to another
+all day long, 'By George, this is too bad.' But I never could quite
+make out what was amiss, and I'm sure the men didn't know."</p>
+
+<p>"What was it, Oswald?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind now. One doesn't go to Trumpeton Wood expecting to be
+happy there. I've half a mind to swear I'll never draw it again."</p>
+
+<p>"I've been asking him what was the matter all the way home," said
+Miss Palliser, "but I don't think he knows himself."</p>
+
+<p>"Come upstairs, Phineas, and I'll show you your room," said Lord
+Chiltern. "It's not quite as comfortable as the old 'Bull,' but we
+make it do."</p>
+
+<p>Phineas, when he was alone, could not help standing for awhile with
+his back to the fire thinking of it all. He did already feel himself
+to be at home in that house, and his doing so was a contradiction to
+all the wisdom which he had been endeavouring to teach himself for
+the last two years. He had told himself over and over again that that
+life which he had lived in London had been, if not a dream, at any
+rate not more significant than a parenthesis in his days, which, as
+of course it had no bearing on those which had gone before, so
+neither would it influence those which were to follow. The dear
+friends of that period of feverish success would for the future be to
+him as&mdash;nothing. That was the lesson of wisdom which he had
+endeavoured to teach himself, and the facts of the last two years had
+seemed to show that the lesson was a true lesson. He had disappeared
+from among his former companions, and had heard almost nothing from
+them. From neither Lord Chiltern or his wife had he received any
+tidings. He had expected to receive none,&mdash;had known that in the
+common course of things none was to be expected. There were many
+others with whom he had been intimate&mdash;Barrington Erle, Laurence
+Fitzgibbon, Mr. Monk, a politician who had been in the Cabinet, and
+in consequence of whose political teaching he, Phineas Finn, had
+banished himself from the political world;&mdash;from none of these had he
+received a line till there came that letter summoning him back to the
+battle. There had never been a time during his late life in Dublin at
+which he had complained to himself that on this account his former
+friends had forgotten him. If they had not written to him, neither
+had he written to them. But on his first arrival in England he had,
+in the sadness of his solitude, told himself that he was forgotten.
+There would be no return, so he feared, of those pleasant intimacies
+which he now remembered so well, and which, as he remembered them,
+were so much more replete with unalloyed delights than they had ever
+been in their existing realities. And yet here he was, a welcome
+guest in Lord Chiltern's house, a welcome guest in Lady Chiltern's
+drawing-room, and quite as much at home with them as ever he had been
+in the old days.</p>
+
+<p>Who is there that can write letters to all his friends, or would not
+find it dreary work to do so even in regard to those whom he really
+loves? When there is something palpable to be said, what a blessing
+is the penny post! To one's wife, to one's child, one's mistress,
+one's steward if there be a steward; one's gamekeeper, if there be
+shooting forward; one's groom, if there be hunting; one's publisher,
+if there be a volume ready or money needed; or one's tailor
+occasionally, if a coat be required, a man is able to write. But what
+has a man to say to his friend,&mdash;or, for that matter, what has a
+woman? A Horace Walpole may write to a Mr. Mann about all things
+under the sun, London gossip or transcendental philosophy, and if the
+Horace Walpole of the occasion can write well and will labour
+diligently at that vocation, his letters may be worth reading by his
+Mr. Mann, and by others; but, for the maintenance of love and
+friendship, continued correspondence between distant friends is
+naught. Distance in time and place, but especially in time, will
+diminish friendship. It is a rule of nature that it should be so, and
+thus the friendships which a man most fosters are those which he can
+best enjoy. If your friend leave you, and seek a residence in
+Patagonia, make a niche for him in your memory, and keep him there as
+warm as you may. Perchance he may return from Patagonia and the old
+joys may be repeated. But never think that those joys can be
+maintained by the assistance of ocean postage, let it be at never so
+cheap a rate. Phineas Finn had not thought this matter out very
+carefully, and now, after two years of absence, he was surprised to
+find that he was still had in remembrance by those who had never
+troubled themselves to write to him a line during his absence.</p>
+
+<p>When he went down into the drawing-room he was surprised to find
+another old friend sitting there alone. "Mr. Finn," said the old
+lady, "I hope I see you quite well. I am glad to meet you again. You
+find my niece much changed, I dare say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not in the least, Lady Baldock," said Phineas, seizing the proffered
+hand of the dowager. In that hour of conversation, which they had had
+together, Lady Chiltern had said not a word to Phineas of her aunt,
+and now he felt himself to be almost discomposed by the meeting. "Is
+your daughter here, Lady Baldock?"</p>
+
+<p>Lady Baldock shook her head solemnly and sadly. "Do not speak of her,
+Mr. Finn. It is too sad! We never mention her name now." Phineas
+looked as sad as he knew how to look, but he said nothing. The
+lamentation of the mother did not seem to imply that the daughter was
+dead; and, from his remembrance of Augusta Boreham, he would have
+thought her to be the last woman in the world to run away with the
+coachman. At the moment there did not seem to be any other sufficient
+cause for so melancholy a wagging of that venerable head. He had been
+told to say nothing, and he could ask no questions; but Lady Baldock
+did not choose that he should be left to imagine things more terrible
+than the truth. "She is lost to us for ever, Mr. Finn."</p>
+
+<p>"How very sad."</p>
+
+<p>"Sad, indeed! We don't know how she took it."</p>
+
+<p>"Took what, Lady Baldock?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure it was nothing that she ever saw at home. If there is a
+thing I'm true to, it is the Protestant Established Church of
+England. Some nasty, low, lying, wheedling priest got hold of her,
+and now she's a nun, and calls herself&mdash;Sister Veronica John!" Lady
+Baldock threw great strength and unction into her description of the
+priest; but as soon as she had told her story a sudden thought struck
+her. "Oh, laws! I quite forgot. I beg your pardon, Mr. Finn; but
+you're one of them!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a nun, Lady Baldock." At that moment the door was opened, and
+Lord Chiltern came in, to the great relief of his wife's aunt.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c3"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3>
+<h4>GERARD MAULE.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>"Why didn't you tell me?" said Phineas that night after Lady Baldock
+was gone to bed. The two men had taken off their dress coats, and had
+put on smoking caps,&mdash;Lord Chiltern, indeed, having clothed himself
+in a wonderful Chinese dressing-gown, and they were sitting round the
+fire in the smoking-room; but though they were thus employed and thus
+dressed the two younger ladies were still with them.</p>
+
+<p>"How could I tell you everything in two minutes?" said Lady Chiltern.</p>
+
+<p>"I'd have given a guinea to have heard her," said Lord Chiltern,
+getting up and rubbing his hands as he walked about the room. "Can't
+you fancy all that she'd say, and then her horror when she'd remember
+that Phineas was a Papist himself?"</p>
+
+<p>"But what made Miss Boreham turn nun?"</p>
+
+<p>"I fancy she found the penances lighter than they were at home," said
+the lord. "They couldn't well be heavier."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear old aunt!"</p>
+
+<p>"Does she never go to see Sister Veronica?" asked Miss Palliser.</p>
+
+<p>"She has been once," said Lady Chiltern.</p>
+
+<p>"And fumigated herself first so as to escape infection," said the
+husband. "You should hear Gerard Maule imitate her when she talks
+about the filthy priest."</p>
+
+<p>"And who is Gerard Maule?" Then Lady Chiltern looked at her friend,
+and Phineas was almost sure that Gerard Maule was the man who was
+dying for Adelaide Palliser.</p>
+
+<p>"He's a great ally of mine," said Lady Chiltern.</p>
+
+<p>"He's a young fellow who thinks he can ride to hounds," said Lord
+Chiltern, "and who very often does succeed in riding over them."</p>
+
+<p>"That's not fair, Lord Chiltern," said Miss Palliser.</p>
+
+<p>"Just my idea of it," replied the Master. "I don't think it's at all
+fair. Because a man has plenty of horses, and nothing else to do, and
+rides twelve stone, and doesn't care how he's sworn at, he's always
+to be over the scent, and spoil every one's sport. I don't call it at
+all fair."</p>
+
+<p>"He's a very nice fellow, and a great friend of Oswald's. He is to be
+here to-morrow, and you'll like him very much. Won't he, Adelaide?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know Mr. Finn's tastes quite so well as you do, Violet. But
+Mr. Maule is so harmless that no one can dislike him very much."</p>
+
+<p>"As for being harmless, I'm not so sure," said Lady Chiltern. After
+that they all went to bed.</p>
+
+<p>Phineas remained at Harrington Hall till the ninth, on which day he
+went to London so that he might be at Tankerville on the tenth. He
+rode Lord Chiltern's horses, and took an interest in the hounds, and
+nursed the baby. "Now tell me what you think of Gerard Maule," Lady
+Chiltern asked him, the day before he started.</p>
+
+<p>"I presume that he is the young man that is dying for Miss Palliser."</p>
+
+<p>"You may answer my question, Mr. Finn, without making any such
+suggestion."</p>
+
+<p>"Not discreetly. Of course if he is to be made happy, I am bound at
+the present moment to say all good things of him. At such a crisis it
+would be wicked to tinge Miss Palliser's hopes with any hue less warm
+than rose colour."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you suppose that I tell everything that is said to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all; but opinions do ooze out. I take him to be a good sort
+of a fellow; but why doesn't he talk a bit more?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's just it."</p>
+
+<p>"And why does he pretend to do nothing? When he's out he rides hard;
+but at other times there's a ha-ha, lack a-daisical air about him
+which I hate. Why men assume it I never could understand. It can
+recommend them to nobody. A man can't suppose that he'll gain
+anything by pretending that he never reads, and never thinks, and
+never does anything, and never speaks, and doesn't care what he has
+for dinner, and, upon the whole, would just as soon lie in bed all
+day as get up. It isn't that he is really idle. He rides and eats,
+and does get up, and I daresay talks and thinks. It's simply a poor
+affectation."</p>
+
+<p>"That's your rose colour, is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"You've promised secrecy, Lady Chiltern. I suppose he's well off?"</p>
+
+<p>"He is an eldest son. The property is not large, and I'm afraid
+there's something wrong about it."</p>
+
+<p>"He has no profession?"</p>
+
+<p>"None at all. He has an allowance of &pound;800 a year, which in some sort
+of fashion is independent of his father. He has nothing on earth to
+do. Adelaide's whole fortune is four thousand pounds. If they were to
+marry what would become of them?"</p>
+
+<p>"That wouldn't be enough to live on?"</p>
+
+<p>"It ought to be enough,&mdash;as he must, I suppose, have the property
+some day,&mdash;if only he had something to do. What sort of a life would
+he lead?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose he couldn't become a Master of Hounds?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is ill-natured, Mr. Finn."</p>
+
+<p>"I did not mean it so. I did not indeed. You must know that I did
+not."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course Oswald had nothing to do, and, of course, there was a time
+when I wished that he should take to Parliament. No one knew all that
+better than you did. But he was very different from Mr. Maule."</p>
+
+<p>"Very different, indeed."</p>
+
+<p>"Oswald is a man full of energy, and with no touch of that
+affectation which you described. As it is, he does work hard. No man
+works harder. The learned people say that you should produce
+something, and I don't suppose that he produces much. But somebody
+must keep hounds, and nobody could do it better than he does."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't think that I meant to blame him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hope not."</p>
+
+<p>"Are he and his father on good terms now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes. His father wishes him to go to Saulsby, but he won't do
+that. He hates Saulsby."</p>
+
+<p>Saulsby was the country seat of the Earl of Brentford, the name of
+the property which must some day belong to this Lord Chiltern, and
+Phineas, as he heard this, remembered former days in which he had
+ridden about Saulsby Woods, and had thought them to be anything but
+hateful. "Is Saulsby shut up?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Altogether, and so is the house in Portman Square. There never was
+anything more sad or desolate. You would find him altered, Mr. Finn.
+He is quite an old man now. He was here in the spring, for a week or
+two;&mdash;in England, that is; but he stayed at an hotel in London. He
+and Laura live at Dresden now, and a very sad time they must have."</p>
+
+<p>"Does she write?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; and keeps up all her interest about politics. I have already
+told her that you are to stand for Tankerville. No one,&mdash;no other
+human being in the world will be so interested for you as she is. If
+any friend ever felt an interest almost selfish for a friend's
+welfare, she will feel such an interest for you. If you were to
+succeed it would give her a hope in life." Phineas sat silent,
+drinking in the words that were said to him. Though they were true,
+or at least meant to be true, they were full of flattery. Why should
+this woman of whom they were speaking love him so dearly? She was
+nothing to him. She was highly born, greatly gifted, wealthy, and a
+married woman, whose character, as he well knew, was beyond the taint
+of suspicion, though she had been driven by the hard sullenness of
+her husband to refuse to live under his roof. Phineas Finn and Lady
+Laura Kennedy had not seen each other for two years, and when they
+had parted, though they had lived as friends, there had been no signs
+of still living friendship. True, indeed, she had written to him, but
+her letters had been short and cold, merely detailing certain
+circumstances of her outward life. Now he was told by this woman's
+dearest friend that his welfare was closer to her heart than any
+other interest!</p>
+
+<p>"I daresay you often think of her?" said Lady Chiltern.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, I do."</p>
+
+<p>"What virtues she used to ascribe to you! What sins she forgave you!
+How hard she fought for you! Now, though she can fight no more, she
+does not think of it all the less."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Lady Laura!"</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Laura, indeed! When one sees such shipwreck it makes a woman
+doubt whether she ought to marry at all."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet he was a good man. She always said so."</p>
+
+<p>"Men are so seldom really good. They are so little sympathetic. What
+man thinks of changing himself so as to suit his wife? And yet men
+expect that women shall put on altogether new characters when they
+are married, and girls think that they can do so. Look at this Mr.
+Maule, who is really over head and ears in love with Adelaide
+Palliser. She is full of hope and energy. He has none. And yet he has
+the effrontery to suppose that she will adapt herself to his way of
+living if he marries her."</p>
+
+<p>"Then they are to be married?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose it will come to that. It always does if the man is in
+earnest. Girls will accept men simply because they think it
+ill-natured to return the compliment of an offer with a hearty 'No.'"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose she likes him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course she does. A girl almost always likes a man who is in love
+with her,&mdash;unless indeed she positively dislikes him. But why should
+she like him? He is good-looking, is a gentleman, and not a fool. Is
+that enough to make such a girl as Adelaide Palliser think a man
+divine?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is nobody to be accepted who is not credited with divinity?"</p>
+
+<p>"The man should be a demigod, at least in respect to some part of his
+character. I can find nothing even demi-divine about Mr. Maule."</p>
+
+<p>"That's because you are not in love with him, Lady Chiltern."</p>
+
+<p>Six or seven very pleasant days Phineas Finn spent at Harrington
+Hall, and then he started alone, and very lonely, for Tankerville.
+But he admitted to himself that the pleasure which he had received
+during his visit was quite sufficient to qualify him in running any
+risk in an attempt to return to the kind of life which he had
+formerly led. But if he should fail at Tankerville what would become
+of him then?</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c4"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER IV.</h3>
+<h4>TANKERVILLE.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>The great Mr. Molescroft himself came over to Tankerville for the
+purpose of introducing our hero to the electors and to Mr. Ruddles,
+the local Liberal agent, who was to be employed. They met at the
+Lambton Arms, and there Phineas established himself, knowing well
+that he had before him ten days of unmitigated vexation and misery.
+Tankerville was a dirty, prosperous, ungainly town, which seemed to
+exude coal-dust or coal-mud at every pore. It was so well recognised
+as being dirty that people did not expect to meet each other with
+clean hands and faces. Linen was never white at Tankerville, and even
+ladies who sat in drawing-rooms were accustomed to the feel and taste
+and appearance of soot in all their daintiest recesses. We hear that
+at Oil City the flavour of petroleum is hardly considered to be
+disagreeable, and so it was with the flavour of coal at Tankerville.
+And we know that at Oil City the flavour of petroleum must not be
+openly declared to be objectionable, and so it was with coal at
+Tankerville. At Tankerville coal was much loved, and was not thought
+to be dirty. Mr. Ruddles was very much begrimed himself, and some of
+the leading Liberal electors, upon whom Phineas Finn had already
+called, seemed to be saturated with the product of the district. It
+would not, however, in any event be his duty to live at Tankerville,
+and he had believed from the first moment of his entrance into the
+town that he would soon depart from it, and know it no more. He felt
+that the chance of his being elected was quite a forlorn hope, and
+could hardly understand why he had allowed himself to be embarrassed
+by so very unprofitable a speculation.</p>
+
+<p>Phineas Finn had thrice before this been chosen to sit in
+Parliament&mdash;twice for the Irish borough of Loughshane, and once for
+the English borough of Loughton; but he had been so happy as hitherto
+to have known nothing of the miseries and occasional hopelessness of
+a contested election. At Loughton he had come forward as the nominee
+of the Earl of Brentford, and had been returned without any chance of
+failure by that nobleman's influence. At Loughshane things had nearly
+been as pleasant with him. He had almost been taught to think that
+nothing could be easier than getting into Parliament if only a man
+could live when he was there. But Loughton and Loughshane were gone,
+with so many other comfortable things of old days, and now he found
+himself relegated to a borough to which, as it seemed to him, he was
+sent to fight, not that he might win, but because it was necessary to
+his party that the seat should not be allowed to be lost without
+fighting. He had had the pleasant things of parliamentary adventure,
+and now must undergo those which were unpleasant. No doubt he could
+have refused, but he had listened to the tempter, and could not now
+go back, though Mr. Ruddles was hardly more encouraging than Mr.
+Molescroft.</p>
+
+<p>"Browborough has been at work for the last three days," said Mr.
+Ruddles, in a tone of reproach. Mr. Ruddles had always thought that
+no amount of work could be too heavy for his candidates.</p>
+
+<p>"Will that make much difference?" asked Mr. Molescroft.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it does. Of course, he has been among the colliers,&mdash;when we
+ought to have been before him."</p>
+
+<p>"I came when I was told," said Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>"I'd have telegraphed to you if I'd known where you were. But there's
+no help for spilt milk. We must get to work now,&mdash;that's all. I
+suppose you're for disestablishing the Church?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not particularly," said Phineas, who felt that with him, as a Roman
+Catholic, this was a delicate subject.</p>
+
+<p>"We needn't go into that, need we?" said Mr. Molescroft, who, though
+a Liberal, was a good Churchman.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ruddles was a Dissenter, but the very strong opinion which Mr.
+Ruddles now expressed as to the necessity that the new candidate
+should take up the Church question did not spring at all from his own
+religious convictions. His present duty called upon him to have a
+Liberal candidate if possible returned for the borough with which he
+was connected, and not to disseminate the doctrines of his own sect.
+Nevertheless, his opinion was very strong. "I think we must, Mr.
+Molescroft," said he; "I'm sure we must. Browborough has taken up the
+other side. He went to church last Sunday with the Mayor and two of
+the Aldermen, and I'm told he said all the responses louder than
+anybody else. He dined with the Vicar of Trinity on Monday. He has
+been very loud in denouncing Mr. Finn as a Roman Catholic, and has
+declared that everything will be up with the State if Tankerville
+returns a friend and supporter of the Pope. You'll find that the
+Church will be the cry here this election. You can't get anything by
+supporting it, but you may make a strong party by pledging yourself
+to disendowment."</p>
+
+<p>"Wouldn't local taxation do?" asked Mr. Molescroft, who indeed
+preferred almost any other reform to disendowment.</p>
+
+<p>"I have made up my mind that we must have some check on municipal
+expenditure," said Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>"It won't do&mdash;not alone. If I understand the borough, the feeling at
+this election will altogether be about the Church. You see, Mr. Finn,
+your being a Roman Catholic gives them a handle, and they're already
+beginning to use it. They don't like Roman Catholics here; but if you
+can manage to give it a sort of Liberal turn,&mdash;as many of your
+constituents used to do, you know,&mdash;as though you disliked Church and
+State rather than cared for the Pope, may be it might act on our side
+rather than on theirs. Mr. Molescroft understands it all."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes; I understand."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ruddles said a great deal more to the same effect, and though Mr.
+Molescroft did not express any acquiescence in these views, neither
+did he dissent. The candidate said but little at this interview, but
+turned the matter over in his mind. A seat in Parliament would be but
+a barren honour, and he could not afford to offer his services for
+barren honour. Honest political work he was anxious to do, but for
+what work he did he desired to be paid. The party to which he
+belonged had, as he knew, endeavoured to avoid the subject of the
+disendowment of the Church of England. It is the necessary nature of
+a political party in this country to avoid, as long as it can be
+avoided, the consideration of any question which involves a great
+change. There is a consciousness on the minds of leading politicians
+that the pressure from behind, forcing upon them great measures,
+drives them almost quicker than they can go, so that it becomes a
+necessity with them to resist rather than to aid the pressure which
+will certainly be at last effective by its own strength. The best
+carriage horses are those which can most steadily hold back against
+the coach as it trundles down the hill. All this Phineas knew, and
+was of opinion that the Barrington Erles and Ratlers of his party
+would not thank him for ventilating a measure which, however certain
+might be its coming, might well be postponed for a few years. Once
+already in his career he had chosen to be in advance of his party,
+and the consequences had been disastrous to him. On that occasion his
+feelings had been strong in regard to the measure upon which he broke
+away from his party; but, when he first thought of it, he did not
+care much about Church disendowment.</p>
+
+<p>But he found that he must needs go as he was driven or else depart
+out of the place. He wrote a line to his friend Erle, not to ask
+advice, but to explain the circumstances. "My only possible chance of
+success will lie in attacking the Church endowments. Of course I
+think they are bad, and of course I think that they must go. But I
+have never cared for the matter, and would have been very willing to
+leave it among those things which will arrange themselves. But I have
+no choice here." And so he prepared himself to run his race on the
+course arranged for him by Mr. Ruddles. Mr. Molescroft, whose hours
+were precious, soon took his leave, and Phineas Finn was placarded
+about the town as the sworn foe to all Church endowments.</p>
+
+<p>In the course of his canvass, and the commotions consequent upon it,
+he found that Mr. Ruddles was right. No other subject seemed at the
+moment to have any attraction in Tankerville. Mr. Browborough, whose
+life had not been passed in any strict obedience to the Ten
+Commandments, and whose religious observances had not hitherto
+interfered with either the pleasures or the duties of his life,
+repeated at every meeting which he attended, and almost to every
+elector whom he canvassed, the great Shibboleth which he had now
+adopted&mdash;"The prosperity of England depends on the Church of her
+people." He was not an orator. Indeed, it might be hard to find a
+man, who had for years been conversant with public life, less able to
+string a few words together for immediate use. Nor could he learn
+half-a-dozen sentences by rote. But he could stand up with unabashed
+brow and repeat with enduring audacity the same words a dozen times
+over&mdash;"The prosperity of England depends on the Church of her
+people." Had he been asked whether the prosperity which he promised
+was temporal or spiritual in its nature, not only could he not have
+answered, but he would not in the least have understood the question.
+But the words as they came from his mouth had a weight which seemed
+to ensure their truth, and many men in Tankerville thought that Mr.
+Browborough was eloquent.</p>
+
+<p>Phineas, on the other hand, made two or three great speeches every
+evening, and astonished even Mr. Ruddles by his oratory. He had
+accepted Mr. Ruddles's proposition with but lukewarm acquiescence,
+but in the handling of the matter he became zealous, fiery, and
+enthusiastic. He explained to his hearers with gracious
+acknowledgment that Church endowments had undoubtedly been most
+beneficent in past times. He spoke in the interests of no special
+creed. Whether in the so-called Popish days of Henry VIII and his
+ancestors, or in the so-called Protestant days that had followed, the
+state of society had required that spiritual teaching should be
+supplied from funds fixed and devoted to the purpose. The increasing
+intelligence and population of the country made this no longer
+desirable,&mdash;or, if desirable, no longer possible. Could these
+endowments be increased to meet the needs of the increasing millions?
+Was it not the fact that even among members of the Church of England
+they were altogether inefficient to supply the wants of our great
+towns? Did the people of Tankerville believe that the clergymen of
+London, of Liverpool, and of Manchester were paid by endowments? The
+arguments which had been efficacious in Ireland must be efficacious
+in England. He said this without reference to one creed or to
+another. He did believe in religious teaching. He had not a word to
+say against a Protestant Episcopal Church. But he thought, nay he was
+sure, that Church and State, as combined institutions, could no
+longer prevail in this country. If the people of Tankerville would
+return him to Parliament it should be his first object to put an end
+to this anomaly.</p>
+
+<p>The Browboroughites were considerably astonished by his success. The
+colliers on this occasion did not seem to regard the clamour that was
+raised against Irish Papists. Much dirt was thrown and some heads
+were broken; but Phineas persevered. Mr. Ruddles was lost in
+admiration. They had never before had at Tankerville a man who could
+talk so well. Mr. Browborough without ceasing repeated his well-worn
+assurance, and it was received with the loudest exclamations of
+delight by his own party. The clergymen of the town and neighbourhood
+crowded round him and pursued him, and almost seemed to believe in
+him. They were at any rate fighting their battle as best they knew
+how to fight it. But the great body of the colliers listened to
+Phineas, and every collier was now a voter. Then Mr. Ruddles, who had
+many eyes, began to perceive that the old game was to be played.
+"There'll be money going to-morrow after all," he whispered to Finn
+the evening before the election.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you expected that."</p>
+
+<p>"I wasn't sure. They began by thinking they could do without it. They
+don't want to sacrifice the borough."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor do I, Mr. Ruddles."</p>
+
+<p>"But they'll sooner do that than lose the seat. A couple of dozen of
+men out of the Fallgate would make us safe." Mr. Ruddles smiled as he
+said this.</p>
+
+<p>And Phineas smiled as he answered, "If any good can be done by
+talking to the men at the Fallgate, I'll talk to them by the hour
+together."</p>
+
+<p>"We've about done all that," said Mr. Ruddles.</p>
+
+<p>Then came the voting. Up to two o'clock the polling was so equal that
+the numbers at Mr. Browborough's committee room were always given in
+his favour, and those at the Liberal room in favour of Phineas Finn.
+At three o'clock Phineas was acknowledged to be ten ahead. He himself
+was surprised at his own success, and declared to himself that his
+old luck had not deserted him.</p>
+
+<p>"They're giving &pound;2 10<i>s.</i> a vote at the Fallgate this
+minute," said Ruddles to him at a quarter-past three.</p>
+
+<p>"We shall have to prove it."</p>
+
+<p>"We can do that, I think," said Ruddles.</p>
+
+<p>At four o'clock, when the poll was over, Browborough was declared to
+have won on the post by seven votes. He was that same evening
+declared by the Mayor to have been elected sitting member for the
+borough, and he again assured the people in his speech that the
+prosperity of England depends on the Church of her people.</p>
+
+<p>"We shall carry the seat on a scrutiny as sure as eggs," said Mr.
+Ruddles, who had been quite won by the gallant way in which Phineas
+had fought his battle.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c5"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER V.</h3>
+<h4>MR. DAUBENY'S GREAT MOVE.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>The whole Liberal party was taken very much by surprise at the course
+which the election ran. Or perhaps it might be more proper to say
+that the parliamentary leaders of the party were surprised. It had
+not been recognised by them as necessary that the great question of
+Church and State should be generally discussed on this occasion. It
+was a matter of course that it should be discussed at some places,
+and by some men. Eager Dissenters would, of course, take advantage of
+the opportunity to press their views, and no doubt the entire
+abolition of the Irish Church as a State establishment had taught
+Liberals to think and Conservatives to fear that the question would
+force itself forward at no very distant date. But it had not been
+expected to do so now. The general incompetence of a Ministry who
+could not command a majority on any measure was intended to be the
+strong point of the Liberal party, not only at the election, but at
+the meeting of Parliament. The Church question, which was necessarily
+felt by all statesmen to be of such magnitude as to dwarf every
+other, was not wanted as yet. It might remain in the background as
+the future standing-point for some great political struggle, in which
+it would be again necessary that every Liberal should fight, as
+though for life, with his teeth and nails. Men who ten years since
+regarded almost with abhorrence, and certainly with distrust, the
+idea of disruption between Church and State in England, were no doubt
+learning to perceive that such disruption must come, and were
+reconciling themselves to it after that slow, silent, inargumentative
+fashion in which convictions force themselves among us. And from
+reconciliation to the idea some were advancing to enthusiasm on its
+behalf. "It is only a question of time," was now said by many who
+hardly remembered how devoted they had been to the Established Church
+of England a dozen years ago. But the fruit was not yet ripe, and the
+leaders of the Liberal party by no means desired that it should be
+plucked. They were, therefore, surprised, and but little pleased,
+when they found that the question was more discussed than any other
+on the hustings of enthusiastically political boroughs.</p>
+
+<p>Barrington Erle was angry when he received the letter of Phineas
+Finn. He was at that moment staying with the Duke of St. Bungay, who
+was regarded by many as the only possible leader of the Liberal
+party, should Mr. Gresham for any reason fail them. Indeed the old
+Whigs, of whom Barrington Erle considered himself to be one, would
+have much preferred the Duke to Mr. Gresham, had it been possible to
+set Mr. Gresham aside. But Mr. Gresham was too strong to be set
+aside; and Erle and the Duke, with all their brethren, were minded to
+be thoroughly loyal to their leader. He was their leader, and not to
+be loyal was, in their minds, treachery. But occasionally they feared
+that the man would carry them whither they did not desire to go. In
+the meantime heavy things were spoken of our poor friend, Finn.</p>
+
+<p>"After all, that man is an ass," said Erle.</p>
+
+<p>"If so, I believe you are altogether responsible for him," said the
+Duke.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, yes, in a measure; but not altogether. That, however, is a
+long story. He has many good gifts. He is clever, good-tempered, and
+one of the pleasantest fellows that ever lived. The women all like
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"So the Duchess tells me."</p>
+
+<p>"But he is not what I call loyal. He cannot keep himself from running
+after strange gods. What need had he to take up the Church question
+at Tankerville? The truth is, Duke, the thing is going to pieces. We
+get men into the House now who are clever, and all that sort of
+thing, and who force their way up, but who can't be made to
+understand that everybody should not want to be Prime Minister." The
+Duke, who was now a Nestor among politicians, though very green in
+his age, smiled as he heard remarks which had been familiar to him
+for the last forty years. He, too, liked his party, and was fond of
+loyal men; but he had learned at last that all loyalty must be built
+on a basis of self-advantage. Patriotism may exist without it, but
+that which Erle called loyalty in politics was simply devotion to the
+side which a man conceives to be his side, and which he cannot leave
+without danger to himself.</p>
+
+<p>But if discontent was felt at the eagerness with which this subject
+was taken up at certain boroughs, and was adopted by men whose votes
+and general support would be essentially necessary to the would-be
+coming Liberal Government, absolute dismay was occasioned by a speech
+that was made at a certain county election. Mr. Daubeny had for many
+years been member for East Barsetshire, and was as sure of his seat
+as the Queen of her throne. No one would think of contesting Mr.
+Daubeny's right to sit for East Barsetshire, and no doubt he might
+have been returned without showing himself to the electors. But he
+did show himself to the electors; and, as a matter of course, made a
+speech on the occasion. It so happened that the day fixed for the
+election in this division of the county was quite at the close of
+this period of political excitement. When Mr. Daubeny addressed his
+friends in East Barsetshire the returns throughout the kingdom were
+nearly complete. No attention had been paid to this fact during the
+elections, but it was afterwards asserted that the arrangement had
+been made with a political purpose, and with a purpose which was
+politically dishonest. Mr. Daubeny, so said the angry Liberals, had
+not chosen to address his constituents till his speech at the
+hustings could have no effect on other counties. Otherwise,&mdash;so said
+the Liberals,&mdash;the whole Conservative party would have been called
+upon to disavow at the hustings the conclusion to which Mr. Daubeny
+hinted in East Barsetshire that he had arrived. The East Barsetshire
+men themselves,&mdash;so said the Liberals,&mdash;had been too crass to catch
+the meaning hidden under his ambiguous words; but those words, when
+read by the light of astute criticism, were found to contain an
+opinion that Church and State should be dissevered. "By
+<span class="nowrap">G&mdash;&mdash;!</span> he's
+going to take the bread out of our mouths again," said Mr. Ratler.</p>
+
+<p>The speech was certainly very ambiguous, and I am not sure that the
+East Barsetshire folk were so crass as they were accused of being, in
+not understanding it at once. The dreadful hint was wrapped up in
+many words, and formed but a small part of a very long oration. The
+bucolic mind of East Barsetshire took warm delight in the eloquence
+of the eminent personage who represented them, but was wont to
+extract more actual enjoyment from the music of his periods than from
+the strength of his arguments. When he would explain to them that he
+had discovered a new, or rather hitherto unknown, Conservative
+element in the character of his countrymen, which he could best
+utilise by changing everything in the Constitution, he manipulated
+his words with such grace, was so profound, so broad, and so exalted,
+was so brilliant in mingling a deep philosophy with the ordinary
+politics of the day, that the bucolic mind could only admire. It was
+a great honour to the electors of that agricultural county that they
+should be made the first recipients of these pearls, which were not
+wasted by being thrown before them. They were picked up by the
+gentlemen of the Press, and became the pearls, not of East
+Barsetshire, but of all England. On this occasion it was found that
+one pearl was very big, very rare, and worthy of great attention; but
+it was a black pearl, and was regarded by many as an abominable
+prodigy. "The period of our history is one in which it becomes
+essential for us to renew those inquiries which have prevailed since
+man first woke to his destiny, as to the amount of connection which
+exists and which must exist between spiritual and simply human forms
+of government,&mdash;between our daily religion and our daily politics,
+between the Crown and the Mitre." The East Barsetshire clergymen and
+the East Barsetshire farmers like to hear something of the mitre in
+political speeches at the hustings. The word sounds pleasantly in
+their ears, as appertaining to good old gracious times and good old
+gracious things. As honey falls fast from the mouth of the practised
+speaker, the less practised hearer is apt to catch more of the words
+than of the sense. The speech of Mr. Daubeny was taken all in good
+part by his assembled friends. But when it was read by the quidnuncs
+on the following day it was found to contain so deep a meaning that
+it produced from Mr. Ratler's mouth those words of fear which have
+been already quoted.</p>
+
+<p>Could it really be the case that the man intended to perform so
+audacious a trick of legerdemain as this for the preservation of his
+power, and that if he intended it he should have the power to carry
+it through? The renewal of inquiry as to the connection which exists
+between the Crown and the Mitre, when the bran was bolted, could only
+mean the disestablishment of the Church. Mr. Ratler and his friends
+were not long in bolting the bran. Regarding the matter simply in its
+own light, without bringing to bear upon it the experience of the
+last half-century, Mr. Ratler would have thought his party strong
+enough to defy Mr. Daubeny utterly in such an attempt. The ordinary
+politician, looking at Mr. Daubeny's position as leader of the
+Conservative party, as a statesman depending on the support of the
+Church, as a Minister appointed to his present place for the express
+object of defending all that was left of old, and dear, and venerable
+in the Constitution, would have declared that Mr. Daubeny was
+committing political suicide, as to which future history would record
+a verdict of probably not temporary insanity. And when the speech was
+a week old this was said in many a respectable household through the
+country. Many a squire, many a parson, many a farmer was grieved for
+Mr. Daubeny when the words had been explained to him, who did not for
+a moment think that the words could be portentous as to the great
+Conservative party. But Mr. Ratler remembered Catholic emancipation,
+had himself been in the House when the Corn Laws were repealed, and
+had been nearly broken-hearted when household suffrage had become the
+law of the land while a Conservative Cabinet and a Conservative
+Government were in possession of dominion in Israel.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bonteen was disposed to think that the trick was beyond the
+conjuring power even of Mr. Daubeny. "After all, you know, there is
+the party," he said to Mr. Ratler. Mr. Ratler's face was as good as a
+play, and if seen by that party would have struck that party with
+dismay and shame. The meaning of Mr. Ratler's face was plain enough.
+He thought so little of that party, on the score either of
+intelligence, honesty, or fidelity, as to imagine that it would
+consent to be led whithersoever Mr. Daubeny might choose to lead it.
+"If they care about anything, it's about the Church," said Mr.
+Bonteen.</p>
+
+<p>"There's something they like a great deal better than the Church,"
+said Mr. Ratler. "Indeed, there's only one thing they care about at
+all now. They've given up all the old things. It's very likely that
+if Daubeny were to ask them to vote for pulling down the Throne and
+establishing a Republic they'd all follow him into the lobby like
+sheep. They've been so knocked about by one treachery after another
+that they don't care now for anything beyond their places."</p>
+
+<p>"It's only a few of them get anything, after all."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, they do. It isn't just so much a year they want, though those
+who have that won't like to part with it. But they like getting the
+counties, and the Garters, and the promotion in the army. They like
+their brothers to be made bishops, and their sisters like the
+Wardrobe and the Bedchamber. There isn't one of them that doesn't
+hang on somewhere,&mdash;or at least not many. Do you remember Peel's bill
+for the Corn Laws?"</p>
+
+<p>"There were fifty went against him then," said Bonteen.</p>
+
+<p>"And what are fifty? A man doesn't like to be one of fifty. It's too
+many for glory, and not enough for strength. There has come up among
+them a general feeling that it's just as well to let things
+slide,&mdash;as the Yankees say. They're down-hearted about it enough
+within their own houses, no doubt. But what can they do, if they hold
+back? Some stout old cavalier here and there may shut himself up in
+his own castle, and tell himself that the world around him may go to
+wrack and ruin, but that he will not help the evil work. Some are
+shutting themselves up. Look at old Quin, when they carried their
+Reform Bill. But men, as a rule, don't like to be shut up. How they
+reconcile it to their conscience,&mdash;that's what I can't understand."
+Such was the wisdom, and such were the fears of Mr. Ratler. Mr.
+Bonteen, however, could not bring himself to believe that the
+Arch-enemy would on this occasion be successful. "It mayn't be too
+hot for him," said Mr. Bonteen, when he reviewed the whole matter,
+"but I think it'll be too heavy."</p>
+
+<p>They who had mounted higher than Mr. Ratler and Mr. Bonteen on the
+political ladder, but who had mounted on the same side, were no less
+astonished than their inferiors; and, perhaps, were equally
+disgusted, though they did not allow themselves to express their
+disgust as plainly. Mr. Gresham was staying in the country with his
+friend, Lord Cantrip, when the tidings reached them of Mr. Daubeny's
+speech to the electors of East Barsetshire. Mr. Gresham and Lord
+Cantrip had long sat in the same Cabinet, and were fast friends,
+understanding each other's views, and thoroughly trusting each
+other's loyalty. "He means it," said Lord Cantrip.</p>
+
+<p>"He means to see if it be possible," said the other. "It is thrown
+out as a feeler to his own party."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll do him the justice of saying that he's not afraid of his party.
+If he means it, he means it altogether, and will not retract it, even
+though the party should refuse as a body to support him. I give him
+no other credit, but I give him that."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Gresham paused for a few moments before he answered. "I do not
+know," said he, "whether we are justified in thinking that one man
+will always be the same. Daubeny has once been very audacious, and he
+succeeded. But he had two things to help him,&mdash;a leader, who, though
+thoroughly trusted, was very idle, and an ill-defined question. When
+he had won his leader he had won his party. He has no such tower of
+strength now. And in the doing of this thing, if he means to do it,
+he must encounter the assured conviction of every man on his own
+side, both in the upper and lower House. When he told them that he
+would tap a Conservative element by reducing the suffrage they did
+not know whether to believe him or not. There might be something in
+it. It might be that they would thus resume a class of suffrage
+existing in former days, but which had fallen into abeyance, because
+not properly protected. They could teach themselves to believe that
+it might be so, and those among them who found it necessary to free
+their souls did so teach themselves. I don't see how they are to free
+their souls when they are invited to put down the State establishment
+of the Church."</p>
+
+<p>"He'll find a way for them."</p>
+
+<p>"It's possible. I'm the last man in the world to contest the
+possibility, or even the expediency, of changes in political opinion.
+But I do not know whether it follows that because he was brave and
+successful once he must necessarily be brave and successful again. A
+man rides at some outrageous fence, and by the wonderful activity and
+obedient zeal of his horse is carried over it in safety. It does not
+follow that his horse will carry him over a house, or that he should
+be fool enough to ask the beast to do so."</p>
+
+<p>"He intends to ride at the house," said Lord Cantrip; "and he means
+it because others have talked of it. You saw the line which my rash
+young friend Finn took at Tankerville."</p>
+
+<p>"And all for nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not so sure of that. They say he is like the rest. If Daubeny
+does carry the party with him, I suppose the days of the Church are
+numbered."</p>
+
+<p>"And what if they be?" Mr. Gresham almost sighed as he said this,
+although he intended to express a certain amount of satisfaction.
+"What if they be? You know, and I know, that the thing has to be
+done. Whatever may be our own individual feelings, or even our
+present judgment on the subject,&mdash;as to which neither of us can
+perhaps say that his mind is not so made up that it may not soon be
+altered,&mdash;we know that the present union cannot remain. It is
+unfitted for that condition of humanity to which we are coming, and
+if so, the change must be for good. Why should not he do it as well
+as another? Or rather would not he do it better than another, if he
+can do it with less of animosity than we should rouse against us? If
+the blow would come softer from his hands than from ours, with less
+of a feeling of injury to those who dearly love the Church, should we
+not be glad that he should undertake the task?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then you will not oppose him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah;&mdash;there is much to be considered before we can say that. Though
+he may not be bound by his friends, we may be bound by ours. And
+then, though I can hint to you at a certain condition of mind, and
+can sympathise with you, feeling that such may become the condition
+of your mind, I cannot say that I should act upon it as an
+established conviction, or that I can expect that you will do so. If
+such be the political programme submitted to us when the House meets,
+then we must be prepared."</p>
+
+<p>Lord Cantrip also paused a moment before he answered, but he had his
+answer ready. "I can frankly say that I should follow your leading,
+but that I should give my voice for opposition."</p>
+
+<p>"Your voice is always persuasive," said Mr. Gresham.</p>
+
+<p>But the consternation felt among Mr. Daubeny's friends was infinitely
+greater than that which fell among his enemies, when those wonderful
+words were read, discussed, criticised, and explained. It seemed to
+every clergyman in England that nothing short of disestablishment
+could be intended by them. And this was the man to whom they had all
+looked for protection! This was the bulwark of the Church, to whom
+they had trusted! This was the hero who had been so sound and so firm
+respecting the Irish Establishment, when evil counsels had been
+allowed to prevail in regard to that ill-used but still sacred
+vineyard! All friends of the Church had then whispered among
+themselves fearfully, and had, with sad looks and grievous
+forebodings, acknowledged that the thin edge of the wedge had been
+driven into the very rock of the Establishment. The enemies of the
+Church were known to be powerful, numerous, and of course
+unscrupulous. But surely this Brutus would not raise a dagger against
+this C&aelig;sar! And yet, if not, what was the meaning of those words?
+And then men and women began to tell each other,&mdash;the men and women
+who are the very salt of the earth in this England of ours,&mdash;that
+their Brutus, in spite of his great qualities, had ever been
+mysterious, unintelligible, dangerous, and given to feats of
+conjuring. They had only been too submissive to their Brutus.
+Wonderful feats of conjuring they had endured, understanding nothing
+of the manner in which they were performed,&mdash;nothing of their
+probable results; but this feat of conjuring they would not endure.
+And so there were many meetings held about the country, though the
+time for combined action was very short.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing more audacious than the speaking of those few words to the
+bucolic electors of East Barsetshire had ever been done in the
+political history of England. Cromwell was bold when he closed the
+Long Parliament. Shaftesbury was bold when he formed the plot for
+which Lord Russell and others suffered. Walpole was bold when, in his
+lust for power, he discarded one political friend after another. And
+Peel was bold when he resolved to repeal the Corn Laws. But in none
+of these instances was the audacity displayed more wonderful than
+when Mr. Daubeny took upon himself to make known throughout the
+country his intention of abolishing the Church of England. For to
+such a declaration did those few words amount. He was now the
+recognised parliamentary leader of that party to which the Church of
+England was essentially dear. He had achieved his place by skill,
+rather than principle,&mdash;by the conviction on men's minds that he was
+necessary rather than that he was fit. But still, there he was; and,
+though he had alarmed many,&mdash;had, probably, alarmed all those who
+followed him by his eccentric and dangerous mode of carrying on the
+battle; though no Conservative regarded him as safe; yet on this
+question of the Church it had been believed that he was sound. What
+might be the special ideas of his own mind regarding ecclesiastical
+policy in general, it had not been thought necessary to consider. His
+utterances had been confusing, mysterious, and perhaps purposely
+unintelligible; but that was matter of little moment so long as he
+was prepared to defend the establishment of the Church of England as
+an institution adapted for English purposes. On that point it was
+believed that he was sound. To that mast it was supposed he had
+nailed his own colours and those of his party. In defending that
+fortress it was thought that he would be ready to fall, should the
+defence of it require a fall. It was because he was so far safe that
+he was there. And yet he spoke these words without consulting a
+single friend, or suggesting the propriety of his new scheme to a
+single supporter. And he knew what he was doing. This was the way in
+which he had thought it best to make known to his own followers, not
+only that he was about to abandon the old Institution, but that they
+must do so too!</p>
+
+<p>As regarded East Barsetshire itself, he was returned, and f&ecirc;ted, and
+sent home with his ears stuffed with eulogy, before the bucolic mind
+had discovered his purpose. On so much he had probably calculated.
+But he had calculated also that after an interval of three or four
+days his secret would be known to all friends and enemies. On the day
+after his speech came the report of it in the newspapers; on the next
+day the leading articles, in which the world was told what it was
+that the Prime Minister had really said. Then, on the following day,
+the startled parsons, and the startled squires and farmers, and,
+above all, the startled peers and members of the Lower House, whose
+duty it was to vote as he should lead them, were all agog. Could it
+be that the newspapers were right in this meaning which they had
+attached to these words? On the day week after the election in East
+Barsetshire, a Cabinet Council was called in London, at which it
+would, of course, be Mr. Daubeny's duty to explain to his colleagues
+what it was that he did purpose to do.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime he saw a colleague or two.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us look it straight in the face," he said to a noble colleague;
+"we must look it in the face before long."</p>
+
+<p>"But we need not hurry it forward."</p>
+
+<p>"There is a storm coming. We knew that before, and we heard the sound
+of it from every husting in the country. How shall we rule the storm
+so that it may pass over the land without devastating it? If we bring
+in a <span class="nowrap">bill&mdash;"</span></p>
+
+<p>"A bill for disestablishing the Church!" said the horror-stricken
+lord.</p>
+
+<p>"If we bring in a bill, the purport of which shall be to moderate the
+ascendancy of the Church in accordance with the existing religious
+feelings of the population, we shall save much that otherwise must
+fall. If there must be a bill, would you rather that it should be
+modelled by us who love the Church, or by those who hate it?"</p>
+
+<p>That lord was very wrath, and told the right honourable gentleman to
+his face that his duty to his party should have constrained him to
+silence on that subject till he had consulted his colleagues. In
+answer to this Mr. Daubeny said with much dignity that, should such
+be the opinion of his colleagues in general, he would at once abandon
+the high place which he held in their councils. But he trusted that
+it might be otherwise. He had felt himself bound to communicate his
+ideas to his constituents, and had known that in doing so some minds
+must be shocked. He trusted that he might be able to allay this
+feeling of dismay. As regarded this noble lord, he did succeed in
+lessening the dismay before the meeting was over, though he did not
+altogether allay it.</p>
+
+<p>Another gentleman who was in the habit of sitting at Mr. Daubeny's
+elbow daily in the House of Commons was much gentler with him, both
+as to words and manner. "It's a bold throw, but I'm afraid it won't
+come up sixes," said the right honourable gentleman.</p>
+
+<p>"Let it come up fives, then. It's the only chance we have; and if you
+think, as I do, that it is essentially necessary for the welfare of
+the country that we should remain where we are, we must run the
+risk."</p>
+
+<p>With another colleague, whose mind was really set on that which the
+Church is presumed to represent, he used another argument. "I am
+convinced at any rate of this," said Mr. Daubeny; "that by
+sacrificing something of that ascendancy which the Establishment is
+supposed to give us, we can bring the Church, which we love, nearer
+to the wants of the people." And so it came about that before the
+Cabinet met, every member of it knew what it was that was expected of
+him.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c6"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER VI.</h3>
+<h4>PHINEAS AND HIS OLD FRIENDS.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>Phineas Finn returned from Tankerville to London in much better
+spirits than those which had accompanied him on his journey thither.
+He was not elected; but then, before the election, he had come to
+believe that it was quite out of the question that he should be
+elected. And now he did think it probable that he should get the seat
+on a petition. A scrutiny used to be a very expensive business, but
+under the existing law, made as the scrutiny would be in the borough
+itself, it would cost but little; and that little, should he be
+successful, would fall on the shoulders of Mr. Browborough. Should he
+knock off eight votes and lose none himself, he would be member for
+Tankerville. He knew that many votes had been given for Browborough
+which, if the truth were known of them, would be knocked off; and he
+did not know that the same could be said of any one of those by which
+he had been supported. But, unfortunately, the judge by whom all this
+would be decided might not reach Tankerville in his travels till
+after Christmas, perhaps not till after Easter; and in the meantime,
+what should he do with himself?</p>
+
+<p>As for going back to Dublin, that was now out of the question. He had
+entered upon a feverish state of existence in which it was impossible
+that he should live in Ireland. Should he ultimately fail in regard
+to his seat he must&mdash;vanish out of the world. While he remained in his
+present condition he would not even endeavour to think how he might
+in such case best bestow himself. For the present he would remain
+within the region of politics, and live as near as he could to the
+whirl of the wheel of which the sound was so dear to him. Of one club
+he had always remained a member, and he had already been re-elected a
+member of the Reform. So he took up his residence once more at the
+house of a certain Mr. and Mrs. Bunce, in Great Marlborough Street,
+with whom he had lodged when he first became a member of Parliament.</p>
+
+<p>"So you're at the old game, Mr. Finn?" said his landlord.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; at the old game. I suppose it's the same with you?" Now Mr.
+Bunce had been a very violent politician, and used to rejoice in
+calling himself a Democrat.</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty much the same, Mr. Finn. I don't see that things are much
+better than they used to be. They tell me at the People's Banner
+office that the lords have had as much to do with this election as
+with any that ever went before it."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps they don't know much about it at the People's Banner
+office. I thought Mr. Slide and the People's Banner had gone over
+to the other side, Bunce?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Slide is pretty wide-awake whatever side he's on. Not but what
+he's disgraced himself by what he's been and done now." Mr. Slide in
+former days had been the editor of the People's Banner, and
+circumstances had arisen in consequence of which there had been some
+acquaintance between him and our hero. "I see you was hammering away
+at the Church down at Tankerville."</p>
+
+<p>"I just said a word or two."</p>
+
+<p>"You was all right, there, Mr. Finn. I can't say as I ever saw very
+much in your religion; but what a man keeps in the way of religion
+for his own use is never nothing to me;&mdash;as what I keeps is nothing
+to him."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid you don't keep much, Mr. Bunce."</p>
+
+<p>"And that's nothing to you, neither, is it, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, indeed."</p>
+
+<p>"But when we read of Churches as is called State Churches,&mdash;Churches
+as have bishops you and I have to pay for, as never goes into
+<span class="nowrap">them&mdash;"</span></p>
+
+<p>"But we don't pay the bishops, Mr. Bunce."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, we do; because, if they wasn't paid, the money would come to
+us to do as we pleased with it. We proved all that when we pared them
+down a bit. What's an Ecclesiastical Commission? Only another name
+for a box to put the money into till you want to take it out again.
+When we hear of Churches such as these, as is not kept up by the
+people who uses them,&mdash;just as the theatres are, Mr. Finn, or the gin
+shops,&mdash;then I know there's a deal more to be done before honest men
+can come by their own. You're right enough, Mr. Finn, you are, as far
+as churches go, and you was right, too, when you cut and run off the
+Treasury Bench. I hope you ain't going to sit on that stool again."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bunce was a privileged person, and Mrs. Bunce made up for his
+apparent rudeness by her own affectionate cordiality. "Deary me, and
+isn't it a thing for sore eyes to have you back again! I never
+expected this. But I'll do for you, Mr. Finn, just as I ever did in
+the old days; and it was I that was sorry when I heard of the poor
+young lady's death; so I was, Mr. Finn; well, then, I won't mention
+her name never again. But after all there's been betwixt you and us
+it wouldn't be natural to pass it by without one word; would it, Mr.
+Finn? Well, yes; he's just the same man as ever, without a ha'porth
+of difference. He's gone on paying that shilling to the Union every
+week of his life, just as he used to do; and never got so much out of
+it, not as a junketing into the country. That he didn't. It makes me
+that sick sometimes when I think of where it's gone to, that I don't
+know how to bear it. Well, yes; that is true, Mr. Finn. There never
+was a man better at bringing home his money to his wife than Bunce,
+barring that shilling. If he'd drink it, which he never does, I think
+I'd bear it better than give it to that nasty Union. And young Jack
+writes as well as his father, pretty nigh, Mr. Finn, which is a
+comfort,"&mdash;Mr. Bunce was a journeyman scrivener at a law
+stationer's,&mdash;"and keeps his self; but he don't bring home his money,
+nor yet it can't be expected, Mr. Finn. I know what the young 'uns
+will do, and what they won't. And Mary Jane is quite handy about the
+house now,&mdash;only she do break things, which is an aggravation; and
+the hot water shall be always up at eight o'clock to a minute, if I
+bring it with my own hand, Mr. Finn."</p>
+
+
+<div class="center"><a id="ill06"></a>
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4px">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/ill06.jpg">
+      <img src="images/ill06-t.jpg" height="600"
+      alt='"WELL, THEN, I WON&#8217;T MENTION HER NAME AGAIN."' /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption"><span class="smallcaps">"Well, then,
+      I won't mention her name again."</span><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/ill06.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>And so he was established once more in his old rooms in Great
+Marlborough Street; and as he sat back in the arm-chair, which he
+used to know so well, a hundred memories of former days crowded back
+upon him. Lord Chiltern for a few months had lived with him; and then
+there had arisen a quarrel, which he had for a time thought would
+dissolve his old life into ruin. Now Lord Chiltern was again his very
+intimate friend. And there had used to sit a needy money-lender whom
+he had been unable to banish. Alas! alas! how soon might he now
+require that money-lender's services! And then he recollected how he
+had left these rooms to go into others, grander and more appropriate
+to his life when he had filled high office under the State. Would
+there ever again come to him such cause for migration? And would he
+again be able to load the frame of the looking-glass over the fire
+with countless cards from Countesses and Ministers' wives? He had
+opened the oyster for himself once, though it had closed again with
+so sharp a snap when the point of his knife had been withdrawn. Would
+he be able to insert the point again between those two difficult
+shells? Would the Countesses once more be kind to him? Would
+drawing-rooms be opened to him, and sometimes opened to him and to no
+other? Then he thought of certain special drawing-rooms in which
+wonderful things had been said to him. Since that he had been a
+married man, and those special drawing-rooms and those wonderful
+words had in no degree actuated him in his choice of a wife. He had
+left all those things of his own free will, as though telling himself
+that there was a better life than they offered to him. But was he
+sure that he had found it to be better? He had certainly sighed for
+the gauds which he had left. While his young wife was living he had
+kept his sighs down, so that she should not hear them; but he had
+been forced to acknowledge that his new life had been vapid and
+flavourless. Now he had been tempted back again to the old haunts.
+Would the Countesses' cards be showered upon him again?</p>
+
+<p>One card, or rather note, had reached him while he was yet at
+Tankerville, reminding him of old days. It was from Mrs. Low, the
+wife of the barrister with whom he had worked when he had been a law
+student in London. She had asked him to come and dine with them after
+the old fashion in Baker Street, naming a day as to which she
+presumed that he would by that time have finished his affairs at
+Tankerville, intimating also that Mr. Low would then have finished
+his at North Broughton. Now Mr. Low had sat for North Broughton
+before Phineas left London, and his wife spoke of the seat as a
+certainty. Phineas could not keep himself from feeling that Mrs. Low
+intended to triumph over him; but, nevertheless, he accepted the
+invitation. They were very glad to see him, explaining that, as
+nobody was supposed to be in town, nobody had been asked to meet him.
+In former days he had been very intimate in that house, having
+received from both of them much kindness, mingled, perhaps, with some
+touch of severity on the part of the lady. But the ground for that
+was gone, and Mrs. Low was no longer painfully severe. A few words
+were said as to his great loss. Mrs. Low once raised her eyebrows in
+pretended surprise when Phineas explained that he had thrown up his
+place, and then they settled down on the question of the day. "And
+so," said Mrs. Low, "you've begun to attack the Church?" It must be
+remembered that at this moment Mr. Daubeny had not as yet electrified
+the minds of East Barsetshire, and that, therefore, Mrs. Low was not
+disturbed. To Mrs. Low, Church and State was the very breath of her
+nostrils; and if her husband could not be said to live by means of
+the same atmosphere it was because the breath of his nostrils had
+been drawn chiefly in the Vice-Chancellor's Court in Lincoln's Inn.
+But he, no doubt, would be very much disturbed indeed should he ever
+be told that he was required, as an expectant member of Mr. Daubeny's
+party, to vote for the Disestablishment of the Church of England.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mean that I am guilty of throwing the first stone?" said
+Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>"They have been throwing stones at the Temple since first it was
+built," said Mrs. Low, with energy; "but they have fallen off its
+polished shafts in dust and fragments." I am afraid that Mrs. Low,
+when she allowed herself to speak thus energetically, entertained
+some confused idea that the Church of England and the Christian
+religion were one and the same thing, or, at least, that they had
+been brought into the world together.</p>
+
+<p>"You haven't thrown the first stone," said Mr. Low; "but you have
+taken up the throwing at the first moment in which stones may be
+dangerous."</p>
+
+<p>"No stones can be dangerous," said Mrs. Low.</p>
+
+<p>"The idea of a State Church," said Phineas, "is opposed to my theory
+of political progress. What I hope is that my friends will not
+suppose that I attack the Protestant Church because I am a Roman
+Catholic. If I were a priest it would be my business to do so; but I
+am not a priest."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Low gave his old friend a bottle of his best wine, and in all
+friendly observances treated him with due affection. But neither did
+he nor did his wife for a moment abstain from attacking their guest
+in respect to his speeches at Tankerville. It seemed, indeed, to
+Phineas that as Mrs. Low was buckled up in such triple armour that
+she feared nothing, she might have been less loud in expressing her
+abhorrence of the enemies of the Church. If she feared nothing, why
+should she scream so loudly? Between the two he was a good deal
+crushed and confounded, and Mrs. Low was very triumphant when she
+allowed him to escape from her hands at ten o'clock. But, at that
+moment, nothing had as yet been heard in Baker Street of Mr.
+Daubeny's proposition to the electors of East Barsetshire! Poor Mrs.
+Low! We can foresee that there is much grief in store for her, and
+some rocks ahead, too, in the political career of her husband.</p>
+
+<p>Phineas was still in London, hanging about the clubs, doing nothing,
+discussing Mr. Daubeny's wonderful treachery with such men as came up
+to town, and waiting for the meeting of Parliament, when he received
+the following letter from Lady Laura Kennedy:&mdash;<br />&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="jright">Dresden, November 18, &mdash;&mdash;.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smallcaps">My dear Mr. Finn</span>,</p>
+
+<p>I have heard with great pleasure from my sister-in-law that you have
+been staying with them at Harrington Hall. It seems so like old days
+that you and Oswald and Violet should be together,&mdash;so much more
+natural than that you should be living in Dublin. I cannot conceive
+of you as living any other life than that of the House of Commons,
+Downing Street, and the clubs. Nor do I wish to do so. And when I
+hear of you at Harrington Hall I know that you are on your way to the
+other things.</p>
+
+<p>Do tell me what life is like with Oswald and Violet. Of course he
+never writes. He is one of those men who, on marrying, assume that
+they have at last got a person to do a duty which has always hitherto
+been neglected. Violet does write, but tells me little or nothing of
+themselves. Her letters are very nice, full of anecdote, well
+written,&mdash;letters that are fit to be kept and printed; but they are
+never family letters. She is inimitable in discussing the miseries of
+her own position as the wife of a Master of Hounds; but the miseries
+are as evidently fictitious as the art is real. She told me how poor
+dear Lady Baldock communicated to you her unhappiness about her
+daughter in a manner that made even me laugh; and would make
+thousands laugh in days to come were it ever to be published. But of
+her inside life, of her baby, or of her husband as a husband, she
+never says a word. You will have seen it all, and have enough of the
+feminine side of a man's character to be able to tell me how they are
+living. I am sure they are happy together, because Violet has more
+common sense than any woman I ever knew.</p>
+
+<p>And pray tell me about the affair at Tankerville. My cousin
+Barrington writes me word that you will certainly get the seat. He
+declares that Mr. Browborough is almost disposed not to fight the
+battle, though a man more disposed to fight never bribed an elector.
+But Barrington seems to think that you managed as well as you did by
+getting outside the traces, as he calls it. We certainly did not
+think that you would come out strong against the Church. Don't
+suppose that I complain. For myself I hate to think of the coming
+severance; but if it must come, why not by your hands as well as by
+any other? It is hardly possible that you in your heart should love a
+Protestant ascendant Church. But, as Barrington says, a horse won't
+get oats unless he works steady between the traces.</p>
+
+<p>As to myself, what am I to say to you? I and my father live here a
+sad, sombre, solitary life, together. We have a large furnished house
+outside the town, with a pleasant view and a pretty garden. He
+does&mdash;nothing. He reads the English papers, and talks of English
+parties, is driven out, and eats his dinner, and sleeps. At home, as
+you know, not only did he take an active part in politics, but he was
+active also in the management of his own property. Now it seems to
+him to be almost too great a trouble to write a letter to his
+steward; and all this has come upon him because of me. He is here
+because he cannot bear that I should live alone. I have offered to
+return with him to Saulsby, thinking that Mr. Kennedy would trouble
+me no further,&mdash;or to remain here by myself; but he will consent to
+neither. In truth the burden of idleness has now fallen upon him so
+heavily that he cannot shake it off. He dreads that he may be called
+upon to do anything.</p>
+
+<p>To me it is all one tragedy. I cannot but think of things as they
+were two or three years since. My father and my husband were both in
+the Cabinet, and you, young as you were, stood but one step below it.
+Oswald was out in the cold. He was very poor. Papa thought all evil
+of him. Violet had refused him over and over again. He quarrelled
+with you, and all the world seemed against him. Then of a sudden you
+vanished, and we vanished. An ineffable misery fell upon me and upon
+my wretched husband. All our good things went from us at a blow. I
+and my poor father became as it were outcasts. But Oswald suddenly
+retricked his beams, and is flaming in the forehead of the morning
+sky. He, I believe, has no more than he has deserved. He won his wife
+honestly;&mdash;did he not? And he has ever been honest. It is my pride to
+think I never gave him up. But the bitter part of my cup consists in
+this,&mdash;that as he has won what he has deserved, so have we. I
+complain of no injustice. Our castle was built upon the sand. Why
+should Mr. Kennedy have been a Cabinet Minister;&mdash;and why should I
+have been his wife? There is no one else of whom I can ask that
+question as I can of you, and no one else who can answer it as you
+can do.</p>
+
+<p>Of Mr. Kennedy it is singular how little I know, and how little I
+ever hear. There is no one whom I can ask to tell me of him. That he
+did not attend during the last Session I do know, and we presume that
+he has now abandoned his seat. I fear that his health is bad,&mdash;or
+perhaps, worse still, that his mind is affected by the gloom of his
+life. I suppose that he lives exclusively at Loughlinter. From time
+to time I am implored by him to return to my duty beneath his roof.
+He grounds his demand on no affection of his own, on no presumption
+that any affection can remain with me. He says no word of happiness.
+He offers no comfort. He does not attempt to persuade with promises
+of future care. He makes his claim simply on Holy Writ, and on the
+feeling of duty which thence ought to weigh upon me. He has never
+even told me that he loves me; but he is persistent in declaring that
+those whom God has joined together nothing human should separate.
+Since I have been here I have written to him once,&mdash;one sad, long,
+weary letter. Since that I am constrained to leave his letters
+unanswered.</p>
+
+<p>And now, my friend, could you not do for me a great kindness? For a
+while, till the inquiry be made at Tankerville, your time must be
+vacant. Cannot you come and see us? I have told Papa that I should
+ask you, and he would be delighted. I cannot explain to you what it
+would be to me to be able to talk again to one who knows all the
+errors and all the efforts of my past life as you do. Dresden is very
+cold in the winter. I do not know whether you would mind that. We are
+very particular about the rooms, but my father bears the temperature
+wonderfully well, though he complains. In March we move down south
+for a couple of months. Do come if you can.</p>
+
+<p class="ind10">Most sincerely yours,</p>
+
+<p class="ind12"><span class="smallcaps">Laura Kennedy</span>.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">If you come,
+of course you will have yourself brought direct to us.
+If you can learn anything of Mr. Kennedy's life, and of his real
+condition, pray do. The faint rumours which reach me are painfully
+distressing.<br />&nbsp;</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+<p><a id="c7"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER VII.</h3>
+<h4>COMING HOME FROM HUNTING.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>Lady Chiltern was probably right when she declared that her husband
+must have been made to be a Master of Hounds,&mdash;presuming it to be
+granted that somebody must be Master of Hounds. Such necessity
+certainly does exist in this, the present condition of England.
+Hunting prevails; hunting men increase in numbers; foxes are
+preserved; farmers do not rebel; owners of coverts, even when they
+are not hunting men themselves, acknowledge the fact, and do not dare
+to maintain their pheasants at the expense of the much better-loved
+four-footed animal. Hounds are bred, and horses are trained specially
+to the work. A master of fox hounds is a necessity of the period.
+Allowing so much, we cannot but allow also that Lord Chiltern must
+have been made to fill the situation. He understood hunting, and,
+perhaps, there was nothing else requiring acute intelligence that he
+did understand. And he understood hunting, not only as a huntsman
+understands it,&mdash;in that branch of the science which refers simply to
+the judicious pursuit of the fox, being probably inferior to his own
+huntsman in that respect,&mdash;but he knew exactly what men should do,
+and what they should not. In regard to all those various interests
+with which he was brought in contact, he knew when to hold fast to
+his own claims, and when to make no claims at all. He was afraid of
+no one, but he was possessed of a sense of justice which induced him
+to acknowledge the rights of those around him. When he found that the
+earths were not stopped in Trumpeton Wood,&mdash;from which he judged that
+the keeper would complain that the hounds would not or could not kill
+any of the cubs found there,&mdash;he wrote in very round terms to the
+Duke who owned it. If His Grace did not want to have the wood drawn,
+let him say so. If he did, let him have the earths stopped. But when
+that great question came up as to the Gartlow coverts&mdash;when that
+uncommonly disagreeable gentleman, Mr. Smith, of Gartlow, gave notice
+that the hounds should not be admitted into his place at all,&mdash;Lord
+Chiltern soon put the whole matter straight by taking part with the
+disagreeable gentleman. The disagreeable gentleman had been ill used.
+Men had ridden among his young laurels. If gentlemen who did
+hunt,&mdash;so said Lord Chiltern to his own supporters,&mdash;did not know how
+to conduct themselves in a matter of hunting, how was it to be
+expected that a gentleman who did not hunt should do so? On this
+occasion Lord Chiltern rated his own hunt so roundly that Mr. Smith
+and he were quite in a bond together, and the Gartlow coverts were
+re-opened. Now all the world knows that the Gartlow coverts, though
+small, are material as being in the very centre of the Brake country.</p>
+
+<p>It is essential that a Master of Hounds should be somewhat feared by
+the men who ride with him. There should be much awe mixed with the
+love felt for him. He should be a man with whom other men will not
+care to argue; an irrational, cut and thrust, unscrupulous, but yet
+distinctly honest man; one who can be tyrannical, but will tyrannise
+only over the evil spirits; a man capable of intense cruelty to those
+alongside of him, but who will know whether his victim does in truth
+deserve scalping before he draws his knife. He should be savage and
+yet good-humoured; severe and yet forbearing; truculent and pleasant
+in the same moment. He should exercise unflinching authority, but
+should do so with the consciousness that he can support it only by
+his own popularity. His speech should be short, incisive, always to
+the point, but never founded on argument. His rules are based on no
+reason, and will never bear discussion. He must be the most candid of
+men, also the most close;&mdash;and yet never a hypocrite. He must
+condescend to no explanation, and yet must impress men with an
+assurance that his decisions will certainly be right. He must rule
+all as though no man's special welfare were of any account, and yet
+must administer all so as to offend none. Friends he must have, but
+not favourites. He must be self-sacrificing, diligent, eager, and
+watchful. He must be strong in health, strong in heart, strong in
+purpose, and strong in purse. He must be economical and yet lavish;
+generous as the wind and yet obdurate as the frost. He should be
+assured that of all human pursuits hunting is the best, and that of
+all living things a fox is the most valuable. He must so train his
+heart as to feel for the fox a mingled tenderness and cruelty which
+is inexplicable to ordinary men and women. His desire to preserve the
+brute and then to kill him should be equally intense and passionate.
+And he should do it all in accordance with a code of unwritten laws,
+which cannot be learnt without profound study. It may not perhaps be
+truly asserted that Lord Chiltern answered this description in every
+detail; but he combined so many of the qualities required that his
+wife showed her discernment when she declared that he seemed to have
+been made to be a Master of Hounds.</p>
+
+<p>Early in that November he was riding home with Miss Palliser by his
+side, while the huntsmen and whips were trotting on with the hounds
+before him. "You call that a good run, don't you?"</p>
+
+
+<div class="center"><a id="ill07"></a>
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4px">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/ill07.jpg">
+      <img src="images/ill07-t.jpg" width="550"
+      alt="ADELAIDE PALLISER." /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption"><span class="smallcaps">Adelaide
+      Palliser.</span><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/ill07.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>"No; I don't."</p>
+
+<p>"What was the matter with it? I declare it seems to me that something
+is always wrong. Men like hunting better than anything else, and yet
+I never find any man contented."</p>
+
+<p>"In the first place we didn't kill."</p>
+
+<p>"You know you're short of foxes at Gartlow," said Miss Palliser, who,
+as is the manner with all hunting ladies, liked to show that she
+understood the affairs of the hunt.</p>
+
+<p>"If I knew there were but one fox in a county, and I got upon that
+one fox, I would like to kill that one fox,&mdash;barring a vixen in
+March."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought it very nice. It was fast enough for anybody."</p>
+
+<p>"You might go as fast with a drag, if that's all. I'll tell you
+something else. We should have killed him if Maule hadn't once ridden
+over the hounds when we came out of the little wood. I spoke very
+sharply to him."</p>
+
+<p>"I heard you, Lord Chiltern."</p>
+
+<p>"And I suppose you thought I was a brute."</p>
+
+<p>"Who? I? No, I didn't;&mdash;not particularly, you know. Men do say such
+things to each other!"</p>
+
+<p>"He doesn't mind it, I fancy."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose a man does not like to be told that directly he shows
+himself in a run the sport is all over and the hounds ought to be
+taken home."</p>
+
+<p>"Did I say that? I don't remember now what I said, but I know he made
+me angry. Come, let us trot on. They can take the hounds home without
+us."</p>
+
+<p>"Good night, Cox," said Miss Palliser, as they passed by the pack.
+"Poor Mr. Maule! I did pity him, and I do think he does care for it,
+though he is so impassive. He would be with us now, only he is
+chewing the cud of his unhappiness in solitude half a mile behind
+us."</p>
+
+<p>"That is hard upon you."</p>
+
+<p>"Hard upon me, Lord Chiltern! It is hard upon him, and, perhaps, upon
+you. Why should it be hard upon me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hard upon him, I should have said. Though why it shouldn't be the
+other way I don't know. He's a friend of yours."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly."</p>
+
+<p>"And an especial friend, I suppose. As a matter of course Violet
+talks to me about you both."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt she does. When once a woman is married she should be
+regarded as having thrown off her allegiance to her own sex. She is
+sure to be treacherous at any rate in one direction. Not that Lady
+Chiltern can tell anything of me that might not be told to all the
+world as far as I am concerned."</p>
+
+<p>"There is nothing in it, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing at all."</p>
+
+<p>"Honour bright?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh,&mdash;honour as bright as it ever is in such matters as these."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry for that,&mdash;very sorry."</p>
+
+<p>"Why so, Lord Chiltern?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because if you were engaged to him I thought that perhaps you might
+have induced him to ride a little less forward."</p>
+
+<p>"Lord Chiltern," said Miss Palliser, seriously; "I will never again
+speak to you a word on any subject except hunting."</p>
+
+<p>At this moment Gerard Maule came up behind them, with a cigar in his
+mouth, apparently quite unconscious of any of that displeasure as to
+which Miss Palliser had supposed that he was chewing the cud in
+solitude. "That was a goodish thing, Chiltern," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Very good."</p>
+
+<p>"And the hounds hunted him well to the end."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well."</p>
+
+<p>"It's odd how the scent will die away at a moment. You see they
+couldn't carry on a field after we got out of the copse."</p>
+
+<p>"Not a field."</p>
+
+<p>"Considering all things I am glad we didn't kill him."</p>
+
+<p>"Uncommon glad," said Lord Chiltern. Then they trotted on in silence
+a little way, and Maule again dropped behind. "I'm blessed if he
+knows that I spoke to him, roughly," said Chiltern. "He's deaf, I
+think, when he chooses to be."</p>
+
+<p>"You're not sorry, Lord Chiltern."</p>
+
+<p>"Not in the least. Nothing will ever do any good. As for offending
+him, you might as well swear at a tree, and think to offend it.
+There's comfort in that, anyway. I wonder whether he'd talk to you if
+I went away?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hope that you won't try the experiment."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe he would, or I'd go at once. I wonder whether you
+really do care for him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not in the least."</p>
+
+<p>"Or he for you."</p>
+
+<p>"Quite indifferent, I should say; but I can't answer for him, Lord
+Chiltern, quite as positively as I can for myself. You know, as
+things go, people have to play at caring for each other."</p>
+
+<p>"That's what we call flirting."</p>
+
+<p>"Just the reverse. Flirting I take to be the excitement of love,
+without its reality, and without its ordinary result in marriage.
+This playing at caring has none of the excitement, but it often leads
+to the result, and sometimes ends in downright affection."</p>
+
+<p>"If Maule perseveres then you'll take him, and by-and-bye you'll come
+to like him."</p>
+
+<p>"In twenty years it might come to that, if we were always to live in
+the same house; but as he leaves Harrington to-morrow, and we may
+probably not meet each other for the next four years, I think the
+chance is small."</p>
+
+<p>Then Maule trotted up again, and after riding in silence with the
+other two for half an hour, he pulled out his case and lit a fresh
+cigar from the end of the old one, which he threw away. "Have a
+baccy, Chiltern?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"No, thank you, I never smoke going home; my mind is too full. I've
+all that family behind to think of, and I'm generally out of sorts
+with the miseries of the day. I must say another word to Cox, or I
+should have to go to the kennels on my way home." And so he dropped
+behind.</p>
+
+<p>Gerard Maule smoked half his cigar before he spoke a word, and Miss
+Palliser was quite resolved that she would not open her mouth till he
+had spoken. "I suppose he likes it?" he said at last.</p>
+
+<p>"Who likes what, Mr. Maule?"</p>
+
+<p>"Chiltern likes blowing fellows up."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a part of his business."</p>
+
+<p>"That's the way I look at it. But I should think it must be
+disagreeable. He takes such a deal of trouble about it. I heard him
+going on to-day to some one as though his whole soul depended on it."</p>
+
+<p>"He is very energetic."</p>
+
+<p>"Just so. I'm quite sure it's a mistake. What does a man ever get by
+it? Folks around you soon discount it till it goes for nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think energy goes for nothing, Mr. Maule."</p>
+
+<p>"A bull in a china shop is not a useful animal, nor is he ornamental,
+but there can be no doubt of his energy. The hare was full of energy,
+but he didn't win the race. The man who stands still is the man who
+keeps his ground."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't stand still when you're out hunting."</p>
+
+<p>"No;&mdash;I ride about, and Chiltern swears at me. Every man is a fool
+sometimes."</p>
+
+<p>"And your wisdom, perfect at all other times, breaks down in the
+hunting-field?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't in the least mind your chaffing. I know what you think of me
+just as well as though you told me."</p>
+
+<p>"What do I think of you?"</p>
+
+<p>"That I'm a poor creature, generally half asleep, shallow-pated,
+slow-blooded, ignorant, useless, and unambitious."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly unambitious, Mr. Maule."</p>
+
+<p>"And that word carries all the others. What's the good of ambition?
+There's the man they were talking about last night,&mdash;that Irishman."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Finn?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; Phineas Finn. He is an ambitious fellow. He'll have to starve,
+according to what Chiltern was saying. I've sense enough to know I
+can't do any good."</p>
+
+<p>"You are sensible, I admit."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, Miss Palliser. You can say just what you like, of course.
+You have that privilege."</p>
+
+<p>"I did not mean to say anything severe. I do admit that you are
+master of a certain philosophy, for which much may be said. But you
+are not to expect that I shall express an approval which I do not
+feel."</p>
+
+<p>"But I want you to approve it."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!&mdash;there, I fear, I cannot oblige you."</p>
+
+<p>"I want you to approve it, though no one else may."</p>
+
+<p>"Though all else should do so, I cannot."</p>
+
+<p>"Then take the task of curing the sick one, and of strengthening the
+weak one, into your own hands. If you will teach, perhaps I may
+learn."</p>
+
+<p>"I have no mission for teaching, Mr. Maule."</p>
+
+<p>"You once said that,&mdash;that&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Do not be so ungenerous as to throw in my teeth what I once
+said,&mdash;if I ever said a word that I would not now repeat."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not think that I am ungenerous, Miss Palliser."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure you are not."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor am I self-confident. I am obliged to seek comfort from such
+scraps of encouragement as may have fallen in my way here and there.
+I once did think that you intended to love me."</p>
+
+<p>"Does love go by intentions?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think so,&mdash;frequently with men, and much more so with girls."</p>
+
+<p>"It will never go so with me. I shall never intend to love any one.
+If I ever love any man it will be because I am made to do so, despite
+my intentions."</p>
+
+<p>"As a fortress is taken?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well,&mdash;if you like to put it so. Only I claim this advantage,&mdash;that
+I can always get rid of my enemy when he bores me."</p>
+
+<p>"Am I boring you now?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't say so. Here is Lord Chiltern again, and I know by the
+rattle of his horse's feet that something is the matter."</p>
+
+<p>Lord Chiltern came up full of wrath. One of the men's horses was
+thoroughly broken down, and, as the Master said, wasn't worth the
+saddle he carried. He didn't care a <span class="nowrap">&mdash;&mdash;</span>
+for the horse, but the man
+hadn't told him. "At this rate there won't be anything to carry
+anybody by Christmas."</p>
+
+<p>"You'll have to buy some more," said Gerard Maule.</p>
+
+<p>"Buy some more!" said Lord Chiltern, turning round, and looking at
+the man. "He talks of buying horses as he would sugar plums!" Then
+they trotted in at the gate, and in two minutes were at the hall
+door.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c8"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER VIII.</h3>
+<h4>THE ADDRESS.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>Before the 11th of November, the day on which Parliament was to meet,
+the whole country was in a hubbub. Consternation and triumph were
+perhaps equally predominant, and equally strong. There were those who
+declared that now at length was Great Britain to be ruined in actual
+present truth; and those who asserted that, of a sudden, after a
+fashion so wholly unexpected as to be divine,&mdash;as great fires, great
+famines, and great wars are called divine,&mdash;a mighty hand had been
+stretched out to take away the remaining incubus of superstition,
+priestcraft, and bigotry under which England had hitherto been
+labouring. The proposed disestablishment of the State Church of
+England was, of course, the subject of this diversity of opinion.</p>
+
+<p>And there was not only diversity, but with it great confusion. The
+political feelings of the country are, as a rule, so well marked that
+it is easy, as to almost every question, to separate the sheep from
+the goats. With but few exceptions one can tell where to look for the
+supporters and where for the opponents of one measure or of another.
+Meetings are called in this or in that public hall to assist or to
+combat the Minister of the day, and men know what they are about. But
+now it was not so. It was understood that Mr. Daubeny, the accredited
+leader of the Conservatives, was about to bring in the bill, but no
+one as yet knew who would support the bill. His own party, to a
+man,&mdash;without a single exception,&mdash;were certainly opposed to the
+measure in their minds. It must be so. It could not but be certain
+that they should hate it. Each individual sitting on the Conservative
+side in either House did most certainly within his own bosom cry
+Ichabod when the fatal news reached his ears. But such private
+opinions and inward wailings need not, and probably would not, guide
+the body. Ichabod had been cried before, though probably never with
+such intensity of feeling. Disestablishment might be worse than Free
+Trade or Household Suffrage, but was not more absolutely opposed to
+Conservative convictions than had been those great measures. And yet
+the party, as a party, had swallowed them both. To the first and
+lesser evil, a compact little body of staunch Commoners had stood
+forth in opposition,&mdash;but nothing had come of it to those true
+Britons beyond a feeling of living in the cold shade of exclusion.
+When the greater evil arrived, that of Household Suffrage,&mdash;a measure
+which twenty years since would hardly have been advocated by the
+advanced Liberals of the day,&mdash;the Conservatives had learned to
+acknowledge the folly of clinging to their own convictions, and had
+swallowed the dose without serious disruption of their ranks. Every
+man,&mdash;with but an exception or two,&mdash;took the measure up, some with
+faces so singularly distorted as to create true pity, some with an
+assumption of indifference, some with affected glee. But in the
+double process the party had become used to this mode of carrying on
+the public service. As poor old England must go to the dogs, as the
+doom had been pronounced against the country that it should be ruled
+by the folly of the many foolish, and not by the wisdom of the few
+wise, why should the few wise remain out in the cold,&mdash;seeing, as
+they did, that by so doing no good would be done to the country?
+Dissensions among their foes did, when properly used, give them
+power,&mdash;but such power they could only use by carrying measures which
+they themselves believed to be ruinous. But the ruin would be as
+certain should they abstain. Each individual might have gloried in
+standing aloof,&mdash;in hiding his face beneath his toga, and in
+remembering that Rome did once exist in her splendour. But a party
+cannot afford to hide its face in its toga. A party has to be
+practical. A party can only live by having its share of Garters,
+lord-lieutenants, bishops, and attorney-generals. Though the country
+were ruined, the party should be supported. Hitherto the party had
+been supported, and had latterly enjoyed almost its share of stars
+and Garters,&mdash;thanks to the individual skill and strategy of that
+great English political Von Moltke Mr. Daubeny.</p>
+
+<p>And now what would the party say about the disestablishment of the
+Church? Even a party must draw the line somewhere. It was bad to
+sacrifice things mundane; but this thing was the very Holy of Holies!
+Was nothing to be conserved by a Conservative party? What if Mr.
+Daubeny were to explain some day to the electors of East Barsetshire
+that an hereditary peerage was an absurdity? What if in some rural
+nook of his B&oelig;otia he should suggest in ambiguous language to the
+farmers that a Republic was the only form of Government capable of a
+logical defence? Duke had already said to Duke, and Earl to Earl, and
+Baronet to Baronet that there must be a line somewhere. Bishops as a
+rule say but little to each other, and now were afraid to say
+anything. The Church, which had been, which was, so truly
+beloved;&mdash;surely that must be beyond the line! And yet there crept
+through the very marrow of the party an agonising belief that Mr.
+Daubeny would carry the bulk of his party with him into the lobby of
+the House of Commons.</p>
+
+<p>But if such was the dismay of the Conservatives, how shall any writer
+depict the consternation of the Liberals? If there be a feeling
+odious to the mind of a sober, hardworking man, it is the feeling
+that the bread he has earned is to be taken out of his mouth. The
+pay, the patronage, the powers, and the pleasure of Government were
+all due to the Liberals. "God bless my soul," said Mr. Ratler, who
+always saw things in a practical light, "we have a larger fighting
+majority than any party has had since Lord Liverpool's time. They
+have no right to attempt it. They are bound to go out." "There's
+nothing of honesty left in politics," said Mr. Bonteen, declaring
+that he was sick of the life. Barrington Erle thought that the whole
+Liberal party should oppose the measure. Though they were Liberals
+they were not democrats; nor yet infidels. But when Barrington Erle
+said this, the great leaders of the Liberal party had not as yet
+decided on their ground of action.</p>
+
+<p>There was much difficulty in reaching any decision. It had been
+asserted so often that the disestablishment of the Church was only a
+question of time, that the intelligence of the country had gradually
+so learned to regard it. Who had said so, men did not know and did
+not inquire;&mdash;but the words were spoken everywhere. Parsons with sad
+hearts,&mdash;men who in their own parishes were enthusiastic, pure,
+pious, and useful,&mdash;whispered them in the dead of the night to the
+wives of their bosoms. Bishops, who had become less pure by contact
+with the world at clubs, shrugged their shoulders and wagged their
+heads, and remembered comfortably the sanctity of vested interests.
+Statesmen listened to them with politeness, and did not deny that
+they were true. In the free intercourse of closest friendships the
+matter was discussed between ex-Secretaries of State. The Press
+teemed with the assertion that it was only a question of time. Some
+fervent, credulous friends predicted another century of life;&mdash;some
+hard-hearted logical opponents thought that twenty years would put an
+end to the anomaly:&mdash;a few stout enemies had sworn on the hustings
+with an anathema that the present Session should see the deposition
+from her high place of this eldest daughter of the woman of Babylon.
+But none had expected the blow so soon as this; and none certainly
+had expected it from this hand.</p>
+
+<p>But what should the Liberal party do? Ratler was for opposing Mr.
+Daubeny with all their force, without touching the merits of the
+case. It was no fitting work for Mr. Daubeny, and the suddenness of
+the proposition coming from such a quarter would justify them now and
+for ever, even though they themselves should disestablish everything
+before the Session were over. Barrington Erle, suffering under a real
+political conviction for once in his life, was desirous of a positive
+and chivalric defence of the Church. He believed in the twenty years.
+Mr. Bonteen shut himself up in disgust. Things were amiss; and, as he
+thought, the evil was due to want of party zeal on the part of his
+own leader, Mr. Gresham. He did not dare to say this, lest, when the
+house door should at last be opened, he might not be invited to enter
+with the others; but such was his conviction. "If we were all a
+little less in the abstract, and a little more in the concrete, it
+would be better for us." Laurence Fitzgibbon, when these words had
+been whispered to him by Mr. Bonteen, had hardly understood them; but
+it had been explained to him that his friend had meant "men, not
+measures." When Parliament met, Mr. Gresham, the leader of the
+Liberal party, had not as yet expressed any desire to his general
+followers.</p>
+
+<p>The Queen's Speech was read, and the one paragraph which seemed to
+possess any great public interest was almost a repetition of the
+words which Mr. Daubeny had spoken to the electors of East
+Barsetshire. "It will probably be necessary for you to review the
+connection which still exists between, and which binds together, the
+Church and the State." Mr. Daubeny's words had of course been more
+fluent, but the gist of the expression was the same. He had been
+quite in earnest when addressing his friends in the country. And
+though there had been but an interval of a few weeks, the
+Conservative party in the two Houses heard the paragraph read without
+surprise and without a murmur. Some said that the gentlemen on the
+Treasury Bench in the House of Commons did not look to be
+comfortable. Mr. Daubeny sat with his hat over his brow, mute,
+apparently impassive and unapproachable, during the reading of the
+Speech and the moving and seconding of the Address. The House was
+very full, and there was much murmuring on the side of the
+Opposition;&mdash;but from the Government benches hardly a sound was
+heard, as a young gentleman, from one of the Midland counties, in a
+deputy-lieutenant's uniform, who had hitherto been known for no
+particular ideas of his own, but had been believed to be at any rate
+true to the Church, explained, not in very clear language, that the
+time had at length come when the interests of religion demanded a
+wider support and a fuller sympathy than could be afforded under that
+system of Church endowment and State establishment for which the
+country had hitherto been so grateful, and for which the country had
+such boundless occasion for gratitude. Another gentleman, in the
+uniform of the Guards, seconded the Address, and declared that in
+nothing was the sagacity of a Legislature so necessary as in
+discerning the period in which that which had hitherto been good
+ceased to be serviceable. The status pupillaris was mentioned, and
+it was understood that he had implied that England was now old enough
+to go on in matters of religion without a tutor in the shape of a
+State Church.</p>
+
+<p>Who makes the speeches, absolutely puts together the words, which are
+uttered when the Address is moved and seconded? It can hardly be that
+lessons are prepared and sent to the noble lords and honourable
+gentlemen to be learned by heart like a school-boy's task. And yet,
+from their construction, style, and general tone,&mdash;from the
+platitudes which they contain as well as from the general safety and
+good sense of the remarks,&mdash;from the absence of any attempt to
+improve a great occasion by the fire of oratory, one cannot but be
+convinced that a very absolute control is exercised. The gorgeously
+apparelled speakers, who seem to have great latitude allowed them in
+the matter of clothing, have certainly very little in the matter of
+language. And then it always seems that either of the four might have
+made the speech of any of the others. It could not have been the case
+that the Hon. Colonel Mowbray Dick, the Member for West Bustard, had
+really elaborated out of his own head that theory of the status
+pupillaris. A better fellow, or a more popular officer, or a
+sweeter-tempered gentleman than Mowbray Dick does not exist; but he
+certainly never entertained advanced opinions respecting the
+religious education of his country. When he is at home with his
+family, he always goes to church, and there has been an end of it.</p>
+
+<p>And then the fight began. The thunderbolts of opposition were
+unloosed, and the fires of political rancour blazed high. Mr. Gresham
+rose to his legs, and declared to all the world that which he had
+hitherto kept secret from his own party. It was known afterwards that
+in discussion with his own dearly-beloved political friend, Lord
+Cantrip, he had expressed his unbounded anger at the duplicity, greed
+for power, and want of patriotism displayed by his opponent; but he
+had acknowledged that the blow had come so quick and so unexpectedly
+that he thought it better to leave the matter to the House without
+instruction from himself. He now revelled in sarcasm, and before his
+speech was over raged into wrath. He would move an amendment to the
+Address for two reasons,&mdash;first because this was no moment for
+bringing before Parliament the question of the Church establishment,
+when as yet no well-considered opportunity of expressing itself on
+the subject had been afforded to the country, and secondly because
+any measure of reform on that matter should certainly not come to
+them from the right honourable gentleman opposite. As to the first
+objection, he should withhold his arguments till the bill suggested
+had been presented to them. It was in handling the second that he
+displayed his great power of invective. All those men who then sat in
+the House, and who on that night crowded the galleries, remember his
+tones as, turning to the dissenters who usually supported him, and
+pointing over the table to his opponents, he uttered that well-worn
+quotation, <i>Quod minime reris</i>,&mdash;then he paused, and began again;
+<i>Quod minime reris,&mdash;Grai&acirc; pandetur ab urbe</i>. The power and inflexion
+of his voice at the word <i>Grai&acirc;</i> were certainly very wonderful. He
+ended by moving an amendment to the Address, and asking for support
+equally from one side of the House as from the other.</p>
+
+<p>When at length Mr. Daubeny moved his hat from his brow and rose to
+his legs he began by expressing his thankfulness that he had not been
+made a victim to the personal violence of the right honourable
+gentleman. He continued the same strain of badinage throughout,&mdash;in
+which he was thought to have been wrong, as it was a method of
+defence, or attack, for which his peculiar powers hardly suited him.
+As to any bill that was to be laid upon the table, he had not as yet
+produced it. He did not doubt that the dissenting interests of the
+country would welcome relief from an anomaly, let it come whence it
+might, even <i>Grai&acirc; ab urbe</i>, and he waved his hand back to the
+clustering Conservatives who sat behind him. That the right
+honourable gentleman should be angry he could understand, as the
+return to power of the right honourable gentleman and his party had
+been anticipated, and he might almost say discounted as a certainty.</p>
+
+<p>Then, when Mr. Daubeny sat down, the House was adjourned.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c9"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER IX.</h3>
+<h4>THE DEBATE.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>The beginning of the battle as recorded in the last chapter took
+place on a Friday,&mdash;Friday, 11th November,&mdash;and consequently two
+entire days intervened before the debate could be renewed. There
+seemed to prevail an opinion during this interval that Mr. Gresham
+had been imprudent. It was acknowledged by all men that no finer
+speech than that delivered by him had ever been heard within the
+walls of that House. It was acknowledged also that as regarded the
+question of oratory Mr. Daubeny had failed signally. But the strategy
+of the Minister was said to have been excellent, whereas that of the
+ex-Minister was very loudly condemned. There is nothing so
+prejudicial to a cause as temper. This man is declared to be unfit
+for any position of note, because he always shows temper. Anything
+can be done with another man,&mdash;he can be made to fit almost any
+hole,&mdash;because he has his temper under command. It may, indeed, be
+assumed that a man who loses his temper while he is speaking is
+endeavouring to speak the truth such as he believes it to be, and
+again it may be assumed that a man who speaks constantly without
+losing his temper is not always entitled to the same implicit faith.
+Whether or not this be a reason the more for preferring the calm and
+tranquil man may be doubted; but the calm and tranquil man is
+preferred for public services. We want practical results rather than
+truth. A clear head is worth more than an honest heart. In a matter
+of horseflesh of what use is it to have all manner of good gifts if
+your horse won't go whither you want him, and refuses to stop when
+you bid him? Mr. Gresham had been very indiscreet, and had especially
+sinned in opposing the Address without arrangements with his party.</p>
+
+<p>And he made the matter worse by retreating within his own shell
+during the whole of that Saturday, Sunday, and Monday morning. Lord
+Cantrip was with him three or four times, and he saw both Mr.
+Palliser, who had been Chancellor of the Exchequer under him, and Mr.
+Ratler. But he went amidst no congregation of Liberals, and asked for
+no support. He told Ratler that he wished gentlemen to vote
+altogether in accordance with their opinions; and it came to be
+whispered in certain circles that he had resigned, or was resigning,
+or would resign, the leadership of his party. Men said that his
+passions were too much for him, and that he was destroyed by feelings
+of regret, and almost of remorse.</p>
+
+<p>The Ministers held a Cabinet Council on the Monday morning, and it
+was supposed afterwards that that also had been stormy. Two gentlemen
+had certainly resigned their seats in the Government before the House
+met at four o'clock, and there were rumours abroad that others would
+do so if the suggested measure should be found really to amount to
+disestablishment. The rumours were, of course, worthy of no belief,
+as the transactions of the Cabinet are of necessity secret. Lord
+Drummond at the War Office, and Mr. Boffin from the Board of Trade,
+did, however, actually resign; and Mr. Boffin's explanations in the
+House were heard before the debate was resumed. Mr. Boffin had
+certainly not joined the present Ministry,&mdash;so he said,&mdash;with the
+view of destroying the Church. He had no other remark to make, and he
+was sure that the House would appreciate the course which had induced
+him to seat himself below the gangway. The House cheered very loudly,
+and Mr. Boffin was the hero of ten minutes. Mr. Daubeny detracted
+something from this triumph by the overstrained and perhaps ironic
+pathos with which he deplored the loss of his right honourable
+friend's services. Now this right honourable gentleman had never been
+specially serviceable.</p>
+
+<p>But the wonder of the world arose from the fact that only two
+gentlemen out of the twenty or thirty who composed the Government did
+give up their places on this occasion. And this was a Conservative
+Government! With what a force of agony did all the Ratlers of the day
+repeat that inappropriate name! Conservatives! And yet they were
+ready to abandon the Church at the bidding of such a man as Mr.
+Daubeny! Ratler himself almost felt that he loved the Church. Only
+two resignations;&mdash;whereas it had been expected that the whole House
+would fall to pieces! Was it possible that these earls, that marquis,
+and the two dukes, and those staunch old Tory squires, should remain
+in a Government pledged to disestablish the Church? Was all the
+honesty, all the truth of the great party confined to the bosoms of
+Mr. Boffin and Lord Drummond? Doubtless they were all Esaus; but
+would they sell their great birthright for so very small a mess of
+pottage? The parsons in the country, and the little squires who but
+rarely come up to London, spoke of it all exactly as did the Ratlers.
+There were parishes in the country in which Mr. Boffin was canonised,
+though up to that date no Cabinet Minister could well have been less
+known to fame than was Mr. Boffin.</p>
+
+<p>What would those Liberals do who would naturally rejoice in the
+disestablishment of the Church,&mdash;those members of the Lower House,
+who had always spoken of the ascendancy of Protestant episcopacy with
+the bitter acrimony of exclusion? After all, the success or failure
+of Mr. Daubeny must depend, not on his own party, but on them. It
+must always be so when measures of Reform are advocated by a
+Conservative Ministry. There will always be a number of untrained men
+ready to take the gift without looking at the giver. They have not
+expected relief from the hands of Greeks, but will take it when it
+comes from Greeks or Trojans. What would Mr. Turnbull say in this
+debate,&mdash;and what Mr. Monk? Mr. Turnbull was the people's tribune, of
+the day; Mr. Monk had also been a tribune, then a Minister, and now
+was again&mdash;something less than a tribune. But there were a few men in
+the House, and some out of it, who regarded Mr. Monk as the honestest
+and most patriotic politician of the day.</p>
+
+<p>The debate was long and stormy, but was peculiarly memorable for the
+skill with which Mr. Daubeny's higher colleagues defended the steps
+they were about to take. The thing was to be done in the cause of
+religion. The whole line of defence was indicated by the gentlemen
+who moved and seconded the Address. An active, well-supported Church
+was the chief need of a prosperous and intelligent people. As to the
+endowments, there was some confusion of ideas; but nothing was to be
+done with them inappropriate to religion. Education would receive the
+bulk of what was left after existing interests had been amply
+guaranteed. There would be no doubt,&mdash;so said these gentlemen,&mdash;that
+ample funds for the support of an Episcopal Church would come from
+those wealthy members of the body to whom such a Church was dear.
+There seemed to be a conviction that clergymen under the new order of
+things would be much better off than under the old. As to the
+connection with the State, the time for it had clearly gone by. The
+Church, as a Church, would own increased power when it could appoint
+its own bishops, and be wholly dissevered from State patronage. It
+seemed to be almost a matter of surprise that really good Churchmen
+should have endured so long to be shackled by subservience to the
+State. Some of these gentlemen pleaded their cause so well that they
+almost made it appear that episcopal ascendancy would be restored in
+England by the disseverance of the Church and State.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Turnbull, who was himself a dissenter, was at last upon his legs,
+and then the Ratlers knew that the game was lost. It would be lost as
+far as it could be lost by a majority in that House on that motion;
+and it was by that majority or minority that Mr. Daubeny would be
+maintained in his high office or ejected from it. Mr. Turnbull began
+by declaring that he did not at all like Mr. Daubeny as a Minister of
+the Crown. He was not in the habit of attaching himself specially to
+any Minister of the Crown. Experience had taught him to doubt them
+all. Of all possible Ministers of the Crown at this period, Mr.
+Daubeny was he thought perhaps the worst, and the most dangerous. But
+the thing now offered was too good to be rejected, let it come from
+what quarter it would. Indeed, might it not be said of all the good
+things obtained for the people, of all really serviceable reforms,
+that they were gathered and garnered home in consequence of the
+squabbles of Ministers? When men wanted power, either to grasp at it
+or to retain it, then they offered bribes to the people. But in the
+taking of such bribes there was no dishonesty, and he should
+willingly take this bribe.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Monk spoke also. He would not, he
+said, feel himself justified in refusing the Address to the Crown
+proposed by Ministers, simply because that Address was founded on the
+proposition of a future reform, as to the expediency of which he had
+not for many years entertained a doubt. He could not allow it to be
+said of him that he had voted for the permanence of the Church
+establishment, and he must therefore support the Government. Then
+Ratler whispered a few words to his neighbour: "I knew the way he'd
+run when Gresham insisted on poor old Mildmay's taking him into the
+Cabinet." "The whole thing has gone to the dogs," said Bonteen. On
+the fourth night the House was divided, and Mr. Daubeny was the owner
+of a majority of fifteen.</p>
+
+<p>Very many of the Liberal party expressed an opinion that the battle
+had been lost through the want of judgment evinced by Mr. Gresham.
+There was certainly no longer that sturdy adherence to their chief
+which is necessary for the solidarity of a party. Perhaps no leader
+of the House was ever more devoutly worshipped by a small number of
+adherents than was Mr. Gresham now; but such worship will not support
+power. Within the three days following the division the Ratlers had
+all put their heads together and had resolved that the Duke of St.
+Bungay was now the only man who could keep the party together. "But
+who should lead our House?" asked Bonteen. Ratler sighed instead of
+answering. Things had come to that pass that Mr. Gresham was the only
+possible leader. And the leader of the House of Commons, on behalf of
+the Government, must be the chief man in the Government, let the
+so-called Prime Minister be who he may.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c10"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER X.</h3>
+<h4>THE DESERTED HUSBAND.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>Phineas Finn had been in the gallery of the House throughout the
+debate, and was greatly grieved at Mr. Daubeny's success, though he
+himself had so strongly advocated the disestablishment of the Church
+in canvassing the electors of Tankerville. No doubt he had advocated
+the cause,&mdash;but he had done so as an advanced member of the Liberal
+party, and he regarded the proposition when coming from Mr. Daubeny
+as a horrible and abnormal birth. He, however, was only a
+looker-on,&mdash;could be no more than a looker-on for the existing short
+session. It had already been decided that the judge who was to try
+the case at Tankerville should visit that town early in January; and
+should it be decided on a scrutiny that the seat belonged to our
+hero, then he would enter upon his privilege in the following Session
+without any further trouble to himself at Tankerville. Should this
+not be the case,&mdash;then the abyss of absolute vacuity would be open
+before him. He would have to make some disposition of himself, but he
+would be absolutely without an idea as to the how or where. He was in
+possession of funds to support himself for a year or two; but after
+that, and even during that time, all would be dark. If he should get
+his seat, then again the power of making an effort would at last be
+within his hands.</p>
+
+<p>He had made up his mind to spend the Christmas with Lord Brentford
+and Lady Laura Kennedy at Dresden, and had already fixed the day of
+his arrival there. But this had been postponed by another invitation
+which had surprised him much, but which it had been impossible for
+him not to accept. It had come as follows:&mdash;<br />&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="jright">November 9th, Loughlinter.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smallcaps">Dear Sir</span>,</p>
+
+<p>I am informed by letter from Dresden that you are in London on your
+way to that city with the view of spending some days with the Earl of
+Brentford. You will, of course, be once more thrown into the society
+of my wife, Lady Laura Kennedy.</p>
+
+<p>I have never understood, and certainly have never sanctioned, that
+breach of my wife's marriage vow which has led to her withdrawal from
+my roof. I never bade her go, and I have bidden her return. Whatever
+may be her feelings, or mine, her duty demands her presence here, and
+my duty calls upon me to receive her. This I am and always have been
+ready to do. Were the laws of Europe sufficiently explicit and
+intelligible I should force her to return to my house,&mdash;because she
+sins while she remains away, and I should sin were I to omit to use
+any means which the law might place in my hands for the due control
+of my own wife. I am very explicit to you although we have of late
+been strangers, because in former days you were closely acquainted
+with the condition of my family affairs.</p>
+
+<p>Since my wife left me I have had no means of communicating with her
+by the assistance of any common friend. Having heard that you are
+about to visit her at Dresden I feel a great desire to see you that I
+may be enabled to send by you a personal message. My health, which is
+now feeble, and the altered habits of my life render it almost
+impossible that I should proceed to London with this object, and I
+therefore ask it of your Christian charity that you should visit me
+here at Loughlinter. You, as a Roman Catholic, cannot but hold the
+bond of matrimony to be irrefragable. You cannot, at least, think
+that it should be set aside at the caprice of an excitable woman who
+is not able and never has been able to assign any reason for leaving
+the protection of her husband.</p>
+
+<p>I shall have much to say to you, and I trust you will come. I will
+not ask you to prolong your visit, as I have nothing to offer you in
+the way of amusement. My mother is with me; but otherwise I am alone.
+Since my wife left me I have not thought it even decent to entertain
+guests or to enjoy society. I have lived a widowed life. I cannot
+even offer you shooting, as I have no keepers on the mountains. There
+are fish in the river doubtless, for the gifts of God are given let
+men be ever so unworthy; but this, I believe, is not the month for
+fishermen. I ask you to come to me, not as a pleasure, but as a
+Christian duty.</p>
+
+<p class="ind10">Yours truly,</p>
+
+<p class="ind12"><span class="smallcaps">Robert Kennedy</span>.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">Phineas Finn, Esq.<br />&nbsp;</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+<p>As soon as he had read the letter Phineas felt that he had no
+alternative but to go. The visit would be very disagreeable, but it
+must be made. So he sent a line to Robert Kennedy naming a day; and
+wrote another to Lady Laura postponing his time at Dresden by a week,
+and explaining the cause of its postponement. As soon as the debate
+on the Address was over he started for Loughlinter.</p>
+
+<p>A thousand memories crowded on his brain as he made the journey.
+Various circumstances had in his early life,&mdash;in that period of his
+life which had lately seemed to be cut off from the remainder of his
+days by so clear a line,&mdash;thrown him into close connection with this
+man, and with the man's wife. He had first gone to Loughlinter, not
+as Lady Laura's guest,&mdash;for Lady Laura had not then been married, or
+even engaged to be married,&mdash;but on her persuasion rather than on
+that of Mr. Kennedy. When there he had asked Lady Laura to be his own
+wife, and she had then told him that she was to become the wife of
+the owner of that domain. He remembered the blow as though it had
+been struck but yesterday, and yet the pain of the blow had not been
+long enduring. But though then rejected he had always been the chosen
+friend of the woman,&mdash;a friend chosen after an especial fashion. When
+he had loved another woman this friend had resented his defection
+with all a woman's jealousy. He had saved the husband's life, and had
+then become also the husband's friend, after that cold fashion which
+an obligation will create. Then the husband had been jealous, and
+dissension had come, and the ill-matched pair had been divided, with
+absolute ruin to both of them, as far as the material comforts and
+well-being of life were concerned. Then he, too, had been ejected, as
+it were, out of the world, and it had seemed to him as though Laura
+Standish and Robert Kennedy had been the inhabitants of another
+hemisphere. Now he was about to see them both again, both separately;
+and to become the medium of some communication between them. He knew,
+or thought that he knew, that no communication could avail anything.</p>
+
+<p>It was dark night when he was driven up to the door of Loughlinter
+House in a fly from the town of Callender. When he first made the
+journey, now some six or seven years since, he had done so with Mr.
+Ratler, and he remembered well that circumstance. He remembered also
+that on his arrival Lady Laura had scolded him for having travelled
+in such company. She had desired him to seek other friends,&mdash;friends
+higher in general estimation, and nobler in purpose. He had done so,
+partly at her instance, and with success. But Mr. Ratler was now
+somebody in the world, and he was nobody. And he remembered also how
+on that occasion he had been troubled in his mind in regard to a
+servant, not as yet knowing whether the usages of the world did or
+did not require that he should go so accompanied. He had taken the
+man, and had been thoroughly ashamed of himself for doing so. He had
+no servant now, no grandly developed luggage, no gun, no elaborate
+dress for the mountains. On that former occasion his heart had been
+very full when he reached Loughlinter, and his heart was full now.
+Then he had resolved to say a few words to Lady Laura, and he had
+hardly known how best to say them. Now he would be called upon to say
+a few to Lady Laura's husband, and the task would be almost as
+difficult.</p>
+
+<p>The door was opened for him by an old servant in black, who proposed
+at once to show him to his room. He looked round the vast hall,
+which, when he had before known it, was ever filled with signs of
+life, and felt at once that it was empty and deserted. It struck him
+as intolerably cold, and he saw that the huge fireplace was without a
+spark of fire. Dinner, the servant said, was prepared for half-past
+seven. Would Mr. Finn wish to dress? Of course he wished to dress.
+And as it was already past seven he hurried up stairs to his room.
+Here again everything was cold and wretched. There was no fire, and
+the man had left him with a single candle. There were candlesticks on
+the dressing-table, but they were empty. The man had suggested hot
+water, but the hot water did not come. In his poorest days he had
+never known discomfort such as this, and yet Mr. Kennedy was one of
+the richest commoners of Great Britain.</p>
+
+<p>But he dressed, and made his way down stairs, not knowing where he
+should find his host or his host's mother. He recognised the
+different doors and knew the rooms within them, but they seemed
+inhospitably closed against him, and he went and stood in the cold
+hall. But the man was watching for him, and led him into a small
+parlour. Then it was explained to him that Mr. Kennedy's state of
+health did not admit of late dinners. He was to dine alone, and Mr.
+Kennedy would receive him after dinner. In a moment his cheeks became
+red, and a flash of wrath crossed his heart. Was he to be treated in
+this way by a man on whose behalf,&mdash;with no thought of his own
+comfort or pleasure,&mdash;he had made this long and abominable journey?
+Might it not be well for him to leave the house without seeing Mr.
+Kennedy at all? Then he remembered that he had heard it whispered
+that the man had become bewildered in his mind. He relented,
+therefore, and condescended to eat his dinner.</p>
+
+<p>A very poor dinner it was. There was a morsel of flabby white fish,
+as to the nature of which Phineas was altogether in doubt, a beef
+steak as to the nature of which he was not at all in doubt, and a
+little crumpled-up tart which he thought the driver of the fly must
+have brought with him from the pastry-cook's at Callender. There was
+some very hot sherry, but not much of it. And there was a bottle of
+claret, as to which Phineas, who was not usually particular in the
+matter of wine, persisted in declining to have anything to do with it
+after the first attempt. The gloomy old servant, who stuck to him
+during the repast, persisted in offering it, as though the credit of
+the hospitality of Loughlinter depended on it. There are so many men
+by whom the tenuis ratio saporum has not been achieved, that the
+Caleb Balderstones of those houses in which plenty does not flow are
+almost justified in hoping that goblets of Gladstone may pass
+current. Phineas Finn was not a martyr to eating or drinking. He
+played with his fish without thinking much about it. He worked
+manfully at the steak. He gave another crumple to the tart, and left
+it without a pang. But when the old man urged him, for the third
+time, to take that pernicious draught with his cheese, he angrily
+demanded a glass of beer. The old man toddled out of the room, and on
+his return he proffered to him a diminutive glass of white spirit,
+which he called usquebaugh. Phineas, happy to get a little whisky,
+said nothing more about the beer, and so the dinner was over.</p>
+
+<p>He rose so suddenly from his chair that the man did not dare to ask
+him whether he would not sit over his wine. A suggestion that way was
+indeed made, would he "visit the laird out o' hand, or would he bide
+awee?" Phineas decided on visiting the laird out of hand, and was at
+once led across the hall, down a back passage which he had never
+before traversed, and introduced to the chamber which had ever been
+known as the "laird's ain room." Here Robert Kennedy rose to receive
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Phineas knew the man's age well. He was still under fifty, but he
+looked as though he were seventy. He had always been thin, but he was
+thinner now than ever. He was very grey, and stooped so much, that
+though he came forward a step or two to greet his guest, it seemed as
+though he had not taken the trouble to raise himself to his proper
+height. "You find me a much altered man," he said. The change had
+been so great that it was impossible to deny it, and Phineas muttered
+something of regret that his host's health should be so bad. "It is
+trouble of the mind,&mdash;not of the body, Mr. Finn. It is her
+doing,&mdash;her doing. Life is not to me a light thing, nor are the
+obligations of life light. When I married a wife, she became bone of
+my bone, and flesh of my flesh. Can I lose my bones and my
+flesh,&mdash;knowing that they are not with God but still subject
+elsewhere to the snares of the devil, and live as though I were a
+sound man? Had she died I could have borne it. I hope they have made
+you comfortable, Mr. Finn?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes," said Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>"Not that Loughlinter can be comfortable now to any one. How can a
+man, whose wife has deserted him, entertain his guests? I am ashamed
+even to look a friend in the face, Mr. Finn." As he said this he
+stretched forth his open hand as though to hide his countenance, and
+Phineas hardly knew whether the absurdity of the movement or the
+tragedy of the feeling struck him the more forcibly. "What did I do
+that she should leave me? Did I strike her? Was I faithless? Had she
+not the half of all that was mine? Did I frighten her by hard words,
+or exact hard tasks? Did I not commune with her, telling her all my
+most inward purposes? In things of this world, and of that better
+world that is coming, was she not all in all to me? Did I not make
+her my very wife? Mr. Finn, do you know what made her go away?" He
+had asked perhaps a dozen questions. As to the eleven which came
+first it was evident that no answer was required; and they had been
+put with that pathetic dignity with which it is so easy to invest the
+interrogatory form of address. But to the last question it was
+intended that Phineas should give an answer, as Phineas presumed at
+once; and then it was asked with a wink of the eye, a low eager
+voice, and a sly twist of the face that were frightfully ludicrous.
+"I suppose you do know," said Mr. Kennedy, again working his eye, and
+thrusting his chin forward.</p>
+
+
+<div class="center"><a id="ill10"></a>
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4px">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/ill10.jpg">
+      <img src="images/ill10-t.jpg" height="600"
+      alt="THE LAIRD OF LOUGHLINTER." /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption"><span class="smallcaps">The
+      Laird of Loughlinter.</span><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/ill10.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>"I imagine that she was not happy."</p>
+
+<p>"Happy? What right had she to expect to be happy? Are we to believe
+that we should be happy here? Are we not told that we are to look for
+happiness there, and to hope for none below?" As he said this he
+stretched his left hand to the ceiling. "But why shouldn't she have
+been happy? What did she want? Did she ever say anything against me,
+Mr. Finn?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing but this,&mdash;that your temper and hers were incompatible."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought at one time that you advised her to go away?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never!"</p>
+
+<p>"She told you about it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not, if I remember, till she had made up her mind, and her father
+had consented to receive her. I had known, of course, that things
+were unpleasant."</p>
+
+<p>"How were they unpleasant? Why were they unpleasant? She wouldn't let
+you come and dine with me in London. I never knew why that was. When
+she did what was wrong, of course I had to tell her. Who else should
+tell her but her husband? If you had been her husband, and I only an
+acquaintance, then I might have said what I pleased. They rebel
+against the yoke because it is a yoke. And yet they accept the yoke,
+knowing it to be a yoke. It comes of the devil. You think a priest
+can put everything right."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't," said Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing can put you right but the fear of God; and when a woman is
+too proud to ask for that, evils like these are sure to come. She
+would not go to church on Sunday afternoon, but had meetings of
+Belial at her father's house instead." Phineas well remembered those
+meetings of Belial, in which he with others had been wont to discuss
+the political prospects of the day. "When she persisted in breaking
+the Lord's commandment, and defiling the Lord's day, I knew well what
+would come of it."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not sure, Mr. Kennedy, that a husband is justified in demanding
+that a wife shall think just as he thinks on matters of religion. If
+he is particular about it, he should find all that out before."</p>
+
+<p>"Particular! God's word is to be obeyed, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"But people doubt about God's word."</p>
+
+<p>"Then people will be damned," said Mr. Kennedy, rising from his
+chair. "And they will be damned."</p>
+
+<p>"A woman doesn't like to be told so."</p>
+
+<p>"I never told her so. I never said anything of the kind. I never
+spoke a hard word to her in my life. If her head did but ache, I hung
+over her with the tenderest solicitude. I refused her nothing. When I
+found that she was impatient I chose the shortest sermon for our
+Sunday evening's worship, to the great discomfort of my mother."
+Phineas wondered whether this assertion as to the discomfort of old
+Mrs. Kennedy could possibly be true. Could it be that any human being
+really preferred a long sermon to a short one,&mdash;except the being who
+preached it or read it aloud? "There was nothing that I did not do
+for her. I suppose you really do know why she went away, Mr. Finn?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know nothing more than I have said."</p>
+
+<p>"I did think once that she was&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There was nothing more than I have said," asserted Phineas sternly,
+fearing that the poor insane man was about to make some suggestion
+that would be terribly painful. "She felt that she did not make you
+happy."</p>
+
+<p>"I did not want her to make me happy. I do not expect to be made
+happy. I wanted her to do her duty. You were in love with her once,
+Mr. Finn?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I was. I was in love with Lady Laura Standish."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! Yes. There was no harm in that, of course; only when any thing
+of that kind happens, people had better keep out of each other's way
+afterwards. Not that I was ever jealous, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"I should hope not."</p>
+
+<p>"But I don't see why you should go all the way to Dresden to pay her
+a visit. What good can that do? I think you had much better stay
+where you are, Mr. Finn; I do indeed. It isn't a decent thing for a
+young unmarried man to go half across Europe to see a lady who is
+separated from her husband, and who was once in love with him;&mdash;I
+mean he was once in love with her. It's a very wicked thing, Mr.
+Finn, and I have to beg that you will not do it."</p>
+
+<p>Phineas felt that he had been grossly taken in. He had been asked to
+come to Loughlinter in order that he might take a message from the
+husband to the wife, and now the husband made use of his compliance
+to forbid the visit on some grotesque score of jealousy. He knew that
+the man was mad, and that therefore he ought not to be angry; but the
+man was not too mad to require a rational answer, and had some method
+in his madness. "Lady Laura Kennedy is living with her father," said
+Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>"Pshaw;&mdash;dotard!"</p>
+
+<p>"Lady Laura Kennedy is living with her father," repeated Phineas;
+"and I am going to the house of the Earl of Brentford."</p>
+
+<p>"Who was it wrote and asked you?"</p>
+
+<p>"The letter was from Lady Laura."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes;&mdash;from my wife. What right had my wife to write to you when she
+will not even answer my appeals? She is my wife;&mdash;my wife! In the
+presence of God she and I have been made one, and even man's
+ordinances have not dared to separate us. Mr. Finn, as the husband of
+Lady Laura Kennedy, I desire that you abstain from seeking her
+presence." As he said this he rose from his chair, and took the poker
+in his hand. The chair in which he was sitting was placed upon the
+rug, and it might be that the fire required his attention. As he
+stood bending down, with the poker in his right hand, with his eye
+still fixed on his guest's face, his purpose was doubtful. The motion
+might be a threat, or simply have a useful domestic tendency. But
+Phineas, believing that the man was mad, rose from his seat and stood
+upon his guard. The point of the poker had undoubtedly been raised;
+but as Phineas stretched himself to his height, it fell gradually
+towards the fire, and at last was buried very gently among the coals.
+But he was never convinced that Mr. Kennedy had carried out the
+purpose with which he rose from his chair. "After what has passed,
+you will no doubt abandon your purpose," said Mr. Kennedy.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall certainly go to Dresden," said Phineas. "If you have a
+message to send, I will take it."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you will be accursed among adulterers," said the laird of
+Loughlinter. "By such a one I will send no message. From the first
+moment that I saw you I knew you for a child of Apollyon. But the sin
+was my own. Why did I ask to my house an idolater, one who pretends
+to believe that a crumb of bread is my God, a Papist, untrue alike to
+his country and to his Saviour? When she desired it of me I knew that
+I was wrong to yield. Yes;&mdash;it is you who have done it all, you, you,
+you;&mdash;and if she be a castaway, the weight of her soul will be doubly
+heavy on your own."</p>
+
+<p>To get out of the room, and then at the earliest possible hour of the
+morning out of the house, were now the objects to be attained. That
+his presence had had a peculiarly evil influence on Mr. Kennedy,
+Phineas could not doubt; as assuredly the unfortunate man would not
+have been left with mastery over his own actions had his usual
+condition been such as that which he now displayed. He had been told
+that "poor Kennedy" was mad,&mdash;as we are often told of the madness of
+our friends when they cease for awhile to run in the common grooves
+of life. But the madman had now gone a long way out of the
+grooves;&mdash;so far, that he seemed to Phineas to be decidedly
+dangerous. "I think I had better wish you good night," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, Mr. Finn."</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you won't go and make more mischief."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not do that, certainly."</p>
+
+<p>"You won't tell her what I have said?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall tell her nothing to make her think that your opinion of her
+is less high than it ought to be."</p>
+
+<p>"Good night."</p>
+
+<p>"Good night," said Phineas again; and then he left the room. It was
+as yet but nine o'clock, and he had no alternative but to go to bed.
+He found his way back into the hall, and from thence up to his own
+chamber. But there was no fire there, and the night was cold. He went
+to the window, and raised it for a moment, that he might hear the
+well-remembered sound of the Fall of Linter. Though the night was
+dark and wintry, a dismal damp November night, he would have crept
+out of the house and made his way up to the top of the brae, for the
+sake of auld lang syne, had he not feared that the inhospitable
+mansion would be permanently closed against him on his return. He
+rang the bell once or twice, and after a while the old serving man
+came to him. Could he have a cup of tea? The man shook his head, and
+feared that no boiling water could be procured at that late hour of
+the night. Could he have his breakfast the next morning at seven, and
+a conveyance to Callender at half-past seven? When the old man again
+shook his head, seeming to be dazed at the enormity of the demand,
+Phineas insisted that his request should be conveyed to the master of
+the house. As to the breakfast, he said he did not care about it, but
+the conveyance he must have. He did, in fact, obtain both, and left
+the house early on the following morning without again seeing Mr.
+Kennedy, and without having spoken a single word to Mr. Kennedy's
+mother. And so great was his hurry to get away from the place which
+had been so disagreeable to him, and which he thought might possibly
+become more so, that he did not even run across the sward that
+divided the gravel sweep from the foot of the waterfall.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c11"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XI.</h3>
+<h4>THE TRUANT WIFE.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>Phineas on his return to London wrote a line to Lady Chiltern in
+accordance with a promise which had been exacted from him. She was
+anxious to learn something as to the real condition of her husband's
+brother-in-law, and, when she heard that Phineas was going to
+Loughlinter, had begged that he would tell her the truth. "He has
+become eccentric, gloomy, and very strange," said Phineas. "I do not
+believe that he is really mad, but his condition is such that I think
+no friend should recommend Lady Laura to return to him. He seems to
+have devoted himself to a gloomy religion,&mdash;and to the saving of
+money. I had but one interview with him, and that was essentially
+disagreeable." Having remained two days in London, and having
+participated, as far as those two days would allow him, in the
+general horror occasioned by the wickedness and success of Mr.
+Daubeny, he started for Dresden.</p>
+
+<p>He found Lord Brentford living in a spacious house, with a huge
+garden round it, close upon the northern confines of the town.
+Dresden, taken altogether, is a clean cheerful city, and strikes the
+stranger on his first entrance as a place in which men are
+gregarious, busy, full of merriment, and pre-eminently social. Such
+is the happy appearance of but few towns either in the old or the new
+world, and is hardly more common in Germany than elsewhere. Leipsic
+is decidedly busy, but does not look to be social. Vienna is
+sufficiently gregarious, but its streets are melancholy. Munich is
+social, but lacks the hum of business. Frankfort is both practical
+and picturesque, but it is dirty, and apparently averse to mirth.
+Dresden has much to recommend it, and had Lord Brentford with his
+daughter come abroad in quest of comfortable easy social life, his
+choice would have been well made. But, as it was, any of the towns
+above named would have suited him as well as Dresden, for he saw no
+society, and cared nothing for the outward things of the world around
+him. He found Dresden to be very cold in the winter and very hot in
+the summer, and he liked neither heat nor cold; but he had made up
+his mind that all places, and indeed all things, are nearly equally
+disagreeable, and therefore he remained at Dresden, grumbling almost
+daily as to the climate and manners of the people.</p>
+
+<p>Phineas, when he arrived at the hall door, almost doubted whether he
+had not been as wrong in visiting Lord Brentford as he had in going
+to Loughlinter. His friendship with the old Earl had been very
+fitful, and there had been quarrels quite as pronounced as the
+friendship. He had often been happy in the Earl's house, but the
+happiness had not sprung from any love for the man himself. How would
+it be with him if he found the Earl hardly more civil to him than the
+Earl's son-in-law had been? In former days the Earl had been a man
+quite capable of making himself disagreeable, and probably had not
+yet lost the power of doing so. Of all our capabilities this is the
+one which clings longest to us. He was thinking of all this when he
+found himself at the door of the Earl's house. He had travelled all
+night, and was very cold. At Leipsic there had been a nominal twenty
+minutes for refreshment, which the circumstances of the station had
+reduced to five. This had occurred very early in the morning, and had
+sufficed only to give him a bowl of coffee. It was now nearly ten,
+and breakfast had become a serious consideration with him. He almost
+doubted whether it would not have been better for him to have gone to
+an hotel in the first instance.</p>
+
+<p>He soon found himself in the hall amidst a cluster of servants, among
+whom he recognised the face of a man from Saulsby. He had, however,
+little time allowed him for looking about. He was hardly in the house
+before Lady Laura Kennedy was in his arms. She had run forward, and
+before he could look into her face, she had put up her cheek to his
+lips and had taken both his hands. "Oh, my friend," she said; "oh, my
+friend! How good you are to come to me! How good you are to come!"
+And then she led him into a large room, in which a table had been
+prepared for breakfast, close to an English-looking open fire. "How
+cold you must be, and how hungry! Shall I have breakfast for you at
+once, or will you dress first? You are to be quite at home, you know;
+exactly as though we were brother and sister. You are not to stand on
+any ceremonies." And again she took him by the hand. He had hardly
+looked her yet in the face, and he could not do so now because he
+knew that she was crying. "Then I will show you to your room," she
+said, when he had decided for a tub of water before breakfast. "Yes,
+I will,&mdash;my own self. And I'd fetch the water for you, only I know it
+is there already. How long will you be? Half an hour? Very well. And
+you would like tea best, wouldn't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, I should like tea best."</p>
+
+<p>"I will make it for you. Papa never comes down till near two, and we
+shall have all the morning for talking. Oh, Phineas, it is such a
+pleasure to hear your voice again. You have been at Loughlinter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I have been there."</p>
+
+<p>"How very good of you; but I won't ask a question now. You must put
+up with a stove here, as we have not open fires in the bed-rooms. I
+hope you will be comfortable. Don't be more than half an hour, as I
+shall be impatient."</p>
+
+<p>Though he was thus instigated to haste he stood a few minutes with
+his back to the warm stove that he might be enabled to think of it
+all. It was two years since he had seen this woman, and when they had
+parted there had been more between them of the remembrances of old
+friendship than of present affection. During the last few weeks of
+their intimacy she had made a point of telling him that she intended
+to separate herself from her husband; but she had done so as though
+it were a duty, and an arranged part of her own defence of her own
+conduct. And in the latter incidents of her London life,&mdash;that life
+with which he had been conversant,&mdash;she had generally been opposed to
+him, or, at any rate, had chosen to be divided from him. She had said
+severe things to him,&mdash;telling him that he was cold, heartless, and
+uninterested, never trying even to please him with that sort of
+praise which had once been so common with her in her intercourse with
+him, and which all men love to hear from the mouths of women. She had
+then been cold to him, though she would make wretched allusions to
+the time when he, at any rate, had not been cold to her. She had
+reproached him, and had at the same time turned away from him. She
+had repudiated him, first as a lover, then as a friend; and he had
+hitherto never been able to gauge the depth of the affection for him
+which had underlaid all her conduct. As he stood there thinking of it
+all, he began to understand it.</p>
+
+<p>How natural had been her conduct on his arrival, and how like that of
+a genuine, true-hearted, honest woman! All her first thoughts had
+been for his little personal wants,&mdash;that he should be warmed, and
+fed, and made outwardly comfortable. Let sorrow be ever so deep, and
+love ever so true, a man will be cold who travels by winter, and
+hungry who has travelled by night. And a woman, who is a true,
+genuine woman, always takes delight in ministering to the natural
+wants of her friend. To see a man eat and drink, and wear his
+slippers, and sit at ease in his chair, is delightful to the feminine
+heart that loves. When I heard the other day that a girl had herself
+visited the room prepared for a man in her mother's house, then I
+knew that she loved him, though I had never before believed it.
+Phineas, as he stood there, was aware that this woman loved him
+dearly. She had embraced him, and given her face to him to kiss. She
+had clasped his hands, and clung to him, and had shown him plainly
+that in the midst of all her sorrow she could be made happy by his
+coming. But he was a man far too generous to take all this as meaning
+aught that it did not mean,&mdash;too generous, and intrinsically too
+manly. In his character there was much of weakness, much of
+vacillation, perhaps some deficiency of strength and purpose; but
+there was no touch of vanity. Women had loved him, and had told him
+so; and he had been made happy, and also wretched, by their love. But
+he had never taken pride, personally, to himself because they had
+loved him. It had been the accident of his life. Now he remembered
+chiefly that this woman had called herself his sister, and he was
+grateful.</p>
+
+<p>Then he thought of her personal appearance. As yet he had hardly
+looked at her, but he felt that she had become old and worn, angular
+and hard-visaged. All this had no effect upon his feelings towards
+her, but filled him with ineffable regret. When he had first known
+her she had been a woman with a noble presence&mdash;not soft and feminine
+as had been Violet Effingham, but handsome and lustrous, with a
+healthy youth. In regard to age he and she were of the same standing.
+That he knew well. She had passed her thirty-second birthday, but
+that was all. He felt himself to be still a young man, but he could
+not think of her as of a young woman.</p>
+
+<p>When he went down she had been listening for his footsteps, and met
+him at the door of the room. "Now sit down," she said, "and be
+comfortable&mdash;if you can, with German surroundings. They are almost
+always late, and never give one any time. Everybody says so. The
+station at Leipsic is dreadful, I know. Good coffee is very well, but
+what is the use of good coffee if you have no time to drink it? You
+must eat our omelette. If there is one thing we can do better than
+you it is to make an omelette. Yes,&mdash;that is genuine German sausage.
+There is always some placed upon the table, but the Germans who come
+here never touch it themselves. You will have a cutlet, won't you? I
+breakfasted an hour ago, and more. I would not wait because then I
+thought I could talk to you better, and wait upon you. I did not
+think that anything would ever please me so much again as your coming
+has done. Oh, how much we shall have to say! Do you remember when we
+last parted;&mdash;when you were going back to Ireland?"</p>
+
+<p>"I remember it well."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah me; as I look back upon it all, how strange it seems. I dare say
+you don't remember the first day I met you, at Mr. Mildmay's,&mdash;when I
+asked you to come to Portman Square because Barrington had said that
+you were clever?"</p>
+
+<p>"I remember well going to Portman Square."</p>
+
+<p>"That was the beginning of it all. Oh dear, oh dear; when I think of
+it I find it so hard to see where I have been right, and where I have
+been wrong. If I had not been very wrong all this evil could not have
+come upon me."</p>
+
+<p>"Misfortune has not always been deserved."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure it has been so with me. You can smoke here if you like."
+This Phineas persistently refused to do. "You may if you please. Papa
+never comes in here, and I don't mind it. You'll settle down in a day
+or two, and understand the extent of your liberties. Tell me first
+about Violet. She is happy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite happy, I think."</p>
+
+<p>"I knew he would be good to her. But does she like the kind of life?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes."</p>
+
+<p>"She has a baby, and therefore of course she is happy. She says he is
+the finest fellow in the world."</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say he is. They all seem to be contented with him, but they
+don't talk much about him."</p>
+
+<p>"No; they wouldn't. Had you a child you would have talked about him,
+Phineas. I should have loved my baby better than all the world, but I
+should have been silent about him. With Violet of course her husband
+is the first object. It would certainly be so from her nature. And so
+Oswald is quite tame?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know that he is very tame out hunting."</p>
+
+<p>"But to her?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should think always. She, you know, is very clever."</p>
+
+<p>"So clever!"</p>
+
+<p>"And would be sure to steer clear of all offence," said Phineas,
+enthusiastically.</p>
+
+<p>"While I could never for an hour avoid it. Did they say anything
+about the journey to Flanders?"</p>
+
+<p>"Chiltern did, frequently. He made me strip my shoulder to show him
+the place where he hit me."</p>
+
+<p>"How like Oswald!"</p>
+
+<p>"And he told me that he would have given one of his eyes to kill me,
+only Colepepper wouldn't let him go on. He half quarrelled with his
+second, but the man told him that I had not fired at him, and the
+thing must drop. 'It's better as it is, you know,' he said. And I
+agreed with him."</p>
+
+<p>"And how did Violet receive you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Like an angel,&mdash;as she is."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, yes. I'll grant she is an angel now. I was angry with her
+once, you know. You men find so many angels in your travels. You have
+been honester than some. You have generally been off with the old
+angel before you were on with the new,&mdash;as far at least as I knew."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that meant for rebuke, Lady Laura?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, my friend; no. That is all over. I said to myself when you told
+me that you would come, that I would not utter one ill-natured word.
+And I told myself more than that!"</p>
+
+<p>"What more?"</p>
+
+<p>"That you had never deserved it,&mdash;at least from me. But surely you
+were the most simple of men."</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say."</p>
+
+<p>"Men when they are true are simple. They are often false as hell, and
+then they are crafty as Lucifer. But the man who is true judges
+others by himself,&mdash;almost without reflection. A woman can be true as
+steel and cunning at the same time. How cunning was Violet, and yet
+she never deceived one of her lovers, even by a look. Did she?"</p>
+
+<p>"She never deceived me,&mdash;if you mean that. She never cared a straw
+about me, and told me so to my face very plainly."</p>
+
+<p>"She did care,&mdash;many straws. But I think she always loved Oswald. She
+refused him again and again, because she thought it wrong to run a
+great risk, but I knew she would never marry any one else. How little
+Lady Baldock understood her. Fancy your meeting Lady Baldock at
+Oswald's house!"</p>
+
+<p>"Fancy Augusta Boreham turning nun!"</p>
+
+<p>"How exquisitely grotesque it must have been when she made her
+complaint to you."</p>
+
+<p>"I pitied her with all my heart."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you did,&mdash;because you are so soft. And now, Phineas, we
+will put it off no longer. Tell me all that you have to tell me about
+him."</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c12"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XII.</h3>
+<h4>K&Ouml;NIGSTEIN.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>Phineas Finn and Lady Laura Kennedy sat together discussing the
+affairs of the past till the servant told them that "My Lord" was in
+the next room, and ready to receive Mr. Finn. "You will find him much
+altered," said Lady Laura, "even more than I am."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not find you altered at all."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you do,&mdash;in appearance. I am a middle-aged woman, and conscious
+that I may use my privileges as such. But he has become quite an old
+man,&mdash;not in health so much as in manner. But he will be very glad to
+see you." So saying she led him into a room, in which he found the
+Earl seated near the fireplace, and wrapped in furs. He got up to
+receive his guest, and Phineas saw at once that during the two years
+of his exile from England Lord Brentford had passed from manhood to
+senility. He almost tottered as he came forward, and he wrapped his
+coat around him with that air of studious self-preservation which
+belongs only to the infirm.</p>
+
+<p>"It is very good of you to come and see me, Mr. Finn," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't call him Mr. Finn, Papa. I call him Phineas."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, yes; that's all right, I dare say. It's a terrible long
+journey from London, isn't it, Mr. Finn?"</p>
+
+<p>"Too long to be pleasant, my lord."</p>
+
+<p>"Pleasant! Oh, dear. There's no pleasantness about it. And so they've
+got an autumn session, have they? That's always a very stupid thing
+to do, unless they want money."</p>
+
+<p>"But there is a money bill which must be passed. That's Mr. Daubeny's
+excuse."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, if they've a money bill of course it's all right. So you're in
+Parliament again?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry to say I'm not." Then Lady Laura explained to her father,
+probably for the third or fourth time, exactly what was their guest's
+position. "Oh, a scrutiny. We didn't use to have any scrutinies at
+Loughton, did we? Ah, me; well, everything seems to be going to the
+dogs. I'm told they're attacking the Church now." Lady Laura glanced
+at Phineas; but neither of them said a word. "I don't quite
+understand it; but they tell me that the Tories are going to
+disestablish the Church. I'm very glad I'm out of it all. Things have
+come to such a pass that I don't see how a gentleman is to hold
+office now-a-days. Have you seen Chiltern lately?"</p>
+
+<p>After a while, when Phineas had told the Earl all that there was to
+tell of his son and his grandson, and all of politics and of
+Parliament, Lady Laura suddenly interrupted them. "You knew, Papa,
+that he was to see Mr. Kennedy. He has been to Loughlinter, and has
+seen him."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, indeed!"</p>
+
+<p>"He is quite assured that I could not with wisdom return to live with
+my husband."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a very grave decision to make," said the Earl.</p>
+
+<p>"But he has no doubt about it," continued Lady Laura.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a shadow of doubt," said Phineas. "I will not say that Mr.
+Kennedy is mad; but the condition of his mind is such in regard to
+Lady Laura that I do not think she could live with him in safety. He
+is crazed about religion."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear, dear, dear," exclaimed the Earl.</p>
+
+<p>"The gloom of his house is insupportable. And he does not pretend
+that he desires her to return that he and she may be happy together."</p>
+
+<p>"What for then?"</p>
+
+<p>"That we might be unhappy together," said Lady Laura.</p>
+
+<p>"He repudiates all belief in happiness. He wishes her to return to
+him chiefly because it is right that a man and wife should live
+together."</p>
+
+<p>"So it is," said the Earl.</p>
+
+<p>"But not to the utter wretchedness of both of them," said Lady Laura.
+"He says," and she pointed to Phineas, "that were I there he would
+renew his accusation against me. He has not told me all. Perhaps he
+cannot tell me all. But I certainly will not return to Loughlinter."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, my dear."</p>
+
+<p>"It is not very well, Papa; but, nevertheless, I will not return to
+Loughlinter. What I suffered there neither of you can understand."</p>
+
+<p>That afternoon Phineas went out alone to the galleries, but the next
+day she accompanied him, and showed him whatever of glory the town
+had to offer in its winter dress. They stood together before great
+masters, and together examined small gems. And then from day to day
+they were always in each other's company. He had promised to stay a
+month, and during that time he was petted and comforted to his
+heart's content. Lady Laura would have taken him into the Saxon
+Switzerland, in spite of the inclemency of the weather and her
+father's rebukes, had he not declared vehemently that he was happier
+remaining in the town. But she did succeed in carrying him off to the
+fortress of K&ouml;nigstein; and there as they wandered along the fortress
+constructed on that wonderful rock there occurred between them a
+conversation which he never forgot, and which it would not have been
+easy to forget. His own prospects had of course been frequently
+discussed. He had told her everything, down to the exact amount of
+money which he had to support him till he should again be enabled to
+earn an income, and had received assurances from her that everything
+would be just as it should be after a lapse of a few months. The
+Liberals would, as a matter of course, come in, and equally as a
+matter of course, Phineas would be in office. She spoke of this with
+such certainty that she almost convinced him. Having tempted him away
+from the safety of permanent income, the party could not do less than
+provide for him. If he could only secure a seat he would be safe; and
+it seemed that Tankerville would be a certain seat. This certainty he
+would not admit; but, nevertheless, he was comforted by his friend.
+When you have done the rashest thing in the world it is very pleasant
+to be told that no man of spirit could have acted otherwise. It was a
+matter of course that he should return to public life,&mdash;so said Lady
+Laura;&mdash;and doubly a matter of course when he found himself a widower
+without a child. "Whether it be a bad life or a good life," said Lady
+Laura, "you and I understand equally well that no other life is worth
+having after it. We are like the actors, who cannot bear to be away
+from the gaslights when once they have lived amidst their glare." As
+she said this they were leaning together over one of the parapets of
+the great fortress, and the sadness of the words struck him as they
+bore upon herself. She also had lived amidst the gaslights, and now
+she was self-banished into absolute obscurity. "You could not have
+been content with your life in Dublin," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you content with your life in Dresden?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not. We all like exercise; but the man who has had his leg
+cut off can't walk. Some can walk with safety; others only with a
+certain peril; and others cannot at all. You are in the second
+position, but I am in the last."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not see why you should not return."</p>
+
+<p>"And if I did what would come of it? In place of the seclusion of
+Dresden, there would be the seclusion of Portman Square or of
+Saulsby. Who would care to have me at their houses, or to come to
+mine? You know what a hazardous, chancy, short-lived thing is the
+fashion of a woman. With wealth, and wit, and social charm, and
+impudence, she may preserve it for some years, but when she has once
+lost it she can never recover it. I am as much lost to the people who
+did know me in London as though I had been buried for a century. A
+man makes himself really useful, but a woman can never do that."</p>
+
+<p>"All those general rules mean nothing," said Phineas. "I should try
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"No, Phineas. I know better than that. It would only be
+disappointment. I hardly think that after all you ever did understand
+when it was that I broke down utterly and marred my fortunes for
+ever."</p>
+
+<p>"I know the day that did it."</p>
+
+<p>"When I accepted him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course it was. I know that, and so do you. There need be no
+secret between us."</p>
+
+<p>"There need be no secret between us certainly,&mdash;and on my part there
+shall be none. On my part there has been none."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor on mine."</p>
+
+<p>"There has been nothing for you to tell,&mdash;since you blurted out your
+short story of love that day over the waterfall, when I tried so hard
+to stop you."</p>
+
+<p>"How was I to be stopped then?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; you were too simple. You came there with but one idea, and you
+could not change it on the spur of the moment. When I told you that I
+was engaged you could not swallow back the words that were not yet
+spoken. Ah, how well I remember it. But you are wrong, Phineas. It
+was not my engagement or my marriage that has made the world a blank
+for me." A feeling came upon him which half-choked him, so that he
+could ask her no further question. "You know that, Phineas."</p>
+
+<p>"It was your marriage," he said, gruffly.</p>
+
+<p>"It was, and has been, and still will be my strong, unalterable,
+unquenchable love for you. How could I behave to that other man with
+even seeming tenderness when my mind was always thinking of you, when
+my heart was always fixed upon you? But you have been so simple, so
+little given to vanity,"&mdash;she leaned upon his arm as she spoke,&mdash;"so
+pure and so manly, that you have not believed this, even when I told
+you. Has it not been so?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not wish to believe it now."</p>
+
+<p>"But you do believe it? You must and shall believe it. I ask for
+nothing in return. As my God is my judge, if I thought it possible
+that your heart should be to me as mine is to you, I could have put a
+pistol to my ear sooner than speak as I have spoken." Though she
+paused for some word from him he could not utter a word. He
+remembered many things, but even to her in his present mood he could
+not allude to them;&mdash;how he had kissed her at the Falls, how she had
+bade him not come back to the house because his presence to her was
+insupportable; how she had again encouraged him to come, and had then
+forbidden him to accept even an invitation to dinner from her
+husband. And he remembered too the fierceness of her anger to him
+when he told her of his love for Violet Effingham. "I must insist
+upon it," she continued, "that you shall take me now as I really
+am,&mdash;as your dearest friend, your sister, your mother, if you will. I
+know what I am. Were my husband not still living it would be the
+same. I should never under any circumstances marry again. I have
+passed the period of a woman's life when as a woman she is loved; but
+I have not outlived the power of loving. I shall fret about you,
+Phineas, like an old hen after her one chick; and though you turn out
+to be a duck, and get away into waters where I cannot follow you, I
+shall go cackling round the pond, and always have my eye upon you."
+He was holding her now by the hand, but he could not speak for the
+tears were trickling down his cheeks. "When I was young," she
+continued, "I did not credit myself with capacity for so much
+passion. I told myself that love after all should be a servant and
+not a master, and I married my husband fully intending to do my duty
+to him. Now we see what has come of it."</p>
+
+<p>"It has been his fault; not yours," said Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>"It was my fault,&mdash;mine; for I never loved him. Had you not told me
+what manner of man he was before? And I had believed you, though I
+denied it. And I knew when I went to Loughlinter that it was you whom
+I loved. And I knew too,&mdash;I almost knew that you would ask me to be
+your wife were not that other thing settled first. And I declared to
+myself that, in spite of both our hearts, it should not be so. I had
+no money then,&mdash;nor had you."</p>
+
+<p>"I would have worked for you."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, yes; but you must not reproach me now, Phineas. I never deserted
+you as regarded your interests, though what little love you had for
+me was short-lived indeed. Nay; you are not accused, and shall not
+excuse yourself. You were right,&mdash;always right. When you had failed
+to win one woman your heart with a true natural spring went to
+another. And so entire had been the cure, that you went to the first
+woman with the tale of your love for the second."</p>
+
+<p>"To whom was I to go but to a friend?"</p>
+
+<p>"You did come to a friend, and though I could not drive out of my
+heart the demon of jealousy, though I was cut to the very bone, I
+would have helped you had help been possible. Though it had been the
+fixed purpose of my life that Violet and Oswald should be man and
+wife, I would have helped you because that other purpose of serving
+you in all things had become more fixed. But it was to no good end
+that I sang your praises. Violet Effingham was not the girl to marry
+this man or that at the bidding of any one;&mdash;was she?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, indeed."</p>
+
+<p>"It is of no use now talking of it; is it? But I want you to
+understand me from the beginning;&mdash;to understand all that was evil,
+and anything that was good. Since first I found that you were to me
+the dearest of human beings I have never once been untrue to your
+interests, though I have been unable not to be angry with you. Then
+came that wonderful episode in which you saved my husband's life."</p>
+
+<p>"Not his life."</p>
+
+<p>"Was it not singular that it should come from your hand? It seemed
+like Fate. I tried to use the accident, to make his friendship for
+you as thorough as my own. And then I was obliged to separate you,
+because,&mdash;because, after all I was so mere a woman that I could not
+bear to have you near me. I can bear it now."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Laura!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; as your sister. I think you cannot but love me a little when
+you know how entirely I am devoted to you. I can bear to have you
+near me now and think of you only as the hen thinks of her duckling.
+For a moment you are out of the pond, and I have gathered you under
+my wing. You understand?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know that I am unworthy of what you say of me."</p>
+
+<p>"Worth has nothing to do with it,&mdash;has no bearing on it. I do not say
+that you are more worthy than all whom I have known. But when did
+worth create love? What I want is that you should believe me, and
+know that there is one bound to you who will never be unbound, one
+whom you can trust in all things,&mdash;one to whom you can confess that
+you have been wrong if you go wrong, and yet be sure that you will
+not lessen her regard. And with this feeling you must pretend to
+nothing more than friendship. You will love again, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you will. I tried to blaze into power by a marriage, and I
+failed,&mdash;because I was a woman. A woman should marry only for love.
+You will do it yet, and will not fail. You may remember this
+too,&mdash;that I shall never be jealous again. You may tell me everything
+with safety. You will tell me everything?"</p>
+
+<p>"If there be anything to tell, I will."</p>
+
+<p>"I will never stand between you and your wife,&mdash;though I would fain
+hope that she should know how true a friend I am. Now we have walked
+here till it is dark, and the sentry will think we are taking plans
+of the place. Are you cold?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have not thought about the cold."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor have I. We will go down to the inn and warm ourselves before the
+train comes. I wonder why I should have brought you here to tell you
+my story. Oh, Phineas." Then she threw herself into his arms, and he
+pressed her to his heart, and kissed first her forehead and then her
+lips. "It shall never be so again," she said. "I will kill it out of
+my heart even though I should crucify my body. But it is not my love
+that I will kill. When you are happy I will be happy. When you
+prosper I will prosper. When you fail I will fail. When you rise,&mdash;as
+you will rise,&mdash;I will rise with you. But I will never again feel the
+pressure of your arm round my waist. Here is the gate, and the old
+guide. So, my friend, you see that we are not lost." Then they walked
+down the very steep hill to the little town below the fortress, and
+there they remained till the evening train came from Prague, and took
+them back to Dresden.</p>
+
+<p>Two days after this was the day fixed for Finn's departure. On the
+intermediate day the Earl begged for a few minutes' private
+conversation with him, and the two were closeted together for an
+hour. The Earl, in truth, had little or nothing to say. Things had so
+gone with him that he had hardly a will of his own left, and did
+simply that which his daughter directed him to do. He pretended to
+consult Phineas as to the expediency of his returning to Saulsby. Did
+Phineas think that his return would be of any use to the party?
+Phineas knew very well that the party would not recognise the
+difference whether the Earl lived at Dresden or in London. When a man
+has come to the end of his influence as the Earl had done he is as
+much a nothing in politics as though he had never risen above that
+quantity. The Earl had never risen very high, and even Phineas, with
+all his desire to be civil, could not say that the Earl's presence
+would materially serve the interests of the Liberal party. He made
+what most civil excuses he could, and suggested that if Lord
+Brentford should choose to return, Lady Laura would very willingly
+remain at Dresden alone. "But why shouldn't she come too?" asked the
+Earl. And then, with the tardiness of old age, he proposed his little
+plan. "Why should she not make an attempt to live once more with her
+husband?"</p>
+
+<p>"She never will," said Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>"But think how much she loses," said the Earl.</p>
+
+<p>"I am quite sure she never will. And I am quite sure that she ought
+not to do so. The marriage was a misfortune. As it is they are better
+apart." After that the Earl did not dare to say another word about
+his daughter; but discussed his son's affairs. Did not Phineas think
+that Chiltern might now be induced to go into Parliament? "Nothing
+would make him do so," said Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>"But he might farm?"</p>
+
+<p>"You see he has his hands full."</p>
+
+<p>"But other men keep hounds and farm too," said the Earl.</p>
+
+<p>"But Chiltern is not like other men. He gives his whole mind to it,
+and finds full employment. And then he is quite happy, and so is she.
+What more can you want for him? Everybody respects him."</p>
+
+<p>"That goes a very great way," said the Earl. Then he thanked Phineas
+cordially, and felt that now as ever he had done his duty by his
+family.</p>
+
+<p>There was no renewal of the passionate conversation which had taken
+place on the ramparts, but much of tenderness and of sympathy arose
+from it. Lady Laura took upon herself the tone and manners of an
+elder sister,&mdash;of a sister very much older than her brother,&mdash;and
+Phineas submitted to them not only gracefully but with delight to
+himself. He had not thanked her for her love when she expressed it,
+and he did not do so afterwards. But he accepted it, and bowed to it,
+and recognised it as constituting one of the future laws of his life.
+He was to do nothing of importance without her knowledge, and he was
+to be at her command should she at any time want assistance in
+England. "I suppose I shall come back some day," she said, as they
+were sitting together late on the evening before his departure.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot understand why you should not do so now. Your father wishes
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"He thinks he does; but were he told that he was to go to-morrow, or
+next summer, it would fret him. I am assured that Mr. Kennedy could
+demand my return,&mdash;by law."</p>
+
+<p>"He could not enforce it."</p>
+
+<p>"He would attempt it. I will not go back until he consents to my
+living apart from him. And, to tell the truth, I am better here for
+awhile. They say that the sick animals always creep somewhere under
+cover. I am a sick animal, and now that I have crept here I will
+remain till I am stronger. How terribly anxious you must be about
+Tankerville!"</p>
+
+<p>"I am anxious."</p>
+
+<p>"You will telegraph to me at once? You will be sure to do that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I will, the moment I know my fate."</p>
+
+<p>"And if it goes against you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah,&mdash;what then?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall at once write to Barrington Erle. I don't suppose he would
+do much now for his poor cousin, but he can at any rate say what can
+be done. I should bid you come here,&mdash;only that stupid people would
+say that you were my lover. I should not mind, only that he would
+hear it, and I am bound to save him from annoyance. Would you not go
+down to Oswald again?"</p>
+
+<p>"With what object?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because anything will be better than returning to Ireland. Why not
+go down and look after Saulsby? It would be a home, and you need not
+tie yourself to it. I will speak to Papa about that. But you will get
+the seat."</p>
+
+<p>"I think I shall," said Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>"Do;&mdash;pray do! If I could only get hold of that judge by the ears! Do
+you know what time it is? It is twelve, and your train starts at
+eight." Then he arose to bid her adieu. "No," she said; "I shall see
+you off."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed you will not. It will be almost night when I leave this, and
+the frost is like iron."</p>
+
+<p>"Neither the night nor the frost will kill me. Do you think I will
+not give you your last breakfast? God bless you, dear."</p>
+
+<p>And on the following morning she did give him his breakfast by
+candle-light, and went down with him to the station. The morning was
+black, and the frost was, as he had said, as hard as iron, but she
+was thoroughly good-humoured, and apparently happy. "It has been so
+much to me to have you here, that I might tell you everything," she
+said. "You will understand me now."</p>
+
+<p>"I understand, but I know not how to believe," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"You do believe. You would be worse than a Jew if you did not believe
+me. But you understand also. I want you to marry, and you must tell
+her all the truth. If I can I will love her almost as much as I do
+you. And if I live to see them, I will love your children as dearly
+as I do you. Your children shall be my children;&mdash;or at least one of
+them shall be mine. You will tell me when it is to be."</p>
+
+<p>"If I ever intend such a thing, I will tell you."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, good-bye. I shall stand back there till the train starts, but
+do not you notice me. God bless you, Phineas." She held his hand
+tight within her own for some seconds, and looked into his face with
+an unutterable love. Then she drew down her veil, and went and stood
+apart till the train had left the platform.</p>
+
+<p>"He has gone, Papa," Lady Laura said, as she stood afterwards by her
+father's bedside.</p>
+
+<p>"Has he? Yes; I know he was to go, of course. I was very glad to see
+him, Laura."</p>
+
+<p>"So was I, Papa;&mdash;very glad indeed. Whatever happens to him, we must
+never lose sight of him again."</p>
+
+<p>"We shall hear of him, of course, if he is in the House."</p>
+
+<p>"Whether he is in the House or out of it we must hear of him. While
+we have aught he must never want." The Earl stared at his daughter.
+The Earl was a man of large possessions, and did not as yet
+understand that he was to be called upon to share them with Phineas
+Finn. "I know, Papa, you will never think ill of me."</p>
+
+<p>"Never, my dear."</p>
+
+<p>"I have sworn that I will be a sister to that man, and I will keep my
+oath."</p>
+
+<p>"I know you are a very good sister to Chiltern," said the Earl. Lady
+Laura had at one time appropriated her whole fortune, which had been
+large, to the payment of her brother's debts. The money had been
+returned, and had gone to her husband. Lord Brentford now supposed
+that she intended at some future time to pay the debts of Phineas
+Finn.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c13"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XIII.</h3>
+<h4>"I HAVE GOT THE SEAT."<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>When Phineas returned to London, the autumn Session, though it had
+been carried on so near to Christmas as to make many members very
+unhappy, had already been over for a fortnight. Mr. Daubeny had
+played his game with consummate skill to the last. He had brought in
+no bill, but had stated his intention of doing so early in the
+following Session. He had, he said, of course been aware from the
+first that it would have been quite impossible to carry such a
+measure as that proposed during the few weeks in which it had been
+possible for them to sit between the convening of Parliament and the
+Christmas holidays; but he thought that it was expedient that the
+proposition should be named to the House and ventilated as it had
+been, so that members on both sides might be induced to give their
+most studious attention to the subject before a measure, which must
+be so momentous, should be proposed to them. As had happened, the
+unforeseen division to which the House had been pressed on the
+Address had proved that the majority of the House was in favour of
+the great reform which it was the object of his ambition to complete.
+They were aware that they had been assembled at a somewhat unusual
+and inconvenient period of the year, because the service of the
+country had demanded that certain money bills should be passed. He,
+however, rejoiced greatly that this earliest opportunity had been
+afforded to him of explaining the intentions of the Government with
+which he had the honour of being connected. In answer to this there
+arose a perfect torrent of almost vituperative antagonism from the
+opposite side of the House. Did the Right Honourable gentleman dare
+to say that the question had been ventilated in the country, when it
+had never been broached by him or any of his followers till after the
+general election had been completed? Was it not notorious to the
+country that the first hint of it had been given when the Right
+Honourable gentleman was elected for East Barsetshire, and was it not
+equally notorious that that election had been so arranged that the
+marvellous proposition of the Right Honourable gentleman should not
+be known even to his own party till there remained no possibility of
+the expression of any condemnation from the hustings? It might be
+that the Right Honourable could so rule his own followers in that
+House as to carry them with him even in a matter so absolutely
+opposite to their own most cherished convictions. It certainly seemed
+that he had succeeded in doing so for the present. But would any one
+believe that he would have carried the country, had he dared to face
+the country with such a measure in his hands? Ventilation, indeed! He
+had not dared to ventilate his proposition. He had used this short
+Session in order that he might keep his clutch fastened on power, and
+in doing so was indifferent alike to the Constitution, to his party,
+and to the country. Harder words had never been spoken in the House
+than were uttered on this occasion. But the Minister was successful.
+He had been supported on the Address; and he went home to East
+Barsetshire at Christmas, perhaps with some little fear of the
+parsons around him; but with a full conviction that he would at least
+carry the second reading of his bill.</p>
+
+<p>London was more than usually full and busy this year immediately
+after Christmas. It seemed as though it were admitted by all the
+Liberal party generally that the sadness of the occasion ought to rob
+the season of its usual festivities. Who could eat mince pies or
+think of Twelfth Night while so terribly wicked a scheme was in
+progress for keeping the real majority out in the cold? It was the
+injustice of the thing that rankled so deeply,&mdash;that, and a sense of
+inferiority to the cleverness displayed by Mr. Daubeny! It was as
+when a player is checkmated by some audacious combination of two
+pawns and a knight, such being all the remaining forces of the
+victorious adversary, when the beaten man has two castles and a queen
+upon the board. It was, indeed, worse than this,&mdash;for the adversary
+had appropriated to his own use the castles and the queen of the
+unhappy vanquished one. This Church Reform was the legitimate
+property of the Liberals, and had not been as yet used by them only
+because they had felt it right to keep in the background for some
+future great occasion so great and so valuable a piece of ordnance.
+It was theirs so safely that they could afford to bide their time.
+And then,&mdash;so they all said, and so some of them believed,&mdash;the
+country was not ready for so great a measure. It must come; but there
+must be tenderness in the mode of producing it. The parsons must be
+respected, and the great Church-of-England feeling of the people must
+be considered with affectionate regard. Even the most rabid Dissenter
+would hardly wish to see a structure so nearly divine attacked and
+destroyed by rude hands. With grave and slow and sober earnestness,
+with loving touches and soft caressing manipulation let the beautiful
+old Church be laid to its rest, as something too exquisite, too
+lovely, too refined for the present rough manners of the world! Such
+were the ideas as to Church Reform of the leading Liberals of the
+day; and now this man, without even a majority to back him, this
+audacious Cagliostro among statesmen, this destructive leader of all
+declared Conservatives, had come forward without a moment's warning,
+and pretended that he would do the thing out of hand! Men knew that
+it had to be done. The country had begun to perceive that the old
+Establishment must fall; and, knowing this, would not the Liberal
+backbone of Great Britain perceive the enormity of this Cagliostro's
+wickedness,&mdash;and rise against him and bury him beneath its scorn as
+it ought to do? This was the feeling that made a real Christmas
+impossible to Messrs. Ratler and Bonteen.</p>
+
+<p>"The one thing incredible to me," said Mr. Ratler, "is that
+Englishmen should be so mean." He was alluding to the Conservatives
+who had shown their intention of supporting Mr. Daubeny, and whom he
+accused of doing so, simply with a view to power and patronage,
+without any regard to their own consistency or to the welfare of the
+country. Mr. Ratler probably did not correctly read the minds of the
+men whom he was accusing, and did not perceive, as he should have
+done with his experience, how little there was among them of
+concerted action. To defend the Church was a duty to each of them;
+but then, so also was it a duty to support his party. And each one
+could see his way to the one duty, whereas the other was vague, and
+too probably ultimately impossible. If it were proper to throw off
+the incubus of this conjuror's authority, surely some wise, and
+great, and bold man would get up and so declare. Some junto of wise
+men of the party would settle that he should be deposed. But where
+were they to look for the wise and bold men? where even for the
+junto? Of whom did the party consist?&mdash;Of honest, chivalrous, and
+enthusiastic men, but mainly of men who were idle, and unable to take
+upon their own shoulders the responsibility of real work. Their
+leaders had been selected from the outside,&mdash;clever, eager, pushing
+men, but of late had been hardly selected from among themselves. As
+used to be the case with Italian Powers, they entrusted their cause
+to mercenary foreign generals, soldiers of fortune, who carried their
+good swords whither they were wanted; and, as of old, the leaders
+were ever ready to fight, but would themselves declare what should be
+and what should not be the <i>casus belli</i>. There was not so much
+meanness as Mr. Ratler supposed in the Conservative ranks, but very
+much more unhappiness. Would it not be better to go home and live at
+the family park all the year round, and hunt, and attend Quarter
+Sessions, and be able to declare morning and evening with a clear
+conscience that the country was going to the dogs? Such was the
+mental working of many a Conservative who supported Mr. Daubeny on
+this occasion.</p>
+
+<p>At the instance of Lady Laura, Phineas called upon the Duke of St.
+Bungay soon after his return, and was very kindly received by his
+Grace. In former days, when there were Whigs instead of Liberals, it
+was almost a rule of political life that all leading Whigs should be
+uncles, brothers-in-law, or cousins to each other. This was pleasant
+and gave great consistency to the party; but the system has now gone
+out of vogue. There remain of it, however, some traces, so that among
+the nobler born Liberals of the day there is still a good deal of
+agreeable family connection. In this way the St. Bungay Fitz-Howards
+were related to the Mildmays and Standishes, and such a man as
+Barrington Erle was sure to be cousin to all of them. Lady Laura had
+thus only sent her friend to a relation of her own, and as the Duke
+and Phineas had been in the same Government, his Grace was glad
+enough to receive the returning aspirant. Of course there was
+something said at first as to the life of the Earl at Dresden. The
+Duke recollected the occasion of such banishment, and shook his head;
+and attempted to look unhappy when the wretched condition of Mr.
+Kennedy was reported to him. But he was essentially a happy man, and
+shook off the gloom at once when Phineas spoke of politics. "So you
+are coming back to us, Mr. Finn?"</p>
+
+<p>"They tell me I may perhaps get the seat."</p>
+
+<p>"I am heartily glad, for you were very useful. I remember how Cantrip
+almost cried when he told me you were going to leave him. He had been
+rather put upon, I fancy, before."</p>
+
+<p>"There was perhaps something in that, your Grace."</p>
+
+<p>"There will be nothing to return to now beyond barren honours."</p>
+
+<p>"Not for a while."</p>
+
+<p>"Not for a long while," said the Duke;&mdash;"for a long while, that is,
+as candidates for office regard time. Mr. Daubeny will be safe for
+this Session at least. I doubt whether he will really attempt to
+carry his measure this year. He will bring it forward, and after the
+late division he must get his second reading. He will then break down
+gracefully in Committee, and declare that the importance of the
+interests concerned demands further inquiry. It wasn't a thing to be
+done in one year."</p>
+
+<p>"Why should he do it at all?" asked Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>"That's what everybody asks, but the answer seems to be so plain!
+Because he can do it, and we can't. He will get from our side much
+support, and we should get none from his."</p>
+
+<p>"There is something to me sickening in their dishonesty," said
+Phineas energetically.</p>
+
+<p>"The country has the advantage; and I don't know that they are
+dishonest. Ought we to come to a deadlock in legislation in order
+that parties might fight out their battle till one had killed the
+other?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think a man should support a measure which he believes to be
+destructive."</p>
+
+<p>"He doesn't believe it to be destructive. The belief is
+theoretic,&mdash;or not even quite that. It is hardly more than romantic.
+As long as acres are dear, and he can retain those belonging to him,
+the country gentleman will never really believe his country to be in
+danger. It is the same with commerce. As long as the Three per Cents.
+do not really mean Four per Cent.,&mdash;I may say as long as they don't
+mean Five per Cent.,&mdash;the country will be rich, though every one
+should swear that it be ruined."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm very glad, at the same time, that I don't call myself a
+Conservative," said Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>"That shows how disinterested you are, as you certainly would be in
+office. Good-bye. Come and see the Duchess when she comes to town.
+And if you've nothing better to do, give us a day or two at
+Longroyston at Easter." Now Longroyston was the Duke's well-known
+country seat, at which Whig hospitality had been dispensed with a
+lavish hand for two centuries.</p>
+
+<p>On the 20th January Phineas travelled down to Tankerville again in
+obedience to a summons served upon him at the instance of the judge
+who was to try his petition against Browborough. It was the special
+and somewhat unusual nature of this petition that the complainants
+not only sought to oust the sitting member, but also to give the seat
+to the late unsuccessful candidate. There was to be a scrutiny, by
+which, if it should be successful, so great a number of votes would
+be deducted from those polled on behalf of the unfortunate Mr.
+Browborough as to leave a majority for his opponent, with the
+additional disagreeable obligation upon him of paying the cost of the
+transaction by which he would thus lose his seat. Mr. Browborough, no
+doubt, looked upon the whole thing with the greatest disgust. He
+thought that a battle when once won should be regarded as over till
+the occasion should come for another battle. He had spent his money
+like a gentleman, and hated these mean ways. No one could ever say
+that he had ever petitioned. That was his way of looking at it. That
+Shibboleth of his as to the prospects of England and the Church of
+her people had, no doubt, made the House less agreeable to him during
+the last Short session than usual; but he had stuck to his party, and
+voted with Mr. Daubeny on the Address,&mdash;the obligation for such vote
+having inconveniently pressed itself upon him before the presentation
+of the petition had been formally completed. He had always stuck to
+his party. It was the pride of his life that he had been true and
+consistent. He also was summoned to Tankerville, and he was forced to
+go, although he knew that the Shibboleth would be thrown in his
+teeth.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Browborough spent two or three very uncomfortable days at
+Tankerville, whereas Phineas was triumphant. There were worse things
+in store for poor Mr. Browborough than his repudiated Shibboleth, or
+even than his lost seat. Mr. Ruddles, acting with wondrous energy,
+succeeded in knocking off the necessary votes, and succeeded also in
+proving that these votes were void by reason of gross bribery. He
+astonished Phineas by the cool effrontery with which he took credit
+to himself for not having purchased votes in the Fallgate on the
+Liberal side, but Phineas was too wise to remind him that he himself
+had hinted at one time that it would be well to lay out a little
+money in that way. No one at the present moment was more clear than
+was Ruddles as to the necessity of purity at elections. Not a penny
+had been misspent by the Finnites. A vote or two from their score was
+knocked off on grounds which did not touch the candidate or his
+agents. One man had personated a vote, but this appeared to have been
+done at the instigation of some very cunning Browborough partisan.
+Another man had been wrongly described. This, however, amounted to
+nothing. Phineas Finn was seated for the borough, and the judge
+declared his purpose of recommending the House of Commons to issue a
+commission with reference to the expediency of instituting a
+prosecution. Mr. Browborough left the town in great disgust, not
+without various publicly expressed intimations from his opponents
+that the prosperity of England depended on the Church of her people.
+Phineas was gloriously entertained by the Liberals of the borough,
+and then informed that as so much had been done for him it was hoped
+that he would now open his pockets on behalf of the charities of the
+town. "Gentlemen," said Phineas, to one or two of the leading
+Liberals, "it is as well that you should know at once that I am a
+very poor man." The leading Liberals made wry faces, but Phineas was
+member for the borough.</p>
+
+<p>The moment that the decision was announced, Phineas, shaking off for
+the time his congratulatory friends, hurried to the post-office and
+sent his message to Lady Laura Standish at Dresden: "I have got the
+seat." He was almost ashamed of himself as the telegraph boy looked
+up at him when he gave in the words, but this was a task which he
+could not have entrusted to any one else. He almost thought that this
+was in truth the proudest and happiest moment of his life. She would
+so thoroughly enjoy his triumph, would receive from it such great and
+unselfish joy, that he almost wished that he could have taken the
+message himself. Surely had he done so there would have been fit
+occasion for another embrace.</p>
+
+<p>He was again a member of the British House of Commons,&mdash;was again in
+possession of that privilege for which he had never ceased to sigh
+since the moment in which he lost it. A drunkard or a gambler may be
+weaned from his ways, but not a politician. To have been in the House
+and not to be there was, to such a one as Phineas Finn, necessarily
+a state of discontent. But now he had worked his way up again, and he
+was determined that no fears for the future should harass him. He
+would give his heart and soul to the work while his money lasted. It
+would surely last him for the Session. He was all alone in the world,
+and would trust to the chapter of accidents for the future.</p>
+
+<p>"I never knew a fellow with such luck as yours," said Barrington Erle
+to him, on his return to London. "A seat always drops into your mouth
+when the circumstances seem to be most forlorn."</p>
+
+<p>"I have been lucky, certainly."</p>
+
+<p>"My cousin, Laura Kennedy, has been writing to me about you."</p>
+
+<p>"I went over to see them, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"So I heard. She talks some nonsense about the Earl being willing to
+do anything for you. What could the Earl do? He has no more influence
+in the Loughton borough than I have. All that kind of thing is clean
+done for,&mdash;with one or two exceptions. We got much better men while
+it lasted than we do now."</p>
+
+<p>"I should doubt that."</p>
+
+<p>"We did;&mdash;much truer men,&mdash;men who went straighter. By the bye,
+Phineas, we must have no tricks on this Church matter. We mean to do
+all we can to throw out the second reading."</p>
+
+<p>"You know what I said at the hustings."</p>
+
+<p>"D&mdash;&mdash; the hustings. I know what
+Browborough said, and Browborough
+voted like a man with his party. You were against the Church at the
+hustings, and he was for it. You will vote just the other way. There
+will be a little confusion, but the people of Tankerville will never
+remember the particulars."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know that I can do that."</p>
+
+<p>"By heavens, if you don't, you shall never more be officer of
+ours,&mdash;though Laura Kennedy should cry her eyes out."</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c14"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XIV.</h3>
+<h4>TRUMPETON WOOD.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>In the meantime the hunting season was going on in the Brake country
+with chequered success. There had arisen the great Trumpeton Wood
+question, about which the sporting world was doomed to hear so much
+for the next twelve months,&mdash;and Lord Chiltern was in an unhappy
+state of mind. Trumpeton Wood belonged to that old friend of ours,
+the Duke of Omnium, who had now almost fallen into second childhood.
+It was quite out of the question that the Duke should himself
+interfere in such a matter, or know anything about it; but Lord
+Chiltern, with headstrong resolution, had persisted in writing to the
+Duke himself. Foxes had always hitherto been preserved in Trumpeton
+Wood, and the earths had always been stopped on receipt of due notice
+by the keepers. During the cubbing season there had arisen quarrels.
+The keepers complained that no effort was made to kill the foxes.
+Lord Chiltern swore that the earths were not stopped. Then there came
+tidings of a terrible calamity. A dying fox, with a trap to its pad,
+was found in the outskirts of the Wood; and Lord Chiltern wrote to
+the Duke. He drew the Wood in regular course before any answer could
+be received,&mdash;and three of his hounds picked up poison, and died
+beneath his eyes. He wrote to the Duke again,&mdash;a cutting letter; and
+then came from the Duke's man of business, Mr. Fothergill, a very
+short reply, which Lord Chiltern regarded as an insult. Hitherto the
+affair had not got into the sporting papers, and was simply a matter
+of angry discussion at every meet in the neighbouring counties. Lord
+Chiltern was very full of wrath, and always looked as though he
+desired to avenge those poor hounds on the Duke and all belonging to
+him. To a Master of Hounds the poisoning of one of his pack is murder
+of the deepest dye. There probably never was a Master who in his
+heart of hearts would not think it right that a detected culprit
+should be hung for such an offence. And most Masters would go further
+than this, and declare that in the absence of such detection the
+owner of the covert in which the poison had been picked up should be
+held to be responsible. In this instance the condition of ownership
+was unfortunate. The Duke himself was old, feeble, and almost
+imbecile. He had never been eminent as a sportsman; but, in a not
+energetic manner, he had endeavoured to do his duty by the country.
+His heir, Plantagenet Palliser, was simply a statesman, who, as
+regarded himself, had never a day to spare for amusement; and who, in
+reference to sport, had unfortunate fantastic notions that pheasants
+and rabbits destroyed crops, and that foxes were injurious to old
+women's poultry. He, however, was not the owner, and had refused to
+interfere. There had been family quarrels too, adverse to the
+sporting interests of the younger Palliser scions, so that the
+shooting of this wood had drifted into the hands of Mr. Fothergill
+and his friends. Now, Lord Chiltern had settled it in his own mind
+that the hounds had been poisoned, if not in compliance with Mr.
+Fothergill's orders, at any rate in furtherance of his wishes, and,
+could he have had his way, he certainly would have sent Mr.
+Fothergill to the gallows. Now, Miss Palliser, who was still staying
+at Lord Chiltern's house, was niece to the old Duke, and first cousin
+to the heir. "They are nothing to me," she said once, when Lord
+Chiltern had attempted to apologise for the abuse he was heaping on
+her relatives. "I haven't seen the Duke since I was a little child,
+and I shouldn't know my cousin were I to meet him."</p>
+
+<p>"So much the more gracious is your condition," said Lady
+Chiltern,&mdash;"at any rate in Oswald's estimation."</p>
+
+<p>"I know them, and once spent a couple of days at Matching with them,"
+said Lord Chiltern. "The Duke is an old fool, who always gave himself
+greater airs than any other man in England,&mdash;and as far as I can see,
+with less to excuse them. As for Planty Pall, he and I belong so
+essentially to different orders of things, that we can hardly be
+reckoned as being both men."</p>
+
+<p>"And which is the man, Lord Chiltern?"</p>
+
+<p>"Whichever you please, my dear; only not both. Doggett was over there
+yesterday, and found three separate traps."</p>
+
+<p>"What did he do with the traps?" said Lady Chiltern.</p>
+
+<p>"I wasn't fool enough to ask him, but I don't in the least doubt that
+he threw them into the water&mdash;or that he'd throw Palliser there too
+if he could get hold of him. As for taking the hounds to Trumpeton
+again, I wouldn't do it if there were not another covert in the
+country."</p>
+
+<p>"Then leave it so, and have done with it," said his wife. "I wouldn't
+fret as you do for what another man did with his own property, for
+all the foxes in England."</p>
+
+<p>"That is because you understand nothing of hunting, my dear. A man's
+property is his own in one sense, but isn't his own in another. A man
+can't do what he likes with his coverts."</p>
+
+<p>"He can cut them down."</p>
+
+<p>"But he can't let another pack hunt them, and he can't hunt them
+himself. If he's in a hunting county he is bound to preserve foxes."</p>
+
+<p>"What binds him, Oswald? A man can't be bound without a penalty."</p>
+
+<p>"I should think it penalty enough for everybody to hate me. What are
+you going to do about Phineas Finn?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have asked him to come on the 1st and stay till Parliament meets."</p>
+
+<p>"And is that woman coming?"</p>
+
+<p>"There are two or three women coming."</p>
+
+<p>"She with the German name, whom you made me dine with in Park Lane?"</p>
+
+<p>"Madame Max Goesler is coming. She brings her own horses, and they
+will stand at Doggett's."</p>
+
+<p>"They can't stand here, for there is not a stall."</p>
+
+<p>"I am so sorry that my poor little fellow should incommode you," said
+Miss Palliser.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a licensed offender,&mdash;though, upon my honour, I don't know
+whether I ought to give a feed of oats to any one having a connection
+with Trumpeton Wood. And what is Phineas to ride?"</p>
+
+<p>"He shall ride my horses," said Lady Chiltern, whose present
+condition in life rendered hunting inopportune to her.</p>
+
+<p>"Neither of them would carry him a mile. He wants about as good an
+animal as you can put him upon. I don't know what I'm to do. It's all
+very well for Laura to say that he must be mounted."</p>
+
+<p>"You wouldn't refuse to give Mr. Finn a mount!" said Lady Chiltern,
+almost with dismay.</p>
+
+<p>"I'd give him my right hand to ride, only it wouldn't carry him. I
+can't make horses. Harry brought home that brown mare on Tuesday with
+an overreach that she won't get over this season. What the deuce they
+do with their horses to knock them about so, I can't understand. I've
+killed horses in my time, and ridden them to a stand-still, but I
+never bruised them and battered them about as these fellows do."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I'd better write to Mr. Finn, and tell him," said Lady
+Chiltern, very gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Phineas Finn!" said Lord Chiltern; "oh, Phineas Finn! what a
+pity it was that you and I didn't see the matter out when we stood
+opposite to each other on the sands at Blankenberg!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oswald," said his wife, getting up, and putting her arm over his
+shoulder, "you know you would give your best horse to Mr. Finn, as
+long as he chose to stay here, though you rode upon a donkey
+yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"I know that if I didn't, you would," said Lord Chiltern. And so the
+matter was settled.</p>
+
+<p>At night, when they were alone together, there was further discussion
+as to the visitors who were coming to Harrington Hall. "Is Gerard
+Maule to come back?" asked the husband.</p>
+
+<p>"I have asked him. He left his horses at Doggett's, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't know."</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly told you, Oswald. Do you object to his coming? You can't
+really mean that you care about his riding?"</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't that. You must have some whipping post, and he's as good as
+another. But he shilly-shallies about that girl. I hate all that
+stuff like poison."</p>
+
+<p>"All men are not so&mdash;abrupt shall I say?&mdash;as you were."</p>
+
+<p>"I had something to say, and I said it. When I had said it a dozen
+times, I got to have it believed. He doesn't say it as though he
+meant to have it believed."</p>
+
+<p>"You were always in earnest, Oswald."</p>
+
+<p>"I was."</p>
+
+<p>"To the extent of the three minutes which you allowed yourself. It
+sufficed, however;&mdash;did it not? You are glad you persevered?"</p>
+
+<p>"What fools women are."</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind that. Say you are glad. I like you to tell me so. Let me
+be a fool if I will."</p>
+
+<p>"What made you so obstinate?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. I never could tell. It wasn't that I didn't dote upon
+you, and think about you, and feel quite sure that there never could
+be any other one than you."</p>
+
+<p>"I've no doubt it was all right;&mdash;only you very nearly made me shoot
+a fellow, and now I've got to find horses for him. I wonder whether
+he could ride Dandolo?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't put him up on anything very hard."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not? His wife is dead, and he hasn't got a child, nor yet an
+acre of property. I don't know who is entitled to break his neck if
+he is not. And Dandolo is as good a horse as there is in the stable,
+if you can once get him to go. Mind, I have to start to-morrow at
+nine, for it's all eighteen miles." And so the Master of the Brake
+Hounds took himself to his repose.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Laura Kennedy had written to Barrington Erle respecting her
+friend's political interests, and to her sister-in-law, Lady
+Chiltern, as to his social comfort. She could not bear to think that
+he should be left alone in London till Parliament should meet, and
+had therefore appealed to Lady Chiltern as to the memory of many past
+events. The appeal had been unnecessary and superfluous. It cannot be
+said that Phineas and his affairs were matters of as close an
+interest to Lady Chiltern as to Lady Laura. If any woman loved her
+husband beyond all things Lord Chiltern's wife did, and ever had done
+so. But there had been a tenderness in regard to the young Irish
+Member of Parliament, which Violet Effingham had in old days shared
+with Lady Laura, and which made her now think that all good things
+should be done for him. She believed him to be addicted to hunting,
+and therefore horses must be provided for him. He was a widower, and
+she remembered of old that he was fond of pretty women, and she knew
+that in coming days he might probably want money;&mdash;and therefore she
+had asked Madame Max Goesler to spend a fortnight at Harrington Hall.
+Madame Max Goesler and Phineas Finn had been acquainted before, as
+Lady Chiltern was well aware. But perhaps Lady Chiltern, when she
+summoned Madame Max into the country, did not know how close the
+acquaintance had been.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Max came a couple of days before Phineas, and was taken out
+hunting on the morning after her arrival. She was a lady who could
+ride to hounds,&mdash;and who, indeed, could do nearly anything to which
+she set her mind. She was dark, thin, healthy, good-looking, clever,
+ambitious, rich, unsatisfied, perhaps unscrupulous,&mdash;but not without
+a conscience. As has been told in a former portion of this chronicle,
+she could always seem to be happy with her companion of the day, and
+yet there was ever present a gnawing desire to do something more and
+something better than she had as yet achieved. Of course, as he took
+her to the meet, Lord Chiltern told her his grievance respecting
+Trumpeton Wood. "But, my dear Lord Chiltern, you must not abuse the
+Duke of Omnium to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"He and I are sworn friends."</p>
+
+<p>"He's a hundred years old."</p>
+
+<p>"And why shouldn't I have a friend a hundred years old? And as for
+Mr. Palliser, he knows no more of your foxes than I know of his
+taxes. Why don't you write to Lady Glencora? She understands
+everything."</p>
+
+<p>"Is she a friend of yours, too?"</p>
+
+<p>"My particular friend. She and I, you know, look after the poor dear
+Duke between us."</p>
+
+<p>"I can understand why she should sacrifice herself."</p>
+
+<p>"But not why I do. I can't explain it myself; but so it has come to
+pass, and I must not hear the Duke abused. May I write to Lady
+Glencora about it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly,&mdash;if you please; but not as giving her any message from
+me. Her uncle's property is mismanaged most damnably. If you choose
+to tell her that I say so you can. I'm not going to ask anything as a
+favour. I never do ask favours. But the Duke or Planty Palliser among
+them should do one of two things. They should either stand by the
+hunting, or they should let it alone;&mdash;and they should say what they
+mean. I like to know my friends, and I like to know my enemies."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure the Duke is not your enemy, Lord Chiltern."</p>
+
+<p>"These Pallisers have always been running with the hare and hunting
+with the hounds. They are great aristocrats, and yet are always going
+in for the people. I'm told that Planty Pall calls fox-hunting
+barbarous. Why doesn't he say so out loud, and stub up Trumpeton Wood
+and grow corn?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps he will when Trumpeton Wood belongs to him."</p>
+
+<p>"I should like that much better than poisoning hounds and trapping
+foxes." When they got to the meet, conclaves of men might be seen
+gathered together here and there, and in each conclave they were
+telling something new or something old as to the iniquities
+perpetrated at Trumpeton Wood.</p>
+
+<p>On that evening before dinner Madame Goesler was told by her hostess
+that Phineas Finn was expected on the following day. The
+communication was made quite as a matter of course; but Lady Chiltern
+had chosen a time in which the lights were shaded, and the room was
+dark. Adelaide Palliser was present, as was also a certain Lady
+Baldock,&mdash;not that Lady Baldock who had abused all Papists to poor
+Phineas, but her son's wife. They were drinking tea together over the
+fire, and the dim lights were removed from the circle. This, no
+doubt, was simply an accident; but the gloom served Madame Goesler
+during one moment of embarrassment. "An old friend of yours is coming
+here to-morrow," said Lady Chiltern.</p>
+
+<p>"An old friend of mine! Shall I call my friend he or she?"</p>
+
+<p>"You remember Mr. Finn?"</p>
+
+<p>That was the moment in which Madame Goesler rejoiced that no strong
+glare of light fell upon her face. But she was a woman who would not
+long leave herself subject to any such embarrassment. "Surely," she
+said, confining herself at first to the single word.</p>
+
+<p>"He is coming here. He is a great friend of mine."</p>
+
+<p>"He always was a good friend of yours, Lady Chiltern."</p>
+
+<p>"And of yours, too, Madame Max. A sort of general friend, I think,
+was Mr. Finn in the old days. I hope you will be glad to see him."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear, yes."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought him very nice," said Adelaide Palliser.</p>
+
+<p>"I remember mamma saying, before she was mamma, you know," said Lady
+Baldock, "that Mr. Finn was very nice indeed, only he was a Papist,
+and only he had got no money, and only he would fall in love with
+everybody. Does he go on falling in love with people, Violet?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never with married women, my dear. He has had a wife himself since
+that, Madame Goesler, and the poor thing died."</p>
+
+<p>"And now here he is beginning all over again," said Lady Baldock.</p>
+
+<p>"And as pleasant as ever," said her cousin. "You know he has done all
+manner of things for our family. He picked Oswald up once after one
+of those terrible hunting accidents; and he saved Mr. Kennedy when
+men were murdering him."</p>
+
+<p>"That was questionable kindness," said Lady Baldock.</p>
+
+<p>"And he sat for Lord Brentford's borough."</p>
+
+<p>"How good of him!" said Miss Palliser.</p>
+
+<p>"And he has done all manner of things," said Lady Chiltern.</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't he once fight a duel?" asked Madame Goesler.</p>
+
+<p>"That was the grandest thing of all," said his friend, "for he didn't
+shoot somebody whom perhaps he might have shot had he been as
+bloodthirsty as somebody else. And now he has come back to
+Parliament, and all that kind of thing, and he's coming here to hunt.
+I hope you'll be glad to see him, Madame Goesler."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall be very glad to see him," said Madame Goesler, slowly; "I
+heard about his success at that town, and I knew that I should meet
+him somewhere."</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c15"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XV.</h3>
+<h4>"HOW WELL YOU KNEW!"<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>It was necessary also that some communication should be made to
+Phineas, so that he might not come across Madame Goesler unawares.
+Lady Chiltern was more alive to that necessity than she had been to
+the other, and felt that the gentleman, if not warned of what was to
+take place, would be much more likely than the lady to be awkward at
+the trying moment. Madame Goesler would in any circumstances be sure
+to recover her self-possession very quickly, even were she to lose it
+for a moment; but so much could hardly be said for the social powers
+of Phineas Finn. Lady Chiltern therefore contrived to see him alone
+for a moment on his arrival. "Who do you think is here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Lady Laura has not come!"</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, no; I wish she had. An old friend, but not so old as Laura!"</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot guess;&mdash;not Lord Fawn?"</p>
+
+<p>"Lord Fawn! What would Lord Fawn do here? Don't you know that Lord
+Fawn goes nowhere since his last matrimonial trouble? It's a friend
+of yours, not of mine."</p>
+
+<p>"Madame Goesler?" whispered Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>"How well you knew when I said it was a friend of yours. Madame
+Goesler is here,&mdash;not altered in the least."</p>
+
+<p>"Madame Goesler!"</p>
+
+<p>"Does it annoy you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no. Why should it annoy me?"</p>
+
+<p>"You never quarrelled with her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never!"</p>
+
+<p>"There is no reason why you should not meet her?"</p>
+
+<p>"None at all;&mdash;only I was surprised. Did she know that I was coming?"</p>
+
+<p>"I told her yesterday. I hope that I have not done wrong or made
+things unpleasant. I knew that you used to be friends."</p>
+
+<p>"And as friends we parted, Lady Chiltern." He had nothing more to say
+in the matter; nor had she. He could not tell the story of what had
+taken place between himself and the lady, and she could not keep
+herself from surmising that something had taken place, which, had she
+known it, would have prevented her from bringing the two together at
+Harrington.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Goesler, when she was dressing, acknowledged to herself that
+she had a task before her which would require all her tact and all
+her courage. She certainly would not have accepted Lady Chiltern's
+invitation had she known that she would encounter Phineas Finn at the
+house. She had twenty-four hours to think of it, and at one time had
+almost made up her mind that some sudden business should recall her
+to London. Of course, her motive would be suspected. Of course Lady
+Chiltern would connect her departure with the man's arrival. But even
+that, bad as it would be, might be preferable to the meeting! What a
+fool had she been,&mdash;so she accused herself,&mdash;in not foreseeing that
+such an accident might happen, knowing as she did that Phineas Finn
+had reappeared in the political world, and that he and the Chiltern
+people had ever been fast friends! As she had thought about it, lying
+awake at night, she had told herself that she must certainly be
+recalled back to London by business. She would telegraph up to town,
+raising a question about any trifle, and on receipt of the answer she
+could be off with something of an excuse. The shame of running away
+from the man seemed to be a worse evil than the shame of meeting him.
+She had in truth done nothing to disgrace herself. In her desire to
+save a man whom she had loved from the ruin which she thought had
+threatened him, she had&mdash;offered him her hand. She had made the
+offer, and he had refused it! That was all. No; she would not be
+driven to confess to herself that she had ever fled from the face of
+man or woman. This man would be again in London, and she could not
+always fly. It would be only necessary that she should maintain her
+own composure, and the misery of the meeting would pass away after
+the first few minutes. One consolation was assured to her. She
+thoroughly believed in the man,&mdash;feeling certain that he had not
+betrayed her, and would not betray her. But now, as the time for the
+meeting drew near, as she stood for a moment before the
+glass,&mdash;pretending to look at herself in order that her maid might
+not remark her uneasiness, she found that her courage, great as it
+was, hardly sufficed her. She almost plotted some scheme of a
+headache, by which she might be enabled not to show herself till
+after dinner. "I am so blind that I can hardly see out of my eyes,"
+she said to the maid, actually beginning the scheme. The woman
+assumed a look of painful solicitude, and declared that "Madame did
+not look quite her best." "I suppose I shall shake it off," said
+Madame Goesler; and then she descended the stairs.</p>
+
+
+<div class="center"><a id="ill15"></a>
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4px">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/ill15.jpg">
+      <img src="images/ill15-t.jpg" height="600"
+      alt='"I SUPPOSE I SHALL SHAKE IT OFF."' /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption"><span class="smallcaps">"I
+      suppose I shall shake it off."</span><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/ill15.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>The condition of Phineas Finn was almost as bad, but he had a much
+less protracted period of anticipation than that with which the lady
+was tormented. He was sent up to dress for dinner with the knowledge
+that in half an hour he would find himself in the same room with
+Madame Goesler. There could be no question of his running away, no
+possibility even of his escaping by a headache. But it may be doubted
+whether his dismay was not even more than hers. She knew that she
+could teach herself to use no other than fitting words; but he was
+almost sure that he would break down if he attempted to speak to her.
+She would be safe from blushing, but he would assuredly become as red
+as a turkey-cock's comb up to the roots of his hair. Her blood would
+be under control, but his would be coursing hither and thither
+through his veins, so as to make him utterly unable to rule himself.
+Nevertheless, he also plucked up his courage and descended, reaching
+the drawing-room before Madame Goesler had entered it. Chiltern was
+going on about Trumpeton Wood to Lord Baldock, and was renewing his
+fury against all the Pallisers, while Adelaide stood by and laughed.
+Gerard Maule was lounging on a chair, wondering that any man could
+expend such energy on such a subject. Lady Chiltern was explaining
+the merits of the case to Lady Baldock,&mdash;who knew nothing about
+hunting; and the other guests were listening with eager attention. A
+certain Mr. Spooner, who rode hard and did nothing else, and who
+acted as an unacknowledged assistant-master under Lord
+Chiltern,&mdash;there is such a man in every hunt,&mdash;acted as chorus, and
+indicated, chiefly with dumb show, the strong points of the case.</p>
+
+<p>"Finn, how are you?" said Lord Chiltern, stretching out his left
+hand. "Glad to have you back again, and congratulate you about the
+seat. It was put down in red herrings, and we found nearly a dozen of
+them afterwards,&mdash;enough to kill half the pack."</p>
+
+<p>"Picked up nine," said Mr. Spooner.</p>
+
+<p>"Children might have picked them up quite as well,&mdash;and eaten them,"
+said Lady Chiltern.</p>
+
+<p>"They didn't care about that," continued the Master. "And now they've
+wires and traps over the whole place. Palliser's a friend of
+yours&mdash;isn't he, Finn?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I knew him,&mdash;when I was in office."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what he may be in office, but he's an uncommon bad sort
+of fellow to have in a county."</p>
+
+<p>"Shameful!" said Mr. Spooner, lifting up both his hands.</p>
+
+<p>"This is my first cousin, you know," whispered Adelaide, to Lady
+Baldock.</p>
+
+<p>"If he were my own brother, or my grandmother, I should say the
+same," continued the angry lord. "We must have a meeting about it,
+and let the world know it,&mdash;that's all." At this moment the door was
+again opened, and Madame Goesler entered the room.</p>
+
+<p>When one wants to be natural, of necessity one becomes the reverse of
+natural. A clever actor,&mdash;or more frequently a clever actress,&mdash;will
+assume the appearance; but the very fact of the assumption renders
+the reality impossible. Lady Chiltern was generally very clever in
+the arrangement of all little social difficulties, and, had she
+thought less about it, might probably have managed the present affair
+in an easy and graceful manner. But the thing had weighed upon her
+mind, and she had decided that it would be expedient that she should
+say something when those two old friends first met each other again
+in her drawing-room. "Madame Max," she said, "you remember Mr. Finn."
+Lord Chiltern for a moment stopped the torrent of his abuse. Lord
+Baldock made a little effort to look uninterested, but quite in vain.
+Mr. Spooner stood on one side. Lady Baldock stared with all her
+eyes,&mdash;with some feeling of instinct that there would be something to
+see; and Gerard Maule, rising from the sofa, joined the circle. It
+seemed as though Lady Chiltern's words had caused the formation of a
+ring in the midst of which Phineas and Madame Goesler were to renew
+their acquaintance.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well indeed," said Madame Max, putting out her hand and looking
+full into our hero's face with her sweetest smile. "And I hope Mr.
+Finn will not have forgotten me." She did it admirably&mdash;so well that
+surely she need not have thought of running away.</p>
+
+<p>But poor Phineas was not happy. "I shall never forget you," said he;
+and then that unavoidable blush suffused his face, and the blood
+began to career through his veins.</p>
+
+<p>"I am so glad you are in Parliament again," said Madame Max.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes;&mdash;I've got in again, after a struggle. Are you still living in
+Park Lane?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes;&mdash;and shall be most happy to see you." Then she seated
+herself,&mdash;as did also Lady Chiltern by her side. "I see the poor
+Duke's iniquities are still under discussion. I hope Lord Chiltern
+recognises the great happiness of having a grievance. It would be a
+pity that so great a blessing should be thrown away upon him." For
+the moment Madame Max had got through her difficulty, and, indeed,
+had done so altogether till the moment should come in which she
+should find herself alone with Phineas. But he slunk back from the
+gathering before the fire, and stood solitary and silent till dinner
+was announced. It became his fate to take an old woman into dinner
+who was not very clearsighted. "Did you know that lady before?" she
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes; I knew her two or three years ago in London."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think she is pretty?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly."</p>
+
+<p>"All the men say so, but I never can see it. They have been saying
+ever so long that the old Duke of Omnium means to marry her on his
+deathbed, but I don't suppose there can be anything in it."</p>
+
+<p>"Why should he put it off for so very inopportune an occasion?" asked
+Phineas.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c16"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XVI.</h3>
+<h4>COPPERHOUSE CROSS AND BROUGHTON SPINNIES.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>After all, the thing had not been so very bad. With a little courage
+and hardihood we can survive very great catastrophes, and go through
+them even without broken bones. Phineas, when he got up to his room,
+found that he had spent the evening in company with Madame Goesler,
+and had not suffered materially, except at the very first moment of
+the meeting. He had not said a word to the lady, except such as were
+spoken in mixed conversation with her and others; but they had been
+together, and no bones had been broken. It could not be that his old
+intimacy should be renewed, but he could now encounter her in
+society, as the Fates might direct, without a renewal of that feeling
+of dismay which had been so heavy on him.</p>
+
+<p>He was about to undress when there came a knock at the door, and his
+host entered the room. "What do you mean to do about smoking?" Lord
+Chiltern asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing at all."</p>
+
+<p>"There's a fire in the smoking-room, but I'm tired, and I want to go
+to bed. Baldock doesn't smoke. Gerard Maule is smoking in his own
+room, I take it. You'll probably find Spooner at this moment
+established somewhere in the back slums, having a pipe with old
+Doggett, and planning retribution. You can join them if you please."</p>
+
+<p>"Not to-night, I think. They wouldn't trust me,&mdash;and I should spoil
+their plans."</p>
+
+<p>"They certainly wouldn't trust you,&mdash;or any other human being. You
+don't mind a horse that baulks a little, do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not going to hunt, Chiltern."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you are. I've got it all arranged. Don't you be a fool, and
+make us all uncomfortable. Everybody rides here;&mdash;every man, woman,
+and child about the place. You shall have one of the best horses I've
+got;&mdash;only you must be particular about your spurs."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, I'd rather not. The truth is, I can't afford to ride my own
+horses, and therefore I'd rather not ride my friends'."</p>
+
+<p>"That's all gammon. When Violet wrote she told you you'd be expected
+to come out. Your old flame, Madame Max, will be there, and I tell
+you she has a very pretty idea of keeping to hounds. Only Dandolo has
+that little defect."</p>
+
+<p>"Is Dandolo the horse?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes;&mdash;Dandolo is the horse. He's up to a stone over your weight, and
+can do any mortal thing within a horse's compass. Cox won't ride him
+because he baulks, and so he has come into my stable. If you'll only
+let him know that you're on his back, and have got a pair of spurs on
+your heels with rowels in them, he'll take you anywhere. Good-night,
+old fellow. You can smoke if you choose, you know."</p>
+
+<p>Phineas had resolved that he would not hunt; but, nevertheless, he
+had brought boots with him, and breeches, fancying that if he did not
+he would be forced out without those comfortable appurtenances. But
+there came across his heart a feeling that he had reached a time of
+life in which it was no longer comfortable for him to live as a poor
+man with men who were rich. It had been his lot to do so when he was
+younger, and there had been some pleasure in it; but now he would
+rather live alone and dwell upon the memories of the past. He, too,
+might have been rich, and have had horses at command, had he chosen
+to sacrifice himself for money.</p>
+
+<p>On the next morning they started in a huge waggonette for Copperhouse
+Cross,&mdash;a meet that was suspiciously near to the Duke's fatal wood.
+Spooner had explained to Phineas over night that they never did draw
+Trumpeton Wood on Copperhouse Cross days, and that under no possible
+circumstances would Chiltern now draw Trumpeton Wood. But there is no
+saying where a fox may run. At this time of the year, just the
+beginning of February, dog-foxes from the big woods were very apt to
+be away from home, and when found would go straight for their own
+earths. It was very possible that they might find themselves in
+Trumpeton Wood, and then certainly there would be a row. Spooner
+shrugged his shoulders, and shook his head, and seemed to insinuate
+that Lord Chiltern would certainly do something very dreadful to the
+Duke or to the Duke's heir if any law of venery should again be found
+to have been broken on this occasion.</p>
+
+<p>The distance to Copperhouse Cross was twelve miles, and Phineas found
+himself placed in the carriage next to Madame Goesler. It had not
+been done of fixed design; but when a party of six are seated in a
+carriage, the chances are that one given person will be next to or
+opposite to any other given person. Madame Max had remembered this,
+and had prepared herself, but Phineas was taken aback when he found
+how close was his neighbourhood to the lady. "Get in, Phineas," said
+his lordship. Gerard Maule had already seated himself next to Miss
+Palliser, and Phineas had no alternative but to take the place next
+to Madame Max.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't know that you rode to hounds?" said Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes; I have done so for years. When we met it was always in
+London, Mr. Finn; and people there never know what other people do.
+Have you heard of this terrible affair about the Duke?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear, yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Duke! He and I have seen a great deal of each other
+since,&mdash;since the days when you and I used to meet. He knows nothing
+about all this, and the worst of it is, he is not in a condition to
+be told."</p>
+
+<p>"Lady Glencora could put it all right."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell Lady Glencora, of course," said Madame Max. "It seems so
+odd in this country that the owner of a property does not seem at all
+to have any exclusive right to it. I suppose the Duke could shut up
+the wood if he liked."</p>
+
+<p>"But they poisoned the hounds."</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody supposes the Duke did that,&mdash;or even the Duke's servants, I
+should think. But Lord Chiltern will hear us if we don't take care."</p>
+
+<p>"I've heard every word you've been saying," exclaimed Lord Chiltern.</p>
+
+<p>"Has it been traced to any one?"</p>
+
+<p>"No,&mdash;not traced, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"What then, Lord Chiltern? You may speak out to me. When I'm wrong I
+like to be told so."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you're wrong now," said Lord Chiltern, "if you take the part of
+the Duke or of any of his people. He is bound to find foxes for the
+Brake hunt. It is almost a part of his title deeds. Instead of doing
+so he has had them destroyed."</p>
+
+<p>"It's as bad as voting against the Church establishment," said Madame
+Goesler.</p>
+
+<p>There was a very large meet at Copperhouse Cross, and both Madame
+Goesler and Phineas Finn found many old acquaintances there. As
+Phineas had formerly sat in the House for five years, and had been in
+office, and had never made himself objectionable either to his
+friends or adversaries, he had been widely known. He now found half a
+dozen men who were always members of Parliament,&mdash;men who seem,
+though commoners, to have been born legislators,&mdash;who all spoke to
+him as though his being member for Tankerville and hunting with the
+Brake hounds were equally matters of course. They knew him, but they
+knew nothing of the break in his life. Or if they remembered that he
+had not been seen about the House for the last two or three years
+they remembered also that accidents do happen to some men. It will
+occur now and again that a regular denizen of Westminster will get a
+fall in the political hunting-field, and have to remain about the
+world for a year or two without a seat. That Phineas had lately
+triumphed over Browborough at Tankerville was known, the event having
+been so recent; and men congratulated him, talking of poor
+Browborough,&mdash;whose heavy figure had been familiar to them for many a
+year,&mdash;but by no means recognising that the event of which they spoke
+had been, as it were, life and death to their friend. Roby was there,
+who was at this moment Mr. Daubeny's head whip and patronage
+secretary. If any one should have felt acutely the exclusion of Mr.
+Browborough from the House,&mdash;any one beyond the sufferer himself,&mdash;it
+should have been Mr. Roby; but he made himself quite pleasant, and
+even condescended to be jocose upon the occasion. "So you've beat
+poor Browborough in his own borough," said Mr. Roby.</p>
+
+<p>"I've beat him," said Phineas; "but not, I hope, in a borough of his
+own."</p>
+
+<p>"He's been there for the last fifteen years. Poor old fellow! He's
+awfully cut up about this Church Question. I shouldn't have thought
+he'd have taken anything so much to heart. There are worse fellows
+than Browborough, let me tell you. What's all this I hear about the
+Duke poisoning the foxes?" But the crowd had begun to move, and
+Phineas was not called upon to answer the question.</p>
+
+<p>Copperhouse Cross in the Brake Hunt was a very popular meet. It was
+easily reached by a train from London, was in the centre of an
+essentially hunting country, was near to two or three good coverts,
+and was in itself a pretty spot. Two roads intersected each other on
+the middle of Copperhouse Common, which, as all the world knows, lies
+just on the outskirts of Copperhouse Forest. A steep winding hill
+leads down from the Wood to the Cross, and there is no such thing
+within sight as an enclosure. At the foot of the hill, running under
+the wooden bridge, straggles the Copperhouse Brook,&mdash;so called by the
+hunting men of the present day, though men who know the country of
+old, or rather the county, will tell you that it is properly called
+the river Cobber, and that the spacious old farm buildings above were
+once known as the Cobber Manor House. He would be a vain man who
+would now try to change the name, as Copperhouse Cross has been
+printed in all the lists of hunting meets for at least the last
+thirty years; and the Ordnance map has utterly rejected the two b's.
+Along one of the cross-roads there was a broad extent of common, some
+seven or eight hundred yards in length, on which have been erected
+the butts used by those well-known defenders of their country, the
+Copperhouse Volunteer Rifles; and just below the bridge the sluggish
+water becomes a little lake, having probably at some time been
+artificially widened, and there is a little island and a decoy for
+ducks. On the present occasion carriages were drawn up on all the
+roads, and horses were clustered on each side of the brook, and the
+hounds sat stately on their haunches where riflemen usually kneel to
+fire, and there was a hum of merry voices, and the bright colouring
+of pink coats, and the sheen of ladies' hunting toilettes, and that
+mingled look of business and amusement which is so peculiar to our
+national sports. Two hundred men and women had come there for the
+chance of a run after a fox,&mdash;for a chance against which the odds are
+more than two to one at every hunting day,&mdash;for a chance as to which
+the odds are twenty to one against the success of the individuals
+collected; and yet, for every horseman and every horsewoman there,
+not less than &pound;5 a head will have been spent for this one day's
+amusement. When we give a guinea for a stall at the opera we think
+that we pay a large sum; but we are fairly sure of having our music.
+When you go to Copperhouse Cross you are by no means sure of your
+opera.</p>
+
+<p>Why is it that when men and women congregate, though the men may beat
+the women in numbers by ten to one, and though they certainly speak
+the louder, the concrete sound that meets the ears of any outside
+listener is always a sound of women's voices? At Copperhouse Cross
+almost every one was talking, but the feeling left upon the senses
+was that of an amalgam of feminine laughter, feminine affectation,
+and feminine eagerness. Perhaps at Copperhouse Cross the determined
+perseverance with which Lady Gertrude Fitzaskerley addressed herself
+to Lord Chiltern, to Cox the huntsman, to the two whips, and at last
+to Mr. Spooner, may have specially led to the remark on this
+occasion. Lord Chiltern was very short with her, not loving Lady
+Gertrude. Cox bestowed upon her two "my lady's," and then turned from
+her to some peccant hound. But Spooner was partly gratified, and
+partly incapable, and underwent a long course of questions about the
+Duke and the poisoning. Lady Gertrude, whose father seemed to have
+owned half the coverts in Ireland, had never before heard of such
+enormity. She suggested a round robin and would not be at all ashamed
+to put her own name to it. "Oh, for the matter of that," said
+Spooner, "Chiltern can be round enough himself without any robin."
+"He can't be too round," said Lady Gertrude, with a very serious
+aspect.</p>
+
+<p>At last they moved away, and Phineas found himself riding by the side
+of Madame Goesler. It was natural that he should do so, as he had
+come with her. Maule had, of course, remained with Miss Palliser, and
+Chiltern and Spooner had taken themselves to their respective duties.
+Phineas might have avoided her, but in doing so he would have seemed
+to avoid her. She accepted his presence apparently as a matter of
+course, and betrayed by her words and manner no memory of past
+scenes. It was not customary with them to draw the forest, which
+indeed, as it now stood, was a forest only in name, and they trotted
+off to a gorse a mile and a half distant. This they drew blank,&mdash;then
+another gorse also blank,&mdash;and two or three little fringes of wood,
+such as there are in every country, and through which huntsmen run
+their hounds, conscious that no fox will lie there. At one o'clock
+they had not found, and the hilarity of the really hunting men as
+they ate their sandwiches and lit their cigars was on the decrease.
+The ladies talked more than ever, Lady Gertrude's voice was heard
+above them all, and Lord Chiltern trotted on close behind his hounds
+in obdurate silence. When things were going bad with him no one in
+the field dared to speak to him.</p>
+
+<p>Phineas had never seen his horse till he reached the meet, and there
+found a fine-looking, very strong, bay animal, with shoulders like
+the top of a hay-stack, short-backed, short-legged, with enormous
+quarters, and a wicked-looking eye. "He ought to be strong," said
+Phineas to the groom. "Oh, sir; strong ain't no word for him," said
+the groom; "'e can carry a 'ouse." "I don't know whether he's fast?"
+inquired Phineas. "He's fast enough for any 'ounds, sir," said the
+man with that tone of assurance which always carries conviction. "And
+he can jump?" "He can jump!" continued the groom; "no 'orse in my
+lord's stables can't beat him." "But he won't?" said Phineas. "It's
+only sometimes, sir, and then the best thing is to stick him at it
+till he do. He'll go, he will, like a shot at last; and then he's
+right for the day." Hunting men will know that all this was not quite
+comfortable. When you ride your own horse, and know his special
+defects, you know also how far that defect extends, and what real
+prospect you have of overcoming it. If he be slow through the mud,
+you keep a good deal on the road in heavy weather, and resolve that
+the present is not an occasion for distinguishing yourself. If he be
+bad at timber, you creep through a hedge. If he pulls, you get as far
+from the crowd as may be. You gauge your misfortune, and make your
+little calculation as to the best mode of remedying the evil. But
+when you are told that your friend's horse is perfect,&mdash;only that he
+does this or that,&mdash;there comes a weight on your mind from which you
+are unable to release it. You cannot discount your trouble at any
+percentage. It may amount to absolute ruin, as far as that day is
+concerned; and in such a circumstance you always look forward to the
+worst. When the groom had done his description, Phineas Finn would
+almost have preferred a day's canvass at Tankerville under Mr.
+Ruddles's authority to his present position.</p>
+
+<p>When the hounds entered Broughton Spinnies, Phineas and Madame
+Goesler were still together. He had not been riding actually at her
+side all the morning. Many men and two or three ladies had been
+talking to her. But he had never been far from her in the ruck, and
+now he was again close by her horse's head. Broughton Spinnies were
+in truth a series of small woods, running one into another almost
+without intermission, never thick, and of no breadth. There was
+always a litter or two of cubs at the place, and in no part of the
+Brake country was greater care taken in the way of preservation and
+encouragement to interesting vixens; but the lying was bad; there was
+little or no real covert; and foxes were very apt to travel and get
+away into those big woods belonging to the Duke,&mdash;where, as the Brake
+sportsmen now believed, they would almost surely come to an untimely
+end. "If we draw this blank I don't know what we are to do," said Mr.
+Spooner, addressing himself to Madame Goesler with lachrymose
+anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you nothing else to draw?" asked Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>"In the common course of things we should take Muggery Gorse, and so
+on to Trumpeton Wood. But Muggery is on the Duke's land, and Chiltern
+is in such a fix! He won't go there unless he can't help it. Muggery
+Gorse is only a mile this side of the big wood."</p>
+
+<p>"And foxes of course go to the big wood?" asked Madame Max.</p>
+
+<p>"Not always. They often come here,&mdash;and as they can't hang here, we
+have the whole country before us. We get as good runs from Muggery as
+from any covert in the country. But Chiltern won't go there to-day
+unless the hounds show a line. By George, that's a fox! That's Dido.
+That's a find!" And Spooner galloped away, as though Dido could do
+nothing with the fox she had found unless he was there to help her.</p>
+
+<p>Spooner was quite right, as he generally was on such occasions. He
+knew the hounds even by voice, and knew what hound he could believe.
+Most hounds will lie occasionally, but Dido never lied. And there
+were many besides Spooner who believed in Dido. The whole pack rushed
+to her music, though the body of them would have remained utterly
+unmoved at the voice of any less reverenced and less trustworthy
+colleague. The whole wood was at once in commotion,&mdash;men and women
+riding hither and thither, not in accordance with any judgment; but
+as they saw or thought they saw others riding who were supposed to
+have judgment. To get away well is so very much! And to get away well
+is often so very difficult! There are so many things of which the
+horseman is bound to think in that moment. Which way does the wind
+blow? And then, though a fox will not long run up wind, he will break
+covert up wind, as often as not. From which of the various rides can
+you find a fair exit into the open country, without a chance of
+breaking your neck before the run begins? When you hear some wild
+halloa, informing you that one fox has gone in the direction exactly
+opposite to that in which the hounds are hunting, are you sure that
+the noise is not made about a second fox? On all these matters you
+are bound to make up your mind without losing a moment; and if you
+make up your mind wrongly the five pounds you have invested in that
+day's amusement will have been spent for nothing. Phineas and Madame
+Goesler were in the very centre of the wood when Spooner rushed away
+from them down one of the rides on hearing Dido's voice; and at that
+time they were in a crowd. Almost immediately the fox was seen to
+cross another ride, and a body of horsemen rushed away in that
+direction, knowing that the covert was small, and there the animal
+must soon leave the wood. Then there was a shout of "Away!" repeated
+over and over again, and Lord Chiltern, running up like a flash of
+lightning, and passing our two friends, galloped down a third ride to
+the right of the others. Phineas at once followed the master of the
+pack, and Madame Goesler followed Phineas. Men were still riding
+hither and thither; and a farmer, meeting them, with his horse turned
+back towards the centre of the wood which they were leaving, halloaed
+out as they passed that there was no way out at the bottom. They met
+another man in pink, who screamed out something as to "the devil of a
+bank down there." Chiltern, however, was still going on, and our hero
+had not the heart to stop his horse in its gallop and turn back from
+the direction in which the hounds were running. At that moment he
+hardly remembered the presence of Madame Goesler, but he did remember
+every word that had been said to him about Dandolo. He did not in the
+least doubt but that Chiltern had chosen his direction rightly, and
+that if he were once out of the wood he would find himself with the
+hounds; but what if this brute should refuse to take him out of the
+wood? That Dandolo was very fast he soon became aware, for he gained
+upon his friend before him as they neared the fence. And then he saw
+what there was before him. A new broad ditch had been cut, with the
+express object of preventing egress or ingress at that point; and a
+great bank had been constructed with the clay. In all probability
+there might be another ditch on the other side. Chiltern, however,
+had clearly made up his mind about it. The horse he was riding went
+at it gallantly, cleared the first ditch, balanced himself for half a
+moment on the bank, and then, with a fresh spring, got into the field
+beyond. The tail hounds were running past outside the covert, and the
+master had placed himself exactly right for the work in hand. How
+excellent would be the condition of Finn if only Dandolo would do
+just as Chiltern's horse had done before him!</p>
+
+<p>And Phineas almost began to hope that it might be so. The horse was
+going very well, and very willingly. His head was stretched out, he
+was pulling, not more, however, than pleasantly, and he seemed to be
+as anxious as his rider. But there was a little twitch about his ears
+which his rider did not like, and then it was impossible not to
+remember that awful warning given by the groom, "It's only sometimes,
+sir." And after what fashion should Phineas ride him at the obstacle?
+He did not like to strike a horse that seemed to be going well, and
+was unwilling, as are all good riders, to use his heels. So he spoke
+to him, and proposed to lift him at the ditch. To the very edge the
+horse galloped,&mdash;too fast, indeed, if he meant to take the bank as
+Chiltern's horse had done,&mdash;and then stopping himself so suddenly
+that he must have shaken every joint in his body, he planted his fore
+feet on the very brink, and there he stood, with his head down,
+quivering in every muscle. Phineas Finn, following naturally the
+momentum which had been given to him, went over the brute's neck
+head-foremost into the ditch. Madame Max was immediately off her
+horse. "Oh, Mr. Finn, are you hurt?"</p>
+
+<p>But Phineas, happily, was not hurt. He was shaken and dirty, but not
+so shaken, and not so dirty, but that he was on his legs in a minute,
+imploring his companion not to mind him but go on. "Going on doesn't
+seem to be so easy," said Madame Goesler, looking at the ditch as she
+held her horse in her hand. But to go back in such circumstances is a
+terrible disaster. It amounts to complete defeat; and is tantamount
+to a confession that you must go home, because you are unable to ride
+to hounds. A man, when he is compelled to do this, is almost driven
+to resolve at the spur of the moment that he will give up hunting for
+the rest of his life. And if one thing be more essential than any
+other to the horseman in general, it is that he, and not the animal
+which he rides, shall be the master. "The best thing is to stick him
+at it till he do," the groom had said; and Phineas resolved to be
+guided by the groom.</p>
+
+<p>But his first duty was to attend on Madame Goesler. With very little
+assistance she was again in her saddle, and she at once declared
+herself certain that her horse could take the fence. Phineas again
+instantly jumped into his saddle, and turning Dandolo again at the
+ditch, rammed the rowels into the horse's sides. But Dandolo would
+not jump yet. He stood with his fore feet on the brink, and when
+Phineas with his whip struck him severely over the shoulders, he went
+down into the ditch on all fours, and then scrambled back again to
+his former position. "What an infernal brute!" said Phineas, gnashing
+his teeth.</p>
+
+<p>"He is a little obstinate, Mr. Finn; I wonder whether he'd jump if I
+gave him a lead." But Phineas was again making the attempt, urging
+the horse with spurs, whip, and voice. He had brought himself now to
+that condition in which a man is utterly reckless as to falling
+himself,&mdash;or even to the kind of fall he may get,&mdash;if he can only
+force his animal to make the attempt. But Dandolo would not make the
+attempt. With ears down and head outstretched, he either stuck
+obstinately on the brink, or allowed himself to be forced again and
+again into the ditch. "Let me try it once, Mr. Finn," said Madame
+Goesler in her quiet way.</p>
+
+<p>She was riding a small horse, very nearly thoroughbred, and known as
+a perfect hunter by those who habitually saw Madame Goesler ride. No
+doubt he would have taken the fence readily enough had his rider
+followed immediately after Lord Chiltern; but Dandolo had baulked at
+the fence nearly a dozen times, and evil communications will corrupt
+good manners. Without any show of violence, but still with persistent
+determination, Madame Goesler's horse also declined to jump. She put
+him at it again and again, and he would make no slightest attempt to
+do his business. Phineas raging, fuming, out of breath, miserably
+unhappy, shaking his reins, plying his whip, rattling himself about
+in the saddle, and banging his legs against the horse's sides, again
+and again plunged away at the obstacle. But it was all to no purpose.
+Dandolo was constantly in the ditch, sometimes lying with his side
+against the bank, and had now been so hustled and driven that, had he
+been on the other side, he would have had no breath left to carry his
+rider, even in the ruck of the hunt. In the meantime the hounds and
+the leading horsemen were far away,&mdash;never more to be seen on that
+day by either Phineas Finn or Madame Max Goesler. For a while, during
+the frantic efforts that were made, an occasional tardy horseman was
+viewed galloping along outside the covert, following the tracks of
+those who had gone before. But before the frantic efforts had been
+abandoned as utterly useless every vestige of the morning's work had
+left the neighbourhood of Broughton Spinnies, except these two
+unfortunate ones. At last it was necessary that the defeat should be
+acknowledged. "We're beaten, Madame Goesler," said Phineas, almost in
+tears.</p>
+
+<p>"Altogether beaten, Mr. Finn."</p>
+
+<p>"I've a good mind to swear that I'll never come out hunting again."</p>
+
+<p>"Swear what you like, if it will relieve you, only don't think of
+keeping such an oath. I've known you before this to be depressed by
+circumstances quite as distressing as these, and to be certain that
+all hope was over;&mdash;but yet you have recovered." This was the only
+allusion she had yet made to their former acquaintance. "And now we
+must think of getting out of the wood."</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't the slightest idea of the direction of anything."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor have I; but as we clearly can't get out this way we might as
+well try the other. Come along. We shall find somebody to put us in
+the right road. For my part I'm glad it is no worse. I thought at one
+time that you were going to break your neck." They rode on for a few
+minutes in silence, and then she spoke again. "Is it not odd, Mr.
+Finn, that after all that has come and gone you and I should find
+ourselves riding about Broughton Spinnies together?"</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c17"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XVII.</h3>
+<h4>MADAME GOESLER'S STORY.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>"After all that has come and gone, is it not odd that you and I
+should find ourselves riding about Broughton Spinnies together?" That
+was the question which Madame Goesler asked Phineas Finn when they
+had both agreed that it was impossible to jump over the bank out of
+the wood, and it was, of course, necessary that some answer should be
+given to it.</p>
+
+<p>"When I saw you last in London," said Phineas, with a voice that was
+gruff, and a manner that was abrupt, "I certainly did not think that
+we should meet again so soon."</p>
+
+<p>"No;&mdash;I left you as though I had grounds for quarrelling; but there
+was no quarrel. I wrote to you, and tried to explain that."</p>
+
+<p>"You did;&mdash;and though my answer was necessarily short, I was very
+grateful."</p>
+
+<p>"And here you are back among us; and it does seem so odd. Lady
+Chiltern never told me that I was to meet you."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor did she tell me."</p>
+
+<p>"It is better so, for otherwise I should not have come, and then,
+perhaps, you would have been all alone in your discomfiture at the
+bank."</p>
+
+<p>"That would have been very bad."</p>
+
+<p>"You see I can be quite frank with you, Mr. Finn. I am heartily glad
+to see you, but I should not have come had I been told. And when I
+did see you, it was quite improbable that we should be thrown
+together as we are now,&mdash;was it not? Ah;&mdash;here is a man, and he can
+tell us the way back to Copperhouse Cross. But I suppose we had
+better ask for Harrington Hall at once."</p>
+
+<p>The man knew nothing at all about Harrington Hall, and very little
+about Copperhouse; but he did direct them on to the road, and they
+found that they were about sixteen miles from Lord Chiltern's house.
+The hounds had gone away in the direction of Trumpeton Wood, and it
+was agreed that it would be useless to follow them. The waggonette
+had been left at an inn about two miles from Copperhouse Cross, but
+they resolved to abandon that and to ride direct to Harrington Hall.
+It was now nearly three o'clock, and they would not be subjected to
+the shame which falls upon sportsmen who are seen riding home very
+early in the day. To get oneself lost before twelve, and then to come
+home, is a very degrading thing; but at any time after two you may be
+supposed to have ridden the run of the season, and to be returning
+after an excellent day's work.</p>
+
+<p>Then Madame Goesler began to talk about herself, and to give a short
+history of her life during the last two-and-a-half years. She did
+this in a frank natural manner, continuing her tale in a low voice,
+as though it were almost a matter of course that she should make the
+recital to so old a friend. And Phineas soon began to feel that it
+was natural that she should do so. "It was just before you left us,"
+she said, "that the Duke took to coming to my house." The duke spoken
+of was the Duke of Omnium, and Phineas well remembered to have heard
+some rumours about the Duke and Madame Max. It had been hinted to him
+that the Duke wanted to marry the lady, but that rumour he had never
+believed. The reader, if he has duly studied the history of the age,
+will know that the Duke did make an offer to Madame Goesler, pressing
+it with all his eloquence, but that Madame Goesler, on mature
+consideration, thought it best to decline to become a duchess. Of all
+this, however, the reader who understands Madame Goesler's character
+will be quite sure that she did not say a word to Phineas Finn. Since
+the business had been completed she had spoken of it to no one but to
+Lady Glencora Palliser, who had forced herself into a knowledge of
+all the circumstances while they were being acted.</p>
+
+<p>"I met the Duke once at Matching," said Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>"I remember it well. I was there, and first made the Duke's
+acquaintance on that occasion. I don't know how it was that we became
+intimate;&mdash;but we did, and then I formed a sort of friendship with
+Lady Glencora; and somehow it has come about that we have been a
+great deal together since."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you like Lady Glencora?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very much indeed,&mdash;and the Duke, too. The truth is, Mr. Finn, that
+let one boast as one may of one's independence,&mdash;and I very often do
+boast of mine to myself,&mdash;one is inclined to do more for a Duke of
+Omnium than for a Mr. Jones."</p>
+
+<p>"The Dukes have more to offer than the Joneses;&mdash;I don't mean in the
+way of wealth only, but of what one enjoys most in society
+generally."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose they have. At any rate, I am glad that you should make
+some excuse for me. But I do like the man. He is gracious and noble
+in his bearing. He is now very old, and sinking fast into the grave;
+but even the wreck is noble."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know that he ever did much," said Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know that he ever did anything according to your idea of
+doing. There must be some men who do nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"But a man with his wealth and rank has opportunities so great! Look
+at his nephew!"</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt Mr. Palliser is a great man. He never has a moment to speak
+to his wife or to anybody else; and is always thinking so much about
+the country that I doubt if he knows anything about his own affairs.
+Of course he is a man of a different stamp,&mdash;and of a higher stamp,
+if you will. But I have an idea that such characters as those of the
+present Duke are necessary to the maintenance of a great aristocracy.
+He has had the power of making the world believe in him simply
+because he has been rich and a duke. His nephew, when he comes to the
+title, will never receive a tithe of the respect that has been paid
+to this old fain&eacute;ant."</p>
+
+<p>"But he will achieve much more than ten times the reputation," said
+Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>"I won't compare them, nor will I argue; but I like the Duke. Nay;&mdash;I
+love him. During the last two years I have allowed the whole fashion
+of my life to be remodelled by this intimacy. You knew what were my
+habits. I have only been in Vienna for one week since I last saw you,
+and I have spent months and months at Matching."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you do there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Read to him;&mdash;talk to him;&mdash;give him his food, and do all that in me
+lies to make his life bearable. Last year, when it was thought
+necessary that very distinguished people should be entertained at the
+great family castle,&mdash;in Barsetshire, you
+<span class="nowrap">know&mdash;"</span></p>
+
+<p>"I have heard of the place."</p>
+
+<p>"A regular treaty or agreement was drawn up. Conditions were sealed
+and signed. One condition was that both Lady Glencora and I should be
+there. We put our heads together to try to avoid this; as, of course,
+the Prince would not want to see me particularly,&mdash;and it was
+altogether so grand an affair that things had to be weighed. But the
+Duke was inexorable. Lady Glencora at such a time would have other
+things to do, and I must be there, or Gatherum Castle should not be
+opened. I suggested whether I could not remain in the background and
+look after the Duke as a kind of upper nurse,&mdash;but Lady Glencora said
+it would not do."</p>
+
+<p>"Why should you subject yourself to such indignity?"</p>
+
+<p>"Simply from love of the man. But you see I was not subjected. For
+two days I wore my jewels beneath royal eyes,&mdash;eyes that will sooner
+or later belong to absolute majesty. It was an awful bore, and I
+ought to have been at Vienna. You ask me why I did it. The fact is
+that things sometimes become too strong for one, even when there is
+no real power of constraint. For years past I have been used to have
+my own way, but when there came a question of the entertainment of
+royalty I found myself reduced to blind obedience. I had to go to
+Gatherum Castle, to the absolute neglect of my business; and I went."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you still keep it up?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear, yes. He is at Matching now, and I doubt whether he will
+ever leave it again. I shall go there from here as a matter of
+course, and relieve guard with Lady Glencora."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see what you get for it all."</p>
+
+<p>"Get;&mdash;what should I get? You don't believe in friendship, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly I do;&mdash;but this friendship is so unequal. I can hardly
+understand that it should have grown from personal liking on your
+side."</p>
+
+<p>"I think it has," said Madame Goesler, slowly. "You see, Mr. Finn,
+that you as a young man can hardly understand how natural it is that
+a young woman,&mdash;if I may call myself young,&mdash;should minister to an
+old man."</p>
+
+<p>"But there should be some bond to the old man."</p>
+
+<p>"There is a bond."</p>
+
+<p>"You must not be angry with me," said Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not in the least angry."</p>
+
+<p>"I should not venture to express any opinion, of course,&mdash;only that
+you ask me."</p>
+
+<p>"I do ask you, and you are quite welcome to express your opinion. And
+were it not expressed, I should know what you thought just the same.
+I have wondered at it myself sometimes,&mdash;that I should have become as
+it were engulfed in this new life, almost without will of my own. And
+when he dies, how shall I return to the other life? Of course I have
+the house in Park Lane still, but my very maid talks of Matching as
+my home."</p>
+
+<p>"How will it be when he has gone?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah,&mdash;how indeed? Lady Glencora and I will have to curtsey to each
+other, and there will be an end of it. She will be a duchess then,
+and I shall no longer be wanted."</p>
+
+<p>"But even if you were wanted&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, of course. It must last the Duke's time, and last no longer. It
+would not be a healthy kind of life were it not that I do my very
+best to make the evening of his days pleasant for him, and in that
+way to be of some service in the world. It has done me good to think
+that I have in some small degree sacrificed myself. Let me see;&mdash;we
+are to turn here to the left. That goes to Copperhouse Cross, no
+doubt. Is it not odd that I should have told you all this history?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just because this brute would not jump over the fence."</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say I should have told you, even if he had jumped over; but
+certainly this has been a great opportunity. Do you tell your friend
+Lord Chiltern not to abuse the poor Duke any more before me. I dare
+say our host is all right in what he says; but I don't like it.
+You'll come and see me in London, Mr. Finn?"</p>
+
+<p>"But you'll be at Matching?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do get a few days at home sometimes. You see I have escaped for
+the present,&mdash;or otherwise you and I would not have come to grief
+together in Broughton Spinnies."</p>
+
+<p>Soon after this they were overtaken by others who were returning
+home, and who had been more fortunate than they in getting away with
+the hounds. The fox had gone straight for Trumpeton Wood, not daring
+to try the gorse on the way, and then had been run to ground.
+Chiltern was again in a towering passion, as the earths, he said, had
+been purposely left open. But on this matter the men who had
+overtaken our friends were both of opinion that Chiltern was wrong.
+He had allowed it to be understood that he would not draw Trumpeton
+Wood, and he had therefore no right to expect that the earths should
+be stopped. But there were and had been various opinions on this
+difficult point, as the laws of hunting are complex, recondite,
+numerous, traditional, and not always perfectly understood. Perhaps
+the day may arrive in which they shall be codified under the care of
+some great and laborious master of hounds.</p>
+
+<p>"And they did nothing more?" asked Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes;&mdash;they chopped another fox before they left the place,&mdash;so that
+in point of fact they have drawn Trumpeton. But they didn't mean it."</p>
+
+<p>When Madame Max Goesler and Phineas had reached Harrington Hall they
+were able to give their own story of the day's sport to Lady
+Chiltern, as the remainder of the party had not as yet returned.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c18"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XVIII.</h3>
+<h4>SPOONER OF SPOON HALL.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>Adelaide Palliser was a tall, fair girl, exquisitely made, with every
+feminine grace of motion, highly born, and carrying always the
+warranty of her birth in her appearance; but with no special
+loveliness of face. Let not any reader suppose that therefore she was
+plain. She possessed much more than a sufficiency of charm to justify
+her friends in claiming her as a beauty, and the demand had been
+generally allowed by public opinion. Adelaide Palliser was always
+spoken of as a girl to be admired; but she was not one whose
+countenance would strike with special admiration any beholder who did
+not know her. Her eyes were pleasant and bright, and, being in truth
+green, might, perhaps with propriety, be described as grey. Her nose
+was well formed. Her mouth was, perhaps, too small. Her teeth were
+perfect. Her chin was somewhat too long, and was on this account the
+defective feature of her face. Her hair was brown and plentiful; but
+in no way peculiar. No doubt she wore a chignon; but if so she wore
+it with the special view of being in no degree remarkable in
+reference to her head-dress. Such as she was,&mdash;beauty or no
+beauty&mdash;her own mind on the subject was made up, and she had resolved
+long since that the gift of personal loveliness had not been bestowed
+upon her. And yet after a fashion she was proud of her own
+appearance. She knew that she looked like a lady, and she knew also
+that she had all that command of herself which health and strength
+can give to a woman when she is without feminine affectation.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Chiltern, in describing her to Phineas Finn, had said that she
+talked Italian, and wrote for the <i>Times</i>. The former assertion was,
+no doubt, true, as Miss Palliser had passed some years of her
+childhood in Florence; but the latter statement was made probably
+with reference to her capability rather than her performance. Lady
+Chiltern intended to imply that Miss Palliser was so much better
+educated than young ladies in general that she was able to express
+herself intelligibly in her own language. She had been well educated,
+and would, no doubt, have done the <i>Times</i> credit had the <i>Times</i>
+chosen to employ her.</p>
+
+<p>She was the youngest daughter of the youngest brother of the existing
+Duke of Omnium, and the first cousin, therefore, of Mr. Plantagenet
+Palliser, who was the eldest son of the second brother. And as her
+mother had been a Bavilard there could be no better blood. But
+Adelaide had been brought up so far away from the lofty Pallisers and
+lofty Bavilards as almost to have lost the flavour of her birth. Her
+father and mother had died when she was an infant, and she had gone
+to the custody of a much older half-sister, Mrs. Atterbury, whose
+mother had been not a Bavilard, but a Brown. And Mr. Atterbury was a
+mere nobody, a rich, erudite, highly-accomplished gentleman, whose
+father had made his money at the bar, and whose grandfather had been
+a country clergyman. Mrs. Atterbury, with her husband, was still
+living at Florence; but Adelaide Palliser had quarrelled with
+Florence life, and had gladly consented to make a long visit to her
+friend Lady Chiltern.</p>
+
+<p>In Florence she had met Gerard Maule, and the acquaintance had not
+been viewed with favour by the Atterburys. Mrs. Atterbury knew the
+history of the Maule family, and declared to her sister that no good
+could come from any intimacy. Old Mr. Maule, she said, was
+disreputable. Mrs. Maule, the mother,&mdash;who, according to Mr.
+Atterbury, had been the only worthy member of the family,&mdash;was long
+since dead. Gerard Maule's sister had gone away with an Irish cousin,
+and they were now living in India on the professional income of a
+captain in a foot regiment. Gerard Maule's younger brother had gone
+utterly to the dogs, and nobody knew anything about him. Maule Abbey,
+the family seat in Herefordshire, was,&mdash;so said Mrs.
+Atterbury,&mdash;absolutely in ruins. The furniture, as all the world
+knew, had been sold by the squire's creditors under the sheriff's
+order ten years ago, and not a chair or a table had been put into the
+house since that time. The property, which was small,&mdash;&pound;2,000 a year
+at the outside,&mdash;was, no doubt, entailed on the eldest son; and
+Gerard, fortunately, had a small fortune of his own, independent of
+his father. But then he was also a spendthrift,&mdash;so said Mrs.
+Atterbury,&mdash;keeping a stable full of horses, for which he could not
+afford to pay; and he was, moreover, the most insufferably idle man
+who ever wandered about the world without any visible occupation for
+his hours. "But he hunts," said Adelaide. "Do you call that an
+occupation?" asked Mrs. Atterbury with scorn. Now Mrs. Atterbury
+painted pictures, copied Madonnas, composed sonatas, corresponded
+with learned men in Rome, Berlin, and Boston, had been the intimate
+friend of Cavour, had paid a visit to Garibaldi on his island with
+the view of explaining to him the real condition of Italy,&mdash;and was
+supposed to understand Bismarck. Was it possible that a woman who so
+filled her own life should accept hunting as a creditable employment
+for a young man, when it was admitted to be his sole employment? And,
+moreover, she desired that her sister Adelaide should marry a certain
+Count Brudi, who, according to her belief, had more advanced ideas
+about things in general than any other living human being. Adelaide
+Palliser had determined that she would not marry Count Brudi; had,
+indeed, almost determined that she would marry Gerard Maule, and had
+left her brother-in-law's house in Florence after something like a
+quarrel. Mrs. Atterbury had declined to authorise the visit to
+Harrington Hall, and then Adelaide had pleaded her age and
+independence. She was her own mistress if she so chose to call
+herself, and would not, at any rate, remain in Florence at the
+present moment to receive the attentions of Signor Brudi. Of the
+previous winter she had passed three months with some relatives in
+England, and there she had learned to ride to hounds, had first met
+Gerard Maule, and had made acquaintance with Lady Chiltern. Gerard
+Maule had wandered to Italy after her, appearing at Florence in his
+desultory way, having no definite purpose, not even that of asking
+Adelaide to be his wife,&mdash;but still pursuing her, as though he wanted
+her without knowing what he wanted. In the course of the Spring,
+however, he had proposed, and had been almost accepted. But Adelaide,
+though she would not yield to her sister, had been frightened. She
+knew that she loved the man, and she swore to herself a thousand
+times that she would not be dictated to by her sister;&mdash;but was she
+prepared to accept the fate which would at once be hers were she now
+to marry Gerard Maule? What could she do with a man who had no ideas
+of his own as to what he ought to do with himself?</p>
+
+<p>Lady Chiltern was in favour of the marriage. The fortune, she said,
+was as much as Adelaide was entitled to expect, the man was a
+gentleman, was tainted by no vices, and was truly in love. "You had
+better let them fight it out somewhere else," Lord Chiltern had said
+when his wife proposed that the invitation to Gerard Maule should be
+renewed; but Lady Chiltern had known that if "fought out" at all, it
+must be fought out at Harrington Hall. "We have asked him to come
+back," she said to Adelaide, "in order that you may make up your
+mind. If he chooses to come, it will show that he is in earnest; and
+then you must take him, or make him understand that he is not to be
+taken." Gerard Maule had chosen to come; but Adelaide Palliser had
+not as yet quite made up her mind.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps there is nothing so generally remarkable in the conduct of
+young ladies in the phase of life of which we are now speaking as the
+facility,&mdash;it may almost be said audacity,&mdash;with which they do make
+up their minds. A young man seeks a young woman's hand in marriage,
+because she has waltzed stoutly with him, and talked pleasantly
+between the dances;&mdash;and the young woman gives it, almost with
+gratitude. As to the young man, the readiness of his action is less
+marvellous than hers. He means to be master, and, by the very nature
+of the joint life they propose to lead, must take her to his sphere
+of life, not bind himself to hers. If he worked before he will work
+still. If he was idle before he will be idle still; and he probably
+does in some sort make a calculation and strike a balance between his
+means and the proposed additional burden of a wife and children. But
+she, knowing nothing, takes a monstrous leap in the dark, in which
+everything is to be changed, and in which everything is trusted to
+chance. Miss Palliser, however, differing in this from the majority
+of her friends and acquaintances, frightened, perhaps by those
+representations of her sister to which she would not altogether
+yield, had paused, and was still pausing. "Where should we go and
+live if I did marry him?" she said to Lady Chiltern.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose he has an opinion of his own on that subject?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not in the least, I should think."</p>
+
+<p>"Has he never said anything about it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh dear no. Matters have not got so far as that at all;&mdash;nor would
+they ever, out of his own head. If we were married and taken away to
+the train he would only ask what place he should take the tickets for
+when he got to the station."</p>
+
+<p>"Couldn't you manage to live at Maule Abbey?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps we might; only there is no furniture, and, as I am told,
+only half a roof."</p>
+
+<p>"It does seem to be absurd that you two should not make up your mind,
+just as other people do," said Lady Chiltern. "Of course he is not a
+rich man, but you have known that all along."</p>
+
+<p>"It is not a question of wealth or poverty, but of an utterly
+lack-a-daisical indifference to everything in the world."</p>
+
+<p>"He is not indifferent to you."</p>
+
+<p>"That is the marvellous part of it," said Miss Palliser.</p>
+
+<p>This was said on the evening of the famous day at Broughton Spinnies,
+and late on that night Lord Chiltern predicted to his wife that another
+episode was about to occur in the life of their friend.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think Spooner has just asked me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Permission to fight the Duke, or Mr. Palliser?"</p>
+
+<p>"No,&mdash;it's nothing about the hunting. He wants to know if you'd mind
+his staying here three or four days longer."</p>
+
+<p>"What a very odd request!"</p>
+
+<p>"It is odd, because he was to have gone to-morrow. I suppose there's
+no objection."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not if you like to have him."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't like it a bit," said Lord Chiltern; "but I couldn't turn him
+out. And I know what it means."</p>
+
+<p>"What does it mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"You haven't observed anything?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have observed nothing in Mr. Spooner, except an awe-struck horror
+at the trapping of a fox."</p>
+
+<p>"He's going to propose to Adelaide Palliser."</p>
+
+<p>"Oswald! You are not in earnest."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe he is. He would have told me if he thought I could give
+him the slightest encouragement. You can't very well turn him out
+now."</p>
+
+<p>"He'll get an answer that he won't like if he does," said Lady
+Chiltern.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Palliser had ridden well on that day, and so had Gerard Maule.
+That Mr. Spooner should ride well to hounds was quite a matter of
+course. It was the business of his life to do so, and he did it with
+great judgment. He hated Maule's style of riding, considering it to
+be flashy, injurious to hunting, and unsportsmanlike; and now he had
+come to hate the man. He had, of course, perceived how close were the
+attentions paid by Mr. Maule to Miss Palliser, and he thought that he
+perceived that Miss Palliser did not accept them with thorough
+satisfaction. On his way back to Harrington Hall he made some
+inquiries, and was taught to believe that Mr. Maule was not a man of
+very high standing in the world. Mr. Spooner himself had a very
+pretty property of his own,&mdash;which was all his own. There was no
+doubt about his furniture, or about the roof at Spoon Hall. He was
+Spooner of Spoon Hall, and had been High Sheriff for his county. He
+was not so young as he once had been;&mdash;but he was still a young man,
+only just turned forty, and was his own master in everything. He
+could read, and he always looked at the country newspaper; but a book
+was a thing that he couldn't bear to handle. He didn't think he had
+ever seen a girl sit a horse better than Adelaide Palliser sat hers,
+and a girl who rode as she did would probably like a man addicted to
+hunting. Mr. Spooner knew that he understood hunting, whereas that
+fellow Maule cared for nothing but jumping over flights of rails. He
+asked a few questions that evening of Phineas Finn respecting Gerard
+Maule, but did not get much information. "I don't know where he
+lives;" said Phineas; "I never saw him till I met him here."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you think he seems sweet upon that girl?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't wonder if he is."</p>
+
+<p>"She's an uncommonly clean-built young woman, isn't she?" said Mr.
+Spooner; "but it seems to me she don't care much for Master Maule.
+Did you see how he was riding to-day?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't see anything, Mr. Spooner."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no; you didn't get away. I wish he'd been with you. But she went
+uncommon well." After that he made his request to Lord Chiltern, and
+Lord Chiltern, with a foresight quite unusual to him, predicted the
+coming event to his wife.</p>
+
+<p>There was shooting on the following day, and Gerard Maule and Mr.
+Spooner were both out. Lunch was sent down to the covert side, and
+the ladies walked down and joined the sportsmen. On this occasion Mr.
+Spooner's assiduity was remarkable, and seemed to be accepted with
+kindly grace. Adelaide even asked a question about Trumpeton Wood,
+and expressed an opinion that her cousin was quite wrong because he
+did not take the matter up. "You know it's the keepers do it all,"
+said Mr. Spooner, shaking his head with an appearance of great
+wisdom. "You never can have foxes unless you keep your keepers well
+in hand. If they drew the Spoon Hall coverts blank I'd dismiss my man
+the next day."</p>
+
+
+<div class="center"><a id="ill18"></a>
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4px">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/ill18.jpg">
+      <img src="images/ill18-t.jpg" width="550"
+      alt='"YOU KNOW IT&#8217;S THE KEEPERS DO IT ALL."' /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption"><span class="smallcaps">"You know
+      it's the keepers do it all."</span><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/ill18.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>"It mightn't be his fault."</p>
+
+<p>"He knows my mind, and he'll take care that there are foxes. They've
+been at my stick covert three times this year, and put a brace out
+each time. A leash went from it last Monday week. When a man really
+means a thing, Miss Palliser, he can pretty nearly always do it."
+Miss Palliser replied with a smile that she thought that to be true,
+and Mr. Spooner was not slow at perceiving that this afforded good
+encouragement to him in regard to that matter which was now weighing
+most heavily upon his mind.</p>
+
+<p>On the next day there was hunting again, and Phineas was mounted on a
+horse more amenable to persuasion than old Dandolo. There was a fair
+run in the morning, and both Phineas and Madame Max were carried
+well. The remarkable event in the day, however, was the riding of
+Dandolo in the afternoon by Lord Chiltern himself. He had determined
+that the horse should go out, and had sworn that he would ride him
+over a fence if he remained there making the attempt all night. For
+two weary hours he did remain, with a groom behind him, spurring the
+brute against a thick hedge, with a ditch at the other side of it,
+and at the end of the two hours he succeeded. The horse at last made
+a buck leap and went over with a loud grunt. On his way home Lord
+Chiltern sold the horse to a farmer for fifteen pounds;&mdash;and that was
+the end of Dandolo as far as the Harrington Hall stables were
+concerned. This took place on the Friday, the 8th of February. It was
+understood that Mr. Spooner was to return to Spoon Hall on Saturday,
+and on Monday, the 11th, Phineas was to go to London. On the 12th the
+Session would begin, and he would once more take his seat in
+Parliament.</p>
+
+<p>"I give you my word and honour, Lady Chiltern," Gerard Maule said to
+his hostess, "I believe that oaf of a man is making up to Adelaide."
+Mr. Maule had not been reticent about his love towards Lady Chiltern,
+and came to her habitually in all his troubles.</p>
+
+<p>"Chiltern has told me the same thing."</p>
+
+<p>"No!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why shouldn't he see it, as well as you? But I wouldn't believe it."</p>
+
+<p>"Upon my word I believe it's true. But, Lady
+<span class="nowrap">Chiltern&mdash;"</span></p>
+
+<p>"Well, Mr. Maule."</p>
+
+<p>"You know her so well."</p>
+
+<p>"Adelaide, you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"You understand her thoroughly. There can't be anything in it; is
+there?"</p>
+
+<p>"How anything?"</p>
+
+<p>"She can't really&mdash;like him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Maule, if I were to tell her that you had asked such a question
+as that I don't believe that she'd ever speak a word to you again;
+and it would serve you right. Didn't you call him an oaf?"</p>
+
+<p>"I did."</p>
+
+<p>"And how long has she known him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe she ever spoke to him before yesterday."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet you think that she will be ready to accept this oaf as her
+husband to-morrow! Do you call that respect?"</p>
+
+<p>"Girls do such wonderful strange things. What an impudent ass he must
+be!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see that at all. He may be an ass and yet not impudent, or
+impudent and yet not an ass. Of course he has a right to speak his
+mind,&mdash;and she will have a right to speak hers."</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c19"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XIX.</h3>
+<h4>SOMETHING OUT OF THE WAY.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>The Brake hounds went out four days a week, Monday, Wednesday,
+Friday, and Saturday; but the hunting party on this Saturday was very
+small. None of the ladies joined in it, and when Lord Chiltern came
+down to breakfast at half-past eight he met no one but Gerard Maule.
+"Where's Spooner?" he asked. But neither Maule nor the servant could
+answer the question. Mr. Spooner was a man who never missed a day
+from the beginning of cubbing to the end of the season, and who, when
+April came, could give you an account of the death of every fox
+killed. Chiltern cracked his eggs, and said nothing more for the
+moment, but Gerard Maule had his suspicions. "He must be coming,"
+said Maule; "suppose you send up to him." The servant was sent, and
+came down with Mr. Spooner's compliments. Mr. Spooner didn't mean to
+hunt to-day. He had something of a headache. He would see Lord
+Chiltern at the meet on Monday.</p>
+
+<p>Maule immediately declared that neither would he hunt; but Lord
+Chiltern looked at him, and he hesitated. "I don't care about your
+knowing," said Gerard.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh,&mdash;I know. Don't you be an ass."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see why I should give him an opportunity."</p>
+
+<p>"You're to go and pull your boots and breeches off because he has not
+put his on, and everybody is to be told of it! Why shouldn't he have
+an opportunity, as you call it? If the opportunity can do him any
+good, you may afford to be very indifferent."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a piece of d&mdash;&mdash; impertinence,"
+said Maule, with most unusual energy.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you finish your breakfast, and come and get into the trap. We've
+twenty miles to go. You can ask Spooner on Monday how he spent his
+morning."</p>
+
+<p>At ten o'clock the ladies came down to breakfast, and the whole party
+were assembled. "Mr. Spooner!" said Lady Chiltern to that gentleman,
+who was the last to enter the room. "This is a marvel!" He was
+dressed in a dark-blue frock-coat, with a coloured silk handkerchief
+round his neck, and had brushed his hair down close to his head. He
+looked quite unlike himself, and would hardly have been known by
+those who had never seen him out of the hunting field. In his dress
+clothes of an evening, or in his shooting coat, he was still himself.
+But in the garb he wore on the present occasion he was quite unlike
+Spooner of Spoon Hall, whose only pride in regard to clothes had
+hitherto been that he possessed more pairs of breeches than any other
+man in the county. It was ascertained afterwards, when the
+circumstances came to be investigated, that he had sent a man all the
+way across to Spoon Hall for that coat and the coloured
+neck-handkerchief on the previous day; and some one, most
+maliciously, told the story abroad. Lady Chiltern, however, always
+declared that her secrecy on the matter had always been inviolable.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Lady Chiltern; yes," said Mr. Spooner, as he took a seat at the
+table; "wonders never cease, do they?" He had prepared himself even
+for this moment, and had determined to show Miss Palliser that he
+could be sprightly and engaging even without his hunting habiliments.</p>
+
+<p>"What will Lord Chiltern do without you?" one of the ladies asked.</p>
+
+<p>"He'll have to do his best."</p>
+
+<p>"He'll never kill a fox," said Miss Palliser.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes; he knows what he's about. I was so fond of my pillow this
+morning that I thought I'd let the hunting slide for once. A man
+should not make a toil of his pleasure."</p>
+
+<p>Lady Chiltern knew all about it, but Adelaide Palliser knew nothing.
+Madame Goesler, when she observed the light-blue necktie, at once
+suspected the execution of some great intention. Phineas was absorbed
+in his observation of the difference in the man. In his pink coat he
+always looked as though he had been born to wear it, but his
+appearance was now that of an amateur actor got up in a miscellaneous
+middle-age costume. He was sprightly, but the effort was painfully
+visible. Lady Baldock said something afterwards, very ill-natured,
+about a hog in armour, and old Mrs. Burnaby spoke the truth when she
+declared that all the comfort of her tea and toast was sacrificed to
+Mr. Spooner's frock coat. But what was to be done with him when
+breakfast was over? For a while he was fixed upon poor Phineas, with
+whom he walked across to the stables. He seemed to feel that he could
+hardly hope to pounce upon his prey at once, and that he must bide
+his time.</p>
+
+<p>Out of the full heart the mouth speaks. "Nice girl, Miss Palliser,"
+he said to Phineas, forgetting that he had expressed himself nearly
+in the same way to the same man on a former occasion.</p>
+
+<p>"Very nice, indeed. It seems to me that you are sweet upon her
+yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"Who? I! Oh, no&mdash;I don't think of those sort of things. I suppose I
+shall marry some day. I've a house fit for a lady to-morrow, from top
+to bottom, linen and all. And my property's my own."</p>
+
+<p>"That's a comfort."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe you. There isn't a mortgage on an acre of it, and that's
+what very few men can say. As for Miss Palliser, I don't know that a
+man could do better; only I don't think much of those things. If ever
+I do pop the question, I shall do it on the spur of the moment.
+There'll be no preparation with me, nor yet any beating about the
+bush. 'Would it suit your views, my dear, to be Mrs. Spooner?' that's
+about the long and the short of it. A clean-made little mare, isn't
+she?" This last observation did not refer to Adelaide Palliser, but
+to an animal standing in Lord Chiltern's stables. "He bought her from
+Charlie Dickers for a twenty pound note last April. The mare hadn't a
+leg to stand upon. Charlie had been stagging with her for the last
+two months, and knocked her all to pieces. She's a screw, of course,
+but there isn't anything carries Chiltern so well. There's nothing
+like a good screw. A man'll often go with two hundred and fifty
+guineas between his legs, supposed to be all there because the
+animal's sound, and yet he don't know his work. If you like schooling
+a young 'un, that's all very well. I used to be fond of it myself;
+but I've come to feel that being carried to hounds without much
+thinking about it is the cream of hunting, after all. I wonder what
+the ladies are at? Shall we go back and see?" Then they turned to the
+house, and Mr. Spooner began to be a little fidgety. "Do they sit
+altogether mostly all the morning?"</p>
+
+<p>"I fancy they do."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose there's some way of dividing them. They tell me you know
+all about women. If you want to get one to yourself, how do you
+manage it?"</p>
+
+<p>"In perpetuity, do you mean, Mr. Spooner?"</p>
+
+<p>"Any way;&mdash;in the morning, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Just to say a few words to her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly that;&mdash;just to say a few words. I don't mind asking you,
+because you've done this kind of thing before."</p>
+
+<p>"I should watch my opportunity," said Phineas, remembering a period
+of his life in which he had watched much and had found it very
+difficult to get an opportunity.</p>
+
+<p>"But I must go after lunch," said Mr. Spooner; "I'm expected home to
+dinner, and I don't know much whether they'll like me to stop over
+Sunday."</p>
+
+<p>"If you were to tell Lady Chiltern&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I was to have gone on Thursday, you know. You won't tell anybody?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh dear no."</p>
+
+<p>"I think I shall propose to that girl. I've about made up my mind to
+do it, only a fellow can't call her out before half-a-dozen of them.
+Couldn't you get Lady C. to trot her out into the garden? You and she
+are as thick as thieves."</p>
+
+<p>"I should think Miss Palliser was rather difficult to be managed."</p>
+
+<p>Phineas declined to interfere, taking upon himself to assure Mr.
+Spooner that attempts to arrange matters in that way never succeeded.
+He went in and settled himself to the work of answering
+correspondents at Tankerville, while Mr. Spooner hung about the
+drawing-room, hoping that circumstances and time might favour him. It
+is to be feared that he made himself extremely disagreeable to poor
+Lady Chiltern, to whom he was intending to open his heart could he
+only find an opportunity for so much as that. But Lady Chiltern was
+determined not to have his confidence, and at last withdrew from the
+scene in order that she might not be entrapped. Before lunch had come
+all the party knew what was to happen,&mdash;except Adelaide herself. She,
+too, perceived that something was in the wind, that there was some
+stir, some discomfort, some secret affair forward, or some event
+expected which made them all uneasy;&mdash;and she did connect it with the
+presence of Mr. Spooner. But, in pitiable ignorance of the facts that
+were clear enough to everybody else, she went on watching and
+wondering, with a half-formed idea that the house would be more
+pleasant as soon as Mr. Spooner should have taken his departure. He
+was to go after lunch. But on such occasions there is, of course, a
+latitude, and "after lunch" may be stretched at any rate to the five
+o'clock tea. At three o'clock Mr. Spooner was still hanging about.
+Madame Goesler and Phineas, with an openly declared intention of
+friendly intercourse, had gone out to walk together. Lord and Lady
+Baldock were on horseback. Two or three old ladies hung over the fire
+and gossiped. Lady Chiltern had retired to her baby;&mdash;when on a
+sudden Adelaide Palliser declared her intention of walking into the
+village. "Might I accompany you, Miss Palliser?" said Mr. Spooner; "I
+want a walk above all things." He was very brave, and persevered
+though it was manifest that the lady did not desire his company.
+Adelaide said something about an old woman whom she intended to
+visit; whereupon Mr. Spooner declared that visiting old women was the
+delight of his life. He would undertake to give half a sovereign to
+the old woman if Miss Palliser would allow him to come. He was very
+brave, and persevered in such a fashion that he carried his point.
+Lady Chiltern from her nursery window saw them start through the
+shrubbery together.</p>
+
+<p>"I have been waiting for this opportunity all the morning," said Mr.
+Spooner, gallantly.</p>
+
+<p>But in spite of his gallantry, and although she had known, almost
+from breakfast time, that he had been waiting for something, still
+she did not suspect his purpose. It has been said that Mr. Spooner
+was still young, being barely over forty years of age; but he had
+unfortunately appeared to be old to Miss Palliser. To himself it
+seemed as though the fountains of youth were still running through
+all his veins. Though he had given up schooling young horses, he
+could ride as hard as ever. He could shoot all day. He could take
+"his whack of wine," as he called it, sit up smoking half the night,
+and be on horseback the next morning after an early breakfast without
+the slightest feeling of fatigue. He was a red-faced little man, with
+broad shoulders, clean shaven, with small eyes, and a nose on which
+incipient pimples began to show themselves. To himself and the
+comrades of his life he was almost as young as he had ever been; but
+the young ladies of the county called him Old Spooner, and regarded
+him as a permanent assistant unpaid huntsman to the Brake hounds. It
+was not within the compass of Miss Palliser's imagination to conceive
+that this man should intend to propose himself to her as her lover.</p>
+
+<p>"I have been waiting for this opportunity all the morning," said Mr.
+Spooner. Adelaide Palliser turned round and looked at him, still
+understanding nothing. Ride at any fence hard enough, and the chances
+are you'll get over. The harder you ride the heavier the fall, if you
+get a fall; but the greater the chance of your getting over. This had
+been a precept in the life of Mr. Spooner, verified by much
+experience, and he had resolved that he would be guided by it on this
+occasion. "Ever since I first saw you, Miss Palliser, I have been so
+much taken by you that,&mdash;that,&mdash;in point of fact, I love you better
+than all the women in the world I ever saw; and will you,&mdash;will you
+be Mrs. Spooner?"</p>
+
+<p>He had at any rate ridden hard at his fence. There had been no
+craning,&mdash;no looking about for an easy place, no hesitation as he
+brought his horse up to it. No man ever rode straighter than he did
+on this occasion. Adelaide stopped short on the path, and he stood
+opposite to her, with his fingers inserted between the closed buttons
+of his frock-coat. "Mr. Spooner!" exclaimed Adelaide.</p>
+
+<p>"I am quite in earnest, Miss Palliser; no man ever was more in
+earnest. I can offer you a comfortable well-furnished home, an
+undivided heart, a good settlement, and no embarrassment on the
+property. I'm fond of a country life myself, but I'll adapt myself to
+you in everything reasonable."</p>
+
+<p>"You are mistaken, Mr. Spooner; you are indeed."</p>
+
+<p>"How mistaken?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean that it is altogether out of the question. You have surprised
+me so much that I couldn't stop you sooner; but pray do not speak of
+it again."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a little sudden, but what is a man to do? If you will only
+think of <span class="nowrap">it&mdash;"</span></p>
+
+<p>"I can't think of it at all. There is no need for thinking. Really,
+Mr. Spooner, I can't go on with you. If you wouldn't mind turning
+back I'll walk into the village by myself." Mr. Spooner, however, did
+not seem inclined to obey this injunction, and stood his ground, and,
+when she moved on, walked on beside her. "I must insist on being left
+alone," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't done anything out of the way," said the lover.</p>
+
+<p>"I think it's very much out of the way. I have hardly ever spoken to
+you before. If you will only leave me now there shall not be a word
+more said about it."</p>
+
+<p>But Mr. Spooner was a man of spirit. "I'm not in the least ashamed of
+what I've done," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"But you might as well go away, when it can't be of any use."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know why it shouldn't be of use. Miss Palliser, I'm a man of
+good property. My great-great-grandfather lived at Spoon Hall, and
+we've been there ever since. My mother was one of the Platters of
+Platter House. I don't see that I've done anything out of the way. As
+for shilly-shallying, and hanging about, I never knew any good come
+from it. Don't let us quarrel, Miss Palliser. Say that you'll take a
+week to think of it."</p>
+
+<p>"But I won't think of it at all; and I won't go on walking with you.
+If you'll go one way, Mr. Spooner, I'll go the other."</p>
+
+<p>Then Mr. Spooner waxed angry. "Why am I to be treated with disdain?"
+he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to treat you with disdain. I only want you to go away."</p>
+
+<p>"You seem to think that I'm something,&mdash;something altogether beneath
+you."</p>
+
+<p>And so in truth she did. Miss Palliser had never analysed her own
+feelings and emotions about the Spooners whom she met in society; but
+she probably conceived that there were people in the world who, from
+certain accidents, were accustomed to sit at dinner with her, but who
+were no more fitted for her intimacy than were the servants who
+waited upon her. Such people were to her little more than the tables
+and chairs with which she was brought in contact. They were persons
+with whom it seemed to her to be impossible that she should have
+anything in common,&mdash;who were her inferiors, as completely as were
+the menials around her. Why she should thus despise Mr. Spooner,
+while in her heart of hearts she loved Gerard Maule, it would be
+difficult to explain. It was not simply an affair of age,&mdash;nor of
+good looks, nor altogether of education. Gerard Maule was by no means
+wonderfully erudite. They were both addicted to hunting. Neither of
+them did anything useful. In that respect Mr. Spooner stood the
+higher, as he managed his own property successfully. But Gerard Maule
+so wore his clothes, and so carried his limbs, and so pronounced his
+words that he was to be regarded as one entitled to make love to any
+lady; whereas poor Mr. Spooner was not justified in proposing to
+marry any woman much more gifted than his own housemaid. Such, at
+least, were Adelaide Palliser's ideas. "I don't think anything of the
+kind," she said, "only I want you to go away. I shall go back to the
+house, and I hope you won't accompany me. If you do, I shall turn the
+other way." Whereupon she did retire at once, and he was left
+standing in the path.</p>
+
+<p>There was a seat there, and he sat down for a moment to think of it
+all. Should he persevere in his suit, or should he rejoice that he
+had escaped from such an ill-conditioned minx? He remembered that he
+had read, in his younger days, that lovers in novels generally do
+persevere, and that they are almost always successful at last. In
+affairs of the heart, such perseverance was, he thought, the correct
+thing. But in this instance the conduct of the lady had not given him
+the slightest encouragement. When a horse balked with him at a fence,
+it was his habit to force the animal till he jumped it,&mdash;as the groom
+had recommended Phineas to do. But when he had encountered a decided
+fall, it was not sensible practice to ride the horse at the same
+place again. There was probably some occult cause for failure. He
+could not but own that he had been thrown on the present
+occasion,&mdash;and upon the whole, he thought that he had better give it
+up. He found his way back to the house, put up his things, and got
+away to Spoon Hall in time for dinner, without seeing Lady Chiltern
+or any of her guests.</p>
+
+
+<div class="center"><a id="ill19"></a>
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4px">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/ill19.jpg">
+      <img src="images/ill19-t.jpg" height="600"
+      alt="HE SAT DOWN FOR A MOMENT TO THINK OF IT ALL." /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption"><span class="smallcaps">He sat
+      down for a moment to think of it all.</span><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/ill19.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>"What has become of Mr. Spooner?" Maule asked, as soon as he returned
+to Harrington Hall.</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody knows," said Lady Chiltern, "but I believe he has gone."</p>
+
+<p>"Has anything happened?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard no tidings; but, if you ask for my opinion, I think
+something has happened. A certain lady seems to have been ruffled,
+and a certain gentleman has disappeared. I am inclined to think that
+a few unsuccessful words have been spoken." Gerard Maule saw that
+there was a smile in her eye, and he was satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, what did Mr. Spooner say to you during his walk?" This
+question was asked by the ill-natured old lady in the presence of
+nearly all the party.</p>
+
+<p>"We were talking of hunting," said Adelaide.</p>
+
+<p>"And did the poor old woman get her half-sovereign?"</p>
+
+<p>"No;&mdash;he forgot that. We did not go into the village at all. I was
+tired and came back."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor old woman;&mdash;and poor Mr. Spooner!"</p>
+
+<p>Everybody in the house knew what had occurred, as Mr. Spooner's
+discretion in the conduct of this affair had not been equal to his
+valour; but Miss Palliser never confessed openly, and almost taught
+herself to believe that the man had been mad or dreaming during that
+special hour.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c20"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XX.</h3>
+<h4>PHINEAS AGAIN IN LONDON.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>Phineas, on his return to London, before he had taken his seat in the
+House, received the following letter from Lady Laura
+Kennedy:&mdash;<br />&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="jright">Dresden, Feb. 8, 1870.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="nowrap"><span class="smallcaps">Dear
+Friend</span>,&mdash;</span></p>
+
+<p>I thought that perhaps you would have written to me from Harrington.
+Violet has told me of the meeting between you and Madame Goesler, and
+says that the old friendship seems to have been perfectly
+re-established. She used to think once that there might be more than
+friendship, but I never quite believed that. She tells me that
+Chiltern is quarrelling with the Pallisers. You ought not to let him
+quarrel with people. I know that he would listen to you. He always
+did.</p>
+
+<p>I write now especially because I have just received so dreadful a
+letter from Mr. Kennedy! I would send it you were it not that there
+are in it a few words which on his behalf I shrink from showing even
+to you. It is full of threats. He begins by quotations from the
+Scriptures, and from the Prayer-Book, to show that a wife has no
+right to leave her husband,&mdash;and then he goes on to the law. One
+knows all that of course. And then he asks whether he ever ill-used
+me? Was he ever false to me? Do I think, that were I to choose to
+submit the matter to the iniquitous practices of the present Divorce
+Court, I could prove anything against him by which even that low
+earthly judge would be justified in taking from him his marital
+authority? And if not,&mdash;have I no conscience? Can I reconcile it to
+myself to make his life utterly desolate and wretched simply because
+duties which I took upon myself at my marriage have become
+distasteful to me?</p>
+
+<p>These questions would be very hard to answer, were there not other
+questions that I could ask. Of course I was wrong to marry him. I
+know that now, and I repent my sin in sackcloth and ashes. But I did
+not leave him after I married him till he had brought against me
+horrid accusations,&mdash;accusations which a woman could not bear, which,
+if he believed them himself, must have made it impossible for him to
+live with me. Could any wife live with a husband who declared to her
+face that he believed that she had a lover? And in this very letter
+he says that which almost repeats the accusation. He has asked me how
+I can have dared to receive you, and desires me never either to see
+you or to wish to see you again. And yet he sent for you to
+Loughlinter before you came, in order that you might act as a friend
+between us. How could I possibly return to a man whose power of
+judgment has so absolutely left him?</p>
+
+<p>I have a conscience in the matter, a conscience that is very far from
+being at ease. I have done wrong, and have shipwrecked every hope in
+this world. No woman was ever more severely punished. My life is a
+burden to me, and I may truly say that I look for no peace this side
+the grave. I am conscious, too, of continued sin,&mdash;a sin unlike other
+sins,&mdash;not to be avoided, of daily occurrence, a sin which weighs me
+to the ground. But I should not sin the less were I to return to him.
+Of course he can plead his marriage. The thing is done. But it can't
+be right that a woman should pretend to love a man whom she loathes.
+I couldn't live with him. If it were simply to go and die, so that
+his pride would be gratified by my return, I would do it; but I
+should not die. There would come some horrid scene, and I should be
+no more a wife to him than I am while living here.</p>
+
+<p>He now threatens me with publicity. He declares that unless I return
+to him he will put into some of the papers a statement of the whole
+case. Of course this would be very bad. To be obscure and untalked of
+is all the comfort that now remains to me. And he might say things
+that would be prejudicial to others,&mdash;especially to you. Could this
+in any way be prevented? I suppose the papers would publish anything;
+and you know how greedily people will read slander about those whose
+names are in any way remarkable. In my heart I believe he is insane;
+but it is very hard that one's privacy should be at the mercy of a
+madman. He says that he can get an order from the Court of Queen's
+Bench which will oblige the judges in Saxony to send me back to
+England in the custody of the police, but that I do not believe. I
+had the opinion of Sir Gregory Grogram before I came away, and he
+told me that it was not so. I do not fear his power over my person,
+while I remain here, but that the matter should be dragged forward
+before the public.</p>
+
+<p>I have not answered him yet, nor have I shown his letter to Papa. I
+hardly liked to tell you when you were here, but I almost fear to
+talk to Papa about it. He never urges me to go back, but I know that
+he wishes that I should do so. He has ideas about money, which seem
+singular to me, knowing, as I do, how very generous he has been
+himself. When I married, my fortune, as you knew, had been just used
+in paying Chiltern's debts. Mr. Kennedy had declared himself to be
+quite indifferent about it, though the sum was large. The whole thing
+was explained to him, and he was satisfied. Before a year was over he
+complained to Papa, and then Papa and Chiltern together raised the
+money,&mdash;&pound;40,000,&mdash;and it was paid to Mr. Kennedy. He has written more
+than once to Papa's lawyer to say that, though the money is
+altogether useless to him, he will not return a penny of it, because
+by doing so he would seem to abandon his rights. Nobody has asked him
+to return it. Nobody has asked him to defray a penny on my account
+since I left him. But Papa continues to say that the money should not
+be lost to the family. I cannot, however, return to such a husband
+for the sake of &pound;40,000. Papa is very angry about the money, because
+he says that if it had been paid in the usual way at my marriage,
+settlements would have been required that it should come back to the
+family after Mr. Kennedy's death in the event of my having no child.
+But, as it is now, the money would go to his estate after my death. I
+don't understand why it should be so, but Papa is always harping upon
+it, and declaring that Mr. Kennedy's pretended generosity has robbed
+us all. Papa thinks that were I to return this could be arranged; but
+I could not go back to him for such a reason. What does it matter?
+Chiltern and Violet will have enough; and of what use would it be to
+such a one as I am to have a sum of money to leave behind me? I
+should leave it to your children, Phineas, and not to Chiltern's.</p>
+
+<p>He bids me neither see you nor write to you,&mdash;but how can I obey a
+man whom I believe to be mad? And when I will not obey him in the
+greater matter by returning to him it would be absurd were I to
+attempt to obey him in smaller details. I don't suppose I shall see
+you very often. His letter has, at any rate, made me feel that it
+would be impossible for me to return to England, and it is not likely
+that you will soon come here again. I will not even ask you to do so,
+though your presence gave a brightness to my life for a few days
+which nothing else could have produced. But when the lamp for a while
+burns with special brightness there always comes afterwards a
+corresponding dullness. I had to pay for your visit, and for the
+comfort of my confession to you at K&ouml;nigstein. I was determined that
+you should know it all; but, having told you, I do not want to see
+you again. As for writing, he shall not deprive me of the
+consolation,&mdash;nor I trust will you.</p>
+
+<p>Do you think that I should answer his letter, or will it be better
+that I should show it to Papa? I am very averse to doing this, as I
+have explained to you; but I would do so if I thought that Mr.
+Kennedy really intended to act upon his threats. I will not conceal
+from you that it would go nigh to kill me if my name were dragged
+through the papers. Can anything be done to prevent it? If he were
+known to be mad of course the papers would not publish his
+statements; but I suppose that if he were to send a letter from
+Loughlinter with his name to it they would print it. It would be
+very, very cruel.</p>
+
+<p>God bless you. I need not say how faithfully I am</p>
+
+<p class="ind10">Your friend,</p>
+
+<p class="ind12">L. K.<br />&nbsp;</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+<p>This letter was addressed to Phineas at his club, and there he
+received it on the evening before the meeting of Parliament. He sat
+up for nearly an hour thinking of it after he read it. He must answer
+it at once. That was a matter of course. But he could give her no
+advice that would be of any service to her. He was, indeed, of all
+men the least fitted to give her counsel in her present emergency. It
+seemed to him that as she was safe from any attack on her person, she
+need only remain at Dresden, answering his letter by what softest
+negatives she could use. It was clear to him that in his present
+condition she could take no steps whatever in regard to the money.
+That must be left to his conscience, to time, and to chance. As to
+the threat of publicity, the probability, he thought, was that it
+would lead to nothing. He doubted whether any respectable newspaper
+would insert such a statement as that suggested. Were it published,
+the evil must be borne. No diligence on her part, or on the part of
+her lawyers, could prevent it.</p>
+
+<p>But what had she meant when she wrote of continual sin, sin not to be
+avoided, of sin repeated daily which nevertheless weighed her to the
+ground? Was it expected of him that he should answer that portion of
+her letter? It amounted to a passionate renewal of that declaration
+of affection for himself which she had made at K&ouml;nigstein, and which
+had pervaded her whole life since some period antecedent to her
+wretched marriage. Phineas, as he thought of it, tried to analyse the
+nature of such a love. He also, in those old days, had loved her, and
+had at once resolved that he must tell her so, though his hopes of
+success had been poor indeed. He had taken the first opportunity, and
+had declared his purpose. She, with the imperturbable serenity of a
+matured kind-hearted woman, had patted him on the back, as it were,
+as she told him of her existing engagement with Mr. Kennedy. Could it
+be that at that moment she could have loved him as she now said she
+did, and that she should have been so cold, so calm, and so kind;
+while, at that very moment, this coldness, calmness, and kindness was
+but a thin crust over so strong a passion? How different had been his
+own love! He had been neither calm nor kind. He had felt himself for
+a day or two to be so terribly knocked about that the world was
+nothing to him. For a month or two he had regarded himself as a man
+peculiarly circumstanced,&mdash;marked for misfortune and for a solitary
+life. Then he had retricked his beams, and before twelve months were
+passed had almost forgotten his love. He knew now, or thought that he
+knew,&mdash;that the continued indulgence of a hopeless passion was a
+folly opposed to the very instincts of man and woman,&mdash;a weakness
+showing want of fibre and of muscle in the character. But here was a
+woman who could calmly conceal her passion in its early days and
+marry a man whom she did not love in spite of it, who could make her
+heart, her feelings, and all her feminine delicacy subordinate to
+material considerations, and nevertheless could not rid herself of
+her passion in the course of years, although she felt its existence
+to be an intolerable burden on her conscience. On which side lay
+strength of character and on which side weakness? Was he strong or
+was she?</p>
+
+<p>And he tried to examine his own feelings in regard to her. The thing
+was so long ago that she was to him as some aunt, or sister, so much
+the elder as to be almost venerable. He acknowledged to himself a
+feeling which made it incumbent upon him to spend himself in her
+service, could he serve her by any work of his. He was,&mdash;or would be,
+devoted to her. He owed her a never-dying gratitude. But were she
+free to marry again to-morrow, he knew that he could not marry her.
+She herself had said the same thing. She had said that she would be
+his sister. She had specially required of him that he should make
+known to her his wife, should he ever marry again. She had declared
+that she was incapable of further jealousy;&mdash;and yet she now told him
+of daily sin of which her conscience could not assoil itself.</p>
+
+<p>"Phineas," said a voice close to his ears, "are you repenting your
+sins?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, certainly;&mdash;what sins?"</p>
+
+<p>It was Barrington Erle. "You know that we are going to do nothing
+to-morrow," continued he.</p>
+
+<p>"So I am told."</p>
+
+<p>"We shall let the Address pass almost without a word. Gresham will
+simply express his determination to oppose the Church Bill to the
+knife. He means to be very plain-spoken about it. Whatever may be the
+merits of the Bill, it must be regarded as an unconstitutional effort
+to retain power in the hands of the minority, coming from such hands
+as those of Mr. Daubeny. I take it he will go at length into the
+question of majorities, and show how inexpedient it is on behalf of
+the nation that any Ministry should remain in power who cannot
+command a majority in the House on ordinary questions. I don't know
+whether he will do that to-morrow or at the second reading of the
+Bill."</p>
+
+<p>"I quite agree with him."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you do. Everybody agrees with him. No gentleman can have a
+doubt on the subject. Personally, I hate the idea of Church Reform.
+Dear old Mildmay, who taught me all I know, hates it too. But Mr.
+Gresham is the head of our party now, and much as I may differ from
+him on many things, I am bound to follow him. If he proposes Church
+Reform in my time, or anything else, I shall support him."</p>
+
+<p>"I know those are your ideas."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course they are. There are no other ideas on which things can be
+made to work. Were it not that men get drilled into it by the force
+of circumstances any government in this country would be impossible.
+Were it not so, what should we come to? The Queen would find herself
+justified in keeping in any set of Ministers who could get her
+favour, and ambitious men would prevail without any support from the
+country. The Queen must submit to dictation from some quarter."</p>
+
+<p>"She must submit to advice, certainly."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't cavil at a word when you know it to be true," said Barrington,
+energetically. "The constitution of the country requires that she
+should submit to dictation. Can it come safely from any other quarter
+than that of a majority of the House of Commons?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think not."</p>
+
+<p>"We are all agreed about that. Not a single man in either House would
+dare to deny it. And if it be so, what man in his senses can think of
+running counter to the party which he believes to be right in its
+general views? A man so burthened with scruples as to be unable to
+act in this way should keep himself aloof from public life. Such a
+one cannot serve the country in Parliament, though he may possibly do
+so with pen and ink in his closet."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder then that you should have asked me to come forward again
+after what I did about the Irish land question," said Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>"A first fault may be forgiven when the sinner has in other respects
+been useful. The long and the short of it is that you must vote with
+us against Daubeny's bill. Browborough sees it plainly enough. He
+supported his chief in the teeth of all his protestations at
+Tankerville."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not Browborough."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor half so good a man if you desert us," said Barrington Erle, with
+anger.</p>
+
+<p>"I say nothing about that. He has his ideas of duty, and I have mine.
+But I will go so far as this. I have not yet made up my mind. I shall
+ask advice; but you must not quarrel with me if I say that I must
+seek it from some one who is less distinctly a partisan than you
+are."</p>
+
+<p>"From Monk?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes;&mdash;from Mr. Monk. I do think it will be bad for the country that
+this measure should come from the hands of Mr. Daubeny."</p>
+
+<p>"Then why the d&mdash;&mdash; should you
+support it, and oppose your own party
+at the same time? After that you can't do it. Well, Ratler, my guide
+and philosopher, how is it going to be?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ratler had joined them, but was still standing before the seat
+they occupied, not condescending to sit down in amicable intercourse
+with a man as to whom he did not yet know whether to regard him as a
+friend or foe. "We shall be very quiet for the next month or six
+weeks," said Ratler.</p>
+
+<p>"And then?" asked Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then it will depend on what may be the number of a few insane
+men who never ought to have seats in the House."</p>
+
+<p>"Such as Mr. Monk and Mr. Turnbull?" Now it was well known that both
+those gentlemen, who were recognised as leading men, were strong
+Radicals, and it was supposed that they both would support any bill,
+come whence it might, which would separate Church and State.</p>
+
+<p>"Such as Mr. Monk," said Ratler. "I will grant that Turnbull may be
+an exception. It is his business to go in for everything in the way
+of agitation, and he at any rate is consistent. But when a man has
+once been in office,&mdash;why
+<span class="nowrap">then&mdash;"</span></p>
+
+<p>"When he has taken the shilling?" said Phineas. "Just so. I confess I
+do not like a deserter."</p>
+
+<p>"Phineas will be all right," said Barrington Erle.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope so," said Mr. Ratler, as he passed on.</p>
+
+<p>"Ratler and I run very much in the same groove," said Barrington,
+"but I fancy there is some little difference in the motive power."</p>
+
+<p>"Ratler wants place."</p>
+
+<p>"And so do I."</p>
+
+<p>"He wants it just as most men want professional success," said
+Phineas. "But if I understand your object, it is chiefly the
+maintenance of the old-established political power of the Whigs. You
+believe in families?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do believe in the patriotism of certain families. I believe that
+the Mildmays, FitzHowards, and Pallisers have for some centuries
+brought up their children to regard the well-being of their country
+as their highest personal interest, and that such teaching has been
+generally efficacious. Of course, there have been failures. Every
+child won't learn its lesson however well it may be taught. But the
+school in which good training is most practised will, as a rule, turn
+out the best scholars. In this way I believe in families. You have
+come in for some of the teaching, and I expect to see you a scholar
+yet."</p>
+
+<p>The House met on the following day, and the Address was moved and
+seconded; but there was no debate. There was not even a full House.
+The same ceremony had taken place so short a time previously, that
+the whole affair was flat and uninteresting. It was understood that
+nothing would in fact be done. Mr. Gresham, as leader of his side of
+the House, confined himself to asserting that he should give his
+firmest opposition to the proposed measure, which was, it seemed, so
+popular with the gentlemen who sat on the other side, and who
+supported the so-called Conservative Government of the day. His
+reasons for doing so had been stated very lately, and must
+unfortunately be repeated very soon, and he would not, therefore, now
+trouble the House with them. He did not on this occasion explain his
+ideas as to majorities, and the Address was carried by seven o'clock
+in the evening. Mr. Daubeny named a day a month hence for the first
+reading of his bill, and was asked the cause of the delay by some
+member on a back bench. "Because it cannot be ready sooner," said Mr.
+Daubeny. "When the honourable gentleman has achieved a position which
+will throw upon him the responsibility of bringing forward some great
+measure for the benefit of his country, he will probably find it
+expedient to devote some little time to details. If he do not, he
+will be less anxious to avoid attack than I am." A Minister can
+always give a reason; and, if he be clever, he can generally when
+doing so punish the man who asks for it. The punishing of an
+influential enemy is an indiscretion; but an obscure questioner may
+often be crushed with good effect.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Monk's advice to Phineas was both simple and agreeable. He
+intended to support Mr. Gresham, and of course counselled his friend
+to do the same.</p>
+
+<p>"But you supported Mr. Daubeny on the Address before Christmas," said
+Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>"And shall therefore be bound to explain why I oppose him now;&mdash;but
+the task will not be difficult. The Queen's speech to Parliament was
+in my judgment right, and therefore I concurred in the Address. But I
+certainly cannot trust Mr. Daubeny with Church Reform. I do not know
+that many will make the same distinction, but I shall do so."</p>
+
+<p>Phineas soon found himself sitting in the House as though he had
+never left it. His absence had not been long enough to make the place
+feel strange to him. He was on his legs before a fortnight was over
+asking some question of some Minister, and of course insinuating as
+he did so that the Minister in question had been guilty of some
+enormity of omission or commission. It all came back upon him as
+though he had been born to the very manner. And as it became known to
+the Ratlers that he meant to vote right on the great coming
+question,&mdash;to vote right and to speak right in spite of his doings at
+Tankerville,&mdash;everybody was civil to him. Mr. Bonteen did express an
+opinion to Mr. Ratler that it was quite impossible that Phineas Finn
+should ever again accept office, as of course the Tankervillians
+would never replace him in his seat after manifest apostasy to his
+pledge; but Mr. Ratler seemed to think very little of that. "They
+won't remember, Lord bless you;&mdash;and then he's one of those fellows
+that always get in somewhere. He's not a man I particularly like; but
+you'll always see him in the House;&mdash;up and down, you know. When a
+fellow begins early, and has got it in him, it's hard to shake him
+off." And thus even Mr. Ratler was civil to our hero.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Laura Kennedy's letter had, of course, been answered,&mdash;not
+without very great difficulty. "My dear Laura," he had begun,&mdash;for
+the first time in his life. She had told him to treat her as a
+brother would do, and he thought it best to comply with her
+instructions. But beyond that, till he declared himself at the end to
+be hers affectionately, he made no further protestation of affection.
+He made no allusion to that sin which weighed so heavily on her, but
+answered all her questions. He advised her to remain at Dresden. He
+assured her that no power could be used to enforce her return. He
+expressed his belief that Mr. Kennedy would abstain from making any
+public statement, but suggested that if any were made the answering
+of it should be left to the family lawyer. In regard to the money, he
+thought it impossible that any step should be taken. He then told her
+all there was to tell of Lord and Lady Chiltern, and something also
+of himself. When the letter was written he found that it was cold and
+almost constrained. To his own ears it did not sound like the hearty
+letter of a generous friend. It savoured of the caution with which it
+had been prepared. But what could he do? Would he not sin against her
+and increase her difficulties if he addressed her with warm
+affection? Were he to say a word that ought not to be addressed to
+any woman he might do her an irreparable injury; and yet the tone of
+his own letter was odious to him.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c21"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXI.</h3>
+<h4>MR. MAULE, SENIOR.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>The life of Mr. Maurice Maule, of Maule Abbey, the father of Gerard
+Maule, had certainly not been prosperous. He had from his boyhood
+enjoyed a reputation for cleverness, and at school had done great
+things,&mdash;winning prizes, spouting speeches on Speech days, playing in
+elevens, and looking always handsome. He had been one of those show
+boys of which two or three are generally to be found at our great
+schools, and all manner of good things had been prophesied on his
+behalf. He had been in love before he was eighteen, and very nearly
+succeeded in running away with the young lady before he went to
+college. His father had died when he was an infant, so that at
+twenty-one he was thought to be in possession of comfortable wealth.
+At Oxford he was considered to have got into a good set,&mdash;men of
+fashion who were also given to talking of books,&mdash;who spent money,
+read poetry, and had opinions of their own respecting the Tracts and
+Mr. Newman. He took his degree, and then started himself in the world
+upon that career which is of all the most difficult to follow with
+respect and self-comfort. He proposed to himself the life of an idle
+man with a moderate income,&mdash;a life which should be luxurious,
+refined, and graceful, but to which should be attached the burden of
+no necessary occupation. His small estate gave him but little to do,
+as he would not farm any portion of his own acres. He became a
+magistrate in his county; but he would not interest himself with the
+price of a good yoke of bullocks, as did Mr. Justice Shallow,&mdash;nor
+did he ever care how a score of ewes went at any fair. There is no
+harder life than this. Here and there we may find a man who has so
+trained himself that day after day he can devote his mind without
+compulsion to healthy pursuits, who can induce himself to work,
+though work be not required from him for any ostensible object, who
+can save himself from the curse of misusing his time, though he has
+for it no defined and necessary use; but such men are few, and are
+made of better metal than was Mr. Maule. He became an idler, a man of
+luxury, and then a spendthrift. He was now hardly beyond middle life,
+and he assumed for himself the character of a man of taste. He loved
+music, and pictures, and books, and pretty women. He loved also good
+eating and drinking; but conceived of himself that in his love for
+them he was an artist, and not a glutton. He had married early, and
+his wife had died soon. He had not given himself up with any special
+zeal to the education of his children, nor to the preservation of his
+property. The result of his indifference has been told in a previous
+chapter. His house was deserted, and his children were scattered
+about the world. His eldest son, having means of his own, was living
+an idle, desultory life, hardly with prospects of better success than
+had attended his father.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Maule was now something about fifty-five years of age, and almost
+considered himself young. He lived in chambers on a flat in
+Westminster, and belonged to two excellent clubs. He had not been
+near his property for the last ten years, and as he was addicted to
+no country sport there were ten weeks in the year which were terrible
+to him. From the middle of August to the end of October for him there
+was no whist, no society,&mdash;it may almost be said no dinner. He had
+tried going to the seaside; he had tried going to Paris; he had
+endeavoured to enjoy Switzerland and the Italian lakes;&mdash;but all had
+failed, and he had acknowledged to himself that this sad period of
+the year must always be endured without relaxation, and without
+comfort.</p>
+
+<p>Of his children he now took but little notice. His daughter was
+married and in India. His younger son had disappeared, and the father
+was perhaps thankful that he was thus saved from trouble. With his
+elder son he did maintain some amicable intercourse, but it was very
+slight in its nature. They never corresponded unless the one had
+something special to say to the other. They had no recognised ground
+for meeting. They did not belong to the same clubs. They did not live
+in the same circles. They did not follow the same pursuits. They were
+interested in the same property;&mdash;but, as on that subject there had
+been something approaching to a quarrel, and as neither looked for
+assistance from the other, they were now silent on the matter. The
+father believed himself to be a poorer man than his son, and was very
+sore on the subject; but he had nothing beyond a life interest in his
+property, and there remained to him a certain amount of prudence
+which induced him to abstain from eating more of his pudding,&mdash;lest
+absolute starvation and the poorhouse should befall him. There still
+remained to him the power of spending some five or six hundred a
+year, and upon this practice had taught him to live with a very
+considerable amount of self-indulgence. He dined out a great deal,
+and was known everywhere as Mr. Maule of Maule Abbey.</p>
+
+<p>He was a slight, bright-eyed, grey-haired, good-looking man, who had
+once been very handsome. He had married, let us say for
+love;&mdash;probably very much by chance. He had ill-used his wife, and
+had continued a long-continued liaison with a complaisant friend.
+This had lasted some twenty years of his life, and had been to him an
+intolerable burden. He had come to see the necessity of employing his
+good looks, his conversational powers, and his excellent manners on a
+second marriage which might be lucrative; but the complaisant lady
+had stood in his way. Perhaps there had been a little cowardice on
+his part; but at any rate he had hitherto failed. The season for such
+a mode of relief was not, however, as yet clean gone with him, and he
+was still on the look out. There are women always in the market ready
+to buy for themselves the right to hang on the arm of a real
+gentleman. That Mr. Maurice Maule was a real gentleman no judge in
+such matters had ever doubted.</p>
+
+<p>On a certain morning just at the end of February Mr. Maule was
+sitting in his library,&mdash;so-called,&mdash;eating his breakfast, at about
+twelve o'clock; and at his side there lay a note from his son Gerard.
+Gerard had written to say that he would call on that morning, and the
+promised visit somewhat disturbed the father's comfort. He was in his
+dressing-gown and slippers, and had his newspaper in his hand. When
+his newspaper and breakfast should be finished,&mdash;as they would be
+certainly at the same moment,&mdash;there were in store for him two
+cigarettes, and perhaps some new French novel which had just reached
+him. They would last him till two o'clock. Then he would dress and
+saunter out in his great coat, made luxurious with furs. He would see
+a picture, or perhaps some china-vase, of which news had reached him,
+and would talk of them as though he might be a possible buyer.
+Everybody knew that he never bought anything;&mdash;but he was a man whose
+opinion on such matters was worth having. Then he would call on some
+lady whose acquaintance at the moment might be of service to
+him;&mdash;for that idea of blazing once more out into the world on a
+wife's fortune was always present to him. At about five he would
+saunter into his club, and play a rubber in a gentle unexcited manner
+till seven. He never played for high points, and would never be
+enticed into any bet beyond the limits of his club stakes. Were he to
+lose &pound;10 or &pound;20 at a sitting his arrangements would be greatly
+disturbed, and his comfort seriously affected. But he played well,
+taking pains with his game, and some who knew him well declared that
+his whist was worth a hundred a year to him. Then he would dress and
+generally dine in society. He was known as a good diner out, though
+in what his excellence consisted they who entertained him might find
+it difficult to say. He was not witty, nor did he deal in anecdotes.
+He spoke with a low voice, never addressing himself to any but his
+neighbour, and even to his neighbour saying but little. But he looked
+like a gentleman, was well dressed, and never awkward. After dinner
+he would occasionally play another rubber; but twelve o'clock always
+saw him back into his own rooms. No one knew better than Mr. Maule
+that the continual bloom of lasting summer which he affected requires
+great accuracy in living. Late hours, nocturnal cigars, and midnight
+drinkings, pleasurable though they may be, consume too quickly the
+free-flowing lamps of youth, and are fatal at once to the husbanded
+candle-ends of age.</p>
+
+<p>But such as his days were, every minute of them was precious to him.
+He possessed the rare merit of making a property of his time and not
+a burden. He had so shuffled off his duties that he had now rarely
+anything to do that was positively disagreeable. He had been a
+spendthrift; but his creditors, though perhaps never satisfied, had
+been quieted. He did not now deal with reluctant and hard-tasked
+tenants, but with punctual, though inimical, trustees, who paid to
+him with charming regularity that portion of his income which he was
+allowed to spend. But that he was still tormented with the ambition
+of a splendid marriage it might be said of him that he was completely
+at his ease. Now, as he lit his cigarette, he would have been
+thoroughly comfortable, were it not that he was threatened with
+disturbance by his son. Why should his son wish to see him, and thus
+break in upon him at the most charming hour of the day? Of course his
+son would not come to him without having some business in hand which
+must be disagreeable. He had not the least desire to see his
+son,&mdash;and yet, as they were on amicable terms, he could not deny
+himself after the receipt of his son's note. Just at one, as he
+finished his first cigarette, Gerard was announced.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Gerard!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, father,&mdash;how are you? You are looking as fresh as paint, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks for the compliment, if you mean one. I am pretty well. I
+thought you were hunting somewhere."</p>
+
+<p>"So I am; but I have just come up to town to see you. I find you have
+been smoking;&mdash;may I light a cigar?"</p>
+
+<p>"I never do smoke cigars here, Gerard. I'll offer you a cigarette."
+The cigarette was reluctantly offered, and accepted with a shrug.
+"But you didn't come here merely to smoke, I dare say."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not, sir. We do not often trouble each other, father; but
+there are things about which I suppose we had better speak. I'm going
+to be married!"</p>
+
+<p>"To be married!" The tone in which Mr. Maule, senior, repeated the
+words was much the same as might be used by any ordinary father if
+his son expressed an intention of going into the shoe-black business.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. It's a kind of thing men do sometimes."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt;&mdash;and it's a kind of thing that they sometimes repent of
+having done."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us hope for the best. It is too late at any rate to think about
+that, and as it is to be done, I have come to tell you."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well. I suppose you are right to tell me. Of course you know
+that I can do nothing for you; and I don't suppose that you can do
+anything for me. As far as your own welfare goes, if she has a large
+<span class="nowrap">fortune,&mdash;"</span></p>
+
+<p>"She has no fortune."</p>
+
+<p>"No fortune!"</p>
+
+<p>"Two or three thousand pounds perhaps."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I look upon it as an act of simple madness, and can only say
+that as such I shall treat it. I have nothing in my power, and
+therefore I can neither do you good or harm; but I will not hear any
+particulars, and I can only advise you to break it off, let the
+trouble be what it may."</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly shall not do that, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I have nothing more to say. Don't ask me to be present, and
+don't ask me to see her."</p>
+
+<p>"You haven't heard her name yet."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not care one straw what her name is."</p>
+
+<p>"It is Adelaide Palliser."</p>
+
+<p>"Adelaide Muggins would be exactly the same thing to me. My dear
+Gerard, I have lived too long in the world to believe that men can
+coin into money the noble blood of well-born wives. Twenty thousand
+pounds is worth more than all the blood of all the Howards, and a
+wife even with twenty thousand pounds would make you a poor,
+embarrassed, and half-famished man."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I suppose I shall be whole famished, as she certainly has not
+got a quarter of that sum."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt you will."</p>
+
+<p>"Yet, sir, married men with families have lived on my income."</p>
+
+<p>"And on less than a quarter of it. The very respectable man who
+brushes my clothes no doubt does so. But then you see he has been
+brought up in that way. I suppose that you as a bachelor put by every
+year at least half your income?"</p>
+
+<p>"I never put by a shilling, sir. Indeed, I owe a few hundred pounds."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet you expect to keep a house over your head, and an expensive
+wife and family, with lady's maid, nurses, cook, footman, and grooms,
+on a sum which has been hitherto insufficient for your own wants! I
+didn't think you were such an idiot, my boy."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"What will her dress cost?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have not the slightest idea."</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say not. Probably she is a horsewoman. As far as I know
+anything of your life that is the sphere in which you will have made
+the lady's acquaintance."</p>
+
+<p>"She does ride."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt, and so do you; and it will be very easy to say whither you
+will ride together if you are fools enough to get married. I can only
+advise you to do nothing of the kind. Is there anything else?"</p>
+
+<p>There was much more to be said if Gerard could succeed in forcing his
+father to hear him. Mr. Maule, who had hitherto been standing, seated
+himself as he asked that last question, and took up the book which
+had been prepared for his morning's delectation. It was evidently his
+intention that his son should leave him. The news had been
+communicated to him, and he had said all that he could say on the
+subject. He had at once determined to confine himself to a general
+view of the matter, and to avoid details,&mdash;which might be personal to
+himself. But Gerard had been specially required to force his father
+into details. Had he been left to himself he would certainly have
+thought that the conversation had gone far enough. He was inclined,
+almost as well as his father, to avoid present discomfort. But when
+Miss Palliser had suddenly,&mdash;almost suddenly,&mdash;accepted him; and when
+he had found himself describing the prospects of his life in her
+presence and in that of Lady Chiltern, the question of the Maule
+Abbey inheritance had of necessity been discussed. At Maule Abbey
+there might be found a home for the married couple, and,&mdash;so thought
+Lady Chiltern,&mdash;the only fitting home. Mr. Maule, the father,
+certainly did not desire to live there. Probably arrangements might
+be made for repairing the house and furnishing it with Adelaide's
+money. Then, if Gerard Maule would be prudent, and give up hunting,
+and farm a little himself,&mdash;and if Adelaide would do her own
+housekeeping and dress upon forty pounds a year, and if they would
+both live an exemplary, model, energetic, and strictly economical
+life, both ends might be made to meet. Adelaide had been quite
+enthusiastic as to the forty pounds, and had suggested that she would
+do it for thirty. The housekeeping was a matter of course, and the
+more so as a leg of mutton roast or boiled would be the beginning and
+the end of it. To Adelaide the discussion had been exciting and
+pleasurable, and she had been quite in earnest when looking forward
+to a new life at Maule Abbey. After all there could be no such great
+difficulty for a young married couple to live on &pound;800 a year, with a
+house and garden of their own. There would be no carriage and no man
+servant till,&mdash;till old Mr. Maule was dead. The suggestion as to the
+ultimate and desirable haven was wrapped up in ambiguous words. "The
+property must be yours some day," suggested Lady Chiltern. "If I
+outlive my father." "We take that for granted; and then, you know&mdash;"
+So Lady Chiltern went on, dilating upon a future state of
+squirearchal bliss and rural independence. Adelaide was enthusiastic;
+but Gerard Maule,&mdash;after he had assented to the abandonment of his
+hunting, much as a man assents to being hung when the antecedents of
+his life have put any option in the matter out of his power,&mdash;had sat
+silent and almost moody while the joys of his coming life were
+described to him. Lady Chiltern, however, had been urgent in pointing
+out to him that the scheme of living at Maule Abbey could not be
+carried out without his father's assistance. They all knew that Mr.
+Maule himself could not be affected by the matter, and they also knew
+that he had but very little power in reference to the property. But
+the plan could not be matured without some sanction from him.
+Therefore there was still much more to be said when the father had
+completed the exposition of his views on marriage in general. "I
+wanted to speak to you about the property," said Gerard. He had been
+specially enjoined to be staunch in bringing his father to the point.</p>
+
+<p>"And what about the property?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course my marriage will not affect your interests."</p>
+
+<p>"I should say not. It would be very odd if it did. As it is, your
+income is much larger than mine."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know how that is, sir; but I suppose you will not refuse to
+give me a helping hand if you can do so without disturbance to your
+own comfort."</p>
+
+<p>"In what sort of way? Don't you think anything of that kind can be
+managed better by the lawyer? If there is a thing I hate, it is
+business."</p>
+
+<p>Gerard, remembering his promise to Lady Chiltern, did persevere,
+though the perseverance went much against the grain with him. "We
+thought, sir, that if you would consent we might live at Maule
+Abbey."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh;&mdash;you did; did you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is there any objection?"</p>
+
+<p>"Simply the fact that it is my house, and not yours."</p>
+
+<p>"It belongs, I suppose, to the property; and
+<span class="nowrap">as&mdash;"</span></p>
+
+<p>"As what?" asked the father, turning upon the son with sharp angry
+eyes, and with something of real animation in his face.</p>
+
+<p>Gerard was very awkward in conveying his meaning to his father. "And
+as," he continued,&mdash;"as it must come to me, I suppose, some day, and
+it will be the proper sort of thing that we should live there then, I
+thought that you would agree that if we went and lived there now it
+would be a good sort of thing to do."</p>
+
+<p>"That was your idea?"</p>
+
+<p>"We talked it over with our friend, Lady Chiltern."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed! I am so much obliged to your friend, Lady Chiltern, for the
+interest she takes in my affairs. Pray make my compliments to Lady
+Chiltern, and tell her at the same time that, though no doubt I have
+one foot in the grave, I should like to keep my house for the other
+foot, though too probably I may never be able to drag it so far as
+Maule Abbey."</p>
+
+<p>"But you don't think of living there."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear boy, if you will inquire among any friends you may happen to
+know who understand the world better than Lady Chiltern seems to do,
+they will tell you that a son should not suggest to his father the
+abandonment of the family property, because the father
+may&mdash;probably&mdash;soon&mdash;be conveniently got rid of under ground."</p>
+
+<p>"There was no thought of such a thing," said Gerard.</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't decent. I say that with all due deference to Lady
+Chiltern's better judgment. It's not the kind of thing that men do. I
+care less about it than most men, but even I object to such a
+proposition when it is made so openly. No doubt I am old." This
+assertion Mr. Maule made in a weak, quavering voice, which showed
+that had his intention been that way turned in his youth, he might
+probably have earned his bread on the stage.</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody thought of your being old, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"I shan't last long, of course. I am a poor feeble creature. But
+while I do live, I should prefer not to be turned out of my own
+house,&mdash;if Lady Chiltern could be induced to consent to such an
+arrangement. My doctor seems to think that I might linger on for a
+year or two,&mdash;with great care."</p>
+
+<p>"Father, you know I was thinking of nothing of the kind."</p>
+
+<p>"We won't act the king and the prince any further, if you please. The
+prince protested very well, and, if I remember right, the father
+pretended to believe him. In my weak state you have rather upset me.
+If you have no objection I would choose to be left to recover myself
+a little."</p>
+
+<p>"And is that all that you will say to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Good heavens;&mdash;what more can you want? I will not&mdash;consent&mdash;to give
+up&mdash;my house at Maule Abbey for your use,&mdash;as long as I live. Will
+that do? And if you choose to marry a wife and starve, I won't think
+that any reason why I should starve too. Will that do? And your
+friend, Lady Chiltern, may&mdash;go&mdash;and be
+<span class="nowrap">d&mdash;&mdash;d.</span> Will that do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Good morning, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Good morning, Gerard." So the interview was over, and Gerard Maule
+left the room. The father, as soon as he was alone, immediately lit
+another cigarette, took up his French novel, and went to work as
+though he was determined to be happy and comfortable again without
+losing a moment. But he found this to be beyond his power. He had
+been really disturbed, and could not easily compose himself. The
+cigarette was almost at once chucked into the fire, and the little
+volume was laid on one side. Mr. Maule rose almost impetuously from
+his chair, and stood with his back to the fire, contemplating the
+proposition that had been made to him.</p>
+
+<p>It was actually true that he had been offended by the very faint idea
+of death which had been suggested to him by his son. Though he was a
+man bearing no palpable signs of decay, in excellent health, with
+good digestion,&mdash;who might live to be ninety,&mdash;he did not like to be
+warned that his heir would come after him. The claim which had been
+put forward to Maule Abbey by his son had rested on the fact that
+when he should die the place must belong to his son;&mdash;and the fact
+was unpleasant to him. Lady Chiltern had spoken of him behind his
+back as being mortal, and in doing so had been guilty of an
+impertinence. Maule Abbey, no doubt, was a ruined old house, in which
+he never thought of living,&mdash;which was not let to a tenant by the
+creditors of his estate, only because its condition was unfit for
+tenancy. But now Mr. Maule began to think whether he might not
+possibly give the lie to these people who were compassing his death,
+by returning to the halls of his ancestors, if not in the bloom of
+youth, still in the pride of age. Why should he not live at Maule
+Abbey if this successful marriage could be effected? He almost knew
+himself well enough to be aware that a month at Maule Abbey would
+destroy him; but it is the proper thing for a man of fashion to have
+a place of his own, and he had always been alive to the glory of
+being Mr. Maule of Maule Abbey. In preparing the way for the marriage
+that was to come he must be so known. To be spoken of as the father
+of Maule of Maule Abbey would have been fatal to him. To be the
+father of a married son at all was disagreeable, and therefore when
+the communication was made to him he had managed to be very
+unpleasant. As for giving up Maule
+<span class="nowrap">Abbey,&mdash;!</span> He fretted and fumed as
+he thought of the proposition through the hour which should have been
+to him an hour of enjoyment; and his anger grew hot against his son
+as he remembered all that he was losing. At last, however, he
+composed himself sufficiently to put on with becoming care his
+luxurious furred great coat, and then he sallied forth in quest of
+the lady.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c22"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXII.</h3>
+<h4>"PURITY OF MORALS, FINN."<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>Mr. Quintus Slide was now, as formerly, the editor of the People's
+Banner, but a change had come over the spirit of his dream. His
+newspaper was still the People's Banner, and Mr. Slide still
+professed to protect the existing rights of the people, and to demand
+new rights for the people. But he did so as a Conservative. He had
+watched the progress of things, and had perceived that duty called
+upon him to be the organ of Mr. Daubeny. This duty he performed with
+great zeal, and with an assumption of consistency and infallibility
+which was charming. No doubt the somewhat difficult task of veering
+round without inconsistency, and without flaw to his infallibility,
+was eased by Mr. Daubeny's newly-declared views on Church matters.
+The People's Banner could still be a genuine People's Banner in
+reference to ecclesiastical policy. And as that was now the subject
+mainly discussed by the newspapers, the change made was almost
+entirely confined to the lauding of Mr. Daubeny instead of Mr.
+Turnbull. Some other slight touches were no doubt necessary. Mr.
+Daubeny was the head of the Conservative party in the kingdom, and
+though Mr. Slide himself might be of all men in the kingdom the most
+democratic, or even the most destructive, still it was essential that
+Mr. Daubeny's organ should support the Conservative party all round.
+It became Mr. Slide's duty to speak of men as heaven-born patriots
+whom he had designated a month or two since as bloated aristocrats
+and leeches fattened on the blood of the people. Of course remarks
+were made by his brethren of the press,&mdash;remarks which were intended
+to be very unpleasant. One evening newspaper took the trouble to
+divide a column of its own into double columns, printing on one side
+of the inserted line remarks made by the People's Banner in
+September respecting the Duke of <span class="nowrap">&mdash;&mdash;,</span>
+and the Marquis of <span class="nowrap">&mdash;&mdash;,</span> and
+Sir <span class="nowrap">&mdash;&mdash;</span>
+<span class="nowrap">&mdash;&mdash;,</span>
+which were certainly very harsh; and on the other side
+remarks equally laudatory as to the characters of the same titled
+politicians. But a journalist, with the tact and experience of Mr.
+Quintus Slide, knew his business too well to allow himself to be
+harassed by any such small stratagem as that. He did not pause to
+defend himself, but boldly attacked the meanness, the duplicity, the
+immorality, the grammar, the paper, the type, and the wife of the
+editor of the evening newspaper. In the storm of wind in which he
+rowed it was unnecessary for him to defend his own conduct. "And
+then," said he at the close of a very virulent and successful
+article, "the hirelings of <span class="nowrap">&mdash;&mdash;</span> dare
+to accuse me of inconsistency!"
+The readers of the People's Banner all thought that their editor
+had beaten his adversary out of the field.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Quintus Slide was certainly well adapted for his work. He could
+edit his paper with a clear appreciation of the kind of matter which
+would best conduce to its success, and he could write telling leading
+articles himself. He was indefatigable, unscrupulous, and devoted to
+his paper. Perhaps his great value was shown most clearly in his
+distinct appreciation of the low line of public virtue with which his
+readers would be satisfied. A highly-wrought moral strain would he
+knew well create either disgust or ridicule. "If there is any
+beastliness I 'ate it is 'igh-faluting," he has been heard to say to
+his underlings. The sentiment was the same as that conveyed in the
+"Point de z&egrave;le" of Talleyrand. "Let's 'ave no
+<span class="nowrap">d&mdash;&mdash;d</span> nonsense," he
+said on another occasion, when striking out from a leading article a
+passage in praise of the patriotism of a certain public man. "Mr.
+Gresham is as good as another man, no doubt; what we want to know is
+whether he's along with us." Mr. Gresham was not along with Mr. Slide
+at present, and Mr. Slide found it very easy to speak ill of Mr.
+Gresham.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Slide one Sunday morning called at the house of Mr. Bunce in
+Great Marlborough Street, and asked for Phineas Finn. Mr. Slide and
+Mr. Bunce had an old acquaintance with each other, and the editor was
+not ashamed to exchange a few friendly words with the law-scrivener
+before he was shown up to the member of Parliament. Mr. Bunce was an
+outspoken, eager, and honest politician,&mdash;with very little accurate
+knowledge of the political conditions by which he was surrounded, but
+with a strong belief in the merits of his own class. He was a sober,
+hardworking man, and he hated all men who were not sober and
+hardworking. He was quite clear in his mind that all nobility should
+be put down, and that all property in land should be taken away from
+men who were enabled by such property to live in idleness. What
+should be done with the land when so taken away was a question which
+he had not yet learnt to answer. At the present moment he was
+accustomed to say very hard words of Mr. Slide behind his back,
+because of the change which had been effected in the People's
+Banner, and he certainly was not the man to shrink from asserting in
+a person's presence aught that he said in his absence. "Well, Mr.
+Conservative Slide," he said, stepping into the little back parlour,
+in which the editor was left while Mrs. Bunce went up to learn
+whether the member of Parliament would receive his visitor.</p>
+
+<p>"None of your chaff, Bunce."</p>
+
+<p>"We have enough of your chaff, anyhow; don't we, Mr. Slide? I still
+sees the Banner, Mr. Slide,&mdash;most days; just for the joke of it."</p>
+
+<p>"As long as you take it, Bunce, I don't care what the reason is."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose a heditor's about the same as a Cabinet Minister. You've
+got to keep your place;&mdash;that's about it, Mr. Slide."</p>
+
+<p>"We've got to tell the people who's true to 'em. Do you believe that
+Gresham 'd ever have brought in a Bill for doing away with the
+Church? Never;&mdash;not if he'd been Prime Minister till doomsday. What
+you want is progress."</p>
+
+<p>"That's about it, Mr. Slide."</p>
+
+<p>"And where are you to get it? Did you ever hear that a rose by any
+other name 'd smell as sweet? If you can get progress from the
+Conservatives, and you want progress, why not go to the Conservatives
+for it? Who repealed the corn laws? Who gave us 'ousehold suffrage?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think I've been told all that before, Mr. Slide; them things
+weren't given by no manner of means, as I look at it. We just went in
+and took 'em. It was hall a haccident whether it was Cobden or Peel,
+Gladstone or Disraeli, as was the servants we employed to do our
+work. But Liberal is Liberal, and Conservative is Conservative. What
+are you, Mr. Slide, to-day?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you'd talk of things, Bunce, which you understand, you would not
+talk quite so much nonsense."</p>
+
+<p>At this moment Mrs. Bunce entered the room, perhaps preventing a
+quarrel, and offered to usher Mr. Slide up to the young member's
+room. Phineas had not at first been willing to receive the gentleman,
+remembering that when they had last met the intercourse had not been
+pleasant,&mdash;but he knew that enmities are foolish things, and that it
+did not become him to perpetuate a quarrel with such a man as Mr.
+Quintus Slide. "I remember him very well, Mrs. Bunce."</p>
+
+<p>"I know you didn't like him, Sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Not particularly."</p>
+
+<p>"No more don't I. No more don't Bunce. He's one of them as 'd say
+a'most anything for a plate of soup and a glass of wine. That's what
+Bunce says."</p>
+
+<p>"It won't hurt me to see him."</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir; it won't hurt you. It would be a pity indeed if the likes
+of him could hurt the likes of you." And so Mr. Quintus Slide was
+shown up into the room.</p>
+
+<p>The first greeting was very affectionate, at any rate on the part of
+the editor. He grasped the young member's hand, congratulated him on
+his seat, and began his work as though he had never been all but
+kicked out of that very same room by its present occupant. "Now you
+want to know what I'm come about; don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt I shall hear in good time, Mr. Slide."</p>
+
+<p>"It's an important matter;&mdash;and so you'll say when you do hear. And
+it's one in which I don't know whether you'll be able to see your way
+quite clear."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll do my best, if it concerns me."</p>
+
+<p>"It does." So saying, Mr. Slide, who had seated himself in an
+arm-chair by the fireside opposite to Phineas, crossed his legs,
+folded his arms on his breast, put his head a little on one side, and
+sat for a few moments in silence, with his eyes fixed on his
+companion's face. "It does concern you, or I shouldn't be here. Do
+you know Mr. Kennedy,&mdash;the Right Honourable Robert Kennedy, of
+Loughlinter, in Scotland?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do know Mr. Kennedy."</p>
+
+<p>"And do you know Lady Laura Kennedy, his wife?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly I do."</p>
+
+<p>"So I supposed. And do you know the Earl of Brentford, who is, I take
+it, father to the lady in question?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I do. You know that I do." For there had been a time in
+which Phineas had been subjected to the severest censure which the
+People's Banner could inflict upon him, because of his adherence to
+Lord Brentford, and the vials of wrath had been poured out by the
+hands of Mr. Quintus Slide himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well. It does not signify what I know or what I don't. Those
+preliminary questions I have been obliged to ask as my justification
+for coming to you on the present occasion. Mr. Kennedy has I believe
+been greatly wronged."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not prepared to talk about Mr. Kennedy's affairs," said Phineas
+gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"But unfortunately he is prepared to talk about them. That's the rub.
+He has been ill-used, and he has come to the People's Banner for
+redress. Will you have the kindness to cast your eye down that slip?"
+Whereupon the editor handed to Phineas a long scrap of printed paper,
+amounting to about a column and a half of the People's Banner,
+containing a letter to the editor dated from Loughlinter, and signed
+Robert Kennedy at full length.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mean to say that you're going to publish this," said
+Phineas before he had read it.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"The man is a madman."</p>
+
+<p>"There's nothing in the world easier than calling a man mad. It's
+what we do to dogs when we want to hang them. I believe Mr. Kennedy
+has the management of his own property. He is not too mad for that.
+But just cast your eye down and read it."</p>
+
+<p>Phineas did cast his eye down, and read the whole letter;&mdash;nor as he
+read it could he bring himself to believe that the writer of it would
+be judged to be mad from its contents. Mr. Kennedy had told the whole
+story of his wrongs, and had told it well,&mdash;with piteous
+truthfulness, as far as he himself knew and understood the truth. The
+letter was almost simple in its wailing record of his own desolation.
+With a marvellous absence of reticence he had given the names of all
+persons concerned. He spoke of his wife as having been, and being,
+under the influence of Mr. Phineas Finn;&mdash;spoke of his own former
+friendship for that gentleman, who had once saved his life when he
+fell among thieves, and then accused Phineas of treachery in
+betraying that friendship. He spoke with bitter agony of the injury
+done him by the Earl, his wife's father, in affording a home to his
+wife, when her proper home was at Loughlinter. And then declared
+himself willing to take the sinning woman back to his bosom. "That
+she had sinned is certain," he said; "I do not believe she has sinned
+as some sin; but, whatever be her sin, it is for a man to forgive as
+he hopes for forgiveness." He expatiated on the absolute and almost
+divine right which it was intended that a husband should exercise
+over his wife, and quoted both the Old and New Testament in proof of
+his assertions. And then he went on to say that he appealed to public
+sympathy, through the public press, because, owing to some gross
+insufficiency in the laws of extradition, he could not call upon the
+magistracy of a foreign country to restore to him his erring wife.
+But he thought that public opinion, if loudly expressed, would have
+an effect both upon her and upon her father, which his private words
+could not produce. "I wonder very greatly that you should put such a
+letter as that into type," said Phineas when he had read it all.</p>
+
+<p>"Why shouldn't we put it into type?"</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mean to say that you'll publish it."</p>
+
+<p>"Why shouldn't we publish it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's a private quarrel between a man and his wife. What on earth
+have the public got to do with that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Private quarrels between gentlemen and ladies have been public
+affairs for a long time past. You must know that very well."</p>
+
+<p>"When they come into court they are."</p>
+
+<p>"In court and out of court! The morale of our aristocracy,&mdash;what you
+call the Upper Ten,&mdash;would be at a low ebb indeed if the public press
+didn't act as their guardians. Do you think that if the Duke of
+<span class="nowrap">&mdash;&mdash;</span>
+beats his wife black and blue, nothing is to be said about it unless
+the Duchess brings her husband into court? Did you ever know of a
+separation among the Upper Ten, that wasn't handled by the press one
+way or the other? It's my belief that there isn't a peer among 'em
+all as would live with his wife constant, if it was not for the
+press;&mdash;only some of the very old ones, who couldn't help
+themselves."</p>
+
+<p>"And you call yourself a Conservative?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind what I call myself. That has nothing to do with what
+we're about now. You see that letter, Finn. There is nothing little
+or dirty about us. We go in for morals and purity of life, and we
+mean to do our duty by the public without fear or favour. Your name
+is mentioned there in a manner that you won't quite like, and I think
+I am acting uncommon kind by you in showing it to you before we
+publish it." Phineas, who still held the slip in his hand, sat silent
+thinking of the matter. He hated the man. He could not endure the
+feeling of being called Finn by him without showing his resentment.
+As regarded himself, he was thoroughly well inclined to kick Mr.
+Slide and his Banner into the street. But he was bound to think
+first of Lady Laura. Such a publication as this, which was now
+threatened, was the misfortune which the poor woman dreaded more than
+any other. He, personally, had certainly been faultless in the
+matter. He had never addressed a word of love to Mr. Kennedy's wife
+since the moment in which she had told him that she was engaged to
+marry the Laird of Loughlinter. Were the letter to be published he
+could answer it, he thought, in such a manner as to defend himself
+and her without damage to either. But on her behalf he was bound to
+prevent this publicity if it could be prevented;&mdash;and he was bound
+also, for her sake, to allow himself to be called Finn by this most
+obnoxious editor. "In the ordinary course of things, Finn, it will
+come out to-morrow morning," said the obnoxious editor.</p>
+
+<p>"Every word of it is untrue," said Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>"You say that, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"And I should at once declare myself willing to make such a statement
+on oath. It is a libel of the grossest kind, and of course there
+would be a prosecution. Both Lord Brentford and I would be driven to
+that."</p>
+
+<p>"We should be quite indifferent. Mr. Kennedy would hold us harmless.
+We're straightforward. My showing it to you would prove that."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it you want, Mr. Slide?"</p>
+
+<p>"Want! You don't suppose we want anything. If you think that the
+columns of the People's Banner are to be bought, you must have
+opinions respecting the press of the day which make me pity you as
+one grovelling in the very dust. The daily press of London is pure
+and immaculate. That is, the morning papers are. Want, indeed! What
+do you think I want?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have not the remotest idea."</p>
+
+<p>"Purity of morals, Finn;&mdash;punishment for the guilty;&mdash;defence for the
+innocent;&mdash;support for the weak;&mdash;safety for the oppressed;&mdash;and a
+rod of iron for the oppressors!"</p>
+
+<p>"But that is a libel."</p>
+
+<p>"It's very heavy on the old Earl, and upon you, and upon Lady
+Laura;&mdash;isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's a libel,&mdash;as you know. You tell me that purity of morals can be
+supported by such a publication as this! Had you meant to go on with
+it, you would hardly have shown it to me."</p>
+
+<p>"You're in the wrong box there, Finn. Now I'll tell you what we'll
+do,&mdash;on behalf of what I call real purity. We'll delay the
+publication if you'll undertake that the lady shall go back to her
+husband."</p>
+
+<p>"The lady is not in my hands."</p>
+
+<p>"She's under your influence. You were with her over at Dresden not
+much more than a month ago. She'd go sharp enough if you told her."</p>
+
+<p>"You never made a greater mistake in your life."</p>
+
+<p>"Say that you'll try."</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly will not do so."</p>
+
+<p>"Then it goes in to-morrow," said Mr. Quintus Slide, stretching out
+his hand and taking back the slip.</p>
+
+<p>"What on earth is your object?"</p>
+
+<p>"Morals! Morals! We shall be able to say that we've done our best to
+promote domestic virtue and secure forgiveness for an erring wife.
+You've no notion, Finn, in your mind of what will soon be the hextent
+of the duties, privileges, and hinfluences of the daily press;&mdash;the
+daily morning press, that is; for I look on those little evening
+scraps as just so much paper and ink wasted. You won't interfere,
+then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I will;&mdash;if you'll give me time. Where is Mr. Kennedy?"</p>
+
+<p>"What has that to do with it? Do you write over to Lady Laura and the
+old lord and tell them that if she'll undertake to be at Loughlinter
+within a month this shall be suppressed. Will you do that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Let me first see Mr. Kennedy."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Slide thought a while over that matter. "Well," said he at last,
+"you can see Kennedy if you will. He came up to town four or five
+days ago, and he's staying at an hotel in Judd Street."</p>
+
+<p>"An hotel in Judd Street?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes;&mdash;Macpherson's in Judd Street. I suppose he likes to keep among
+the Scotch. I don't think he ever goes out of the house, and he's
+waiting in London till this thing is published."</p>
+
+<p>"I will go and see him," said Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't wonder if he murdered you;&mdash;but that's between you and
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"Just so."</p>
+
+<p>"And I shall hear from you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Phineas, hesitating as he made the promise. "Yes, you
+shall hear from me."</p>
+
+<p>"We've got our duty to do, and we mean to do it. If we see that we
+can induce the lady to go back to her husband, we shall habstain from
+publishing, and virtue will be its own reward. I needn't tell you
+that such a letter as that would sell a great many copies, Finn."
+Then, at last, Mr. Slide arose and departed.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c23"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXIII.</h3>
+<h4>MACPHERSON'S HOTEL.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>Phineas, when he was left alone, found himself greatly at a loss as
+to what he had better do. He had pledged himself to see Mr. Kennedy,
+and was not much afraid of encountering personal violence at the
+hands of that gentleman. But he could think of nothing which he could
+with advantage say to Mr. Kennedy. He knew that Lady Laura would not
+return to her husband. Much as she dreaded such exposure as was now
+threatened, she would not return to Loughlinter to avoid even that.
+He could not hold out any such hope to Mr. Kennedy;&mdash;and without
+doing so how could he stop the publication? He thought of getting an
+injunction from the Vice-Chancellor;&mdash;but it was now Sunday, and he
+had understood that the publication would appear on the morrow,
+unless stopped by some note from himself. He thought of finding some
+attorney, and taking him to Mr. Kennedy; but he knew that Mr. Kennedy
+would be deterred by no attorney. Then he thought of Mr. Low. He
+would see Mr. Kennedy first, and then go to Mr. Low's house.</p>
+
+<p>Judd Street runs into the New Road near the great stations of the
+Midland and Northern Railways, and is a highly respectable street.
+But it can hardly be called fashionable, as is Piccadilly; or
+central, as is Charing Cross; or commercial, as is the neighbourhood
+of St. Paul's. Men seeking the shelter of an hotel in Judd Street
+most probably prefer decent and respectable obscurity to other
+advantages. It was some such feeling, no doubt, joined to the fact
+that the landlord had originally come from the neighbourhood of
+Loughlinter, which had taken Mr. Kennedy to Macpherson's Hotel.
+Phineas, when he called at about three o'clock on Sunday afternoon,
+was at once informed by Mrs. Macpherson that Mr. Kennedy was "nae
+doubt at hame, but was nae willing to see folk on the Saaboth."
+Phineas pleaded the extreme necessity of his business, alleging that
+Mr. Kennedy himself would regard its nature as a sufficient
+justification for such Sabbath-breaking,&mdash;and sent up his card. Then
+there came down a message to him. Could not Mr. Finn postpone his
+visit to the following morning? But Phineas declared that it could
+not be postponed. Circumstances, which he would explain to Mr.
+Kennedy, made it impossible. At last he was desired to walk up
+stairs, though Mrs. Macpherson, as she showed him the way, evidently
+thought that her house was profaned by such wickedness.</p>
+
+<p>Macpherson in preparing his house had not run into that extravagance
+of architecture which has lately become so common in our hotels. It
+was simply an ordinary house, with the words "Macpherson's Hotel"
+painted on a semi-circular board over the doorway. The front parlour
+had been converted into a bar, and in the back parlour the
+Macphersons lived. The staircase was narrow and dirty, and in the
+front drawing-room,&mdash;with the chamber behind for his bedroom,&mdash;Mr.
+Kennedy was installed. Mr. Macpherson probably did not expect any
+customers beyond those friendly Scots who came up to London from his
+own side of the Highlands. Mrs. Macpherson, as she opened the door,
+was silent and almost mysterious. Such a breach of the law might
+perhaps be justified by circumstances of which she knew nothing, but
+should receive no sanction from her which she could avoid. So she did
+not even whisper the name.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Kennedy, as Phineas entered, slowly rose from his chair, putting
+down the Bible which had been in his hands. He did not speak at once,
+but looked at his visitor over the spectacles which he wore. Phineas
+thought that he was even more haggard in appearance and aged than
+when they two had met hardly three months since at Loughlinter. There
+was no shaking of hands, and hardly any pretence at greeting. Mr.
+Kennedy simply bowed his head, and allowed his visitor to begin the
+conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"I should not have come to you on such a day as this, Mr.
+<span class="nowrap">Kennedy&mdash;"</span></p>
+
+<p>"It is a day very unfitted for the affairs of the world," said Mr.
+Kennedy.</p>
+
+<p>"Had not the matter been most pressing in regard both to time and its
+own importance."</p>
+
+<p>"So the woman told me, and therefore I have consented to see you."</p>
+
+<p>"You know a man of the name of&mdash;Slide, Mr. Kennedy?" Mr. Kennedy
+shook his head. "You know the editor of the People's Banner?" Again
+he shook his head. "You have, at any rate, written a letter for
+publication to that newspaper."</p>
+
+<p>"Need I consult you as to what I write?"</p>
+
+<p>"But he,&mdash;the editor,&mdash;has consulted me."</p>
+
+<p>"I can have nothing to do with that."</p>
+
+<p>"This Mr. Slide, the editor of the People's Banner, has just been
+with me, having in his hand a printed letter from you, which,&mdash;you
+will excuse me, Mr. Kennedy,&mdash;is very libellous."</p>
+
+<p>"I will bear the responsibility of that."</p>
+
+<p>"But you would not wish to publish falsehood about your wife, or even
+about me."</p>
+
+<p>"Falsehood! sir; how dare you use that word to me? Is it false to say
+that she has left my house? Is it false to say that she is my wife,
+and cannot desert me, as she has done, without breaking her vows, and
+disregarding the laws both of God and man? Am I false when I say that
+I gave her no cause? Am I false when I offer to take her back, let
+her faults be what they may have been? Am I false when I say that her
+father acts illegally in detaining her? False! False in your teeth!
+Falsehood is villany, and it is not I that am the villain."</p>
+
+<p>"You have joined my name in the accusation."</p>
+
+<p>"Because you are her paramour. I know you now;&mdash;viper that was warmed
+in my bosom! Will you look me in the face and tell me that, had it
+not been for you, she would not have strayed from me?" To this
+Phineas could make no answer. "Is it not true that when she went with
+me to the altar you had been her lover?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was her lover no longer, when she once told me that she was to be
+your wife."</p>
+
+<p>"Has she never spoken to you of love since? Did she not warn you from
+the house in her faint struggle after virtue? Did she not whistle you
+back again when she found the struggle too much for her? When I asked
+you to the house, she bade you not come. When I desired that you
+might never darken my eyes again, did she not seek you? With whom was
+she walking on the villa grounds by the river banks when she resolved
+that she would leave all her duties and desert me? Will you dare to
+say that you were not then in her confidence? With whom was she
+talking when she had the effrontery to come and meet me at the house
+of the Prime Minister, which I was bound to attend? Have you not been
+with her this very winter in her foreign home?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I have,&mdash;and you sent her a message by me."</p>
+
+<p>"I sent no message. I deny it. I refused to be an accomplice in your
+double guilt. I laid my command upon you that you should not visit my
+wife in my absence, and you disobeyed, and you are an adulterer. Who
+are you that you are to come for ever between me and my wife?"</p>
+
+<p>"I never injured you in thought or deed. I come to you now because I
+have seen a printed letter which contains a gross libel upon myself."</p>
+
+<p>"It is printed then?" he asked, in an eager tone.</p>
+
+<p>"It is printed; but it need not, therefore, be published. It is a
+libel, and should not be published. I shall be forced to seek redress
+at law. You cannot hope to regain your wife by publishing false
+accusations against her."</p>
+
+<p>"They are true. I can prove every word that I have written. She dare
+not come here, and submit herself to the laws of her country. She is
+a renegade from the law, and you abet her in her sin. But it is not
+vengeance that I seek. 'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.'"</p>
+
+<p>"It looks like vengeance, Mr. Kennedy."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it for you to teach me how I shall bear myself in this time of my
+great trouble?" Then suddenly he changed; his voice falling from one
+of haughty defiance to a low, mean, bargaining whisper. "But I'll
+tell you what I'll do. If you will say that she shall come back again
+I'll have it cancelled, and pay all the expenses."</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot bring her back to you."</p>
+
+<p>"She'll come if you tell her. If you'll let them understand that she
+must come they'll give way. You can try it at any rate."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall do nothing of the kind. Why should I ask her to submit
+herself to misery?"</p>
+
+<p>"Misery! What misery? Why should she be miserable? Must a woman need
+be miserable because she lives with her husband? You hear me say that
+I will forgive everything. Even she will not doubt me when I say so,
+because I have never lied to her. Let her come back to me, and she
+shall live in peace and quiet, and hear no word of reproach."</p>
+
+<p>"I can have nothing to do with it, Mr. Kennedy."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, sir, you shall abide my wrath." With that he sprang quickly
+round, grasping at something which lay upon a shelf near him, and
+Phineas saw that he was armed with a pistol. Phineas, who had
+hitherto been seated, leaped to his legs; but the pistol in a moment
+was at his head, and the madman pulled at the trigger. But the
+mechanism of the instrument required that some bolt should be loosed
+before the hammer would fall upon the nipple, and the unhandy wretch
+for an instant fumbled over the work so that Phineas, still facing
+his enemy, had time to leap backwards towards the door. But Kennedy,
+though he was awkward, still succeeded in firing before our friend
+could leave the room. Phineas heard the thud of the bullet, and knew
+that it must have passed near his head. He was not struck, however;
+and the man, frightened at his own deed, abstained from the second
+shot, or loitered long enough in his remorse to enable his prey to
+escape. With three or four steps Phineas leaped down the stairs, and,
+finding the front door closed, took shelter within Mrs. Macpherson's
+bar. "The man is mad," he said; "did you not hear the shot?" The
+woman was too frightened to reply, but stood trembling, holding
+Phineas by the arm. There was nobody in the house, she said, but she
+and the two lasses. "Nae doobt the Laird's by ordinaire," she said at
+last. She had known of the pistol; but had not dared to have it
+removed. She and Macpherson had only feared that he would hurt
+himself,&mdash;and had at last agreed, as day after day passed without any
+injury from the weapon, to let the thing remain unnoticed. She had
+heard the shot, and had been sure that one of the two men above would
+have been killed.</p>
+
+
+<div class="center"><a id="ill23"></a>
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4px">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/ill23.jpg">
+      <img src="images/ill23-t.jpg" width="550"
+      alt='"THEN, SIR, YOU SHALL ABIDE MY WRATH."' /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption"><span class="smallcaps">"Then, sir,
+      you shall abide my wrath."</span><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/ill23.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>Phineas was now in great doubt as to what duty was required of him.
+His first difficulty consisted in this,&mdash;that his hat was still in
+Mr. Kennedy's room, and that Mrs. Macpherson altogether refused to go
+and fetch it. While they were still discussing this, and Phineas had
+not as yet resolved whether he would first get a policeman or go at
+once to Mr. Low, the bell from the room was rung furiously. "It's the
+Laird," said Mrs. Macpherson, "and if naebody waits on him he'll
+surely be shooting ane of us." The two girls were now outside the bar
+shaking in their shoes, and evidently unwilling to face the danger.
+At last the door of the room above was opened, and our hero's hat was
+sent rolling down the stairs.</p>
+
+<p>It was clear to Phineas that the man was so mad as to be not even
+aware of the act he had perpetrated. "He'll do nothing more with the
+pistol," he said, "unless he should attempt to destroy himself." At
+last it was determined that one of the girls should be sent to fetch
+Macpherson home from the Scotch Church, and that no application
+should be made at once to the police. It seemed that the Macphersons
+knew the circumstances of their guest's family, and that there was a
+cousin of his in London who was the only one with whom he seemed to
+have any near connection. The thing that had occurred was to be told
+to this cousin, and Phineas left his address, so that if it should be
+thought necessary he might be called upon to give his account of the
+affair. Then, in his perturbation of spirit, he asked for a glass of
+brandy; and having swallowed it, was about to take his leave. "The
+brandy wull be saxpence, sir," said Mrs. Macpherson, as she wiped the
+tears from her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Having paid for his refreshment, Phineas got into a cab, and had
+himself driven to Mr. Low's house. He had escaped from his peril, and
+now again it became his strongest object to stop the publication of
+the letter which Slide had shown him. But as he sat in the cab he
+could not hinder himself from shuddering at the danger which had been
+so near to him. He remembered his sensation as he first saw the
+glimmer of the barrel of the pistol, and then became aware of the
+man's first futile attempt, and afterwards saw the flash and heard
+the hammer fall at the same moment. He had once stood up to be fired
+at in a duel, and had been struck by the ball. But nothing in that
+encounter had made him feel sick and faint through every muscle as he
+had felt just now. As he sat in the cab he was aware that but for the
+spirits he had swallowed he would be altogether overcome, and he
+doubted even now whether he would be able to tell his story to Mr.
+Low. Luckily perhaps for him neither Mr. Low nor his wife were at
+home. They were out together, but were expected in between five and
+six. Phineas declared his purpose of waiting for them, and requested
+that Mr. Low might be asked to join him in the dining-room
+immediately on his return. In this way an hour was allowed him, and
+he endeavoured to compose himself. Still, even at the end of the
+hour, his heart was beating so violently that he could hardly control
+the motion of his own limbs. "Low, I have been shot at by a madman,"
+he said, as soon as his friend entered the room. He had determined to
+be calm, and to speak much more of the document in the editor's hands
+than of the attempt which had been made on his own life; but he had
+been utterly unable to repress the exclamation.</p>
+
+<p>"Shot at?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; by Robert Kennedy; the man who was Chancellor of the
+Duchy;&mdash;almost within a yard of my head." Then he sat down and burst
+out into a fit of convulsive laughter.</p>
+
+<p>The story about the pistol was soon told, and Mr. Low was of opinion
+that Phineas should not have left the place without calling in
+policemen and giving an account to them of the transaction. "But I
+had something else on my mind," said Phineas, "which made it
+necessary that I should see you at once;&mdash;something more important
+even than this madman's attack upon me. He has written a most
+foul-mouthed attack upon his wife, which is already in print, and
+will I fear be published to-morrow morning." Then he told the story
+of the letter. "Slide no doubt will be at the People's Banner
+office to-night, and I can see him there. Perhaps when I tell him
+what has occurred he will consent to drop the publication
+altogether."</p>
+
+<p>But in this view of the matter Mr. Low did not agree with his
+visitor. He argued the case with a deliberation which to Phineas in
+his present state of mind was almost painful. If the whole story of
+what had occurred were told to Quintus Slide, that worthy protector
+of morals and caterer for the amusement of the public would, Mr. Low
+thought, at once publish the letter and give a statement of the
+occurrence at Macpherson's Hotel. There would be nothing to hinder
+him from so profitable a proceeding, as he would know that no one
+would stir on behalf of Lady Laura in the matter of the libel, when
+the tragedy of Mr. Kennedy's madness should have been made known. The
+publication would be as safe as attractive. But if Phineas should
+abstain from going to him at all, the same calculation which had
+induced him to show the letter would induce him to postpone the
+publication, at any rate for another twenty-four hours. "He means to
+make capital out of his virtue; and he won't give that up for the
+sake of being a day in advance. In the meantime we will get an
+injunction from the Vice-Chancellor to stop the publication."</p>
+
+<p>"Can we do that in one day?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think we can. Chancery isn't what it used to be," said Mr. Low,
+with a sigh. "I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll go this very moment to
+Pickering." Mr. Pickering at this time was one of the three
+Vice-Chancellors. "It isn't exactly the proper thing for counsel to
+call on a judge on a Sunday afternoon with the direct intention of
+influencing his judgment for the following morning; but this is a
+case in which a point may be strained. When such a paper as the
+People's Banner gets hold of a letter from a madman, which if
+published would destroy the happiness of a whole family, one
+shouldn't stick at a trifle. Pickering is just the man to take a
+common-sense view of the matter. You'll have to make an affidavit in
+the morning, and we can get the injunction served before two or three
+o'clock. Mr. Septimus Slope, or whatever his name is, won't dare to
+publish it after that. Of course, if it comes out to-morrow morning,
+we shall have been too late; but this will be our best chance." So
+Mr. Low got his hat and umbrella, and started for the
+Vice-Chancellor's house. "And I tell you what, Phineas;&mdash;do you stay
+and dine here. You are so flurried by all this, that you are not fit
+to go anywhere else."</p>
+
+<p>"I am flurried."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you are. Never mind about dressing. Do you go up and tell
+Georgiana all about it;&mdash;and have dinner put off half-an-hour. I must
+hunt Pickering up, if I don't find him at home." Then Phineas did go
+upstairs and tell Georgiana&mdash;otherwise Mrs. Low&mdash;the whole story.
+Mrs. Low was deeply affected, declaring her opinion very strongly as
+to the horrible condition of things, when madmen could go about with
+pistols, and without anybody to take care against them. But as to
+Lady Laura Kennedy, she seemed to think that the poor husband had
+great cause of complaint, and that Lady Laura ought to be punished.
+Wives, she thought, should never leave their husbands on any pretext;
+and, as far as she had heard the story, there had been no pretext at
+all in the case. Her sympathies were clearly with the madman, though
+she was quite ready to acknowledge that any and every step should be
+taken which might be adverse to Mr. Quintus Slide.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c24"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXIV.</h3>
+<h4>MADAME GOESLER IS SENT FOR.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>When the elder Mr. Maule had sufficiently recovered from the
+perturbation of mind and body into which he had been thrown by the
+ill-timed and ill-worded proposition of his son to enable him to
+resume the accustomed tenour of his life, he arrayed himself in his
+morning winter costume, and went forth in quest of a lady. So much
+was told some few chapters back, but the name of the lady was not
+then disclosed. Starting from Victoria Street, Westminster, he walked
+slowly across St. James's Park and the Green Park till he came out in
+Piccadilly, near the bottom of Park Lane. As he went up the Lane he
+looked at his boots, at his gloves, and at his trousers, and saw that
+nothing was unduly soiled. The morning air was clear and frosty, and
+had enabled him to dispense with the costly comfort of a cab. Mr.
+Maule hated cabs in the morning,&mdash;preferring never to move beyond the
+tether of his short daily constitutional walk. A cab for going out to
+dinner was a necessity;&mdash;but his income would not stand two or three
+cabs a day. Consequently he never went north of Oxford Street, or
+east of the theatres, or beyond Eccleston Square towards the river.
+The regions of South Kensington and New Brompton were a trouble to
+him, as he found it impossible to lay down a limit in that direction
+which would not exclude him from things which he fain would not
+exclude. There are dinners given at South Kensington which such a man
+as Mr. Maule cannot afford not to eat. In Park Lane he knocked at the
+door of a very small house,&mdash;a house that might almost be called tiny
+by comparison of its dimensions with those around it, and then asked
+for Madame Goesler. Madame Goesler had that morning gone into the
+country. Mr. Maule in his blandest manner expressed some surprise,
+having understood that she had not long since returned from
+Harrington Hall. To this the servant assented, but went on to explain
+that she had been in town only a day or two when she was summoned
+down to Matching by a telegram. It was believed, the man said, that
+the Duke of Omnium was poorly. "Oh! indeed;&mdash;I am sorry to hear
+that," said Mr. Maule, with a wry face. Then, with steps perhaps a
+little less careful, he walked back across the park to his club. On
+taking up the evening paper he at once saw a paragraph stating that
+the Duke of Omnium's condition to-day was much the same as yesterday;
+but that he had passed a quiet night. That very distinguished but now
+aged physician, Sir Omicron Pie, was still staying at Matching
+Priory. "So old Omnium is going off the hooks at last," said Mr.
+Maule to a club acquaintance.</p>
+
+<p>The club acquaintance was in Parliament, and looked at the matter
+from a strictly parliamentary point of view. "Yes, indeed. It has
+given a deal of trouble."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Maule was not parliamentary, and did not understand. "Why
+trouble,&mdash;except to himself? He'll leave his Garter and
+strawberry-leaves, and all his acres behind him."</p>
+
+<p>"What is Gresham to do about the Exchequer when he comes in? I don't
+know whom he's to send there. They talk of Bonteen, but Bonteen
+hasn't half weight enough. They'll offer it to Monk, but Monk 'll
+never take office again."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, yes. Planty Pall was Chancellor of the Exchequer. I suppose he
+must give that up now?"</p>
+
+<p>The parliamentary acquaintance looked up at the unparliamentary man
+with that mingled disgust and pity which parliamentary gentlemen and
+ladies always entertain for those who have not devoted their minds to
+the constitutional forms of the country. "The Chancellor of the
+Exchequer can't very well sit in the House of Lords, and Palliser
+can't very well help becoming Duke of Omnium. I don't know whether he
+can take the decimal coinage question with him, but I fear not. They
+don't like it at all in the city."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe I'll go and play a rubber of whist," said Mr. Maule. He
+played his whist, and lost thirty points without showing the
+slightest displeasure, either by the tone of his voice or by any
+grimace of his countenance. And yet the money which passed from his
+hands was material to him. But he was great at such efforts as these,
+and he understood well the fluctuations of the whist table. The
+half-crowns which he had paid were only so much invested capital.</p>
+
+<p>He dined at his club this evening, and joined tables with another
+acquaintance who was not parliamentary. Mr. Parkinson Seymour was a
+man much of his own stamp, who cared not one straw as to any
+difficulty which the Prime Minister might feel in filling the office
+of Chancellor of the Exchequer. There were men by dozens ready and
+willing, and no doubt able,&mdash;or at any rate, one as able as the
+other,&mdash;to manage the taxes of the country. But the blue riband and
+the Lord Lieutenancy of Barsetshire were important things,&mdash;which
+would now be in the gift of Mr. Daubeny; and Lady Glencora would at
+last be a duchess,&mdash;with much effect on Society, either good or bad.
+And Planty Pall would be a duke, with very much less capability, as
+Mr. Parkinson Seymour thought, for filling that great office, than
+that which the man had displayed who was now supposed to be dying at
+Matching. "He has been a fine old fellow," said Mr. Parkinson
+Seymour.</p>
+
+<p>"Very much so. There ain't many of that stamp left."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know one," continued the gentleman, with enthusiasm. "They
+all go in for something now, just as Jones goes in for being a bank
+clerk. They are politicians, or gamblers, or, by heaven, tradesmen,
+as some of them are. The Earl of Tydvil and Lord Merthyr are in
+partnership together working their own mines,&mdash;by the Lord, with a
+regular deed of partnership, just like two cheesemongers. The Marquis
+of Maltanops has a share in a bitter beer house at Burton. And the
+Duke of Discount, who married old Ballance's daughter, and is
+brother-in-law to young George Advance, retains his interest in the
+house in Lombard Street. I know it for a fact."</p>
+
+<p>"Old Omnium was above that kind of thing," said Mr. Maule.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord bless you;&mdash;quite another sort of man. There is nothing left
+like it now. With a princely income I don't suppose he ever put by a
+shilling in his life. I've heard it said that he couldn't afford to
+marry, living in the manner in which he chose to live. And he
+understood what dignity meant. None of them understand that now.
+Dukes are as common as dogs in the streets, and a marquis thinks no
+more of himself than a market-gardener. I'm very sorry the old duke
+should go. The nephew may be very good at figures, but he isn't fit
+to fill his uncle's shoes. As for Lady Glencora, no doubt as things
+go now she's very popular, but she's more like a dairy-maid than a
+duchess to my way of thinking."</p>
+
+<p>There was not a club in London, and hardly a drawing-room in which
+something was not said that day in consequence of the two bulletins
+which had appeared as to the condition of the old Duke;&mdash;and in no
+club and in no drawing-room was a verdict given against the dying
+man. It was acknowledged everywhere that he had played his part in a
+noble and even in a princely manner, that he had used with a becoming
+grace the rich things that had been given him, and that he had
+deserved well of his country. And yet, perhaps, no man who had lived
+during the same period, or any portion of the period, had done less,
+or had devoted himself more entirely to the consumption of good
+things without the slightest idea of producing anything in return!
+But he had looked like a duke, and known how to set a high price on
+his own presence.</p>
+
+<p>To Mr. Maule the threatened demise of this great man was not without
+a peculiar interest. His acquaintance with Madame Goesler had not
+been of long standing, nor even as yet had it reached a close
+intimacy. During the last London season he had been introduced to
+her, and had dined twice at her house. He endeavoured to make himself
+agreeable to her, and he flattered himself that he had succeeded. It
+may be said of him generally, that he had the gift of making himself
+pleasant to women. When last she had parted from him with a smile,
+repeating the last few words of some good story which he had told
+her, the idea struck him that she after all might perhaps be the
+woman. He made his inquiries, and had learned that there was not a
+shadow of a doubt as to her wealth,&mdash;or even to her power of
+disposing of that wealth as she pleased. So he wrote to her a pretty
+little note, in which he gave to her the history of that good story,
+how it originated with a certain Cardinal, and might be found in
+certain memoirs,&mdash;which did not, however, bear the best reputation in
+the world. Madame Goesler answered his note very graciously, thanking
+him for the reference, but declaring that the information given was
+already so sufficient that she need prosecute the inquiry no further.
+Mr. Maule smiled as he declared to himself that those memoirs would
+certainly be in Madame Goesler's hands before many days were over.
+Had his intimacy been a little more advanced he would have sent the
+volume to her.</p>
+
+<p>But he also learned that there was some romance in the lady's life
+which connected her with the Duke of Omnium. He was diligent in
+seeking information, and became assured that there could be no chance
+for himself, or for any man, as long as the Duke was alive. Some
+hinted that there had been a private marriage,&mdash;a marriage, however,
+which Madame Goesler had bound herself by solemn oaths never to
+disclose. Others surmised that she was the Duke's daughter. Hints
+were, of course, thrown out as to a connection of another kind,&mdash;but
+with no great vigour, as it was admitted on all hands that Lady
+Glencora, the Duke's niece by marriage, and the mother of the Duke's
+future heir, was Madame Goesler's great friend. That there was a
+mystery was a fact very gratifying to the world at large; and
+perhaps, upon the whole, the more gratifying in that nothing had
+occurred to throw a gleam of light upon the matter since the fact of
+the intimacy had become generally known. Mr. Maule was aware,
+however, that there could be no success for him as long as the Duke
+lived. Whatever might be the nature of the alliance, it was too
+strong to admit of any other while it lasted. But the Duke was a very
+old,&mdash;or, at least, a very infirm man. And now the Duke was dying. Of
+course it was only a chance. Mr. Maule knew the world too well to lay
+out any great portion of his hopes on a prospect so doubtful. But it
+was worth a struggle, and he would so struggle that he might enjoy
+success, should success come, without laying himself open to the
+pangs of disappointment. Mr. Maule hated to be unhappy or
+uncomfortable, and therefore never allowed any aspiration to proceed
+to such length as to be inconvenient to his feelings should it not be
+gratified.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime Madame Max Goesler had been sent for, and had hurried
+off to Matching almost without a moment's preparation. As she sat in
+the train, thinking of it, tears absolutely filled her eyes. "Poor
+dear old man," she said to herself; and yet the poor dear old man had
+simply been a trouble to her, adding a most disagreeable task to her
+life, and one which she was not called on to perform by any sense of
+duty. "How is he?" she said anxiously, when she met Lady Glencora in
+the hall at Matching. The two women kissed each other as though they
+had been almost sisters since their birth. "He is a little better
+now, but he was very uneasy when we telegraphed this morning. He
+asked for you twice, and then we thought it better to send."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, of course it was best," said Madame Goesler.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c25"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXV.</h3>
+<h4>"I WOULD DO IT NOW."<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>Though it was rumoured all over London that the Duke of Omnium was
+dying, his Grace had been dressed and taken out of his bed-chamber
+into a sitting-room, when Madame Goesler was brought into his
+presence by Lady Glencora Palliser. He was reclining in a great
+arm-chair, with his legs propped up on cushions, and a respectable
+old lady in a black silk gown and a very smart cap was attending to
+his wants. The respectable old lady took her departure when the
+younger ladies entered the room, whispering a word of instruction to
+Lady Glencora as she went. "His Grace should have his broth at
+half-past four, my lady, and a glass and a half of champagne. His
+Grace won't drink his wine out of a tumbler, so perhaps your ladyship
+won't mind giving it him at twice."</p>
+
+<p>"Marie has come," said Lady Glencora.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew she would come," said the old man, turning his head round
+slowly on the back of his chair. "I knew she would be good to me to
+the last." And he laid his withered hand on the arm of his chair, so
+that the woman whose presence gratified him might take it within hers
+and comfort him.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I have come," said Madame Goesler, standing close by him
+and putting her left arm very lightly on his shoulder. It was all
+that she could do for him, but it was in order that she might do this
+that she had been summoned from London to his side. He was wan and
+worn and pale,&mdash;a man evidently dying, the oil of whose lamp was all
+burned out; but still as he turned his eyes up to the woman's face
+there was a remnant of that look of graceful fain&eacute;ant nobility which
+had always distinguished him. He had never done any good, but he had
+always carried himself like a duke, and like a duke he carried
+himself to the end.</p>
+
+<p>"He is decidedly better than he was this morning," said Lady
+Glencora.</p>
+
+<p>"It is pretty nearly all over, my dear. Sit down, Marie. Did they
+give you anything after your journey?"</p>
+
+<p>"I could not wait, Duke."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll get her some tea," said Lady Glencora. "Yes, I will. I'll do it
+myself. I know he wants to say a word to you alone." This she added
+in a whisper.</p>
+
+<p>But sick people hear everything, and the Duke did hear the whisper.
+"Yes, my dear;&mdash;she is quite right. I am glad to have you for a
+minute alone. Do you love me, Marie?"</p>
+
+<p>It was a foolish question to be asked by a dying old man of a young
+woman who was in no way connected with him, and whom he had never
+seen till some three or four years since. But it was asked with
+feverish anxiety, and it required an answer. "You know I love you,
+Duke. Why else should I be here?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is a pity you did not take the coronet when I offered it you."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Duke, it was no pity. Had I done so, you could not have had us
+both."</p>
+
+<p>"I should have wanted only you."</p>
+
+<p>"And I should have stood aloof,&mdash;in despair to think that I was
+separating you from those with whom your Grace is bound up so
+closely. We have ever been dear friends since that."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes;&mdash;we have been dear friends. But&mdash;" Then he closed his eyes, and
+put his long thin fingers across his face, and lay back awhile in
+silence, still holding her by the other hand. "Kiss me, Marie," he
+said at last; and she stooped over him and kissed his forehead. "I
+would do it now if I thought it would serve you." She only shook her
+head and pressed his hand closely. "I would; I would. Such things
+have been done, my dear."</p>
+
+
+<div class="center"><a id="ill25"></a>
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4px">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/ill25.jpg">
+      <img src="images/ill25-t.jpg" height="600"
+      alt='"I WOULD; I WOULD."' /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption"><span class="smallcaps">"I would;
+      I would."</span><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/ill25.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>"Such a thing shall never be done by me, Duke."</p>
+
+<p>They remained seated side by side, the one holding the other by the
+hand, but without uttering another word, till Lady Glencora returned
+bringing a cup of tea and a morsel of toast in her own hand. Madame
+Goesler, as she took it, could not help thinking how it might have
+been with her had she accepted the coronet which had been offered. In
+that case she might have been a duchess herself, but assuredly she
+would not have been waited upon by a future duchess. As it was, there
+was no one in that family who had not cause to be grateful to her.
+When the Duke had sipped a spoonful of his broth, and swallowed his
+allowance of wine, they both left him, and the respectable old lady
+with the smart cap was summoned back to her position. "I suppose he
+whispered something very gracious to you," Lady Glencora said when
+they were alone.</p>
+
+<p>"Very gracious."</p>
+
+<p>"And you were gracious to him,&mdash;I hope."</p>
+
+<p>"I meant to be."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure you did. Poor old man! If you had done what he asked you I
+wonder whether his affection would have lasted as it has done."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not, Lady Glen. He would have known that I had injured
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"I declare I think you are the wisest woman I ever met, Madame Max. I
+am sure you are the most discreet. If I had always been as wise as
+you are!"</p>
+
+<p>"You always have been wise."</p>
+
+<p>"Well,&mdash;never mind. Some people fall on their feet like cats; but you
+are one of those who never fall at all. Others tumble about in the
+most unfortunate way, without any great fault of their own. Think of
+that poor Lady Laura."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose it's true about Mr. Kennedy. You've heard of it of course
+in London." But as it happened Madame Goesler had not heard the
+story. "I got it from Barrington Erle, who always writes to me if
+anything happens. Mr. Kennedy has fired a pistol at the head of
+Phineas Finn."</p>
+
+<p>"At Phineas Finn!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed. Mr. Finn went to him at some hotel in London. No one
+knows what it was about; but Mr. Kennedy went off in a fit of
+jealousy, and fired a pistol at him."</p>
+
+<p>"He did not hit him?"</p>
+
+<p>"It seems not. Mr. Finn is one of those Irish gentlemen who always
+seem to be under some special protection. The ball went through his
+whiskers and didn't hurt him."</p>
+
+<p>"And what has become of Mr. Kennedy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing, it seems. Nobody sent for the police, and he has been
+allowed to go back to Scotland,&mdash;as though a man were permitted by
+special Act of Parliament to try to murder his wife's lover. It would
+be a bad law, because it would cause such a deal of bloodshed."</p>
+
+<p>"But he is not Lady Laura's lover," said Madame Goesler, gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"That would make the law difficult, because who is to say whether a
+man is or is not a woman's lover?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think there was ever anything of that kind."</p>
+
+<p>"They were always together, but I dare say it was Platonic. I believe
+these kind of things generally are Platonic. And as for Lady
+Laura;&mdash;heavens and earth!&mdash;I suppose it must have been Platonic.
+What did the Duke say to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"He bade me kiss him."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor dear old man. He never ceases to speak of you when you are
+away, and I do believe he could not have gone in peace without seeing
+you. I doubt whether in all his life he ever loved any one as he
+loves you. We dine at half-past seven, dear: and you had better just
+go into his room for a moment as you come down. There isn't a soul
+here except Sir Omicron Pie, and Plantagenet, and two of the other
+nephews,&mdash;whom, by the bye, he has refused to see. Old Lady Hartletop
+wanted to come."</p>
+
+<p>"And you wouldn't have her?"</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't have refused. I shouldn't have dared. But the Duke would
+not hear of it. He made me write to say that he was too weak to see
+any but his nearest relatives. Then he made me send for you, my
+dear;&mdash;and now he won't see the relatives. What shall we do if Lady
+Hartletop turns up? I'm living in fear of it. You'll have to be shut
+up out of sight somewhere if that should happen."</p>
+
+<p>During the next two or three days the Duke was neither much better
+nor much worse. Bulletins appeared in the newspapers, though no one
+at Matching knew from whence they came. Sir Omicron Pie, who, having
+retired from general practice, was enabled to devote his time to the
+"dear Duke," protested that he had no hand in sending them out. He
+declared to Lady Glencora every morning that it was only a question
+of time. "The vital spark is on the spring," said Sir Omicron, waving
+a gesture heavenward with his hand. For three days Mr. Palliser was
+at Matching, and he duly visited his uncle twice a day. But not a
+syllable was ever said between them beyond the ordinary words of
+compliments. Mr. Palliser spent his time with his private secretary,
+working out endless sums and toiling for unapproachable results in
+reference to decimal coinage. To him his uncle's death would be a
+great blow, as in his eyes to be Chancellor of the Exchequer was much
+more than to be Duke of Omnium. For herself Lady Glencora was nearly
+equally indifferent, though she did in her heart of hearts wish that
+her son should go to Eton with the title of Lord Silverbridge.</p>
+
+<p>On the third morning the Duke suddenly asked a question of Madame
+Goesler. The two were again sitting near to each other, and the Duke
+was again holding her hand; but Lady Glencora was also in the room.
+"Have you not been staying with Lord Chiltern?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Duke."</p>
+
+<p>"He is a friend of yours."</p>
+
+<p>"I used to know his wife before they were married."</p>
+
+<p>"Why does he go on writing me letters about a wood?" This he asked in
+a wailing voice, as though he were almost weeping. "I know nothing of
+Lord Chiltern. Why does he write to me about the wood? I wish he
+wouldn't write to me."</p>
+
+<p>"He does not know that you are ill, Duke. By-the-bye, I promised to
+speak to Lady Glencora about it. He says that foxes are poisoned at
+Trumpeton Wood."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe a word of it," said the Duke. "No one would poison
+foxes in my wood. I wish you'd see about it, Glencora. Plantagenet
+will never attend to anything. But he shouldn't write to me. He ought
+to know better than to write letters to me. I will not have people
+writing letters to me. Why don't they write to Fothergill?" and then
+the Duke began in truth to whimper.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll put it all right," said Lady Glencora.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you would. I don't like them to say there are no foxes; and
+Plantagenet never will attend to anything." The wife had long since
+ceased to take the husband's part when accusations such as this were
+brought against him. Nothing could make Mr. Palliser think it worth
+his while to give up any shred of his time to such a matter as the
+preservation of foxes.</p>
+
+<p>On the fourth day the catastrophe happened which Lady Glencora had
+feared. A fly with a pair of horses from the Matching Road station
+was driven up to the door of the Priory, and Lady Hartletop was
+announced. "I knew it," said Lady Glencora, slapping her hand down on
+the table in the room in which she was sitting with Madame Goesler.
+Unfortunately the old lady was shown into the room before Madame
+Goesler could escape, and they passed each other on the threshold.
+The Dowager Marchioness of Hartletop was a very stout old lady, now
+perhaps nearer to seventy than sixty-five years of age, who for many
+years had been the intimate friend of the Duke of Omnium. In latter
+days, during which she had seen but little of the Duke himself, she
+had heard of Madame Max Goesler, but she had never met that lady.
+Nevertheless, she knew the rival friend at a glance. Some instinct
+told her that that woman with the black brow and the dark curls was
+Madame Goesler. In these days the Marchioness was given to waddling
+rather than to walking, but she waddled past the foreign female,&mdash;as
+she had often called Madame Max,&mdash;with a dignified though duck-like
+step. Lady Hartletop was a bold woman; and it must be supposed that
+she had some heart within her or she would hardly have made such a
+journey with such a purpose. "Dear Lady Hartletop," said Lady
+Glencora, "I am so sorry that you should have had this trouble."</p>
+
+<p>"I must see him," said Lady Hartletop. Lady Glencora put both her
+hands together piteously, as though deprecating her visitor's wrath.
+"I must insist on seeing him."</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Omicron has refused permission to any one to visit him."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not go till I've seen him. Who was that lady?"</p>
+
+<p>"A friend of mine," said Lady Glencora, drawing herself up.</p>
+
+<p>"She is&mdash;, Madame Goesler."</p>
+
+<p>"That is her name, Lady Hartletop. She is my most intimate friend."</p>
+
+<p>"Does she see the Duke?"</p>
+
+<p>Lady Glencora, when expressing her fear that the woman would come to
+Matching, had confessed that she was afraid of Lady Hartletop. And a
+feeling of dismay&mdash;almost of awe&mdash;had fallen upon her on hearing the
+Marchioness announced. But when she found herself thus
+cross-examined, she resolved that she would be bold. Nothing on earth
+should induce her to open the door of the Duke's room to Lady
+Hartletop, nor would she scruple to tell the truth about Madame
+Goesler. "Yes," she said, "Madame Goesler does see the Duke."</p>
+
+<p>"And I am to be excluded!"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Lady Hartletop, what can I do? The Duke for some time past
+has been accustomed to the presence of my friend, and therefore her
+presence now is no disturbance. Surely that can be understood."</p>
+
+<p>"I should not disturb him."</p>
+
+<p>"He would be inexpressibly excited were he to know that you were even
+in the house. And I could not take it upon myself to tell him."</p>
+
+<p>Then Lady Hartletop threw herself upon a sofa, and began to weep
+piteously. "I have known him for more than forty years," she moaned,
+through her choking tears. Lady Glencora's heart was softened, and
+she was kind and womanly; but she would not give way about the Duke.
+It would, as she knew, have been useless, as the Duke had declared
+that he would see no one except his eldest nephew, his nephew's wife,
+and Madame Goesler.</p>
+
+<p>That evening was very dreadful to all of them at Matching,&mdash;except to
+the Duke, who was never told of Lady Hartletop's perseverance. The
+poor old woman could not be sent away on that afternoon, and was
+therefore forced to dine with Mr. Palliser. He, however, was warned
+by his wife to say nothing in the lady's presence about his uncle,
+and he received her as he would receive any other chance guest at his
+wife's table. But the presence of Madame Goesler made the chief
+difficulty. She herself was desirous of disappearing for that
+evening, but Lady Glencora would not permit it. "She has seen you, my
+dear, and asked about you. If you hide yourself, she'll say all sorts
+of things." An introduction was therefore necessary, and Lady
+Hartletop's manner was grotesquely grand. She dropped a very low
+curtsey, and made a very long face, but she did not say a word. In
+the evening the Marchioness sat close to Lady Glencora, whispering
+many things about the Duke; and condescending at last to a final
+entreaty that she might be permitted to see him on the following
+morning. "There is Sir Omicron," said Lady Glencora, turning round to
+the little doctor. But Lady Hartletop was too proud to appeal to Sir
+Omicron, who, as a matter of course, would support the orders of Lady
+Glencora. On the next morning Madame Goesler did not appear at the
+breakfast-table, and at eleven Lady Hartletop was taken back to the
+train in Lady Glencora's carriage. She had submitted herself to
+discomfort, indignity, fatigue, and disappointment; and it had all
+been done for love. With her broad face, and her double chin, and her
+heavy jowl, and the beard that was growing round her lips, she did
+not look like a romantic woman; but, in spite of appearances, romance
+and a duck-like waddle may go together. The memory of those forty
+years had been strong upon her, and her heart was heavy because she
+could not see that old man once again. Men will love to the last, but
+they love what is fresh and new. A woman's love can live on the
+recollection of the past, and cling to what is old and ugly. "What an
+episode!" said Lady Glencora, when the unwelcome visitor was
+gone;&mdash;"but it's odd how much less dreadful things are than you think
+they will be. I was frightened when I heard her name; but you see
+we've got through it without much harm."</p>
+
+<p>A week passed by, and still the Duke was living. But now he was too
+weak to be moved from one room to another, and Madame Goesler passed
+two hours each day sitting by his bedside. He would lie with his hand
+out upon the coverlid, and she would put hers upon it; but very few
+words passed between them. He grumbled again about the Trumpeton
+Woods, and Lord Chiltern's interference, and complained of his
+nephew's indifference. As to himself and his own condition, he seemed
+to be, at any rate, without discomfort, and was certainly free from
+fear. A clergyman attended him, and gave him the sacrament. He took
+it,&mdash;as the champagne prescribed by Sir Omicron, or the few mouthfuls
+of chicken broth which were administered to him by the old lady with
+the smart cap; but it may be doubted whether he thought much more of
+the one remedy than of the other. He knew that he had lived, and that
+the thing was done. His courage never failed him. As to the future,
+he neither feared much nor hoped much; but was, unconsciously,
+supported by a general trust in the goodness and the greatness of the
+God who had made him what he was. "It is nearly done now, Marie," he
+said to Madame Goesler one evening. She only pressed his hand in
+answer. His condition was too well understood between them to allow
+of her speaking to him of any possible recovery. "It has been a great
+comfort to me that I have known you," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no!"</p>
+
+<p>"A great comfort;&mdash;only I wish it had been sooner. I could have
+talked to you about things which I never did talk of to any one. I
+wonder why I should have been a duke, and another man a servant."</p>
+
+<p>"God Almighty ordained such difference."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid I have not done it well;&mdash;but I have tried; indeed I have
+tried." Then she told him he had ever lived as a great nobleman ought
+to live. And, after a fashion, she herself believed what she was
+saying. Nevertheless, her nature was much nobler than his; and she
+knew that no man should dare to live idly as the Duke had lived.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c26"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXVI.</h3>
+<h4>THE DUKE'S WILL.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>On the ninth day after Madame Goesler's arrival the Duke died, and
+Lady Glencora Palliser became Duchess of Omnium. But the change
+probably was much greater to Mr. Palliser than to his wife. It would
+seem to be impossible to imagine a greater change than had come upon
+him. As to rank, he was raised from that of a simple commoner to the
+very top of the tree. He was made master of almost unlimited wealth,
+Garters, and lord-lieutenancies; and all the added grandeurs which
+come from high influence when joined to high rank were sure to be
+his. But he was no more moved by these things than would have been a
+god, or a block of wood. His uncle was dead; but his uncle had been
+an old man, and his grief on that score was moderate. As soon as his
+uncle's body had been laid in the family vault at Gatherum, men would
+call him Duke of Omnium; and then he could never sit again in the
+House of Commons. It was in that light, and in that light only, that
+he regarded the matter. To his uncle it had been everything to be
+Duke of Omnium. To Plantagenet Palliser it was less than nothing. He
+had lived among men and women with titles all his life, himself
+untitled, but regarded by them as one of themselves, till the thing,
+in his estimation, had come to seem almost nothing. One man walked
+out of a room before another man; and he, as Chancellor of the
+Exchequer, had, during a part of his career, walked out of most rooms
+before most men. But he cared not at all whether he walked out first
+or last,&mdash;and for him there was nothing else in it. It was a toy that
+would perhaps please his wife, but he doubted even whether she would
+not cease to be Lady Glencora with regret. In himself this thing that
+had happened had absolutely crushed him. He had won for himself by
+his own aptitudes and his own industry one special position in the
+empire,&mdash;and that position, and that alone, was incompatible with the
+rank which he was obliged to assume! His case was very hard, and he
+felt it;&mdash;but he made no complaint to human ears. "I suppose you must
+give up the Exchequer," his wife said to him. He shook his head, and
+made no reply. Even to her he could not explain his feelings.</p>
+
+<p>I think, too, that she did regret the change in her name, though she
+was by no means indifferent to the rank. As Lady Glencora she had
+made a reputation which might very possibly fall away from her as
+Duchess of Omnium. Fame is a skittish jade, more fickle even than
+Fortune, and apt to shy, and bolt, and plunge away on very trifling
+causes. As Lady Glencora Palliser she was known to every one, and had
+always done exactly as she had pleased. The world in which she lived
+had submitted to her fantasies, and had placed her on a pedestal from
+which, as Lady Glencora, nothing could have moved her. She was by no
+means sure that the same pedestal would be able to carry the Duchess
+of Omnium. She must begin again, and such beginnings are dangerous.
+As Lady Glencora she had almost taken upon herself to create a
+rivalry in society to certain very distinguished, and indeed
+illustrious, people. There were only two houses in London, she used
+to say, to which she never went. The "never" was not quite true;&mdash;but
+there had been something in it. She doubted whether as Duchess of
+Omnium she could go on with this. She must lay down her mischief, and
+abandon her eccentricity, and in some degree act like other
+duchesses. "The poor old man," she said to Madame Goesler; "I wish he
+could have gone on living a little longer." At this time the two
+ladies were alone together at Matching. Mr. Palliser, with the
+cousins, had gone to Gatherum, whither also had been sent all that
+remained of the late Duke, in order that fitting funeral obsequies
+might be celebrated over the great family vault.</p>
+
+<p>"He would hardly have wished it himself, I think."</p>
+
+<p>"One never knows,&mdash;and as far as one can look into futurity one has
+no idea what would be one's own feelings. I suppose he did enjoy
+life."</p>
+
+<p>"Hardly, for the last twelve months," said Madame Goesler.</p>
+
+<p>"I think he did. He was happy when you were about him; and he
+interested himself about things. Do you remember how much he used to
+think of Lady Eustace and her diamonds? When I first knew him he was
+too magnificent to care about anything."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose his nature was the same."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my dear; his nature was the same, but he was strong enough to
+restrain his nature, and wise enough to know that his magnificence
+was incompatible with ordinary interests. As he got to be older he
+broke down, and took up with mere mortal gossip. But I think it must
+have made him happier."</p>
+
+<p>"He showed his weakness in coming to me," said Madame Goesler,
+laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course he did;&mdash;not in liking your society, but in wanting to
+give you his name. I have often wondered what kind of things he used
+to say to that old Lady Hartletop. That was in his full grandeur, and
+he never condescended to speak much then. I used to think him so
+hard; but I suppose he was only acting his part. I used to call him
+the Grand Lama to Plantagenet when we were first married,&mdash;before
+Planty was born. I shall always call him Silverbridge now instead of
+Planty."</p>
+
+<p>"I would let others do that."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I was joking; but others will, and he will be spoilt. I
+wonder whether he will live to be a Grand Lama or a popular Minister.
+There cannot be two positions further apart. My husband, no doubt,
+thinks a good deal of himself as a statesman and a clever
+politician,&mdash;at least I suppose he does; but he has not the slightest
+reverence for himself as a nobleman. If the dear old Duke were
+hobbling along Piccadilly, he was conscious that Piccadilly was
+graced by his presence, and never moved without being aware that
+people looked at him, and whispered to each other,&mdash;'There goes the
+Duke of Omnium.' Plantagenet considers himself inferior to a sweeper
+while on the crossing, and never feels any pride of place unless he
+is sitting on the Treasury Bench with his hat over his eyes."</p>
+
+<p>"He'll never sit on the Treasury Bench again."</p>
+
+<p>"No;&mdash;poor dear. He's an Othello now with a vengeance, for his
+occupation is gone. I spoke to him about your friend and the foxes,
+and he told me to write to Mr. Fothergill. I will as soon as it's
+decent. I fancy a new duchess shouldn't write letters about foxes
+till the old Duke is buried. I wonder what sort of a will he'll have
+made. There's nothing I care twopence for except his pearls. No man
+in England had such a collection of precious stones. They'd been
+yours, my dear, if you had consented to be Mrs. O."</p>
+
+<p>The Duke was buried and the will was read, and Plantagenet Palliser
+was addressed as Duke of Omnium by all the tenantry and retainers of
+the family in the great hall of Gatherum Castle. Mr. Fothergill, who
+had upon occasion in former days been driven by his duty to
+remonstrate with the heir, was all submission. Planty Pall had come
+to the throne, and half a county was ready to worship him. But he did
+not know how to endure worship, and the half county declared that he
+was stern and proud, and more haughty even than his uncle. At every
+"Grace" that was flung at him he winced and was miserable, and
+declared to himself that he should never become accustomed to his new
+life. So he sat all alone, and meditated how he might best reconcile
+the forty-eight farthings which go to a shilling with that
+thorough-going useful decimal, fifty.</p>
+
+<p>But his meditations did not prevent him from writing to his wife, and
+on the following morning, Lady Glencora,&mdash;as she shall be called now
+for the last time,&mdash;received a letter from him which disturbed her a
+good deal. She was in her room when it was brought to her, and for an
+hour after reading it hardly knew how to see her guest and friend,
+Madame Goesler. The passage in the letter which produced this dismay
+was as follows:&mdash;"He has left to Madame Goesler twenty thousand
+pounds and all his jewels. The money may be very well, but I think he
+has been wrong about the jewellery. As to myself I do not care a
+straw, but you will be sorry; and then people will talk. The lawyers
+will, of course, write to her, but I suppose you had better tell her.
+They seem to think that the stones are worth a great deal of money;
+but I have long learned never to believe any statement that is made
+to me. They are all here, and I suppose she will have to send some
+authorised person to have them packed. There is a regular inventory,
+of which a copy shall be sent to her by post as soon as it can be
+prepared." Now it must be owned that the duchess did begrudge her
+friend the duke's collection of pearls and diamonds.</p>
+
+<p>About noon they met. "My dear," she said, "you had better hear your
+good fortune at once. Read that,&mdash;just that side. Plantagenet is
+wrong in saying that I shall regret it. I don't care a bit about it.
+If I want a ring or a brooch he can buy me one. But I never did care
+about such things, and I don't now. The money is all just as it
+should be." Madame Goesler read the passage, and the blood mounted up
+into her face. She read it very slowly, and when she had finished
+reading it she was for a moment or two at a loss for her words to
+express herself. "You had better send one of Garnett's people," said
+the Duchess, naming the house of a distinguished jeweller and
+goldsmith in London.</p>
+
+<p>"It will hardly need," said Madame Goesler.</p>
+
+<p>"You had better be careful. There is no knowing what they are worth.
+He spent half his income on them, I believe, during part of his
+life." There was a roughness about the Duchess of which she was
+herself conscious, but which she could not restrain, though she knew
+that it betrayed her chagrin.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Goesler came gently up to her and touched her arm caressingly.
+"Do you remember," said Madame Goesler, "a small ring with a black
+diamond,&mdash;I suppose it was a diamond,&mdash;which he always wore?"</p>
+
+<p>"I remember that he always did wear such a ring."</p>
+
+<p>"I should like to have that," said Madame Goesler.</p>
+
+<p>"You have them all,&mdash;everything. He makes no distinction."</p>
+
+<p>"I should like to have that, Lady Glen,&mdash;for the sake of the hand
+that wore it. But, as God is great above us, I will never take aught
+else that has belonged to the Duke."</p>
+
+<p>"Not take them!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a gem; not a stone; not a shilling."</p>
+
+<p>"But you must."</p>
+
+<p>"I rather think that I can be under no such obligation," she said,
+laughing. "Will you write to Mr. Palliser,&mdash;or I should say, to the
+Duke,&mdash;to-night, and tell him that my mind is absolutely made up?"</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly shall not do that."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I must. As it is, I shall have pleasant memories of his Grace.
+According to my ability I have endeavoured to be good to him, and I
+have no stain on my conscience because of his friendship. If I took
+his money and his jewels,&mdash;or rather your money and your jewels,&mdash;do
+you think I could say as much?"</p>
+
+<p>"Everybody takes what anybody leaves them by will."</p>
+
+<p>"I will be an exception to the rule, Lady Glen. Don't you think that
+your friendship is more to me than all the diamonds in London?"</p>
+
+<p>"You shall have both, my dear," said the Duchess,&mdash;quite in earnest
+in her promise. Madame Goesler shook her head. "Nobody ever
+repudiates legacies. The Queen would take the jewels if they were
+left to her."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not the Queen. I have to be more careful what I do than any
+queen. I will take nothing under the Duke's will. I will ask a boon
+which I have already named, and if it be given me as a gift by the
+Duke's heir, I will wear it till I die. You will write to Mr.
+Palliser?"</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't do it," said the Duchess.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I will write myself." And she did write, and of all the rich
+things which the Duke of Omnium had left to her, she took nothing but
+the little ring with the black stone which he had always worn on his
+finger.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c27"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXVII.</h3>
+<h4>AN EDITOR'S WRATH.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>On that Sunday evening in London Mr. Low was successful in finding
+the Vice-Chancellor, and the great judge smiled and nodded, listened
+to the story, and acknowledged that the circumstances were very
+peculiar. He thought that an injunction to restrain the publication
+might be given at once upon Mr. Finn's affidavit; and that the
+peculiar circumstances justified the peculiarity of Mr. Low's
+application. Whether he would have said as much had the facts
+concerned the families of Mr. Joseph Smith and his son-in-law Mr.
+John Jones, instead of the Earl of Brentford and the Right Honourable
+Robert Kennedy, some readers will perhaps doubt, and may doubt also
+whether an application coming from some newly-fledged barrister would
+have been received as graciously as that made by Mr. Low, Q.C. and
+M.P.,&mdash;who would probably himself soon sit on some lofty legal bench.
+On the following morning Phineas and Mr. Low,&mdash;and no doubt also Mr.
+Vice-Chancellor Pickering,&mdash;obtained early copies of the People's
+Banner, and were delighted to find that Mr. Kennedy's letter did not
+appear in it. Mr. Low had made his calculation rightly. The editor,
+considering that he would gain more by having the young member of
+Parliament and the Standish family, as it were, in his hands than by
+the publication of a certain libellous letter, had resolved to put
+the document back for at least twenty-four hours, even though the
+young member neither came nor wrote as he had promised. The letter
+did not appear, and before ten o'clock Phineas Finn had made his
+affidavit in a dingy little room behind the Vice-Chancellor's Court.
+The injunction was at once issued, and was of such potency that
+should any editor dare to publish any paper therein prohibited, that
+editor and that editor's newspaper would assuredly be crumpled up in
+a manner very disagreeable, if not altogether destructive. Editors of
+newspapers are self-willed, arrogant, and stiff-necked, a race of men
+who believe much in themselves and little in anything else, with no
+feelings of reverence or respect for matters which are august enough
+to other men;&mdash;but an injunction from a Court of Chancery is a power
+which even an editor respects. At about noon Vice-Chancellor
+Pickering's injunction was served at the office of the People's
+Banner in Quartpot Alley, Fleet Street. It was done in
+duplicate,&mdash;or perhaps in triplicate,&mdash;so that there should be no
+evasion; and all manner of crumpling was threatened in the event of
+any touch of disobedience. All this happened on Monday, March the
+first, while the poor dying Duke was waiting impatiently for the
+arrival of his friend at Matching. Phineas was busy all the morning
+till it was time that he should go down to the House. For as soon as
+he could leave Mr. Low's chambers in Lincoln's Inn he had gone to
+Judd Street, to inquire as to the condition of the man who had tried
+to murder him. He there saw Mr. Kennedy's cousin, and received an
+assurance from that gentleman that Robert Kennedy should be taken
+down at once to Loughlinter. Up to that moment not a word had been
+said to the police as to what had been done. No more notice had been
+taken of the attempt to murder than might have been necessary had Mr.
+Kennedy thrown a clothes-brush at his visitor's head. There was the
+little hole in the post of the door with the bullet in it, just six
+feet above the ground; and there was the pistol, with five chambers
+still loaded, which Macpherson had cunningly secured on his return
+from church, and given over to the cousin that same evening. There
+was certainly no want of evidence, but nobody was disposed to use it.</p>
+
+<p>At noon the injunction was served in Quartpot Alley, and was put into
+Mr. Slide's hands on his arrival at the office at three o'clock. That
+gentleman's duties required his attendance from three till five in
+the afternoon, and then again from nine in the evening till any hour
+in the morning at which he might be able to complete the People's
+Banner for that day's use. He had been angry with Phineas when the
+Sunday night passed without a visit or letter at the office, as a
+promise had been made that there should be either a visit or a
+letter; but he had felt sure, as he walked into the city from his
+suburban residence at Camden Town, that he would now find some
+communication on the great subject. The matter was one of most
+serious importance. Such a letter as that which was in his possession
+would no doubt create much surprise, and receive no ordinary
+attention. A People's Banner could hardly ask for a better bit of
+good fortune than the privilege of first publishing such a letter. It
+would no doubt be copied into every London paper, and into hundreds
+of provincial papers, and every journal so copying it would be bound
+to declare that it was taken from the columns of the People's
+Banner. It was, indeed, addressed "To the Editor of the People's
+Banner" in the printed slip which Mr. Slide had shown to Phineas
+Finn, though Kennedy himself had not prefixed to it any such
+direction. And the letter, in the hands of Quintus Slide, would not
+simply have been a letter. It might have been groundwork for,
+perhaps, some half-dozen leading articles, all of a most attractive
+kind. Mr. Slide's high moral tone upon such an occasion would have
+been qualified to do good to every British matron, and to add virtues
+to the Bench of Bishops. All this he had postponed with some
+inadequately defined idea that he could do better with the property
+in his hands by putting himself into personal communication with the
+persons concerned. If he could manage to reconcile such a husband to
+such a wife,&mdash;or even to be conspicuous in an attempt to do so; and
+if he could make the old Earl and the young Member of Parliament feel
+that he had spared them by abstaining from the publication, the
+results might be very beneficial. His conception of the matter had
+been somewhat hazy, and he had certainly made a mistake. But, as he
+walked from his home to Quartpot Alley, he little dreamed of the
+treachery with which he had been treated. "Has Phineas Finn been
+here?" he asked as he took his accustomed seat within a small closet,
+that might be best described as a glass cage. Around him lay the
+debris of many past newspapers, and the germs of many future
+publications. To all the world except himself it would have been a
+chaos, but to him, with his experience, it was admirable order. No;
+Mr. Finn had not been there. And then, as he was searching among the
+letters for one from the Member for Tankerville, the injunction was
+thrust into his hands. To say that he was aghast is but a poor form
+of speech for the expression of his emotion.</p>
+
+<p>He had been "done"&mdash;"sold,"&mdash;absolutely robbed by that
+wretchedly-false Irishman whom he had trusted with all the confidence
+of a candid nature and an open heart! He had been most treacherously
+misused! Treachery was no adequate word for the injury inflicted on
+him. The more potent is a man, the less accustomed to endure
+injustice, and the more his power to inflict it,&mdash;the greater is the
+sting and the greater the astonishment when he himself is made to
+suffer. Newspaper editors sport daily with the names of men of whom
+they do not hesitate to publish almost the severest words that can be
+uttered;&mdash;but let an editor be himself attacked, even without his
+name, and he thinks that the thunderbolts of heaven should fall upon
+the offender. Let his manners, his truth, his judgment, his honesty,
+or even his consistency be questioned, and thunderbolts are
+forthcoming, though they may not be from heaven. There should
+certainly be a thunderbolt or two now, but Mr. Slide did not at first
+quite see how they were to be forged.</p>
+
+<p>He read the injunction again and again. As far as the document went
+he knew its force, and recognised the necessity of obedience. He
+might, perhaps, be able to use the information contained in the
+letter from Mr. Kennedy, so as to harass Phineas and Lady Laura and
+the Earl, but he was at once aware that it must not be published. An
+editor is bound to avoid the meshes of the law, which are always
+infinitely more costly to companies, or things, or institutions, than
+they are to individuals. Of fighting with Chancery he had no notion;
+but it should go hard with him if he did not have a fight with
+Phineas Finn. And then there arose another cause for deep sorrow. A
+paragraph was shown to him in a morning paper of that day which must,
+he thought, refer to Mr. Kennedy and Phineas Finn. "A rumour has
+reached us that a member of Parliament, calling yesterday afternoon
+upon a right honourable gentleman, a member of a late Government, at
+his hotel, was shot at by the latter in his sitting room. Whether the
+rumour be true or not we have no means of saying, and therefore
+abstain from publishing names. We are informed that the gentleman who
+used the pistol was out of his mind. The bullet did not take effect."
+How cruel it was that such information should have reached the hands
+of a rival, and not fallen in the way of the People's Banner! And
+what a pity that the bullet should have been wasted! The paragraph
+must certainly refer to Phineas Finn and Kennedy. Finn, a Member of
+Parliament, had been sent by Slide himself to call upon Kennedy, a
+member of the late Government, at Kennedy's hotel. And the paragraph
+must be true. He himself had warned Finn that there would be danger
+in the visit. He had even prophesied murder,&mdash;and murder had been
+attempted! The whole transaction had been, as it were, the very goods
+and chattels of the People's Banner, and the paper had been
+shamefully robbed of its property. Mr. Slide hardly doubted that
+Phineas Finn had himself sent the paragraph to an adverse paper, with
+the express view of adding to the injury inflicted upon the Banner.
+That day Mr. Slide hardly did his work effectively within his glass
+cage, so much was his mind affected, and at five o'clock, when he
+left his office, instead of going at once home to Mrs. Slide at
+Camden Town, he took an omnibus, and went down to Westminster. He
+would at once confront the traitor who had deceived him.</p>
+
+<p>It must be acknowledged on behalf of this editor that he did in truth
+believe that he had been hindered from doing good. The whole practice
+of his life had taught him to be confident that the editor of a
+newspaper must be the best possible judge,&mdash;indeed the only possible
+good judge,&mdash;whether any statement or story should or should not be
+published. Not altogether without a conscience, and intensely
+conscious of such conscience as did constrain him, Mr. Quintus Slide
+imagined that no law of libel, no injunction from any
+Vice-Chancellor, no outward power or pressure whatever was needed to
+keep his energies within their proper limits. He and his newspaper
+formed together a simply beneficent institution, any interference
+with which must of necessity be an injury to the public. Everything
+done at the office of the People's Banner was done in the interest
+of the People,&mdash;and, even though individuals might occasionally be
+made to suffer by the severity with which their names were handled in
+its columns, the general result was good. What are the sufferings of
+the few to the advantage of the many? If there be fault in high
+places, it is proper that it be exposed. If there be fraud,
+adulteries, gambling, and lasciviousness,&mdash;or even quarrels and
+indiscretions among those whose names are known, let every detail be
+laid open to the light, so that the people may have a warning. That
+such details will make a paper "pay" Mr. Slide knew also; but it is
+not only in Mr. Slide's path of life that the bias of a man's mind
+may lead him to find that virtue and profit are compatible. An
+unprofitable newspaper cannot long continue its existence, and, while
+existing, cannot be widely beneficial. It is the circulation, the
+profitable circulation,&mdash;of forty, fifty, sixty, or a hundred
+thousand copies through all the arteries and veins of the public body
+which is beneficent. And how can such circulation be effected unless
+the taste of the public be consulted? Mr. Quintus Slide, as he walked
+up Westminster Hall, in search of that wicked member of Parliament,
+did not at all doubt the goodness of his cause. He could not contest
+the Vice-Chancellor's injunction, but he was firm in his opinion that
+the Vice-Chancellor's injunction had inflicted an evil on the public
+at large, and he was unhappy within himself in that the power and
+majesty and goodness of the press should still be hampered by
+ignorance, prejudice, and favour for the great. He was quite sure
+that no injunction would have been granted in favour of Mr. Joseph
+Smith and Mr. John Jones.</p>
+
+<p>He went boldly up to one of the policemen who sit guarding the door
+of the lobby of our House of Commons, and asked for Mr. Finn. The
+Cerberus on the left was not sure whether Mr. Finn was in the House,
+but would send in a card if Mr. Slide would stand on one side. For
+the next quarter of an hour Mr. Slide heard no more of his message,
+and then applied again to the Cerberus. The Cerberus shook his head,
+and again desired the applicant to stand on one side. He had done all
+that in him lay. The other watchful Cerberus standing on the right,
+observing that the intruder was not accommodated with any member,
+intimated to him the propriety of standing back in one of the
+corners. Our editor turned round upon the man as though he would bite
+him;&mdash;but he did stand back, meditating an article on the gross want
+of attention to the public shown in the lobby of the House of
+Commons. Is it possible that any editor should endure any
+inconvenience without meditating an article? But the judicious editor
+thinks twice of such things. Our editor was still in his wrath when
+he saw his prey come forth from the House with a card,&mdash;no doubt his
+own card. He leaped forward in spite of the policeman, in spite of
+any Cerberus, and seized Phineas by the arm. "I want just to have a
+few words," he said. He made an effort to repress his wrath, knowing
+that the whole world would be against him should he exhibit any
+violence of indignation on that spot; but Phineas could see it all in
+the fire of his eye.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," said Phineas, retiring to the side of the lobby, with a
+conviction that the distance between him and the House was already
+sufficient.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you come down into Westminster Hall?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should only have to come up again. You can say what you've got to
+say here."</p>
+
+<p>"I've got a great deal to say. I never was so badly treated in my
+life;&mdash;never." He could not quite repress his voice, and he saw that
+a policeman looked at him. Phineas saw it also.</p>
+
+<p>"Because we have hindered you from publishing an untrue and very
+slanderous letter about a lady!"</p>
+
+<p>"You promised me that you'd come to me yesterday."</p>
+
+<p>"I think not. I think I said that you should hear from me,&mdash;and you
+did."</p>
+
+<p>"You call that truth,&mdash;and honesty!"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly I do. Of course it was my first duty to stop the
+publication of the letter."</p>
+
+<p>"You haven't done that yet."</p>
+
+<p>"I've done my best to stop it. If you have nothing more to say I'll
+wish you good evening."</p>
+
+<p>"I've a deal more to say. You were shot at, weren't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have no desire to make any communication to you on anything that
+has occurred, Mr. Slide. If I stayed with you all the afternoon I
+could tell you nothing more. Good evening."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll crush you," said Quintus Slide, in a stage whisper; "I will, as
+sure as my name is Slide."</p>
+
+<p>Phineas looked at him and retired into the House, whither Quintus
+Slide could not follow him, and the editor of the People's Banner
+was left alone in his anger.</p>
+
+<p>"How a cock can crow on his own dunghill!" That was Mr. Slide's first
+feeling, as with a painful sense of diminished consequence he
+retraced his steps through the outer lobbies and down into
+Westminster Hall. He had been browbeaten by Phineas Finn, simply
+because Phineas had been able to retreat within those happy doors. He
+knew that to the eyes of all the policemen and strangers assembled
+Phineas Finn had been a hero, a Parliamentary hero, and he had been
+some poor outsider,&mdash;to be ejected at once should he make himself
+disagreeable to the Members. Nevertheless, had he not all the columns
+of the People's Banner in his pocket? Was he not great in the
+Fourth Estate,&mdash;much greater than Phineas Finn in his estate? Could
+he not thunder every night so that an audience to be counted by
+hundreds of thousands should hear his thunder;&mdash;whereas this poor
+Member of Parliament must struggle night after night for an
+opportunity of speaking; and could then only speak to benches half
+deserted; or to a few Members half asleep,&mdash;unless the Press should
+choose to convert his words into thunderbolts. Who could doubt for a
+moment with which lay the greater power? And yet this wretched
+Irishman, who had wriggled himself into Parliament on a petition,
+getting the better of a good, downright English John Bull by a
+quibble, had treated him with scorn,&mdash;the wretched Irishman being for
+the moment like a cock on his own dunghill. Quintus Slide was not
+slow to tell himself that he also had an elevation of his own, from
+which he could make himself audible. In former days he had forgiven
+Phineas Finn more than once. If he ever forgave Phineas Finn again
+might his right hand forget its cunning, and never again draw blood
+or tear a scalp.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c28"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h3>
+<h4>THE FIRST THUNDERBOLT.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>It was not till after Mr. Slide had left him that Phineas wrote the
+following letter to Lady Laura:&mdash;<br />&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="jright">House of Commons, 1st March, 18&mdash;.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smallcaps">My dear Friend</span>,</p>
+
+<p>I have a long story to tell, which I fear I shall find difficult in
+the telling; but it is so necessary that you should know the facts
+that I must go through with it as best I may. It will give you very
+great pain; but the result as regards your own position will not I
+think be injurious to you.</p>
+
+<p>Yesterday, Sunday, a man came to me who edits a newspaper, and whom I
+once knew. You will remember when I used to tell you in Portman
+Square of the amenities and angers of Mr. Slide,&mdash;the man who wanted
+to sit for Loughton. He is the editor. He brought me a long letter
+from Mr. Kennedy himself, intended for publication, and which was
+already printed, giving an elaborate and, I may say, a most cruelly
+untrue account of your quarrel. I read the letter, but of course
+cannot remember the words. Nor if I could remember them should I
+repeat them. They contained all the old charges with which you are
+familiar, and which your unfortunate husband now desired to publish
+in consummation of his threats. Why Mr. Slide should have brought me
+the paper before publishing it I can hardly understand. But he did
+so;&mdash;and told me that Mr. Kennedy was in town. We have managed among
+us to obtain a legal warrant for preventing the publication of the
+letter, and I think I may say that it will not see the light.</p>
+
+<p>When Mr. Slide left me I called on Mr. Kennedy, whom I found in a
+miserable little hotel, in Judd Street, kept by Scotch people named
+Macpherson. They had come from the neighbourhood of Loughlinter, and
+knew Mr. Kennedy well. This was yesterday afternoon, Sunday, and I
+found some difficulty in making my way into his presence. My object
+was to induce him to withdraw the letter;&mdash;for at that time I doubted
+whether the law could interfere quickly enough to prevent the
+publication.</p>
+
+<p>I found your husband in a very sad condition. What he said or what I
+said I forget; but he was as usual intensely anxious that you should
+return to him. I need not hesitate now to say that he is certainly
+mad. After a while, when I expressed my assured opinion that you
+would not go back to Loughlinter, he suddenly turned round, grasped a
+revolver, and fired at my head. How I got out of the room I don't
+quite remember. Had he repeated the shot, which he might have done
+over and over again, he must have hit me. As it was I escaped, and
+blundered down the stairs to Mrs. Macpherson's room.</p>
+
+<p>They whom I have consulted in the matter, namely, Barrington Erle and
+my particular friend, Mr. Low,&mdash;to whom I went for legal assistance
+in stopping the publication,&mdash;seem to think that I should have at
+once sent for the police, and given Mr. Kennedy in charge. But I did
+not do so, and hitherto the police have, I believe, no knowledge of
+what occurred. A paragraph appeared in one of the morning papers
+to-day, giving almost an accurate account of the matter, but
+mentioning neither the place nor any of the names. No doubt it will
+be repeated in all the papers, and the names will soon be known. But
+the result will be simply a general conviction as to the insanity of
+poor Mr. Kennedy,&mdash;as to which they who know him have had for a long
+time but little doubt.</p>
+
+<p>The Macphersons seem to have been very anxious to screen their guest.
+At any other hotel no doubt the landlord would have sent for the
+police;&mdash;but in this case the attempt was kept quite secret. They did
+send for George Kennedy, a cousin of your husband's, whom I think you
+know, and whom I saw this morning. He assures me that Robert Kennedy
+is quite aware of the wickedness of the attempt he made, and that he
+is plunged in deep remorse. He is to be taken down to Loughlinter
+to-morrow, and is,&mdash;so says his cousin,&mdash;as tractable as a child.
+What George Kennedy means to do, I cannot say; but for myself, as I
+did not send for the police at the moment, as I am told I ought to
+have done, I shall now do nothing. I don't know that a man is subject
+to punishment because he does not make complaint. I suppose I have a
+right to regard it all as an accident if I please.</p>
+
+<p>But for you this must be very important. That Mr. Kennedy is insane
+there cannot now, I think, be a doubt; and therefore the question of
+your returning to him,&mdash;as far as there has been any question,&mdash;is
+absolutely settled. None of your friends would be justified in
+allowing you to return. He is undoubtedly mad, and has done an act
+which is not murderous only on that conclusion. This settles the
+question so perfectly that you could, no doubt, reside in England now
+without danger. Mr. Kennedy himself would feel that he could take no
+steps to enforce your return after what he did yesterday. Indeed, if
+you could bring yourself to face the publicity, you could, I imagine,
+obtain a legal separation which would give you again the control of
+your own fortune. I feel myself bound to mention this; but I give you
+no advice. You will no doubt explain all the circumstances to your
+father.</p>
+
+<p>I think I have now told you everything that I need tell you. The
+thing only happened yesterday, and I have been all the morning busy,
+getting the injunction, and seeing Mr. George Kennedy. Just before I
+began this letter that horrible editor was with me again, threatening
+me with all the penalties which an editor can inflict. To tell the
+truth, I do feel confused among them all, and still fancy that I hear
+the click of the pistol. That newspaper paragraph says that the ball
+went through my whiskers, which was certainly not the case;&mdash;but a
+foot or two off is quite near enough for a pistol ball.</p>
+
+<p>The Duke of Omnium is dying, and I have heard to-day that Madame
+Goesler, our old friend, has been sent for to Matching. She and I
+renewed our acquaintance the other day at Harrington.</p>
+
+<p>God bless you.</p>
+
+<p class="ind10">Your most sincere friend,</p>
+
+<p class="ind14"><span class="smallcaps">Phineas Finn</span>.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">Do not let my news oppress you.
+The firing of the pistol is a thing
+done and over without evil results. The state of Mr. Kennedy's mind
+is what we have long suspected; and, melancholy though it be, should
+contain for you at any rate this consolation,&mdash;that the accusations
+made against you would not have been made had his mind been
+unclouded.<br />&nbsp;</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+<p>Twice while Finn was writing this letter was he rung into the House
+for a division, and once it was suggested to him to say a few words
+of angry opposition to the Government on some not important subject
+under discussion. Since the beginning of the Session hardly a night
+had passed without some verbal sparring, and very frequently the
+limits of parliamentary decorum had been almost surpassed. Never
+within the memory of living politicians had political rancour been so
+sharp, and the feeling of injury so keen, both on the one side and on
+the other. The taunts thrown at the Conservatives, in reference to
+the Church, had been almost unendurable,&mdash;and the more so because the
+strong expressions of feeling from their own party throughout the
+country were against them. Their own convictions also were against
+them. And there had for a while been almost a determination through
+the party to deny their leader and disclaim the bill. But a feeling
+of duty to the party had prevailed, and this had not been done. It
+had not been done; but the not doing of it was a sore burden on the
+half-broken shoulders of many a man who sat gloomily on the benches
+behind Mr. Daubeny. Men goaded as they were, by their opponents, by
+their natural friends, and by their own consciences, could not bear
+it in silence, and very bitter things were said in return. Mr.
+Gresham was accused of a degrading lust for power. No other feeling
+could prompt him to oppose with a factious acrimony never before
+exhibited in that House,&mdash;so said some wretched Conservative with
+broken back and broken heart,&mdash;a measure which he himself would only
+be too willing to carry were he allowed the privilege of passing over
+to the other side of the House for the purpose. In these encounters,
+Phineas Finn had already exhibited his prowess, and, in spite of his
+declarations at Tankerville, had become prominent as an opponent to
+Mr. Daubeny's bill. He had, of course, himself been taunted, and held
+up in the House to the execration of his own constituents; but he had
+enjoyed his fight, and had remembered how his friend Mr. Monk had
+once told him that the pleasure lay all on the side of opposition.
+But on this evening he declined to speak. "I suppose you have hardly
+recovered from Kennedy's pistol," said Mr. Ratler, who had, of
+course, heard the whole story. "That, and the whole affair together
+have upset me," said Phineas. "Fitzgibbon will do it for you; he's in
+the House." And so it happened that on that occasion the Honourable
+Laurence Fitzgibbon made a very effective speech against the
+Government.</p>
+
+<p>On the next morning from the columns of the People's Banner was
+hurled the first of those thunderbolts with which it was the purpose
+of Mr. Slide absolutely to destroy the political and social life of
+Phineas Finn. He would not miss his aim as Mr. Kennedy had done. He
+would strike such blows that no constituency should ever venture to
+return Mr. Finn again to Parliament; and he thought that he could
+also so strike his blows that no mighty nobleman, no distinguished
+commoner, no lady of rank should again care to entertain the
+miscreant and feed him with the dainties of fashion. The first
+thunderbolt was as follows:&mdash;<br />&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>We abstained yesterday from alluding to a circumstance which occurred
+at a small hotel in Judd Street on Sunday afternoon, and which, as we
+observe, was mentioned by one of our contemporaries. The names,
+however, were not given, although the persons implicated were
+indicated. We can see no reason why the names should be concealed.
+Indeed, as both the gentlemen concerned have been guilty of very
+great criminality, we think that we are bound to tell the whole
+story,&mdash;and this the more especially as certain circumstances have in
+a very peculiar manner placed us in possession of the facts.</p>
+
+<p>It is no secret that for the last two years Lady Laura Kennedy has
+been separated from her husband, the Honourable Robert Kennedy, who,
+in the last administration, under Mr. Mildmay, held the office of
+Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster; and we believe as little a
+secret that Mr. Kennedy has been very persistent in endeavouring to
+recall his wife to her home. With equal persistence she has refused
+to obey, and we have in our hands the clearest possible evidence that
+Mr. Kennedy has attributed her obstinate refusal to influence
+exercised over her by Mr. Phineas Finn, who three years since was her
+father's nominee for the then existing borough of Loughton, and who
+lately succeeded in ousting poor Mr. Browborough from his seat for
+Tankerville by his impetuous promises to support that very measure of
+Church Reform which he is now opposing with that venom which makes
+him valuable to his party. Whether Mr. Phineas Finn will ever sit in
+another Parliament we cannot, of course, say, but we think we can at
+least assure him that he will never again sit for Tankerville.</p>
+
+<p>On last Sunday afternoon Mr. Finn, knowing well the feeling with
+which he is regarded by Mr. Kennedy, outraged all decency by calling
+upon that gentleman, whose address he obtained from our office. What
+took place between them no one knows, and, probably, no one ever will
+know. But the interview was ended by Mr. Kennedy firing a pistol at
+Mr. Finn's head. That he should have done so without the grossest
+provocation no one will believe. That Mr. Finn had gone to the
+husband to interfere with him respecting his wife is an undoubted
+fact,&mdash;a fact which, if necessary, we are in a position to prove.
+That such interference must have been most heartrending every one
+will admit. This intruder, who had thrust himself upon the
+unfortunate husband on the Sabbath afternoon, was the very man whom
+the husband accuses of having robbed him of the company and comfort
+of his wife. But we cannot, on that account, absolve Mr. Kennedy of
+the criminality of his act. It should be for a jury to decide what
+view should be taken of that act, and to say how far the outrageous
+provocation offered should be allowed to palliate the offence. But
+hitherto the matter has not reached the police. Mr. Finn was not
+struck, and managed to escape from the room. It was his manifest duty
+as one of the community, and more especially so as a member of
+Parliament, to have reported all the circumstances at once to the
+police. This was not done by him, nor by the persons who keep the
+hotel. That Mr. Finn should have reasons of his own for keeping the
+whole affair secret, and for screening the attempt at murder, is
+clear enough. What inducements have been used with the people of the
+house we cannot, of course, say. But we understand that Mr. Kennedy
+has been allowed to leave London without molestation.</p>
+
+<p>Such is the true story of what occurred on Sunday afternoon in Judd
+Street, and, knowing what we do, we think ourselves justified in
+calling upon Major Mackintosh to take the case into his own hands.<br />&nbsp;</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+<p class="noindent">Now Major
+Mackintosh was at this time the head of the London
+constabulary.<br />&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="noindent">It is quite out
+of the question that such a transaction should take
+place in the heart of London at three o'clock on a Sunday afternoon,
+and be allowed to pass without notice. We intend to keep as little of
+what we know from the public as possible, and do not hesitate to
+acknowledge that we are debarred by an injunction of the
+Vice-Chancellor from publishing a certain document which would throw
+the clearest light upon the whole circumstance. As soon as possible
+after the shot was fired Mr. Finn went to work, and, as we think, by
+misrepresentations, obtained the injunction early on yesterday
+morning. We feel sure that it would not have been granted had the
+transaction in Judd Street been at the time known to the
+Vice-Chancellor in all its enormity. Our hands are, of course, tied.
+The document in question is still with us, but it is sacred. When
+called upon to show it by any proper authority we shall be ready;
+but, knowing what we do know, we should not be justified in allowing
+the matter to sleep. In the meantime we call upon those whose duty it
+is to preserve the public peace to take the steps necessary for
+bringing the delinquents to justice.</p>
+
+<p>The effect upon Mr. Finn, we should say, must be his immediate
+withdrawal from public life. For the last year or two he has held
+some subordinate but permanent place in Ireland, which he has given
+up on the rumour that the party to which he has attached himself is
+likely to return to office. That he is a seeker after office is
+notorious. That any possible Government should now employ him, even
+as a tide-waiter, is quite out of the question; and it is equally out
+of the question that he should be again returned to Parliament, were
+he to resign his seat on accepting office. As it is, we believe,
+notorious that this gentleman cannot maintain the position which he
+holds without being paid for his services, it is reasonable to
+suppose that his friends will recommend him to retire, and seek his
+living in some obscure, and, let us hope, honest
+profession.<br />&nbsp;</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+<p>Mr. Slide, when his thunderbolt was prepared, read it over with
+delight, but still with some fear as to probable results. It was
+expedient that he should avoid a prosecution for libel, and essential
+that he should not offend the majesty of the Vice-Chancellor's
+injunction. Was he sure that he was safe in each direction? As to the
+libel, he could not tell himself that he was certainly safe. He was
+saying very hard things both of Lady Laura and of Phineas Finn, and
+sailing very near the wind. But neither of those persons would
+probably be willing to prosecute; and, should he be prosecuted, he
+would then, at any rate, be able to give in Mr. Kennedy's letter as
+evidence in his own defence. He really did believe that what he was
+doing was all done in the cause of morality. It was the business of
+such a paper as that which he conducted to run some risk in defending
+morals, and exposing distinguished culprits on behalf of the public.
+And then, without some such risk, how could Phineas Finn be
+adequately punished for the atrocious treachery of which he had been
+guilty? As to the Chancellor's order, Mr. Slide thought that he had
+managed that matter very completely. No doubt he had acted in direct
+opposition to the spirit of the injunction, but legal orders are read
+by the letter, and not by the spirit. It was open to him to publish
+anything he pleased respecting Mr. Kennedy and his wife, subject, of
+course, to the general laws of the land in regard to libel. The
+Vice-Chancellor's special order to him referred simply to a
+particular document, and from that document he had not quoted a word,
+though he had contrived to repeat all the bitter things which it
+contained, with much added venom of his own. He felt secure of being
+safe from any active anger on the part of the Vice-Chancellor.</p>
+
+<p>The article was printed and published. The reader will perceive that
+it was full of lies. It began with a lie in that statement that "we
+abstained yesterday from alluding to circumstances" which had been
+unknown to the writer when his yesterday's paper was published. The
+indignant reference to poor Finn's want of delicacy in forcing
+himself upon Mr. Kennedy on the Sabbath afternoon, was, of course, a
+tissue of lies. The visit had been made almost at the instigation of
+the editor himself. The paper from beginning to end was full of
+falsehood and malice, and had been written with the express intention
+of creating prejudice against the man who had offended the writer.
+But Mr. Slide did not know that he was lying, and did not know that
+he was malicious. The weapon which he used was one to which his hand
+was accustomed, and he had been led by practice to believe that the
+use of such weapons by one in his position was not only fair, but
+also beneficial to the public. Had anybody suggested to him that he
+was stabbing his enemy in the dark, he would have averred that he was
+doing nothing of the kind, because the anonymous accusation of
+sinners in high rank was, on behalf of the public, the special duty
+of writers and editors attached to the public press. Mr. Slide's
+blood was running high with virtuous indignation against our hero as
+he inserted those last cruel words as to the choice of an obscure but
+honest profession.</p>
+
+<p>Phineas Finn read the article before he sat down to breakfast on the
+following morning, and the dagger went right into his bosom. Every
+word told upon him. With a jaunty laugh within his own sleeve he had
+assured himself that he was safe against any wound which could be
+inflicted on him from the columns of the People's Banner. He had
+been sure that he would be attacked, and thought that he was armed to
+bear it. But the thin blade penetrated every joint of his harness,
+and every particle of the poison curdled in his blood. He was hurt
+about Lady Laura; he was hurt about his borough of Tankerville; he
+was hurt by the charges against him of having outraged delicacy; he
+was hurt by being handed over to the tender mercies of Major
+Mackintosh; he was hurt by the craft with which the Vice-Chancellor's
+injunction had been evaded; but he was especially hurt by the
+allusions to his own poverty. It was necessary that he should earn
+his bread, and no doubt he was a seeker after place. But he did not
+wish to obtain wages without working for them; and he did not see why
+the work and wages of a public office should be less honourable than
+those of any other profession. To him, with his ideas, there was no
+profession so honourable, as certainly there were none which demanded
+greater sacrifices or were more precarious. And he did believe that
+such an article as that would have the effect of shutting against him
+the gates of that dangerous Paradise which he desired to enter. He
+had no great claim upon his party; and, in giving away the good
+things of office, the giver is only too prone to recognise any
+objections against an individual which may seem to relieve him from
+the necessity of bestowing aught in that direction. Phineas felt that
+he would almost be ashamed to show his face at the clubs or in the
+House. He must do so as a matter of course, but he knew that he could
+not do so without confessing by his visage that he had been deeply
+wounded by the attack in the People's Banner.</p>
+
+<p>He went in the first instance to Mr. Low, and was almost surprised
+that Mr. Low should not have yet even have heard that such an attack
+had been made. He had almost felt, as he walked to Lincoln's Inn,
+that everybody had looked at him, and that passers-by in the street
+had declared to each other that he was the unfortunate one who had
+been doomed by the editor of the People's Banner to seek some
+obscure way of earning his bread. Mr. Low took the paper, read, or
+probably only half read, the article, and then threw the sheet aside
+as worthless. "What ought I to do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing at all."</p>
+
+<p>"One's first desire would be to beat him to a jelly."</p>
+
+<p>"Of all courses that would be the worst, and would most certainly
+conduce to his triumph."</p>
+
+<p>"Just so;&mdash;I only allude to the pleasure one would have, but which
+one has to deny oneself. I don't know whether he has laid himself
+open for libel."</p>
+
+<p>"I should think not. I have only just glanced at it, and therefore
+can't give an opinion; but I should think you would not dream of such
+a thing. Your object is to screen Lady Laura's name."</p>
+
+<p>"I have to think of that first."</p>
+
+<p>"It may be necessary that steps should be taken to defend her
+character. If an accusation be made with such publicity as to enforce
+belief if not denied, the denial must be made, and may probably be
+best made by an action for libel. But that must be done by her or her
+friends,&mdash;but certainly not by you."</p>
+
+<p>"He has laughed at the Vice-Chancellor's injunction."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think that you can interfere. If, as you believe, Mr.
+Kennedy be insane, that fact will probably soon be proved, and will
+have the effect of clearing Lady Laura's character. A wife may be
+excused for leaving a mad husband."</p>
+
+<p>"And you think I should do nothing?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see what you can do. You have encountered a chimney sweeper,
+and of course you get some of the soot. What you do do, and what you
+do not do, must depend at any rate on the wishes of Lady Laura
+Kennedy and her father. It is a matter in which you must make
+yourself subordinate to them."</p>
+
+<p>Fuming and fretting, and yet recognising the truth of Mr. Low's
+words, Phineas left the chambers, and went down to his club. It was a
+Wednesday, and the House was to sit in the morning; but before he
+went to the House he put himself in the way of certain of his
+associates in order that he might hear what would be said, and learn
+if possible what was thought. Nobody seemed to treat the accusations
+in the newspaper as very serious, though all around him congratulated
+him on his escape from Mr. Kennedy's pistol. "I suppose the poor man
+really is mad," said Lord Cantrip, whom he met on the steps of one of
+the clubs.</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt, I should say."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't understand why you didn't go to the police."</p>
+
+<p>"I had hoped the thing would not become public," said Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>"Everything becomes public;&mdash;everything of that kind. It is very hard
+upon poor Lady Laura."</p>
+
+<p>"That is the worst of it, Lord Cantrip."</p>
+
+<p>"If I were her father I should bring her to England, and demand a
+separation in a regular and legal way. That is what he should do now
+in her behalf. She would then have an opportunity of clearing her
+character from imputations which, to a certain extent, will affect
+it, even though they come from a madman, and from the very scum of
+the press."</p>
+
+<p>"You have read that article?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes;&mdash;I saw it but a minute ago."</p>
+
+<p>"I need not tell you that there is not the faintest ground in the
+world for the imputation made against Lady Laura there."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure that there is none;&mdash;and therefore it is that I tell you
+my opinion so plainly. I think that Lord Brentford should be advised
+to bring Lady Laura to England, and to put down the charges openly in
+Court. It might be done either by an application to the Divorce Court
+for a separation, or by an action against the newspaper for libel. I
+do not know Lord Brentford quite well enough to intrude upon him with
+a letter, but I have no objection whatever to having my name
+mentioned to him. He and I and you and poor Mr. Kennedy sat together
+in the same Government, and I think that Lord Brentford would trust
+my friendship so far." Phineas thanked him, and assured him that what
+he had said should be conveyed to Lord Brentford.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c29"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXIX.</h3>
+<h4>THE SPOONER CORRESPONDENCE.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>It will be remembered that Adelaide Palliser had accepted the hand of
+Mr. Maule, junior, and that she and Lady Chiltern between them had
+despatched him up to London on an embassy to his father, in which he
+failed very signally. It had been originally Lady Chiltern's idea
+that the proper home for the young couple would be the ancestral
+hall, which must be theirs some day, and in which, with exceeding
+prudence, they might be able to live as Maules of Maule Abbey upon
+the very limited income which would belong to them. How slight were
+the grounds for imputing such stern prudence to Gerard Maule both the
+ladies felt;&mdash;but it had become essential to do something; the young
+people were engaged to each other, and a manner of life must be
+suggested, discussed, and as far as possible arranged. Lady Chiltern
+was useful at such work, having a practical turn of mind, and
+understanding well the condition of life for which it was necessary
+that her friend should prepare herself. The lover was not vicious, he
+neither drank nor gambled, nor ran himself hopelessly in debt. He was
+good-humoured and tractable, and docile enough when nothing
+disagreeable was asked from him. He would have, he said, no objection
+to live at Maule Abbey if Adelaide liked it. He didn't believe much
+in farming, but would consent at Adelaide's request to be the owner
+of bullocks. He was quite ready to give up hunting, having already
+taught himself to think that the very few good runs in a season were
+hardly worth the trouble of getting up before daylight all the
+winter. He went forth, therefore, on his embassy, and we know how he
+failed. Another lover would have communicated the disastrous tidings
+at once to the lady; but Gerard Maule waited a week before he did so,
+and then told his story in half-a-dozen words. "The governor cut up
+rough about Maule Abbey, and will not hear of it. He generally does
+cut up rough."</p>
+
+<p>"But he must be made to hear of it," said Lady Chiltern. Two days
+afterwards the news reached Harrington of the death of the Duke of
+Omnium. A letter of an official nature reached Adelaide from Mr.
+Fothergill, in which the writer explained that he had been desired by
+Mr. Palliser to communicate to her and the relatives the sad tidings.
+"So the poor old man has gone at last," said Lady Chiltern, with that
+affectation of funereal gravity which is common to all of us.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor old Duke!" said Adelaide. "I have been hearing of him as a sort
+of bugbear all my life. I don't think I ever saw him but once, and
+then he gave me a kiss and a pair of earrings. He never paid any
+attention to us at all, but we were taught to think that Providence
+had been very good to us in making the Duke our uncle."</p>
+
+<p>"He was very rich?"</p>
+
+<p>"Horribly rich, I have always heard."</p>
+
+<p>"Won't he leave you something? It would be very nice now that you are
+engaged to find that he has given you five thousand pounds."</p>
+
+<p>"Very nice indeed;&mdash;but there is not a chance of it. It has always
+been known that everything is to go to the heir. Papa had his fortune
+and spent it. He and his brother were never friends, and though the
+Duke did once give me a kiss I imagine that he forgot my existence
+immediately afterwards."</p>
+
+<p>"So the Duke of Omnium is dead," said Lord Chiltern when he came home
+that evening.</p>
+
+<p>"Adelaide has had a letter to tell her so this afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Fothergill wrote to me," said Adelaide;&mdash;"the man who is so
+wicked about the foxes."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care a straw about Mr. Fothergill; and now my mouth is
+closed against your uncle. But it's quite frightful to think that a
+Duke of Omnium must die like anybody else."</p>
+
+<p>"The Duke is dead;&mdash;long live the Duke," said Lady Chiltern. "I
+wonder how Mr. Palliser will like it."</p>
+
+<p>"Men always do like it, I suppose," said Adelaide.</p>
+
+<p>"Women do," said Lord Chiltern. "Lady Glencora will be delighted to
+reign,&mdash;though I can hardly fancy her by any other name. By the bye,
+Adelaide, I have got a letter for you."</p>
+
+<p>"A letter for me, Lord Chiltern!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well,&mdash;yes; I suppose I had better give it you. It is not addressed
+to you, but you must answer it."</p>
+
+<p>"What on earth is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think I can guess," said Lady Chiltern, laughing. She had guessed
+rightly, but Adelaide Palliser was still altogether in the dark when
+Lord Chiltern took a letter from his pocket and handed it to her. As
+he did so he left the room, and his wife followed him. "I shall be
+upstairs, Adelaide, if you want advice," said Lady Chiltern.</p>
+
+<p>The letter was from Mr. Spooner. He had left Harrington Hall after
+the uncourteous reception which had been accorded to him by Miss
+Palliser in deep disgust, resolving that he would never again speak
+to her, and almost resolving that Spoon Hall should never have a
+mistress in his time. But with his wine after dinner his courage came
+back to him, and he began to reflect once more that it is not the
+habit of young ladies to accept their lovers at the first offer.
+There was living with Mr. Spooner at this time a very attached
+friend, whom he usually consulted in all emergencies, and to whom on
+this occasion he opened his heart. Mr. Edward Spooner, commonly
+called Ned by all who knew him, and not unfrequently so addressed by
+those who did not, was a distant cousin of the Squire's, who
+unfortunately had no particular income of his own. For the last ten
+years he had lived at Spoon Hall, and had certainly earned his bread.
+The Squire had achieved a certain credit for success as a country
+gentleman. Nothing about his place was out of order. His own farming,
+which was extensive, succeeded. His bullocks and sheep won prizes.
+His horses were always useful and healthy. His tenants were solvent,
+if not satisfied, and he himself did not owe a shilling. Now many
+people in the neighbourhood attributed all this to the judicious care
+of Mr. Edward Spooner, whose eye was never off the place, and whose
+discretion was equal to his zeal. In giving the Squire his due, one
+must acknowledge that he recognised the merits of his cousin, and
+trusted him in everything. That night, as soon as the customary
+bottle of claret had succeeded the absolutely normal bottle of port
+after dinner, Mr. Spooner of Spoon Hall opened his heart to his
+cousin.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall have to walk, then," said Ned.</p>
+
+<p>"Not if I know it," said the Squire. "You don't suppose I'm going to
+let any woman have the command of Spoon Hall?"</p>
+
+<p>"They do command,&mdash;inside, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"No woman shall ever turn you out of this house, Ned."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not thinking of myself, Tom," said the cousin. "Of course you'll
+marry some day, and of course I must take my chance. I don't see why
+it shouldn't be Miss Palliser as well as another."</p>
+
+<p>"The jade almost made me angry."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose that's the way with most of 'em. 'Ludit exultim metuitque
+tangi'." For Ned Spooner had himself preserved some few tattered
+shreds of learning from his school days. "You don't remember about
+the filly?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes I do; very well," said the Squire.</p>
+
+<p>"'Nuptiarum expers.' That's what it is, I suppose. Try it again."
+The advice on the part of the cousin was genuine and unselfish. That
+Mr. Spooner of Spoon Hall should be rejected by a young lady without
+any fortune seemed to him to be impossible. At any rate it is the
+duty of a man in such circumstances to persevere. As far as Ned knew
+the world, ladies always required to be asked a second or a third
+time. And then no harm can come from such perseverance. "She can't
+break your bones, Tom."</p>
+
+<p>There was much honesty displayed on this occasion. The Squire, when
+he was thus instigated to persevere, did his best to describe the
+manner in which he had been rejected. His powers of description were
+not very great, but he did not conceal anything wilfully. "She was as
+hard as nails, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know that that means much. Horace's filly kicked a few, no
+doubt."</p>
+
+<p>"She told me that if I'd go one way, she'd go the other!"</p>
+
+<p>"They always say about the hardest things that come to their tongues.
+They don't curse and swear as we do, or there'd be no bearing them.
+If you really like <span class="nowrap">her&mdash;"</span></p>
+
+<p>"She's such a well-built creature! There's a look of blood about her
+I don't see in any of 'em. That sort of breeding is what one wants to
+get through the mud with."</p>
+
+<p>Then it was that the cousin recommended a letter to Lord Chiltern.
+Lord Chiltern was at the present moment to be regarded as the lady's
+guardian, and was the lover's intimate friend. A direct proposal had
+already been made to the young lady, and this should now be repeated
+to the gentleman who for the time stood in the position of her
+father. The Squire for a while hesitated, declaring that he was
+averse to make his secret known to Lord Chiltern. "One doesn't want
+every fellow in the country to know it," he said. But in answer to
+this the cousin was very explicit. There could be but little doubt
+that Lord Chiltern knew the secret already; and he would certainly be
+rather induced to keep it as a secret than to divulge it if it were
+communicated to him officially. And what other step could the Squire
+take? It would not be likely that he should be asked again to
+Harrington Hall with the express view of repeating his offer. The
+cousin was quite of opinion that a written proposition should be
+made; and on that very night the cousin himself wrote out a letter
+for the Squire to copy in the morning. On the morning the Squire
+copied the letter,&mdash;not without additions of his own, as to which he
+had very many words with his discreet cousin,&mdash;and in a formal manner
+handed it to Lord Chiltern towards the afternoon of that day, having
+devoted his whole morning to the finding of a proper opportunity for
+doing so. Lord Chiltern had read the letter, and had, as we see,
+delivered it to Adelaide Palliser. "That's another proposal from Mr.
+Spooner," Lady Chiltern said, as soon as they were alone.</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly that."</p>
+
+<p>"I knew he'd go on with it. Men are such fools."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see that he's a fool at all;" said Lord Chiltern, almost in
+anger. "Why shouldn't he ask a girl to be his wife? He's a rich man,
+and she hasn't got a farthing."</p>
+
+<p>"You might say the same of a butcher, Oswald."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Spooner is a gentleman."</p>
+
+<p>"You do not mean to say that he's fit to marry such a girl as
+Adelaide Palliser?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what makes fitness. He's got a red nose, and if she
+don't like a red nose,&mdash;that's unfitness. Gerard Maule's nose isn't
+red, and I dare say therefore he's fitter. Only, unfortunately, he
+has no money."</p>
+
+<p>"Adelaide Palliser would no more think of marrying Mr. Spooner than
+you would have thought of marrying the cook."</p>
+
+<p>"If I had liked the cook I should have asked her, and I don't see why
+Mr. Spooner shouldn't ask Miss Palliser. She needn't take him."</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime Miss Palliser was reading the following
+letter:&mdash;<br />&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="jright">Spoon Hall, 11th March, 18&ndash;ndash;.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smallcaps">My dear Lord
+Chiltern</span>,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>I venture to suppose that at present you are acting as the guardian
+of Miss Palliser, who has been staying at your house all the winter.
+If I am wrong in this I hope you will pardon me, and consent to act
+in that capacity for this occasion. I entertain feelings of the
+greatest admiration and warmest affection for the young lady I have
+named, which I ventured to express when I had the pleasure of staying
+at Harrington Hall in the early part of last month. I cannot boast
+that I was received on that occasion with much favour; but I know
+that I am not very good at talking, and we are told in all the books
+that no man has a right to expect to be taken at the first time of
+asking. Perhaps Miss Palliser will allow me, through you, to request
+her to consider my proposal with more deliberation than was allowed
+to me before, when I spoke to her perhaps with injudicious
+hurry.<br />&nbsp;</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+<p class="noindent">So far the Squire adopted his cousin's
+words without alteration.<br />&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>I am the owner of my own property,&mdash;which is more than everybody can
+say. My income is nearly &pound;4,000 a year. I shall be willing to make
+any proper settlement that may be recommended by the lawyers,&mdash;though
+I am strongly of opinion that an estate shouldn't be crippled for the
+sake of the widow. As to refurnishing the old house, and all that,
+I'll do anything that Miss Palliser may please. She knows my taste
+about hunting, and I know hers, so that there need not be any
+difference of opinion on that score.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Palliser can't suspect me of any interested motives. I come
+forward because I think she is the most charming girl I ever saw, and
+because I love her with all my heart. I haven't got very much to say
+for myself, but if she'll consent to be the mistress of Spoon Hall,
+she shall have all that the heart of a woman can desire.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="ind4">Pray believe me,</span><br />
+<span class="ind6">My dear Lord Chiltern,</span><br />
+<span class="ind8">Yours very sincerely,</span></p>
+
+<p class="ind8"><span class="smallcaps">Thomas Platter Spooner</span>.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">As I believe that
+Miss Palliser is fond of books, it may be well to
+tell her that there is an uncommon good library at Spoon Hall. I
+shall have no objection to go abroad for the honeymoon for three or
+four months in the summer.<br />&nbsp;</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+<p>The postscript was the Squire's own, and was inserted in opposition
+to the cousin's judgment. "She won't come for the sake of the books,"
+said the cousin. But the Squire thought that the attractions should
+be piled up. "I wouldn't talk of the honeymoon till I'd got her to
+come round a little," said the cousin. The Squire thought that the
+cousin was falsely delicate, and pleaded that all girls like to be
+taken abroad when they're married. The second half of the body of the
+letter was very much disfigured by the Squire's petulance; so that
+the modesty with which he commenced was almost put to the blush by a
+touch of arrogance in the conclusion. That sentence in which the
+Squire declared that an estate ought not to be crippled for the sake
+of the widow was very much questioned by the cousin. "Such a word as
+'widow' never ought to go into such a letter as this." But the Squire
+protested that he would not be mealy-mouthed. "She can bear to think
+of it, I'll go bail; and why shouldn't she hear about what she can
+think about?" "Don't talk about furniture yet, Tom," the cousin said;
+but the Squire was obstinate, and the cousin became hopeless. That
+word about loving her with all his heart was the cousin's own, but
+what followed, as to her being mistress of Spoon Hall, was altogether
+opposed to his judgment. "She'll be proud enough of Spoon Hall if she
+comes here," said the Squire. "I'd let her come first," said the
+cousin.</p>
+
+<p>We all know that the phraseology of the letter was of no importance
+whatever. When it was received the lady was engaged to another man;
+and she regarded Mr. Spooner of Spoon Hall as being guilty of
+unpardonable impudence in approaching her at all.</p>
+
+<p>"A red-faced vulgar old man, who looks as if he did nothing but
+drink," she said to Lady Chiltern.</p>
+
+<p>"He does you no harm, my dear."</p>
+
+<p>"But he does do harm. He makes things very uncomfortable. He has no
+business to think it possible. People will suppose that I gave him
+encouragement."</p>
+
+<p>"I used to have lovers coming to me year after year,&mdash;the same
+people,&mdash;whom I don't think I ever encouraged; but I never felt angry
+with them."</p>
+
+<p>"But you didn't have Mr. Spooner."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Spooner didn't know me in those days, or there is no saying what
+might have happened." Then Lady Chiltern argued the matter on views
+directly opposite to those which she had put forward when discussing
+the matter with her husband. "I always think that any man who is
+privileged to sit down to table with you is privileged to ask. There
+are disparities of course which may make the privilege
+questionable,&mdash;disparities of age, rank, and means."</p>
+
+<p>"And of tastes," said Adelaide.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know about that.&mdash;A poet doesn't want to marry a poetess,
+nor a philosopher a philosopheress. A man may make himself a fool by
+putting himself in the way of certain refusal; but I take it the
+broad rule is that a man may fall in love with any lady who
+habitually sits in his company."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't agree with you at all. What would be said if the curate at
+Long Royston were to propose to one of the FitzHoward girls?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Duchess would probably ask the Duke to make the young man a
+bishop out of hand, and the Duke would have to spend a morning in
+explaining to her the changes which have come over the making of
+bishops since she was young. There is no other rule that you can lay
+down, and I think that girls should understand that they have to
+fight their battles subject to that law. It's very easy to say,
+'No.'"</p>
+
+<p>"But a man won't take 'No.'"</p>
+
+<p>"And it's lucky for us sometimes that they don't," said Lady
+Chiltern, remembering certain passages in her early life.</p>
+
+<p>The answer was written that night by Lord Chiltern after much
+consultation. As to the nature of the answer,&mdash;that it should be a
+positive refusal,&mdash;of course there could be no doubt; but then arose
+a question whether a reason should be given, or whether the refusal
+should be simply a refusal. At last it was decided that a reason
+should be given, and the letter ran as follows:&mdash;<br />&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smallcaps">My dear Mr. Spooner</span>,</p>
+
+<p>I am commissioned to inform you that Miss Palliser is engaged to be
+married to Mr. Gerard Maule.</p>
+
+<p class="ind10">Yours faithfully,</p>
+
+<p class="ind15"><span class="smallcaps">Chiltern</span>.<br />&nbsp;</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+<p>The young lady had consented to be thus explicit because it had been
+already determined that no secret should be kept as to her future
+prospects.</p>
+
+<p>"He is one of those poverty-stricken wheedling fellows that one meets
+about the world every day," said the Squire to his cousin&mdash;"a fellow
+that rides horses that he can't pay for, and owes some poor devil of
+a tailor for the breeches that he sits in. They eat, and drink, and
+get along heaven only knows how. But they're sure to come to smash at
+last. Girls are such fools nowadays."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think there has ever been much difference in that," said the
+cousin.</p>
+
+<p>"Because a man greases his whiskers, and colours his hair, and paints
+his eyebrows, and wears kid gloves, by George, they'll go through
+fire and water after him. He'll never marry her."</p>
+
+<p>"So much the better for her."</p>
+
+<p>"But I hate such d&mdash;&mdash; impudence.
+What right has a man to come
+forward in that way who hasn't got a house over his head, or the
+means of getting one? Old Maule is so hard up that he can barely get
+a dinner at his club in London. What I wonder at is that Lady
+Chiltern shouldn't know better."</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c30"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXX.</h3>
+<h4>REGRETS.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>Madame Goesler remained at Matching till after the return of Mr.
+Palliser&mdash;or, as we must now call him, the Duke of Omnium&mdash;from
+Gatherum Castle, and was therefore able to fight her own battle with
+him respecting the gems and the money which had been left her. He
+brought to her with his own hands the single ring which she had
+requested, and placed it on her finger. "The goldsmith will soon make
+that all right," she said, when it was found to be much too large for
+the largest finger on which she could wear a ring. "A bit shall be
+taken out, but I will not have it reset."</p>
+
+<p>"You got the lawyer's letter and the inventory, Madame Goesler?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed. What surprises me is that the dear old man should never
+have spoken of so magnificent a collection of gems."</p>
+
+<p>"Orders have been given that they shall be packed."</p>
+
+<p>"They may be packed or unpacked, of course, as your Grace pleases,
+but pray do not connect me with the packing."</p>
+
+<p>"You must be connected with it."</p>
+
+<p>"But I wish not to be connected with it, Duke. I have written to the
+lawyer to renounce the legacy, and, if your Grace persists, I must
+employ a lawyer of my own to renounce them after some legal form.
+Pray do not let the case be sent to me, or there will be so much
+trouble, and we shall have another great jewel robbery. I won't take
+it in, and I won't have the money, and I will have my own way. Lady
+Glen will tell you that I can be very obstinate when I please."</p>
+
+
+<div class="center"><a id="ill30"></a>
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4px">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/ill30.jpg">
+      <img src="images/ill30-t.jpg" width="550"
+      alt='"LADY GLEN WILL TELL YOU THAT I CAN BE
+      VERY OBSTINATE WHEN I PLEASE."' /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption"><span class="smallcaps">"Lady Glen will
+      tell you that I can be very obstinate when I please."</span><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/ill30.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>Lady Glencora had told him so already. She had been quite sure that
+her friend would persist in her determination as to the legacy, and
+had thought that her husband should simply accept Madame Goesler's
+assurances to that effect. But a man who had been Chancellor of the
+Exchequer could not deal with money, or even with jewels, so lightly.
+He assured his wife that such an arrangement was quite out of the
+question. He remarked that property was property, by which he meant
+to intimate that the real owner of substantial wealth could not be
+allowed to disembarrass himself of his responsibilities or strip
+himself of his privileges by a few generous but idle words. The late
+Duke's will was a very serious thing, and it seemed to the heir that
+this abandoning of a legacy bequeathed by the Duke was a making light
+of the Duke's last act and deed. To refuse money in such
+circumstances was almost like refusing rain from heaven, or warmth
+from the sun. It could not be done. The things were her property, and
+though she might, of course, chuck them into the street, they would
+no less be hers. "But I won't have them, Duke," said Madame Goesler;
+and the late Chancellor of the Exchequer found that no proposition
+made by him in the House had ever been received with a firmer
+opposition. His wife told him that nothing he could say would be of
+any avail, and rather ridiculed his idea of the solemnity of wills.
+"You can't make a person take a thing because you write it down on a
+thick bit of paper, any more than if you gave it her across a table.
+I understand it all, of course. She means to show that she didn't
+want anything from the Duke. As she refused the name and title, she
+won't have the money and jewels. You can't make her take them, and
+I'm quite sure you can't talk her over." The young Duke was not
+persuaded, but had to give the battle up,&mdash;at any rate, for the
+present.</p>
+
+<p>On the 19th of March Madame Goesler returned to London, having been
+at Matching Priory for more than three weeks. On her journey back to
+Park Lane many thoughts crowded on her mind. Had she, upon the whole,
+done well in reference to the Duke of Omnium? The last three years of
+her life had been sacrificed to an old man with whom she had not in
+truth possessed aught in common. She had persuaded herself that there
+had existed a warm friendship between them;&mdash;but of what nature could
+have been a friendship with one whom she had not known till he had
+been in his dotage? What words of the Duke's speaking had she ever
+heard with pleasure, except certain terms of affection which had been
+half mawkish and half senile? She had told Phineas Finn, while riding
+home with him from Broughton Spinnies, that she had clung to the Duke
+because she loved him, but what had there been to produce such love?
+The Duke had begun his acquaintance with her by insulting her,&mdash;and
+had then offered to make her his wife. This,&mdash;which would have
+conferred upon her some tangible advantages, such as rank, and
+wealth, and a great name,&mdash;she had refused, thinking that the price
+to be paid for them was too high, and that life might even yet have
+something better in store for her. After that she had permitted
+herself to become, after a fashion, head nurse to the old man, and in
+that pursuit had wasted three years of what remained to her of her
+youth. People, at any rate, should not say of her that she had
+accepted payment for the three years' service by taking a casket of
+jewels. She would take nothing that should justify any man in saying
+that she had been enriched by her acquaintance with the Duke of
+Omnium. It might be that she had been foolish, but she would be more
+foolish still were she to accept a reward for her folly. As it was
+there had been something of romance in it,&mdash;though the romance of
+friendship at the bedside of a sick and selfish old man had hardly
+been satisfactory.</p>
+
+<p>Even in her close connection with the present Duchess there was
+something which was almost hollow. Had there not been a compact
+between them, never expressed, but not the less understood? Had not
+her dear friend, Lady Glen, agreed to bestow upon her support,
+fashion, and all kinds of worldly good things,&mdash;on condition that she
+never married the old Duke? She had liked Lady Glencora,&mdash;had enjoyed
+her friend's society, and been happy in her friend's company,&mdash;but
+she had always felt that Lady Glencora's attraction to herself had
+been simply on the score of the Duke. It was necessary that the Duke
+should be pampered and kept in good humour. An old man, let him be
+ever so old, can do what he likes with himself and his belongings. To
+keep the Duke out of harm's way Lady Glencora had opened her arms to
+Madame Goesler. Such, at least, was the interpretation which Madame
+Goesler chose to give to the history of the last three years. They
+had not, she thought, quite understood her. When once she had made up
+her mind not to marry the Duke, the Duke had been safe from her;&mdash;as
+his jewels and money should be safe now that he was dead.</p>
+
+<p>Three years had passed by, and nothing had been done of that which
+she had intended to do. Three years had passed, which to her, with
+her desires, were so important. And yet she hardly knew what were her
+desires, and had never quite defined her intentions. She told herself
+on this very journey that the time had now gone by, and that in
+losing these three years she had lost everything. As yet,&mdash;so she
+declared to herself now,&mdash;the world had done but little for her. Two
+old men had loved her; one had become her husband, and the other had
+asked to become so;&mdash;and to both she had done her duty. To both she
+had been grateful, tender, and self-sacrificing. From the former she
+had, as his widow, taken wealth which she valued greatly; but the
+wealth alone had given her no happiness. From the latter, and from
+his family, she had accepted a certain position. Some persons, high
+in repute and fashion, had known her before, but everybody knew her
+now. And yet what had all this done for her? Dukes and duchesses,
+dinner-parties and drawing-rooms,&mdash;what did they all amount to? What
+was it that she wanted?</p>
+
+<p>She was ashamed to tell herself that it was love. But she knew
+this,&mdash;that it was necessary for her happiness that she should devote
+herself to some one. All the elegancies and outward charms of life
+were delightful, if only they could be used as the means to some end.
+As an end themselves they were nothing. She had devoted herself to
+this old man who was now dead, and there had been moments in which
+she had thought that that sufficed. But it had not sufficed, and
+instead of being borne down by grief at the loss of her friend, she
+found herself almost rejoicing at relief from a vexatious burden. Had
+she been a hypocrite then? Was it her nature to be false? After that
+she reflected whether it might not be best for her to become a
+devotee,&mdash;it did not matter much in what branch of the Christian
+religion, so that she could assume some form of faith. The sour
+strictness of the confident Calvinist or the asceticism of St.
+Francis might suit her equally,&mdash;if she could only believe in Calvin
+or in St. Francis. She had tried to believe in the Duke of Omnium,
+but there she had failed. There had been a saint at whose shrine she
+thought she could have worshipped with a constant and happy devotion,
+but that saint had repulsed her from his altar.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Maule, Senior, not understanding much of all this, but still
+understanding something, thought that he might perhaps be the saint.
+He knew well that audacity in asking is a great merit in a
+middle-aged wooer. He was a good deal older than the lady, who, in
+spite of all her experiences, was hardly yet thirty. But then he
+was,&mdash;he felt sure,&mdash;very young for his age, whereas she was old. She
+was a widow; he was a widower. She had a house in town and an income.
+He had a place in the country and an estate. She knew all the dukes
+and duchesses, and he was a man of family. She could make him
+comfortably opulent. He could make her Mrs. Maule of Maule Abbey.
+She, no doubt, was good-looking. Mr. Maule, Senior, as he tied on his
+cravat, thought that even in that respect there was no great
+disparity between them. Considering his own age, Mr. Maule, Senior,
+thought there was not perhaps a better-looking man than himself about
+Pall Mall. He was a little stiff in the joints and moved rather
+slowly, but what was wanting in suppleness was certainly made up in
+dignity.</p>
+
+<p>He watched his opportunity, and called in Park Lane on the day after
+Madame Goesler's return. There was already between them an amount of
+acquaintance which justified his calling, and, perhaps, there had
+been on the lady's part something of that cordiality of manner which
+is wont to lead to intimate friendship. Mr. Maule had made himself
+agreeable, and Madame Goesler had seemed to be grateful. He was
+admitted, and on such an occasion it was impossible not to begin the
+conversation about the "dear Duke." Mr. Maule could afford to talk
+about the Duke, and to lay aside for a short time his own cause, as
+he had not suggested to himself the possibility of becoming
+pressingly tender on his own behalf on this particular occasion.
+Audacity in wooing is a great virtue, but a man must measure even his
+virtues. "I heard that you had gone to Matching, as soon as the poor
+Duke was taken ill," he said.</p>
+
+<p>She was in mourning, and had never for a moment thought of denying
+the peculiarity of the position she had held in reference to the old
+man. She could not have been content to wear her ordinary coloured
+garments after sitting so long by the side of the dying man. A hired
+nurse may do so, but she had not been that. If there had been
+hypocrisy in her friendship the hypocrisy must be maintained to the
+end.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor old man! I only came back yesterday."</p>
+
+<p>"I never had the pleasure of knowing his Grace," said Mr. Maule. "But
+I have always heard him named as a nobleman of whom England might
+well be proud."</p>
+
+<p>Madame Goesler was not at the moment inclined to tell lies on the
+matter, and did not think that England had much cause to be proud of
+the Duke of Omnium. "He was a man who held a very peculiar position,"
+she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Most peculiar;&mdash;a man of infinite wealth, and of that special
+dignity which I am sorry to say so many men of rank among us are
+throwing aside as a garment which is too much for them. We can all
+wear coats, but it is not every one that can carry a robe. The Duke
+carried his to the last." Madame Goesler remembered how he looked
+with his nightcap on, when he had lost his temper because they would
+not let him have a glass of cura&ccedil;oa. "I don't know that we have any
+one left that can be said to be his equal," continued Mr. Maule.</p>
+
+<p>"No one like him, perhaps. He was never married, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"But was once willing to marry," said Mr. Maule, "if all that we hear
+be true." Madame Goesler, without a smile and equally without a
+frown, looked as though the meaning of Mr. Maule's words had escaped
+her. "A grand old gentleman! I don't know that anybody will ever say
+as much for his heir."</p>
+
+<p>"The men are very different."</p>
+
+<p>"Very different indeed. I dare say that Mr. Palliser, as Mr.
+Palliser, has been a useful man. But so is a coal-heaver a useful
+man. The grace and beauty of life will be clean gone when we all
+become useful men."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think we are near that yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Upon my word, Madame Goesler, I am not so sure about it. Here are
+sons of noblemen going into trade on every side of us. We have earls
+dealing in butter, and marquises sending their peaches to market.
+There was nothing of that kind about the Duke. A great fortune had
+been entrusted to him, and he knew that it was his duty to spend it.
+He did spend it, and all the world looked up to him. It must have
+been a great pleasure to you to know him so well."</p>
+
+<p>Madame Goesler was saved the necessity of making any answer to this
+by the announcement of another visitor. The door was opened, and
+Phineas Finn entered the room. He had not seen Madame Goesler since
+they had been together at Harrington Hall, and had never before met
+Mr. Maule. When riding home with the lady after their unsuccessful
+attempt to jump out of the wood, Phineas had promised to call in Park
+Lane whenever he should learn that Madame Goesler was not at
+Matching. Since that the Duke had died, and the bond with Matching no
+longer existed. It seemed but the other day that they were talking
+about the Duke together, and now the Duke was gone. "I see you are in
+mourning," said Phineas, as he still held her hand. "I must say one
+word to condole with you for your lost friend."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Maule and I were now speaking of him," she said, as she
+introduced the two gentlemen. "Mr. Finn and I had the pleasure of
+meeting your son at Harrington Hall a few weeks since, Mr. Maule."</p>
+
+<p>"I heard that he had been there. Did you know the Duke, Mr. Finn?"</p>
+
+<p>"After the fashion in which such a one as I would know such a one as
+the Duke, I knew him. He probably had forgotten my existence."</p>
+
+<p>"He never forgot any one," said Madame Goesler.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know that I was ever introduced to him," continued Mr.
+Maule, "and I shall always regret it. I was telling Madame Goesler
+how profound a reverence I had for the Duke's character." Phineas
+bowed, and Madame Goesler, who was becoming tired of the Duke as a
+subject of conversation, asked some question as to what had been
+going on in the House. Mr. Maule, finding it to be improbable that he
+should be able to advance his cause on that occasion, took his leave.
+The moment he was gone Madame Goesler's manner changed altogether.
+She left her former seat and came near to Phineas, sitting on a sofa
+close to the chair he occupied; and as she did so she pushed her hair
+back from her face in a manner that he remembered well in former
+days.</p>
+
+<p>"I am so glad to see you," she said. "Is it not odd that he should
+have gone so soon after what we were saying but the other day?"</p>
+
+<p>"You thought then that he would not last long."</p>
+
+<p>"Long is comparative. I did not think he would be dead within six
+weeks, or I should not have been riding there. He was a burden to me,
+Mr. Finn."</p>
+
+<p>"I can understand that."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet I shall miss him sorely. He had given all the colour to my
+life which it possessed. It was not very bright, but still it was
+colour."</p>
+
+<p>"The house will be open to you just the same."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not go there. I shall see Lady Glencora in town, of course;
+but I shall not go to Matching; and as to Gatherum Castle, I would
+not spend another week there, if they would give it me. You haven't
+heard of his will?"</p>
+
+<p>"No;&mdash;not a word. I hope he remembered you,&mdash;to mention your name.
+You hardly wanted more."</p>
+
+<p>"Just so. I wanted no more than that."</p>
+
+<p>"It was made, perhaps, before you knew him."</p>
+
+<p>"He was always making it, and always altering it. He left me money,
+and jewels of enormous value."</p>
+
+<p>"I am so glad to hear it."</p>
+
+<p>"But I have refused to take anything. Am I not right?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know why you should refuse."</p>
+
+<p>"There are people who will say that&mdash;I was his mistress. If a woman
+be young, a man's age never prevents such scandal. I don't know that
+I can stop it, but I can perhaps make it seem to be less probable.
+And after all that has passed, I could not bear that the Pallisers
+should think that I clung to him for what I could get. I should be
+easier this way."</p>
+
+<p>"Whatever is best to be done, you will do it;&mdash;I know that."</p>
+
+<p>"Your praise goes beyond the mark, my friend. I can be both generous
+and discreet;&mdash;but the difficulty is to be true. I did take one
+thing,&mdash;a black diamond that he always wore. I would show it you, but
+the goldsmith has it to make it fit me. When does the great affair
+come off at the House?"</p>
+
+<p>"The bill will be read again on Monday, the first."</p>
+
+<p>"What an unfortunate day!&mdash;You remember young Mr. Maule? Is he not
+like his father? And yet in manners they are as unlike as possible."</p>
+
+<p>"What is the father?" Phineas asked.</p>
+
+<p>"A battered old beau about London, selfish and civil, pleasant and
+penniless, and I should think utterly without a principle. Come again
+soon. I am so anxious to hear that you are getting on. And you have
+got to tell me all about that shooting with the pistol." Phineas as
+he walked away thought that Madame Goesler was handsomer even than
+she used to be.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c31"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXXI.</h3>
+<h4>THE DUKE AND DUCHESS IN TOWN.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>At the end of March the Duchess of Omnium, never more to be called
+Lady Glencora by the world at large, came up to London. The Duke,
+though he was now banished from the House of Commons, was
+nevertheless wanted in London; and what funereal ceremonies were left
+might be accomplished as well in town as at Matching Priory. No old
+Ministry could be turned out and no new Ministry formed without the
+assistance of the young Duchess. It was a question whether she should
+not be asked to be Mistress of the Robes, though those who asked it
+knew very well that she was the last woman in England to hamper
+herself by dependence on the Court. Up to London they came; and,
+though of course they went into no society, the house in Carlton
+Gardens was continually thronged with people who had some special
+reason for breaking the ordinary rules of etiquette in their desire
+to see how Lady Glencora carried herself as Duchess of Omnium. "Do
+you think she's altered much?" said Aspasia Fitzgibbon, an elderly
+spinster, the daughter of Lord Claddagh, and sister of Laurence
+Fitzgibbon, member for one of the western Irish counties. "I don't
+think she was quite so loud as she used to be."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Bonteen was of opinion that there was a change. "She was always
+uncertain, you know, and would scratch like a cat if you offended
+her."</p>
+
+<p>"And won't she scratch now?" asked Miss Fitzgibbon.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid she'll scratch oftener. It was always a trick of hers to
+pretend to think nothing of rank;&mdash;but she values her place as highly
+as any woman in England."</p>
+
+<p>This was Mrs. Bonteen's opinion; but Lady Baldock, who was present,
+differed. This Lady Baldock was not the mother, but the sister-in-law
+of that Augusta Boreham who had lately become Sister Veronica John.
+"I don't believe it," said Lady Baldock. "She always seems to me to
+be like a great schoolgirl who has been allowed too much of her own
+way. I think people give way to her too much, you know." As Lady
+Baldock was herself the wife of a peer, she naturally did not stand
+so much in awe of a duchess as did Mrs. Bonteen, or Miss Fitzgibbon.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you seen the young Duke?" asked Mr. Ratler of Barrington Erle.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I have been with him this morning."</p>
+
+<p>"How does he like it?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's bothered out of his life,&mdash;as a hen would be if you were to
+throw her into water. He's so shy, he hardly knows how to speak to
+you; and he broke down altogether when I said something about the
+Lords."</p>
+
+<p>"He'll not do much more."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know about that," said Erle. "He'll get used to it, and go
+into harness again. He's a great deal too good to be lost."</p>
+
+<p>"He didn't give himself airs?"</p>
+
+<p>"What!&mdash;Planty Pall! If I know anything of a man he's not the man to
+do that because he's a duke. He can hold his own against all comers,
+and always could. Quiet as he always seemed, he knew who he was, and
+who other people were. I don't think you'll find much difference in
+him when he has got over the annoyance." Mr. Ratler, however, was of
+a different opinion. Mr. Ratler had known many docile members of the
+House of Commons who had become peers by the death of uncles and
+fathers, and who had lost all respect for him as soon as they were
+released from the crack of the whip. Mr. Ratler rather despised peers
+who had been members of the House of Commons, and who passed by
+inheritance from a scene of unparalleled use and influence to one of
+idle and luxurious dignity.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after their arrival in London the Duchess wrote the following
+very characteristic letter:&mdash;<br />&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smallcaps">Dear Lord Chiltern</span>,</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Palliser&mdash; [Then having begun with a mistake, she scratched the
+word through with her pen.] The Duke has asked me to write about
+Trumpeton Wood, as he knows nothing about it, and I know just as
+little. But if you say what you want, it shall be done. Shall we get
+foxes and put them there? Or ought there to be a special fox-keeper?
+You mustn't be angry because the poor old Duke was too feeble to take
+notice of the matter. Only speak, and it shall be done.</p>
+
+<p class="ind10">Yours faithfully,</p>
+
+<p class="ind15"><span class="smallcaps">Glencora O</span>.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">Madame Goesler spoke to me about it; but
+at that time we were in trouble.<br />&nbsp;</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+<p>The answer was as characteristic:&mdash;<br />&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smallcaps">Dear Duchess of
+Omnium</span>,</p>
+
+<p>Thanks. What is wanted, is that keepers should know that there are to
+be foxes. When keepers know that foxes are really expected, there
+always are foxes. The men latterly have known just the contrary. It
+is all a question of shooting. I don't mean to say a word against the
+late Duke. When he got old the thing became bad. No doubt it will be
+right now.</p>
+
+<p class="ind12">Faithfully yours,</p>
+
+<p class="ind15"><span class="smallcaps">Chiltern</span>.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">Our hounds have been poisoned
+in Trumpeton Wood. This would never have been done had not
+the keepers been against the hunting.<br />&nbsp;</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+<p>Upon receipt of this she sent the letter to Mr. Fothergill, with a
+request that there might be no more shooting in Trumpeton Wood. "I'll
+be shot if we'll stand that, you know," said Mr. Fothergill to one of
+his underlings. "There are two hundred and fifty acres in Trumpeton
+Wood, and we're never to kill another pheasant because Lord Chiltern
+is Master of the Brake Hounds. Property won't be worth having at that
+rate."</p>
+
+<p>The Duke by no means intended to abandon the world of politics, or
+even the narrower sphere of ministerial work, because he had been
+ousted from the House of Commons, and from the possibility of filling
+the office which he had best liked. This was proved to the world by
+the choice of his house for a meeting of the party on the 30th of
+March. As it happened, this was the very day on which he and the
+Duchess returned to London; but nevertheless the meeting was held
+there, and he was present at it. Mr. Gresham then repeated his
+reasons for opposing Mr. Daubeny's bill; and declared that even while
+doing so he would, with the approbation of his party, pledge himself
+to bring in a bill somewhat to the same effect, should he ever again
+find himself in power. And he declared that he would do this solely
+with the view of showing how strong was his opinion that such a
+measure should not be left in the hands of the Conservative party. It
+was doubted whether such a political proposition had ever before been
+made in England. It was a simple avowal that on this occasion men
+were to be regarded, and not measures. No doubt such is the case, and
+ever has been the case, with the majority of active politicians. The
+double pleasure of pulling down an opponent, and of raising oneself,
+is the charm of a politician's life. And by practice this becomes
+extended to so many branches, that the delights,&mdash;and also the
+disappointments,&mdash;are very widespread. Great satisfaction is felt by
+us because by some lucky conjunction of affairs our man, whom we
+never saw, is made Lord-Lieutenant of a county, instead of another
+man, of whom we know as little. It is a great thing to us that Sir
+Samuel Bobwig, an excellent Liberal, is seated high on the bench of
+justice, instead of that time-serving Conservative, Sir Alexander
+McSilk. Men and not measures are, no doubt, the very life of
+politics. But then it is not the fashion to say so in public places.
+Mr. Gresham was determined to introduce that fashion on the present
+occasion. He did not think very much of Mr. Daubeny's Bill. So he
+told his friends at the Duke's house. The Bill was full of
+faults,&mdash;went too far in one direction, and not far enough in
+another. It was not difficult to pick holes in the Bill. But the sin
+of sins consisted in this,&mdash;that it was to be passed, if passed at
+all, by the aid of men who would sin against their consciences by
+each vote they gave in its favour. What but treachery could be
+expected from an army in which every officer, and every private, was
+called upon to fight against his convictions? The meeting passed off
+with dissension, and it was agreed that the House of Commons should
+be called upon to reject the Church Bill simply because it was
+proposed from that side of the House on which the minority was
+sitting. As there were more than two hundred members present on the
+occasion, by none of whom were any objections raised, it seemed
+probable that Mr. Gresham might be successful. There was still,
+however, doubt in the minds of some men. "It's all very well," said
+Mr. Ratler, "but Turnbull wasn't there, you know."</p>
+
+<p>But from what took place the next day but one in Park Lane it would
+almost seem that the Duchess had been there. She came at once to see
+Madame Goesler, having very firmly determined that the Duke's death
+should not have the appearance of interrupting her intimacy with her
+friend. "Was it not very disagreeable,"&mdash;asked Madame Goesler,&mdash;"just
+the day you came to town?"</p>
+
+<p>"We didn't think of that at all. One is not allowed to think of
+anything now. It was very improper, of course, because of the Duke's
+death;&mdash;but that had to be put on one side. And then it was quite
+contrary to etiquette that Peers and Commoners should be brought
+together. I think there was some idea of making sure of Plantagenet,
+and so they all came and wore out our carpets. There wasn't above a
+dozen peers; but they were enough to show that all the old landmarks
+have been upset. I don't think any one would have objected if I had
+opened the meeting myself, and called upon Mrs. Bonteen to second
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"Why Mrs. Bonteen?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because next to myself she's the most talkative and political woman
+we have. She was at our house yesterday, and I'm not quite sure that
+she doesn't intend to cut me out."</p>
+
+<p>"We must put her down, Lady Glen."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps she'll put me down now that we're half shelved. The men did
+make such a racket, and yet no one seemed to speak for two minutes
+except Mr. Gresham, who stood upon my pet footstool, and kicked it
+almost to pieces."</p>
+
+<p>"Was Mr. Finn there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Everybody was there, I suppose. What makes you ask particularly
+about Mr. Finn?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because he's a friend."</p>
+
+<p>"That's come up again, has it? He's the handsome Irishman, isn't he,
+that came to Matching, the same day that brought you there?"</p>
+
+<p>"He is an Irishman, and he was at Matching, that day."</p>
+
+<p>"He's certainly handsome. What a day that was, Marie! When one thinks
+of it all,&mdash;of all the perils and all the salvations, how strange it
+is! I wonder whether you would have liked it now if you were the
+Dowager Duchess."</p>
+
+<p>"I should have had some enjoyment, I suppose."</p>
+
+
+<div class="center"><a id="ill31"></a>
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4px">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/ill31.jpg">
+      <img src="images/ill31-t.jpg" height="600"
+      alt='"I SHOULD HAVE HAD SOME ENJOYMENT, I SUPPOSE."' /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption"><span class="smallcaps">"I should
+      have had some enjoyment, I suppose."</span><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/ill31.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>"I don't know that it would have done us any harm, and yet how keen I
+was about it. We can't give you the rank now, and you won't take the
+money."</p>
+
+<p>"Not the money, certainly."</p>
+
+<p>"Plantagenet says you'll have to take it;&mdash;but it seems to me he's
+always wrong. There are so many things that one must do that one
+doesn't do. He never perceives that everything gets changed every
+five years. So Mr. Finn is the favourite again?"</p>
+
+<p>"He is a friend whom I like. I may be allowed to have a friend, I
+suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"A dozen, my dear;&mdash;and all of them good-looking. Good-bye, dear.
+Pray come to us. Don't stand off and make yourself disagreeable. We
+shan't be giving dinner parties, but you can come whenever you
+please. Tell me at once;&mdash;do you mean to be disagreeable?"</p>
+
+<p>Then Madame Goesler was obliged to promise that she would not be more
+disagreeable than her nature had made her.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c32"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXXII.</h3>
+<h4>THE WORLD BECOMES COLD.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>A great deal was said by very many persons in London as to the
+murderous attack which had been made by Mr. Kennedy on Phineas Finn
+in Judd Street, but the advice given by Mr. Slide in The People's
+Banner to the police was not taken. No public or official inquiry
+was made into the circumstance. Mr. Kennedy, under the care of his
+cousin, retreated to Scotland; and, as it seemed, there was to be an
+end of it. Throughout the month of March various smaller bolts were
+thrust both at Phineas and at the police by the editor of the
+above-named newspaper, but they seemed to fall without much effect.
+No one was put in prison; nor was any one ever examined. But,
+nevertheless, these missiles had their effect. Everybody knew that
+there had been a "row" between Mr. Kennedy and Phineas Finn, and that
+the "row" had been made about Mr. Kennedy's wife. Everybody knew that
+a pistol had been fired at Finn's head; and a great many people
+thought that there had been some cause for the assault. It was
+alleged at one club that the present member for Tankerville had spent
+the greater part of the last two years at Dresden, and at another
+that he had called on Mr. Kennedy twice, once down in Scotland, and
+once at the hotel in Judd Street, with a view of inducing that
+gentleman to concede to a divorce. There was also a very romantic
+story afloat as to an engagement which had existed between Lady Laura
+and Phineas Finn before the lady had been induced by her father to
+marry the richer suitor. Various details were given in corroboration
+of these stories. Was it not known that the Earl had purchased the
+submission of Phineas Finn by a seat for his borough of Loughton? Was
+it not known that Lord Chiltern, the brother of Lady Laura, had
+fought a duel with Phineas Finn? Was it not known that Mr. Kennedy
+himself had been as it were coerced into quiescence by the singular
+fact that he had been saved from garotters in the street by the
+opportune interference of Phineas Finn? It was even suggested that
+the scene with the garotters had been cunningly planned by Phineas
+Finn, that he might in this way be able to restrain the anger of the
+husband of the lady whom he loved. All these stories were very
+pretty; but as the reader, it is hoped, knows, they were all untrue.
+Phineas had made but one short visit to Dresden in his life. Lady
+Laura had been engaged to Mr. Kennedy before Phineas had ever spoken
+to her of his love. The duel with Lord Chiltern had been about
+another lady, and the seat at Loughton had been conferred upon
+Phineas chiefly on account of his prowess in extricating Mr. Kennedy
+from the garotters,&mdash;respecting which circumstance it may be said
+that as the meeting in the street was fortuitous, the reward was
+greater than the occasion seemed to require.</p>
+
+<p>While all these things were being said Phineas became something of a
+hero. A man who is supposed to have caused a disturbance between two
+married people, in a certain rank of life, does generally receive a
+certain meed of admiration. A man who was asked out to dinner twice a
+week before such rumours were afloat, would probably receive double
+that number of invitations afterwards. And then to have been shot at
+by a madman in a room, and to be the subject of the venom of a
+People's Banner, tends also to Fame. Other ladies besides Madame
+Goesler were anxious to have the story from the very lips of the
+hero, and in this way Phineas Finn became a conspicuous man. But Fame
+begets envy, and there were some who said that the member for
+Tankerville had injured his prospects with his party. It may be very
+well to give a dinner to a man who has caused the wife of a late
+Cabinet Minister to quarrel with her husband; but it can hardly be
+expected that he should be placed in office by the head of the party
+to which that late Cabinet Minister belonged. "I never saw such a
+fellow as you are," said Barrington Erle to him. "You are always
+getting into a mess."</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody ought to know better than you how false all these calumnies
+are." This he said because Erle and Lady Laura were cousins.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course they are calumnies; but you had heard them before, and
+what made you go poking your head into the lion's mouth?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bonteen was very much harder upon him than was Barrington Erle.
+"I never liked him from the first, and always knew he would not run
+straight. No Irishman ever does." This was said to Viscount Fawn, a
+distinguished member of the Liberal party, who had but lately been
+married, and was known to have very strict notions as to the bonds of
+matrimony. He had been heard to say that any man who had interfered
+with the happiness of a married couple should be held to have
+committed a capital offence.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know whether the story about Lady Laura is true."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course it's true. All the world knows it to be true. He was
+always there; at Loughlinter, and at Saulsby, and in Portman Square
+after she had left her husband. The mischief he has done is
+incalculable. There's a Conservative sitting in poor Kennedy's seat
+for Dunross-shire."</p>
+
+<p>"That might have been the case anyway."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing could have turned Kennedy out. Don't you remember how he
+behaved about the Irish Land Question? I hate such fellows."</p>
+
+<p>"If I thought it true about Lady Laura&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Lord Fawn was again about to express his opinion in regard to
+matrimony, but Mr. Bonteen was too impetuous to listen to him. "It's
+out of the question that he should come in again. At any rate if he
+does, I won't. I shall tell Gresham so very plainly. The women will
+do all that they can for him. They always do for a fellow of that
+kind."</p>
+
+<p>Phineas heard of it;&mdash;not exactly by any repetition of the words that
+were spoken, but by chance phrases, and from the looks of men. Lord
+Cantrip, who was his best friend among those who were certain to hold
+high office in a Liberal Government, did not talk to him
+cheerily,&mdash;did not speak as though he, Phineas, would as a matter of
+course have some place assigned to him. And he thought that Mr.
+Gresham was hardly as cordial to him as he might be when they met in
+the closer intercourse of the House. There was always a word or two
+spoken, and sometimes a shaking of hands. He had no right to
+complain. But yet he knew that something was wanting. We can
+generally read a man's purpose towards us in his manner, if his
+purposes are of much moment to us.</p>
+
+<p>Phineas had written to Lady Laura, giving her an account of the
+occurrence in Judd Street on the 1st of March, and had received from
+her a short answer by return of post. It contained hardly more than a
+thanksgiving that his life had not been sacrificed, and in a day or
+two she had written again, letting him know that she had determined
+to consult her father. Then on the last day of the month he received
+the following letter:&mdash;<br />&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="jright">Dresden, March 27th, 18&mdash;.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smallcaps">My dear Friend</span>,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>At last we have resolved that we will go back to England,&mdash;almost at
+once. Things have gone so rapidly that I hardly know how to explain
+them all, but that is Papa's resolution. His lawyer, Mr. Forster,
+tells him that it will be best, and goes so far as to say that it is
+imperative on my behalf that some steps should be taken to put an end
+to the present state of things. I will not scruple to tell you that
+he is actuated chiefly by considerations as to money. It is
+astonishing to me that a man who has all his life been so liberal
+should now in his old age think so much about it. It is, however, in
+no degree for himself. It is all for me. He cannot bear to think that
+my fortune should be withheld from me by Mr. Kennedy while I have
+done nothing wrong. I was obliged to show him your letter, and what
+you said about the control of money took hold of his mind at once. He
+thinks that if my unfortunate husband be insane, there can be no
+difficulty in my obtaining a separation on terms which would oblige
+him or his friends to restore this horrid money.</p>
+
+<p>Of course I could stay if I chose. Papa would not refuse to find a
+home for me here. But I do agree with Mr. Forster that something
+should be done to stop the tongues of ill-conditioned people. The
+idea of having my name dragged through the newspapers is dreadful to
+me; but if this must be done one way or the other, it will be better
+that it should be done with truth. There is nothing that I need
+fear,&mdash;as you know so well.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot look forward to happiness anywhere. If the question of
+separation were once settled, I do not know whether I would not
+prefer returning here to remaining in London. Papa has got tired of
+the place, and wants, he says, to see Saulsby once again before he
+dies. What can I say in answer to this, but that I will go? We have
+sent to have the house in Portman Square got ready for us, and I
+suppose we shall be there about the 15th of next month. Papa has
+instructed Mr. Forster to tell Mr. Kennedy's lawyer that we are
+coming, and he is to find out, if he can, whether any interference in
+the management of the property has been as yet made by the family.
+Perhaps I ought to tell you that Mr. Forster has expressed surprise
+that you did not call on the police when the shot was fired. Of
+course I can understand it all. God bless you.</p>
+
+<p class="ind10">Your affectionate friend,</p>
+
+<p class="ind15">L. K.<br />&nbsp;</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+<p>Phineas was obliged to console himself by reflecting that if she
+understood him of course that was everything. His first and great
+duty in the matter had been to her. If in performing that duty he had
+sacrificed himself, he must bear his undeserved punishment like a
+man. That he was to be punished he began to perceive too clearly. The
+conviction that Mr. Daubeny must recede from the Treasury Bench after
+the coming debate became every day stronger, and within the little
+inner circles of the Liberal party the usual discussions were made as
+to the Ministry which Mr. Gresham would, as a matter of course, be
+called upon to form. But in these discussions Phineas Finn did not
+find himself taking an assured and comfortable part. Laurence
+Fitzgibbon, his countryman,&mdash;who in the way of work had never been
+worth his salt,&mdash;was eager, happy, and without a doubt. Others of the
+old stagers, men who had been going in and out ever since they had
+been able to get seats in Parliament, stood about in clubs, and in
+lobbies, and chambers of the House, with all that busy, magpie air
+which is worn only by those who have high hopes of good things to
+come speedily. Lord Mount Thistle was more sublime and ponderous than
+ever, though they who best understood the party declared that he
+would never again be invited to undergo the cares of office. His
+lordship was one of those terrible political burdens, engendered
+originally by private friendship or family considerations, which one
+Minister leaves to another. Sir Gregory Grogram, the great Whig
+lawyer, showed plainly by his manner that he thought himself at last
+secure of reaching the reward for which he had been struggling all
+his life; for it was understood by all men who knew anything that
+Lord Weazeling was not to be asked again to sit on the Woolsack. No
+better advocate or effective politician ever lived; but it was
+supposed that he lacked dignity for the office of first judge in the
+land. That most of the old lot would come back was a matter of
+course.</p>
+
+<p>There would be the Duke,&mdash;the Duke of St. Bungay, who had for years
+past been "the Duke" when Liberal administrations were discussed, and
+the second Duke, whom we know so well; and Sir Harry Coldfoot, and
+Legge Wilson, Lord Cantrip, Lord Thrift, and the rest of them. There
+would of course be Lord Fawn, Mr. Ratler, and Mr. Erle. The thing was
+so thoroughly settled that one was almost tempted to think that the
+Prime Minister himself would have no voice in the selections to be
+made. As to one office it was acknowledged on all sides that a doubt
+existed which would at last be found to be very injurious,&mdash;as some
+thought altogether crushing,&mdash;to the party. To whom would Mr. Gresham
+entrust the financial affairs of the country? Who would be the new
+Chancellor of the Exchequer? There were not a few who inferred that
+Mr. Bonteen would be promoted to that high office. During the last
+two years he had devoted himself to decimal coinage with a zeal only
+second to that displayed by Plantagenet Palliser, and was accustomed
+to say of himself that he had almost perished under his exertions. It
+was supposed that he would have the support of the present Duke of
+Omnium,&mdash;and that Mr. Gresham, who disliked the man, would be coerced
+by the fact that there was no other competitor. That Mr. Bonteen
+should go into the Cabinet would be gall and wormwood to many brother
+Liberals; but gall and wormwood such as this have to be swallowed.
+The rising in life of our familiar friends is, perhaps, the bitterest
+morsel of the bitter bread which we are called upon to eat in life.
+But we do eat it; and after a while it becomes food to us,&mdash;when we
+find ourselves able to use, on behalf, perhaps, of our children, the
+influence of those whom we had once hoped to leave behind in the race
+of life. When a man suddenly shoots up into power few suffer from it
+very acutely. The rise of a Pitt can have caused no heart-burning.
+But Mr. Bonteen had been a hack among the hacks, had filled the usual
+half-dozen places, had been a junior Lord, a Vice-President, a Deputy
+Controller, a Chief Commissioner, and a Joint Secretary. His hopes
+had been raised or abased among the places of &pound;1,000, &pound;1,200, or
+&pound;1,500 a year. He had hitherto culminated at &pound;2,000, and had been
+supposed with diligence to have worked himself up to the top of the
+ladder, as far as the ladder was accessible to him. And now he was
+spoken of in connection with one of the highest offices of the State!
+Of course this created much uneasiness, and gave rise to many
+prophecies of failure. But in the midst of it all no office was
+assigned to Phineas Finn; and there was a general feeling, not
+expressed, but understood, that his affair with Mr. Kennedy stood in
+his way.</p>
+
+<p>Quintus Slide had undertaken to crush him! Could it be possible that
+so mean a man should be able to make good so monstrous a threat? The
+man was very mean, and the threat had been absurd as well as
+monstrous; and yet it seemed that it might be realised. Phineas was
+too proud to ask questions, even of Barrington Erle, but he felt that
+he was being "left out in the cold," because the editor of The
+People's Banner had said that no government could employ him; and at
+this moment, on the very morning of the day which was to usher in the
+great debate, which was to be so fatal to Mr. Daubeny and his Church
+Reform, another thunderbolt was hurled. The "we" of The People's
+Banner had learned that the very painful matter, to which they had
+been compelled by a sense of duty to call the public attention in
+reference to the late member for Dunross-shire and the present member
+for Tankerville, would be brought before one of the tribunals of the
+country, in reference to the matrimonial differences between Mr.
+Kennedy and his wife. It would be in the remembrance of their readers
+that the unfortunate gentleman had been provoked to fire a pistol at
+the head of the member for Tankerville,&mdash;a circumstance which, though
+publicly known, had never been brought under the notice of the
+police. There was reason to hope that the mystery might now be
+cleared up, and that the ends of justice would demand that a certain
+document should be produced, which they,&mdash;the "we,"&mdash;had been
+vexatiously restrained from giving to their readers, although it had
+been most carefully prepared for publication in the columns of The
+People's Banner. Then the thunderbolt went on to say that there was
+evidently a great move among the members of the so-called Liberal
+party, who seemed to think that it was only necessary that they
+should open their mouths wide enough in order that the sweets of
+office should fall into them. The "we" were quite of a different
+opinion. The "we" believed that no Minister for many a long day had
+been so firmly fixed on the Treasury Bench as was Mr. Daubeny at the
+present moment. But this at any rate might be inferred;&mdash;that should
+Mr. Gresham by any unhappy combination of circumstances be called
+upon to form a Ministry, it would be quite impossible for him to
+include within it the name of the member for Tankerville. This was
+the second great thunderbolt that fell,&mdash;and so did the work of
+crushing our poor friend proceed.</p>
+
+<p>There was a great injustice in all this; at least so Phineas
+thought;&mdash;injustice, not only from the hands of Mr. Slide, who was
+unjust as a matter of course, but also from those who ought to have
+been his staunch friends. He had been enticed over to England almost
+with a promise of office, and he was sure that he had done nothing
+which deserved punishment, or even censure. He could not condescend
+to complain,&mdash;nor indeed as yet could he say that there was ground
+for complaint. Nothing had been done to him. Not a word had been
+spoken,&mdash;except those lying words in the newspapers which he was too
+proud to notice. On one matter, however, he was determined to be
+firm. When Barrington Erle had absolutely insisted that he should
+vote upon the Church Bill in opposition to all that he had said upon
+the subject at Tankerville, he had stipulated that he should have an
+opportunity in the great debate which would certainly take place of
+explaining his conduct,&mdash;or, in other words, that the privilege of
+making a speech should be accorded to him at a time in which very
+many members would no doubt attempt to speak and would attempt in
+vain. It may be imagined,&mdash;probably still is imagined by a great
+many,&mdash;that no such pledge as this could be given, that the right to
+speak depends simply on the Speaker's eye, and that energy at the
+moment in attracting attention would alone be of account to an eager
+orator. But Phineas knew the House too well to trust to such a
+theory. That some preliminary assistance would be given to the
+travelling of the Speaker's eye, in so important a debate, he knew
+very well; and he knew also that a promise from Barrington Erle or
+from Mr. Ratler would be his best security. "That will be all right,
+of course," said Barrington Erle to him on the evening the day before
+the debate: "We have quite counted on your speaking." There had been
+a certain sullenness in the tone with which Phineas had asked his
+question as though he had been labouring under a grievance, and he
+felt himself rebuked by the cordiality of the reply. "I suppose we
+had better fix it for Monday or Tuesday," said the other. "We hope to
+get it over by Tuesday, but there is no knowing. At any rate you
+shan't be thrown over." It was almost on his tongue,&mdash;the entire
+story of his grievance, the expression of his feeling that he was not
+being treated as one of the chosen; but he restrained himself. He
+liked Barrington Erle well enough, but not so well as to justify him
+in asking for sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>Nor had it been his wont in any of the troubles of his life to ask
+for sympathy from a man. He had always gone to some woman;&mdash;in old
+days to Lady Laura, or to Violet Effingham, or to Madame Goesler. By
+them he could endure to be petted, praised, or upon occasion even
+pitied. But pity or praise from any man had been distasteful to him.
+On the morning of the 1st of April he again went to Park Lane, not
+with any formed plan of telling the lady of his wrongs, but driven by
+a feeling that he wanted comfort, which might perhaps be found there.
+The lady received him very kindly, and at once inquired as to the
+great political tournament which was about to be commenced. "Yes; we
+begin to-day," said Phineas. "Mr. Daubeny will speak, I should say,
+from half-past four till seven. I wonder you don't go and hear him."</p>
+
+<p>"What a pleasure! To hear a man speak for two hours and a half about
+the Church of England. One must be very hard driven for amusement!
+Will you tell me that you like it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I like to hear a good speech."</p>
+
+<p>"But you have the excitement before you of making a good speech in
+answer. You are in the fight. A poor woman, shut up in a cage, feels
+there more acutely than anywhere else how insignificant a position
+she fills in the world."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't advocate the rights of women, Madame Goesler?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no. Knowing our inferiority I submit without a grumble; but I am
+not sure that I care to go and listen to the squabbles of my masters.
+You may arrange it all among you, and I will accept what you do,
+whether it be good or bad,&mdash;as I must; but I cannot take so much
+interest in the proceeding as to spend my time in listening where I
+cannot speak, and in looking when I cannot be seen. You will speak?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I think so."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall read your speech, which is more than I shall do for most of
+the others. And when it is all over, will your turn come?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not mine individually, Madame Goesler."</p>
+
+<p>"But it will be yours individually;&mdash;will it not?" she asked with
+energy. Then gradually, with half-pronounced sentences, he explained
+to her that even in the event of the formation of a Liberal
+Government, he did not expect that any place would be offered to him.
+"And why not? We have been all speaking of it as a certainty."</p>
+
+<p>He longed to inquire who were the all of whom she spoke, but he could
+not do it without an egotism which would be distasteful to him. "I
+can hardly tell;&mdash;but I don't think I shall be asked to join them."</p>
+
+<p>"You would wish it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes;&mdash;talking to you I do not see why I should hesitate to say so."</p>
+
+<p>"Talking to me, why should you hesitate to say anything about
+yourself that is true? I can hold my tongue. I do not gossip about my
+friends. Whose doing is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know that it is any man's doing."</p>
+
+<p>"But it must be. Everybody said that you were to be one of them if
+you could get the other people out. Is it Mr. Bonteen?"</p>
+
+<p>"Likely enough. Not that I know anything of the kind; but as I hate
+him from the bottom of my heart, it is natural to suppose that he has
+the same feeling in regard to me."</p>
+
+<p>"I agree with you there."</p>
+
+<p>"But I don't know that it comes from any feeling of that kind."</p>
+
+<p>"What does it come from?"</p>
+
+<p>"You have heard all the calumny about Lady Laura Kennedy."</p>
+
+<p>"You do not mean to say that a story such as that has affected your
+position."</p>
+
+<p>"I fancy it has. But you must not suppose, Madame Goesler, that I
+mean to complain. A man must take these things as they come. No one
+has received more kindness from friends than I have, and few perhaps
+more favours from fortune. All this about Mr. Kennedy has been
+unlucky,&mdash;but it cannot be helped."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to say that the morals of your party will be offended?"
+said Madame Goesler, almost laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord Fawn, you know, is very particular. In sober earnest one cannot
+tell how these things operate; but they do operate gradually. One's
+friends are sometimes very glad of an excuse for not befriending
+one."</p>
+
+<p>"Lady Laura is coming home?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"That will put an end to it."</p>
+
+<p>"There is nothing to put an end to except the foul-mouthed malice of
+a lying newspaper. Nobody believes anything against Lady Laura."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not so sure of that. I believe nothing against her."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure you do not, Madame Goesler. Nor do I think that anybody
+does. It is too absurd for belief from beginning to end. Good-bye.
+Perhaps I shall see you when the debate is over."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you will. Good-bye, and success to your oratory." Then
+Madame Goesler resolved that she would say a few judicious words to
+her friend, the Duchess, respecting Phineas Finn.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c33"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXXIII.</h3>
+<h4>THE TWO GLADIATORS.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>The great debate was commenced with all the solemnities which are
+customary on such occasions, and which make men think for the day
+that no moment of greater excitement has ever blessed or cursed the
+country. Upon the present occasion London was full of clergymen. The
+specially clerical clubs,&mdash;the Oxford and Cambridge, the Old
+University, and the Athenaeum,&mdash;were black with them. The bishops and
+deans, as usual, were pleasant in their manner and happy-looking, in
+spite of adverse circumstances. When one sees a bishop in the hours
+of the distress of the Church, one always thinks of the just and firm
+man who will stand fearless while the ruins of the world are falling
+about his ears. But the parsons from the country were a sorry sight
+to see. They were in earnest with all their hearts, and did
+believe,&mdash;not that the crack of doom was coming, which they could
+have borne with equanimity if convinced that their influence would
+last to the end,&mdash;but that the Evil One was to be made welcome upon
+the earth by Act of Parliament. It is out of nature that any man
+should think it good that his own order should be repressed,
+curtailed, and deprived of its power. If we go among cab-drivers or
+letter-carriers, among butlers or gamekeepers, among tailors or
+butchers, among farmers or graziers, among doctors or attorneys, we
+shall find in each set of men a conviction that the welfare of the
+community depends upon the firmness with which they,&mdash;especially
+they,&mdash;hold their own. This is so manifestly true with the Bar that
+no barrister in practice scruples to avow that barristers in practice
+are the salt of the earth. The personal confidence of a judge in his
+own position is beautiful, being salutary to the country, though not
+unfrequently damaging to the character of the man. But if this be so
+with men who are conscious of no higher influence than that exercised
+over the bodies and minds of their fellow creatures, how much
+stronger must be the feeling when the influence affects the soul! To
+the outsider, or layman, who simply uses a cab, or receives a letter,
+or goes to law, or has to be tried, these pretensions are ridiculous
+or annoying, according to the ascendancy of the pretender at the
+moment. But as the clerical pretensions are more exacting than all
+others, being put forward with an assertion that no answer is
+possible without breach of duty and sin, so are they more galling.
+The fight has been going on since the idea of a mitre first entered
+the heart of a priest,&mdash;since dominion in this world has found itself
+capable of sustentation by the exercise of fear as to the world to
+come. We do believe,&mdash;the majority among us does so,&mdash;that if we live
+and die in sin we shall after some fashion come to great punishment,
+and we believe also that by having pastors among us who shall be men
+of God, we may best aid ourselves and our children in avoiding this
+bitter end. But then the pastors and men of God can only be
+human,&mdash;cannot be altogether men of God; and so they have oppressed
+us, and burned us, and tortured us, and hence come to love palaces,
+and fine linen, and purple, and, alas, sometimes, mere luxury and
+idleness. The torturing and the burning, as also to speak truth the
+luxury and the idleness, have, among us, been already conquered, but
+the idea of ascendancy remains. What is a thoughtful man to do who
+acknowledges the danger of his soul, but cannot swallow his parson
+whole simply because he has been sent to him from some source in
+which he has no special confidence, perhaps by some distant lord,
+perhaps by a Lord Chancellor whose political friend has had a son
+with a tutor? What is he to do when, in spite of some fine linen and
+purple left among us, the provision for the man of God in his parish
+or district is so poor that no man of God fitted to teach him will
+come and take it? In no spirit of animosity to religion he begins to
+tell himself that Church and State together was a monkish
+combination, fit perhaps for monkish days, but no longer having
+fitness, and not much longer capable of existence in this country.
+But to the parson himself,&mdash;to the honest, hardworking, conscientious
+priest who does in his heart of hearts believe that no diminution in
+the general influence of his order can be made without ruin to the
+souls of men,&mdash;this opinion, when it becomes dominant, is as though
+the world were in truth breaking to pieces over his head. The world
+has been broken to pieces in the same way often;&mdash;but extreme Chaos
+does not come. The cabman and the letter-carrier always expect that
+Chaos will very nearly come when they are disturbed. The barristers
+are sure of Chaos when the sanctity of Benchers is in question. What
+utter Chaos would be promised to us could any one with impunity
+contemn the majesty of the House of Commons! But of all these Chaoses
+there can be no Chaos equal to that which in the mind of a zealous
+Oxford-bred constitutional country parson must attend that
+annihilation of his special condition which will be produced by the
+disestablishment of the Church. Of all good fellows he is the best
+good fellow. He is genial, hospitable, well-educated, and always has
+either a pretty wife or pretty daughters. But he has so extreme a
+belief in himself that he cannot endure to be told that absolute
+Chaos will not come at once if he be disturbed. And now
+disturbances,&mdash;ay, and utter dislocation and ruin were to come from
+the hands of a friend! Was it wonderful that parsons should be seen
+about Westminster in flocks with <i>"Et tu, Brute"</i> written on their
+faces as plainly as the law on the brows of a Pharisee?</p>
+
+<p>The Speaker had been harassed for orders. The powers and prowess of
+every individual member had been put to the test. The galleries were
+crowded. Ladies' places had been ballotted for with desperate
+enthusiasm, in spite of the sarcasm against the House which Madame
+Goesler had expressed. Two royal princes and a royal duke were
+accommodated within the House in an irregular manner. Peers swarmed
+in the passages, and were too happy to find standing room. Bishops
+jostled against lay barons with no other preference than that
+afforded to them by their broader shoulders. Men, and especially
+clergymen, came to the galleries loaded with sandwiches and flasks,
+prepared to hear all there was to be heard should the debate last
+from 4 <span class="smallcaps">p.m.</span>
+to the same hour on the following morning. At two in the
+afternoon the entrances to the House were barred, and men of all
+ranks,&mdash;deans, prebends, peers' sons, and baronets,&mdash;stood there
+patiently waiting till some powerful nobleman should let them
+through. The very ventilating chambers under the House were filled
+with courteous listeners, who had all pledged themselves that under
+no possible provocation would they even cough during the debate.</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes after four, in a House from which hardly more than a
+dozen members were absent, Mr. Daubeny took his seat with that air of
+affected indifference to things around him which is peculiar to him.
+He entered slowly, amidst cheers from his side of the House, which no
+doubt were loud in proportion to the dismay of the cheerers as to the
+matter in hand. Gentlemen lacking substantial sympathy with their
+leader found it to be comfortable to deceive themselves, and raise
+their hearts at the same time by the easy enthusiasm of noise. Mr.
+Daubeny having sat down and covered his head just raised his hat from
+his brows, and then tried to look as though he were no more than any
+other gentleman present. But the peculiar consciousness of the man
+displayed itself even in his constrained absence of motion. You could
+see that he felt himself to be the beheld of all beholders, and that
+he enjoyed the position,&mdash;with some slight inward trepidation lest
+the effort to be made should not equal the greatness of the occasion.
+Immediately after him Mr. Gresham bustled up the centre of the House
+amidst a roar of good-humoured welcome. We have had many Ministers
+who have been personally dearer to their individual adherents in the
+House than the present leader of the Opposition and late Premier, but
+none, perhaps, who has been more generally respected by his party for
+earnestness and sincerity. On the present occasion there was a
+fierceness, almost a ferocity, in his very countenance, to the fire
+of which friends and enemies were equally anxious to add fuel,&mdash;the
+friends in order that so might these recreant Tories be more
+thoroughly annihilated, and the enemies, that their enemy's
+indiscretion might act back upon himself to his confusion. For,
+indeed, it never could be denied that as a Prime Minister Mr. Gresham
+could be very indiscreet.</p>
+
+<p>A certain small amount of ordinary business was done, to the disgust
+of expectant strangers, which was as trivial as possible in its
+nature,&mdash;so arranged, apparently, that the importance of what was to
+follow might be enhanced by the force of contrast. And, to make the
+dismay of the novice stranger more thorough, questions were asked and
+answers were given in so low a voice, and Mr. Speaker uttered a word
+or two in so quick and shambling a fashion, that he, the novice
+stranger, began to fear that no word of the debate would reach him up
+there in his crowded back seat. All this, however, occupied but a few
+minutes, and at twenty minutes past four Mr. Daubeny was on his legs.
+Then the novice stranger found that, though he could not see Mr.
+Daubeny without the aid of an opera glass, he could hear every word
+that fell from his lips.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Daubeny began by regretting the hardness of his position, in that
+he must, with what thoroughness he might be able to achieve, apply
+himself to two great subjects, whereas the right honourable gentleman
+opposite had already declared, with all the formality which could be
+made to attach itself to a combined meeting of peers and commoners,
+that he would confine himself strictly to one. The subject selected
+by the right honourable gentleman opposite on the present occasion
+was not the question of Church Reform. The right honourable gentleman
+had pledged himself with an almost sacred enthusiasm to ignore that
+subject altogether. No doubt it was the question before the House,
+and he, himself,&mdash;the present speaker,&mdash;must unfortunately discuss it
+at some length. The right honourable gentleman opposite would not, on
+this great occasion, trouble himself with anything of so little
+moment. And it might be presumed that the political followers of the
+right honourable gentleman would be equally reticent, as they were
+understood to have accepted his tactics without a dissentient voice.
+He, Mr. Daubeny, was the last man in England to deny the importance
+of the question which the right honourable gentleman would select for
+discussions in preference to that of the condition of the Church.
+That question was a very simple one, and might be put to the House in
+a very few words. Coming from the mouth of the right honourable
+gentleman, the proposition would probably be made in this
+form:&mdash;"That this House does think that I ought to be Prime Minister
+now, and as long as I may possess a seat in this House." It was
+impossible to deny the importance of that question; but perhaps he,
+Mr. Daubeny, might be justified in demurring to the preference given
+to it over every other matter, let that matter be of what importance
+it might be to the material welfare of the country.</p>
+
+<p>He made his point well; but he made it too often. And an attack of
+that kind, personal and savage in its nature, loses its effect when
+it is evident that the words have been prepared. A good deal may be
+done in dispute by calling a man an ass or a knave,&mdash;but the resolve
+to use the words should have been made only at the moment, and they
+should come hot from the heart. There was much neatness and some
+acuteness in Mr. Daubeny's satire, but there was no heat, and it was
+prolix. It had, however, the effect of irritating Mr. Gresham,&mdash;as
+was evident from the manner in which he moved his hat and shuffled
+his feet.</p>
+
+<p>A man destined to sit conspicuously on our Treasury Bench, or on the
+seat opposite to it, should ask the gods for a thick skin as a first
+gift. The need of this in our national assembly is greater than
+elsewhere, because the differences between the men opposed to each
+other are smaller. When two foes meet together in the same Chamber,
+one of whom advocates the personal government of an individual ruler,
+and the other that form of State, which has come to be called a Red
+Republic, they deal, no doubt, weighty blows of oratory at each
+other, but blows which never hurt at the moment. They may cut each
+other's throats if they can find an opportunity; but they do not bite
+each other like dogs over a bone. But when opponents are almost in
+accord, as is always the case with our parliamentary gladiators, they
+are ever striving to give maddening little wounds through the joints
+of the harness. What is there with us to create the divergence
+necessary for debate but the pride of personal skill in the
+encounter? Who desires among us to put down the Queen, or to
+repudiate the National Debt, or to destroy religious worship, or even
+to disturb the ranks of society? When some small measure of reform
+has thoroughly recommended itself to the country,&mdash;so thoroughly that
+all men know that the country will have it,&mdash;then the question arises
+whether its details shall be arranged by the political party which
+calls itself Liberal,&mdash;or by that which is termed Conservative. The
+men are so near to each other in all their convictions and theories
+of life that nothing is left to them but personal competition for the
+doing of the thing that is to be done. It is the same in religion.
+The apostle of Christianity and the infidel can meet without a chance
+of a quarrel; but it is never safe to bring together two men who
+differ about a saint or a surplice.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Daubeny, having thus attacked and wounded his enemy, rushed
+boldly into the question of Church Reform, taking no little pride to
+himself and to his party that so great a blessing should be bestowed
+upon the country from so unexpected a source. "See what we
+Conservatives can do. In fact we will conserve nothing when we find
+that you do not desire to have it conserved any longer. 'Quod minime
+reris Grai&acirc; pandetur ab urbe.'" It was exactly the reverse of the
+complaint which Mr. Gresham was about to make. On the subject of the
+Church itself he was rather misty but very profound. He went into the
+question of very early Churches indeed, and spoke of the
+misappropriation of endowments in the time of Eli. The establishment
+of the Levites had been no doubt complete; but changes had been
+effected as circumstances required. He was presumed to have alluded
+to the order of Melchisedek, but he abstained from any mention of the
+name. He roamed very wide, and gave many of his hearers an idea that
+his erudition had carried him into regions in which it was impossible
+to follow him. The gist of his argument was to show that audacity in
+Reform was the very backbone of Conservatism. By a clearly pronounced
+disunion of Church and State the theocracy of Thomas &agrave; Becket would
+be restored, and the people of England would soon again become the
+faithful flocks of faithful shepherds. By taking away the endowments
+from the parishes, and giving them back in some complicated way to
+the country, the parishes would be better able than ever to support
+their clergymen. Bishops would be bishops indeed, when they were no
+longer the creatures of a Minister's breath. As to the deans, not
+seeing a clear way to satisfy aspirants for future vacancies in the
+deaneries, he became more than usually vague, but seemed to imply
+that the Bill which was now with the leave of the House to be read a
+second time, contained no clause forbidding the appointment of deans,
+though the special stipend of the office must be matter of
+consideration with the new Church Synod.</p>
+
+<p>The details of this part of his speech were felt to be dull by the
+strangers. As long as he would abuse Mr. Gresham, men could listen
+with pleasure; and could keep their attention fixed while he referred
+to the general Conservatism of the party which he had the honour of
+leading. There was a raciness in the promise of so much Church
+destruction from the chosen leader of the Church party, which was
+assisted by a conviction in the minds of most men that it was
+impossible for unfortunate Conservatives to refuse to follow this
+leader, let him lead where he might. There was a gratification in
+feeling that the country party was bound to follow, even should he
+take them into the very bowels of a mountain, as the pied piper did
+the children of Hamelin;&mdash;and this made listening pleasant. But when
+Mr. Daubeny stated the effect of his different clauses, explaining
+what was to be taken and what left,&mdash;with a fervent assurance that
+what was to be left would, under the altered circumstances, go much
+further than the whole had gone before,&mdash;then the audience became
+weary, and began to think that it was time that some other gentleman
+should be upon his legs. But at the end of the Minister's speech
+there was another touch of invective which went far to redeem him. He
+returned to that personal question to which his adversary had
+undertaken to confine himself, and expressed a holy horror at the
+political doctrine which was implied. He, during a prolonged
+Parliamentary experience, had encountered much factious opposition.
+He would even acknowledge that he had seen it exercised on both sides
+of the House, though he had always striven to keep himself free from
+its baneful influence. But never till now had he known a statesman
+proclaim his intention of depending upon faction, and upon faction
+alone, for the result which he desired to achieve. Let the right
+honourable gentleman raise a contest on either the principles or the
+details of the measure, and he would be quite content to abide the
+decision of the House; but he should regard such a raid as that
+threatened against him and his friends by the right honourable
+gentleman as unconstitutional, revolutionary, and tyrannical. He felt
+sure that an opposition so based, and so maintained, even if it be
+enabled by the heated feelings of the moment to obtain an unfortunate
+success in the House, would not be encouraged by the sympathy and
+support of the country at large. By these last words he was
+understood to signify that should he be beaten on the second reading,
+not in reference to the merits of the Bill, but simply on the issue
+as proposed by Mr. Gresham, he would again dissolve the House before
+he would resign. Now it was very well understood that there were
+Liberal members in the House who would prefer even the success of Mr.
+Daubeny to a speedy reappearance before their constituents.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Daubeny spoke till nearly eight, and it was surmised at the time
+that he had craftily arranged his oratory so as to embarrass his
+opponent. The House had met at four, and was to sit continuously till
+it was adjourned for the night. When this is the case, gentlemen who
+speak about eight o'clock are too frequently obliged to address
+themselves to empty benches. On the present occasion it was Mr.
+Gresham's intention to follow his opponent at once, instead of
+waiting, as is usual with a leader of his party, to the close of the
+debate. It was understood that Mr. Gresham would follow Mr. Daubeny,
+with the object of making a distinct charge against Ministers, so
+that the vote on this second reading of the Church Bill might in
+truth be a vote of want of confidence. But to commence his speech at
+eight o'clock when the House was hungry and uneasy, would be a trial.
+Had Mr. Daubeny closed an hour sooner there would, with a little
+stretching of the favoured hours, have been time enough. Members
+would not have objected to postpone their dinner till half-past
+eight, or perhaps nine, when their favourite orator was on his legs.
+But with Mr. Gresham beginning a great speech at eight, dinner would
+altogether become doubtful, and the disaster might be serious. It was
+not probable that Mr. Daubeny had even among his friends proclaimed
+any such strategy; but it was thought by the political speculators of
+the day that such an idea had been present to his mind.</p>
+
+<p>But Mr. Gresham was not to be turned from his purpose. He waited for
+a few moments, and then rose and addressed the Speaker. A few members
+left the House;&mdash;gentlemen, doubtless, whose constitutions, weakened
+by previous service, could not endure prolonged fasting. Some who had
+nearly reached the door returned to their seats, mindful of Messrs.
+Roby and Ratler. But for the bulk of those assembled the interest of
+the moment was greater even than the love of dinner. Some of the
+peers departed, and it was observed that a bishop or two left the
+House; but among the strangers in the gallery, hardly a foot of space
+was gained. He who gave up his seat then, gave it up for the night.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Gresham began with a calmness of tone which seemed almost to be
+affected, but which arose from a struggle on his own part to repress
+that superabundant energy of which he was only too conscious. But the
+calmness soon gave place to warmth, which heated itself into violence
+before he had been a quarter of an hour upon his legs. He soon became
+even ferocious in his invective, and said things so bitter that he
+had himself no conception of their bitterness. There was this
+difference between the two men,&mdash;that whereas Mr. Daubeny hit always
+as hard as he knew how to hit, having premeditated each blow, and
+weighed its results beforehand, having calculated his power even to
+the effect of a blow repeated on a wound already given, Mr. Gresham
+struck right and left and straightforward with a readiness engendered
+by practice, and in his fury might have murdered his antagonist
+before he was aware that he had drawn blood. He began by refusing
+absolutely to discuss the merits of the bill. The right honourable
+gentleman had prided himself on his generosity as a Greek. He would
+remind the right honourable gentleman that presents from Greeks had
+ever been considered dangerous. "It is their gifts, and only their
+gifts, that we fear," he said. The political gifts of the right
+honourable gentleman, extracted by him from his unwilling colleagues
+and followers, had always been more bitter to the taste than Dead Sea
+apples. That such gifts should not be bestowed on the country by
+unwilling hands, that reform should not come from those who
+themselves felt the necessity of no reform, he believed to be the
+wish not only of that House, but of the country at large. Would any
+gentleman on that bench, excepting the right honourable gentleman
+himself,&mdash;and he pointed to the crowded phalanx of the
+Government,&mdash;get up and declare that this measure of Church Reform,
+this severance of Church and State, was brought forward in consonance
+with his own long-cherished political conviction? He accused that
+party of being so bound to the chariot wheels of the right honourable
+gentleman, as to be unable to abide by their own convictions. And as
+to the right honourable gentleman himself, he would appeal to his
+followers opposite to say whether the right honourable gentleman was
+possessed of any one strong political conviction.</p>
+
+<p>He had been accused of being unconstitutional, revolutionary, and
+tyrannical. If the House would allow him he would very shortly
+explain his idea of constitutional government as carried on in this
+country. It was based and built on majorities in that House, and
+supported solely by that power. There could be no constitutional
+government in this country that was not so maintained. Any other
+government must be both revolutionary and tyrannical. Any other
+government was a usurpation; and he would make bold to tell the right
+honourable gentleman that a Minister in this country who should
+recommend Her Majesty to trust herself to advisers not supported by a
+majority of the House of Commons, would plainly be guilty of usurping
+the powers of the State. He threw from him with disdain the charge
+which had been brought against himself of hankering after the sweets
+of office. He indulged and gloried in indulging the highest ambition
+of an English subject. But he gloried much more in the privileges and
+power of that House, within the walls of which was centred all that
+was salutary, all that was efficacious, all that was stable in the
+political constitution of his country. It had been his pride to have
+acted during nearly all his political life with that party which had
+commanded a majority, but he would defy his most bitter adversary, he
+would defy the right honourable gentleman himself, to point to any
+period of his career in which he had been unwilling to succumb to a
+majority when he himself had belonged to the minority.</p>
+
+<p>He himself would regard the vote on this occasion as a vote of want
+of confidence. He took the line he was now taking because he desired
+to bring the House to a decision on that question. He himself had not
+that confidence in the right honourable gentleman which would justify
+him in accepting a measure on so important a subject as the union or
+severance of Church and State from his hands. Should the majority of
+the House differ from him and support the second reading of the Bill,
+he would at once so far succumb as to give his best attention to the
+clauses of the bill, and endeavour with the assistance of those
+gentlemen who acted with him to make it suitable to the wants of the
+country by omissions and additions as the clauses should pass through
+Committee. But before doing that he would ask the House to decide
+with all its solemnity and all its weight whether it was willing to
+accept from the hands of the right honourable gentleman any measure
+of reform on a matter so important as this now before them. It was
+nearly ten when he sat down; and then the stomach of the House could
+stand it no longer, and an adjournment at once took place.</p>
+
+<p>On the next morning it was generally considered that Mr. Daubeny had
+been too long and Mr. Gresham too passionate. There were some who
+declared that Mr. Gresham had never been finer than when he described
+the privileges of the House of Commons; and others who thought that
+Mr. Daubeny's lucidity had been marvellous; but in this case, as in
+most others, the speeches of the day were generally thought to have
+been very inferior to the great efforts of the past.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c34"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXXIV.</h3>
+<h4>THE UNIVERSE.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>Before the House met again the quidnuncs about the clubs, on both
+sides of the question, had determined that Mr. Gresham's speech,
+whether good or not as an effort of oratory, would serve its intended
+purpose. He would be backed by a majority of votes, and it might have
+been very doubtful whether such would have been the case had he
+attempted to throw out the Bill on its merits. Mr. Ratler, by the
+time that prayers had been read, had become almost certain of
+success. There were very few Liberals in the House who were not
+anxious to declare by their votes that they had no confidence in Mr.
+Daubeny. Mr. Turnbull, the great Radical, and, perhaps, some two
+dozen with him, would support the second reading, declaring that they
+could not reconcile it with their consciences to record a vote in
+favour of a union of Church and State. On all such occasions as the
+present Mr. Turnbull was sure to make himself disagreeable to those
+who sat near to him in the House. He was a man who thought that so
+much was demanded of him in order that his independence might be
+doubted by none. It was nothing to him, he was wont to say, who
+called himself Prime Minister, or Secretary here, or President there.
+But then there would be quite as much of this independence on the
+Conservative as on the Liberal side of the House. Surely there would
+be more than two dozen gentlemen who would be true enough to the
+cherished principles of their whole lives to vote against such a Bill
+as this! It was the fact that there were so very few so true which
+added such a length to the faces of the country parsons. Six months
+ago not a country gentleman in England would have listened to such a
+proposition without loud protests as to its revolutionary wickedness.
+And now, under the sole pressure of one man's authority, the subject
+had become so common that men were assured that the thing would be
+done even though of all things that could be done it were the worst.
+"It is no good any longer having any opinion upon anything," one
+parson said to another, as they sat together at their club with their
+newspapers in their hands. "Nothing frightens any one,&mdash;no
+infidelity, no wickedness, no revolution. All reverence is at an end,
+and the Holy of Holies is no more even to the worshipper than the
+threshold of the Temple." Though it became known that the Bill would
+be lost, what comfort was there in that, when the battle was to be
+won, not by the chosen Israelites to whom the Church with all its
+appurtenances ought to be dear, but by a crew of Philistines who
+would certainly follow the lead of their opponents in destroying the
+holy structure?</p>
+
+<p>On the Friday the debate was continued with much life on the
+Ministerial side of the House. It was very easy for them to cry
+Faction! Faction! and hardly necessary for them to do more. A few
+parrot words had been learned as to the expediency of fitting the
+great and increasing Church of England to the growing necessity of
+the age. That the
+<span class="smallcaps">Church of England</span> would still be the
+<span class="smallcaps">Church of England</span>
+was repeated till weary listeners were sick of the unmeaning
+words. But the zeal of the combatants was displayed on that other
+question. Faction was now the avowed weapon of the leaders of the
+so-called Liberal side of the House, and it was very easy to denounce
+the new doctrine. Every word that Mr. Gresham had spoken was picked
+in pieces, and the enormity of his theory was exhibited. He had
+boldly declared to them that they were to regard men and not
+measures, and they were to show by their votes whether they were
+prepared to accept such teaching. The speeches were, of course, made
+by alternate orators, but the firing from the Conservative benches
+was on this evening much the louder.</p>
+
+<p>It would have seemed that with such an issue between them they might
+almost have consented to divide after the completion of the two great
+speeches. The course on which they were to run had been explained to
+them, and it was not probable that any member's intention as to his
+running would now be altered by anything that he might hear. Mr.
+Turnbull's two dozen defaulters were all known, and the two dozen and
+four true Conservatives were known also. But, nevertheless, a great
+many members were anxious to speak. It would be the great debate of
+the Session, and the subject to be handled,&mdash;that, namely, of the
+general merits and demerits of the two political parties,&mdash;was wide
+and very easy. On that night it was past one o'clock when Mr.
+Turnbull adjourned the House.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid we must put you off till Tuesday," Mr. Ratler said on the
+Sunday afternoon to Phineas Finn.</p>
+
+<p>"I have no objection at all, so long as I get a fair place on that
+day."</p>
+
+<p>"There shan't be a doubt about that. Gresham particularly wants you
+to speak, because you are pledged to a measure of disestablishment.
+You can insist on his own views,&mdash;that even should such a measure be
+essentially <span class="nowrap">necessary&mdash;"</span></p>
+
+<p>"Which I think it is," said Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>"Still it should not be accepted from the old Church-and-State
+party."</p>
+
+<p>There was something pleasant in this to Phineas Finn,&mdash;something that
+made him feel for the moment that he had perhaps mistaken the bearing
+of his friend towards him. "We are sure of a majority, I suppose," he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"Absolutely sure," said Ratler. "I begin to think it will amount to
+half a hundred,&mdash;perhaps more."</p>
+
+<p>"What will Daubeny do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Go out. He can't do anything else. His pluck is certainly wonderful,
+but even with his pluck he can't dissolve again. His Church Bill has
+given him a six months' run, and six months is something."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it true that Grogram is to be Chancellor?" Phineas asked the
+question, not from any particular solicitude as to the prospects of
+Sir Gregory Grogram, but because he was anxious to hear whether Mr.
+Ratler would speak to him with anything of the cordiality of
+fellowship respecting the new Government. But Mr. Ratler became at
+once discreet and close, and said that he did not think that anything
+as yet was known as to the Woolsack. Then Phineas retreated again
+within his shell, with a certainty that nothing would be done for
+him.</p>
+
+<p>And yet to whom could this question of place be of such vital
+importance as it was to him? He had come back to his old haunts from
+Ireland, abandoning altogether the pleasant safety of an assured
+income, buoyed by the hope of office. He had, after a fashion, made
+his calculations. In the present disposition of the country it was,
+he thought, certain that the Liberal party must, for the next twenty
+years, have longer periods of power than their opponents; and he had
+thought also that were he in the House, some place would eventually
+be given to him. He had been in office before, and had been
+especially successful. He knew that it had been said of him that of
+the young debutants of latter years he had been the best. He had left
+his party by opposing them; but he had done so without creating any
+ill-will among the leaders of his party,&mdash;in a manner that had been
+regarded as highly honourable to him, and on departing had received
+expressions of deep regret from Mr. Gresham himself. When Barrington
+Erle had wanted him to return to his old work, his own chief doubt
+had been about the seat. But he had been bold and had adventured all,
+and had succeeded. There had been some little trouble about those
+pledges given at Tankerville, but he would be able to turn them even
+to the use of his party. It was quite true that nothing had been
+promised him; but Erle, when he had written, bidding him to come over
+from Ireland, must have intended him to understand that he would be
+again enrolled in the favoured regiment, should he be able to show
+himself as the possessor of a seat in the House. And yet,&mdash;yet he
+felt convinced that when the day should come it would be to him a day
+of disappointment, and that when the list should appear his name
+would not be on it. Madame Goesler had suggested to him that Mr.
+Bonteen might be his enemy, and he had replied by stating that he
+himself hated Mr. Bonteen. He now remembered that Mr. Bonteen had
+hardly spoken to him since his return to London, though there had not
+in fact been any quarrel between them. In this condition of mind he
+longed to speak openly to Barrington Erle, but he was restrained by a
+feeling of pride, and a still existing idea that no candidate for
+office, let his claim be what it might, should ask for a place. On
+that Sunday evening he saw Bonteen at the club. Men were going in and
+out with that feverish excitement which always prevails on the eve of
+a great parliamentary change. A large majority against the Government
+was considered to be certain; but there was an idea abroad that Mr.
+Daubeny had some scheme in his head by which to confute the immediate
+purport of his enemies. There was nothing to which the audacity of
+the man was not equal. Some said that he would dissolve the
+House,&mdash;which had hardly as yet been six months sitting. Others were
+of opinion that he would simply resolve not to vacate his
+place,&mdash;thus defying the majority of the House and all the
+ministerial traditions of the country. Words had fallen from him
+which made some men certain that such was his intention. That it
+should succeed ultimately was impossible. The whole country would
+rise against him. Supplies would be refused. In every detail of
+Government he would be impeded. But then,&mdash;such was the temper of the
+man,&mdash;it was thought that all these horrors would not deter him.
+There would be a blaze and a confusion, in which timid men would
+doubt whether the constitution would be burned to tinder or only
+illuminated; but that blaze and that confusion would be dear to Mr.
+Daubeny if he could stand as the centre figure,&mdash;the great
+pyrotechnist who did it all, red from head to foot with the glare of
+the squibs with which his own hands were filling all the spaces. The
+anticipation that some such display might take place made men busy
+and eager; so that on that Sunday evening they roamed about from one
+place of meeting to another, instead of sitting at home with their
+wives and daughters. There was at this time existing a small
+club,&mdash;so called though unlike other clubs,&mdash;which had entitled
+itself the Universe. The name was supposed to be a joke, as it was
+limited to ninety-nine members. It was domiciled in one simple and
+somewhat mean apartment. It was kept open only one hour before and
+one hour after midnight, and that only on two nights of the week, and
+that only when Parliament was sitting. Its attractions were not
+numerous, consisting chiefly of tobacco and tea. The conversation was
+generally listless and often desultory; and occasionally there would
+arise the great and terrible evil of a punster whom every one hated
+but no one had life enough to put down. But the thing had been a
+success, and men liked to be members of the Universe. Mr. Bonteen was
+a member, and so was Phineas Finn. On this Sunday evening the club
+was open, and Phineas, as he entered the room, perceived that his
+enemy was seated alone on a corner of a sofa. Mr. Bonteen was not a
+man who loved to be alone in public places, and was apt rather to
+make one of congregations, affecting popularity, and always at work
+increasing his influence. But on this occasion his own greatness had
+probably isolated him. If it were true that he was to be the new
+Chancellor of the Exchequer,&mdash;to ascend from demi-godhead to the
+perfect divinity of the Cabinet,&mdash;and to do so by a leap which would
+make him high even among first-class gods, it might be well for
+himself to look to himself and choose new congregations. Or, at
+least, it would be becoming that he should be chosen now instead of
+being a chooser. He was one who could weigh to the last ounce the
+importance of his position, and make most accurate calculations as to
+the effect of his intimacies. On that very morning Mr. Gresham had
+suggested to him that in the event of a Liberal Government being
+formed, he should hold the high office in question. This, perhaps,
+had not been done in the most flattering manner, as Mr. Gresham had
+deeply bewailed the loss of Mr. Palliser, and had almost demanded a
+pledge from Mr. Bonteen that he would walk exactly in Mr. Palliser's
+footsteps;&mdash;but the offer had been made, and could not be retracted;
+and Mr. Bonteen already felt the warmth of the halo of perfect
+divinity.</p>
+
+<p>There are some men who seem to have been born to be Cabinet
+Ministers,&mdash;dukes mostly, or earls, or the younger sons of such,&mdash;who
+have been trained to it from their very cradles, and of whom we may
+imagine that they are subject to no special awe when they first enter
+into that august assembly, and feel but little personal elevation.
+But to the political aspirant not born in the purple of public life,
+this entrance upon the counsels of the higher deities must be
+accompanied by a feeling of supreme triumph, dashed by considerable
+misgivings. Perhaps Mr. Bonteen was revelling in his
+triumph;&mdash;perhaps he was anticipating his misgivings. Phineas, though
+disinclined to make any inquiries of a friend which might seem to
+refer to his own condition, felt no such reluctance in regard to one
+who certainly could not suspect him of asking a favour. He was
+presumed to be on terms of intimacy with the man, and he took his
+seat beside him, asking some question as to the debate. Now Mr.
+Bonteen had more than once expressed an opinion among his friends
+that Phineas Finn would throw his party over, and vote with the
+Government. The Ratlers and Erles and Fitzgibbons all knew that
+Phineas was safe, but Mr. Bonteen was still in doubt. It suited him
+to affect something more than doubt on the present occasion. "I
+wonder that you should ask me," said Mr. Bonteen.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean by that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I presume that you, as usual, will vote against us."</p>
+
+<p>"I never voted against my party but once," said Phineas, "and then I
+did it with the approbation of every man in it for whose good opinion
+I cared a straw." There was insult in his tone as he said this, and
+something near akin to insult in his words.</p>
+
+<p>"You must do it again now, or break every promise that you made at
+Tankerville."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know what promise I made at Tankerville? I shall break no
+promise."</p>
+
+<p>"You must allow me to say, Mr. Finn, that the kind of independence
+which is practised by you and Mr. Monk, grand as it may be on the
+part of men who avowedly abstain from office, is a little dangerous
+when it is now and again adopted by men who have taken place. I like
+to be sure that the men who are in the same boat with me won't take
+it into their heads that their duty requires them to scuttle the
+ship." Having so spoken, Mr. Bonteen, with nearly all the grace of a
+full-fledged Cabinet Minister, rose from his seat on the corner of
+the sofa and joined a small congregation.</p>
+
+<p>Phineas felt that his ears were tingling and that his face was red.
+He looked round to ascertain from the countenances of others whether
+they had heard what had been said. Nobody had been close to them, and
+he thought that the conversation had been unnoticed. He knew now that
+he had been imprudent in addressing himself to Mr. Bonteen, though
+the question that he had first asked had been quite commonplace. As
+it was, the man, he thought, had been determined to affront him, and
+had made a charge against him which he could not allow to pass
+unnoticed. And then there was all the additional bitterness in it
+which arose from the conviction that Bonteen had spoken the opinion
+of other men as well as his own, and that he had plainly indicated
+that the gates of the official paradise were to be closed against the
+presumed offender. Phineas had before believed that it was to be so,
+but that belief had now become assurance. He got up in his misery to
+leave the room, but as he did so he met Laurence Fitzgibbon. "You
+have heard the news about Bonteen?" said Laurence.</p>
+
+<p>"What news?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's to be pitchforked up to the Exchequer. They say it's quite
+settled. The higher a monkey climbs&mdash;; you know the proverb." So
+saying Laurence Fitzgibbon passed into the room, and Phineas Finn
+took his departure in solitude.</p>
+
+<p>And so the man with whom he had managed to quarrel utterly was to be
+one in the Cabinet, a man whose voice would probably be potential in
+the selection of minor members of the Government. It seemed to him to
+be almost incredible that such a one as Mr. Bonteen should be chosen
+for such an office. He had despised almost as soon as he had known
+Mr. Bonteen, and had rarely heard the future manager of the finance
+of the country spoken of with either respect or regard. He had
+regarded Mr. Bonteen as a useful, dull, unscrupulous politician, well
+accustomed to Parliament, acquainted with the bye-paths and back
+doors of official life,&mdash;and therefore certain of employment when the
+Liberals were in power; but there was no one in the party he had
+thought less likely to be selected for high place. And yet this man
+was to be made Chancellor of the Exchequer, while he, Phineas Finn,
+very probably at this man's instance, was to be left out in the cold.</p>
+
+<p>He knew himself to be superior to the man he hated, to have higher
+ideas of political life, and to be capable of greater political
+sacrifices. He himself had sat shoulder to shoulder with many men on
+the Treasury Bench whose political principles he had not greatly
+valued; but of none of them had he thought so little as he had done
+of Mr. Bonteen. And yet this Mr. Bonteen was to be the new Chancellor
+of the Exchequer! He walked home to his lodgings in Marlborough
+Street, wretched because of his own failure;&mdash;doubly wretched because
+of the other man's success.</p>
+
+<p>He laid awake half the night thinking of the words that had been
+spoken to him, and after breakfast on the following morning he wrote
+the following note to his enemy:&mdash;<br />&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="jright">House of Commons, 5th April, 18&mdash;.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smallcaps">Dear Mr. Bonteen</span>,</p>
+
+<p>It is matter of extreme regret to me that last night at the Universe
+I should have asked you some chance question about the coming
+division. Had I guessed to what it might have led, I should not have
+addressed you. But as it is I can hardly abstain from noticing what
+appeared to me to be a personal charge made against myself with a
+great want of the courtesy which is supposed to prevail among men who
+have acted together. Had we never done so my original question to you
+might perhaps have been deemed an impertinence.</p>
+
+<p>As it was, you accused me of having been dishonest to my party, and
+of having "scuttled the ship." On the occasion to which you alluded I
+acted with much consideration, greatly to the detriment of my own
+prospects,&mdash;and as I believed with the approbation of all who knew
+anything of the subject. If you will make inquiry of Mr. Gresham, or
+Lord Cantrip who was then my chief, I think that either will tell you
+that my conduct on that occasion was not such as to lay me open to
+reproach. If you will do this, I think that you cannot fail
+afterwards to express regret for what you said to me last night.</p>
+
+<p class="ind10">Yours sincerely,</p>
+
+<p class="ind15"><span class="smallcaps">Phineas Finn</span>.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">Thos. Bonteen, Esq., M.P.<br />&nbsp;</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+<p>He did not like the letter when he had written it, but he did not
+know how to improve it, and he sent it.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c35"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXXV.</h3>
+<h4>POLITICAL VENOM.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>On the Monday Mr. Turnbull opened the ball by declaring his reasons
+for going into the same lobby with Mr. Daubeny. This he did at great
+length. To him all the mighty pomp and all the little squabbles of
+office were, he said, as nothing. He would never allow himself to
+regard the person of the Prime Minister. The measure before the House
+ever had been and ever should be all in all to him. If the public
+weal were more regarded in that House, and the quarrels of men less
+considered, he thought that the service of the country would be
+better done. He was answered by Mr. Monk, who was sitting near him,
+and who intended to support Mr. Gresham. Mr. Monk was rather happy in
+pulling his old friend, Mr. Turnbull, to pieces, expressing his
+opinion that a difference in men meant a difference in measures. The
+characters of men whose principles were known were guarantees for the
+measures they would advocate. To him,&mdash;Mr. Monk,&mdash;it was matter of
+very great moment who was Prime Minister of England. He was always
+selfish enough to wish for a Minister with whom he himself could
+agree on the main questions of the day. As he certainly could not say
+that he had political confidence in the present Ministry, he should
+certainly vote against them on this occasion.</p>
+
+<p>In the course of the evening Phineas found a letter addressed to
+himself from Mr. Bonteen. It was as follows:&mdash;<br />&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="jright">House of Commons, April 5th, 18&mdash;.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smallcaps">Dear Mr. Finn</span>,</p>
+
+<p>I never accused you of dishonesty. You must have misheard or
+misunderstood me if you thought so. I did say that you had scuttled
+the ship;&mdash;and as you most undoubtedly did scuttle it,&mdash;you and Mr.
+Monk between you,&mdash;I cannot retract my words.</p>
+
+<p>I do not want to go to any one for testimony as to your merits on the
+occasion. I accused you of having done nothing dishonourable or
+disgraceful. I think I said that there was danger in the practice of
+scuttling. I think so still, though I know that many fancy that those
+who scuttle do a fine thing. I don't deny that it's fine, and
+therefore you can have no cause of complaint against me.</p>
+
+<p class="ind10">Yours truly,</p>
+
+<p class="ind15"><span class="smallcaps">J.
+Bonteen</span>.<br />&nbsp;</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+<p>He had brought a copy of his own letter in his pocket to the House,
+and he showed the correspondence to Mr. Monk. "I would not have
+noticed it, had I been you," said he.</p>
+
+<p>"You can have no idea of the offensive nature of the remark when it
+was made."</p>
+
+<p>"It's as offensive to me as to you, but I should not think of moving
+in such a matter. When a man annoys you, keep out of his way. It is
+generally the best thing you can do."</p>
+
+<p>"If a man were to call you a liar?"</p>
+
+<p>"But men don't call each other liars. Bonteen understands the world
+much too well to commit himself by using any word which common
+opinion would force him to retract. He says we scuttled the ship.
+Well;&mdash;we did. Of all the political acts of my life it is the one of
+which I am most proud. The manner in which you helped me has entitled
+you to my affectionate esteem. But we did scuttle the ship. Before
+you can quarrel with Bonteen you must be able to show that a
+metaphorical scuttling of a ship must necessarily be a disgraceful
+act. You see how he at once retreats behind the fact that it need not
+be so."</p>
+
+<p>"You wouldn't answer his letter."</p>
+
+<p>"I think not. You can do yourself no good by a correspondence in
+which you cannot get a hold of him. And if you did get a hold of him
+you would injure yourself much more than him. Just drop it." This
+added much to our friend's misery, and made him feel that the weight
+of it was almost more than he could bear. His enemy had got the
+better of him at every turn. He had now rushed into a correspondence
+as to which he would have to own by his silence that he had been
+confuted. And yet he was sure that Mr. Bonteen had at the club
+insulted him most unjustifiably, and that if the actual truth were
+known, no man, certainly not Mr. Monk, would hesitate to say that
+reparation was due to him. And yet what could he do? He thought that
+he would consult Lord Cantrip, and endeavour to get from his late
+Chief some advice more palatable than that which had been tendered to
+him by Mr. Monk.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime animosities in the House were waxing very furious;
+and, as it happened, the debate took a turn that was peculiarly
+injurious to Phineas Finn in his present state of mind. The rumour as
+to the future promotion of Mr. Bonteen, which had been conveyed by
+Laurence Fitzgibbon to Phineas at the Universe, had, as was natural,
+spread far and wide, and had reached the ears of those who still sat
+on the Ministerial benches. Now it is quite understood among
+politicians in this country that no man should presume that he will
+have imposed upon him the task of forming a Ministry until he has
+been called upon by the Crown to undertake that great duty. Let the
+Gresham or the Daubeny of the day be ever so sure that the reins of
+the State chariot must come into his hands, he should not visibly
+prepare himself for the seat on the box till he has actually been
+summoned to place himself there. At this moment it was alleged that
+Mr. Gresham had departed from the reticence and modesty usual in such
+a position as his, by taking steps towards the formation of a
+Cabinet, while it was as yet quite possible that he might never be
+called upon to form any Cabinet. Late on this Monday night, when the
+House was quite full, one of Mr. Daubeny's leading lieutenants, a
+Secretary of State, Sir Orlando Drought by name,&mdash;a gentleman who if
+he had any heart in the matter must have hated this Church Bill from
+the very bottom of his heart, and who on that account was the more
+bitter against opponents who had not ceased to throw in his teeth his
+own political tergiversation,&mdash;fell foul of Mr. Gresham as to this
+rumoured appointment to the Chancellorship of the Exchequer. The
+reader will easily imagine the things that were said. Sir Orlando had
+heard, and had been much surprised at hearing, that a certain
+honourable member of that House, who had long been known to them as a
+tenant of the Ministerial bench, had already been appointed to a high
+office. He, Sir Orlando, had not been aware that the office had been
+vacant, or that if vacant it would have been at the disposal of the
+right honourable gentleman; but he believed that there was no doubt
+that the place in question, with a seat in the Cabinet, had been
+tendered to, and accepted by, the honourable member to whom he
+alluded. Such was the rabid haste with which the right honourable
+gentleman opposite, and his colleagues, were attempting, he would not
+say to climb, but to rush into office, by opposing a great measure of
+Reform, the wisdom of which, as was notorious to all the world, they
+themselves did not dare to deny. Much more of the same kind was said,
+during which Mr. Gresham pulled about his hat, shuffled his feet,
+showed his annoyance to all the House, and at last jumped upon his
+legs.</p>
+
+<p>"If," said Sir Orlando Drought,&mdash;"if the right honourable gentleman
+wishes to deny the accuracy of any statements that I have made, I
+will give way to him for the moment, that he may do so."</p>
+
+<p>"I deny utterly, not only the accuracy, but every detail of the
+statement made by the right honourable gentleman opposite," said Mr.
+Gresham, still standing and holding his hat in his hand as he
+completed his denial.</p>
+
+<p>"Does the right honourable gentleman mean to assure me that he has
+not selected his future Chancellor of the Exchequer?"</p>
+
+<p>"The right honourable gentleman is too acute not to be aware that we
+on this side of the House may have made such selection, and that yet
+every detail of the statement which he has been rash enough to make
+to the House may be&mdash;unfounded. The word, sir, is weak; but I would
+fain avoid the use of any words which, justifiable though they might
+be, would offend the feelings of the House. I will explain to the
+House exactly what has been done."</p>
+
+<p>Then there was a great hubbub&mdash;cries of "Order," "Gresham," "Spoke,"
+"Hear, hear," and the like,&mdash;during which Sir Orlando Drought and Mr.
+Gresham both stood on their legs. So powerful was Mr. Gresham's voice
+that, through it all, every word that he said was audible to the
+reporters. His opponent hardly attempted to speak, but stood relying
+upon his right. Mr. Gresham said he understood that it was the desire
+of the House that he should explain the circumstances in reference to
+the charge that had been made against him, and it would certainly be
+for the convenience of the House that this should be done at the
+moment. The Speaker of course ruled that Sir Orlando was in
+possession of the floor, but suggested that it might be convenient
+that he should yield to the right honourable gentleman on the other
+side for a few minutes. Mr. Gresham, as a matter of course,
+succeeded. Rights and rules, which are bonds of iron to a little man,
+are packthread to a giant. No one in all that assembly knew the House
+better than did Mr. Gresham, was better able to take it by storm, or
+more obdurate in perseverance. He did make his speech, though clearly
+he had no right to do so. The House, he said, was aware, that by the
+most unfortunate demise of the late Duke of Omnium, a gentleman had
+been removed from this House to another place, whose absence from
+their counsels would long be felt as a very grievous loss. Then he
+pronounced a eulogy on Plantagenet Palliser, so graceful and well
+arranged, that even the bitterness of the existing opposition was
+unable to demur to it. The House was well aware of the nature of the
+labours which now for some years past had occupied the mind of the
+noble duke; and the paramount importance which the country attached
+to their conclusion. The noble duke no doubt was not absolutely
+debarred from a continuance of his work by the change which had
+fallen upon him; but it was essential that some gentleman, belonging
+to the same party with the noble duke, versed in office, and having a
+seat in that House, should endeavour to devote himself to the great
+measure which had occupied so much of the attention of the late
+Chancellor of the Exchequer. No doubt it must be fitting that the
+gentleman so selected should be at the Exchequer, in the event of
+their party coming into office. The honourable gentleman to whom
+allusion had been made had acted throughout with the present noble
+duke in arranging the details of the measure in question; and the
+probability of his being able to fill the shoes left vacant by the
+accession to the peerage of the noble duke had, indeed, been
+discussed;&mdash;but the discussion had been made in reference to the
+measure, and only incidentally in regard to the office. He, Mr.
+Gresham, held that he had done nothing that was indiscreet,&mdash;nothing
+that his duty did not demand. If right honourable gentlemen opposite
+were of a different opinion, he thought that that difference came
+from the fact that they were less intimately acquainted than he
+unfortunately had been with the burdens and responsibilities of
+legislation.</p>
+
+<p>There was very little in the dispute which seemed to be worthy of the
+place in which it occurred, or of the vigour with which it was
+conducted; but it served to show the temper of the parties, and to
+express the bitterness of the political feelings of the day. It was
+said at the time, that never within the memory of living politicians
+had so violent an animosity displayed itself in the House as had been
+witnessed on this night. While Mr. Gresham was giving his
+explanation, Mr. Daubeny had arisen, and with a mock solemnity that
+was peculiar to him on occasions such as these, had appealed to the
+Speaker whether the right honourable gentleman opposite should not be
+called upon to resume his seat. Mr. Gresham had put him down with a
+wave of his hand. An affected stateliness cannot support itself but
+for a moment; and Mr. Daubeny had been forced to sit down when the
+Speaker did not at once support his appeal. But he did not forget
+that wave of the hand, nor did he forgive it. He was a man who in
+public life rarely forgot, and never forgave. They used to say of him
+that "at home" he was kindly and forbearing, simple and
+unostentatious. It may be so. Who does not remember that horrible
+Turk, Jacob Asdrubal, the Old Bailey barrister, the terror of
+witnesses, the bane of judges,&mdash;who was gall and wormwood to all
+opponents. It was said of him that "at home" his docile amiability
+was the marvel of his friends, and delight of his wife and daughters.
+"At home," perhaps, Mr. Daubeny might have been waved at, and have
+forgiven it; but men who saw the scene in the House of Commons knew
+that he would never forgive Mr. Gresham. As for Mr. Gresham himself,
+he triumphed at the moment, and exulted in his triumph.</p>
+
+<p>Phineas Finn heard it all, and was disgusted to find that his enemy
+thus became the hero of the hour. It was, indeed, the opinion
+generally of the Liberal party that Mr. Gresham had not said much to
+flatter his new Chancellor of the Exchequer. In praise of Plantagenet
+Palliser he had been very loud, and he had no doubt said that which
+implied the capability of Mr. Bonteen, who, as it happened, was
+sitting next to him at the time; but he had implied also that the
+mantle which was to be transferred from Mr. Palliser to Mr. Bonteen
+would be carried by its new wearer with grace very inferior to that
+which had marked all the steps of his predecessor. Ratler, and Erle,
+and Fitzgibbon, and others had laughed in their sleeves at the
+expression, understood by them, of Mr. Gresham's doubt as to the
+qualifications of his new assistant, and Sir Orlando Drought, in
+continuing his speech, remarked that the warmth of the right
+honourable gentleman had been so completely expended in abusing his
+enemies that he had had none left for the defence of his friend. But
+to Phineas it seemed that this Bonteen, who had so grievously injured
+him, and whom he so thoroughly despised, was carrying off all the
+glories of the fight. A certain amount of consolation was, however,
+afforded to him. Between one and two o'clock he was told by Mr.
+Ratler that he might enjoy the privilege of adjourning the
+debate,&mdash;by which would accrue to him the right of commencing on the
+morrow,&mdash;and this he did at a few minutes before three.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c36"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXXVI.</h3>
+<h4>SEVENTY-TWO.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>On the next morning Phineas, with his speech before him, was obliged
+for a while to forget, or at least to postpone, Mr. Bonteen and his
+injuries. He could not now go to Lord Cantrip, as the hours were too
+precious to him, and, as he felt, too short. Though he had been
+thinking what he would say ever since the debate had become imminent,
+and knew accurately the line which he would take, he had not as yet
+prepared a word of his speech. But he had resolved that he would not
+prepare a word otherwise than he might do by arranging certain
+phrases in his memory. There should be nothing written; he had tried
+that before in old days, and had broken down with the effort. He
+would load himself with no burden of words in itself so heavy that
+the carrying of it would incapacitate him for any other effort.</p>
+
+<p>After a late breakfast he walked out far away, into the Regent's
+Park, and there, wandering among the uninteresting paths, he devised
+triumphs of oratory for himself. Let him resolve as he would to
+forget Mr. Bonteen, and that charge of having been untrue to his
+companions, he could not restrain himself from efforts to fit the
+matter after some fashion into his speech. Dim ideas of a definition
+of political honesty crossed his brain, bringing with him, however, a
+conviction that his thought must be much more clearly worked out than
+it could be on that day before he might venture to give it birth in
+the House of Commons. He knew that he had been honest two years ago
+in separating himself from his colleagues. He knew that he would be
+honest now in voting with them, apparently in opposition to the
+pledges he had given at Tankerville. But he knew also that it would
+behove him to abstain from speaking of himself unless he could do so
+in close reference to some point specially in dispute between the two
+parties. When he returned to eat a mutton chop at Great Marlborough
+Street at three o'clock he was painfully conscious that all his
+morning had been wasted. He had allowed his mind to run revel,
+instead of tying it down to the formation of sentences and
+construction of arguments.</p>
+
+<p>He entered the House with the Speaker at four o'clock, and took his
+seat without uttering a word to any man. He seemed to be more than
+ever disjoined from his party. Hitherto, since he had been seated by
+the Judge's order, the former companions of his Parliamentary
+life,&mdash;the old men whom he had used to know,&mdash;had to a certain degree
+admitted him among them. Many of them sat on the front Opposition
+bench, whereas he, as a matter of course, had seated himself behind.
+But he had very frequently found himself next to some man who had
+held office and was living in the hope of holding it again, and had
+felt himself to be in some sort recognised as an aspirant. Now it
+seemed to him that it was otherwise. He did not doubt but that
+Bonteen had shown the correspondence to his friends, and that the
+Ratlers and Erles had conceded that he, Phineas, was put out of court
+by it. He sat doggedly still, at the end of a bench behind Mr.
+Gresham, and close to the gangway. When Mr. Gresham entered the House
+he was received with much cheering; but Phineas did not join in the
+cheer. He was studious to avoid any personal recognition of the
+future giver-away of places, though they two were close together; and
+he then fancied that Mr. Gresham had specially and most ungraciously
+abstained from any recognition of him. Mr. Monk, who sat near him,
+spoke a kind word to him. "I shan't be very long," said Phineas; "not
+above twenty minutes, I should think." He was able to assume an air
+of indifference, and yet at the moment he heartily wished himself
+back in Dublin. It was not now that he feared the task immediately
+before him, but that he was overcome by the feeling of general
+failure which had come upon him. Of what use was it to him or to any
+one else that he should be there in that assembly, with the privilege
+of making a speech that would influence no human being, unless his
+being there could be made a step to something beyond? While the usual
+preliminary work was being done, he looked round the House, and saw
+Lord Cantrip in the Peers' gallery. Alas! of what avail was that? He
+had always been able to bind to him individuals with whom he had been
+brought into close contact; but more than that was wanted in this
+most precarious of professions, in which now, for a second time, he
+was attempting to earn his bread.</p>
+
+<p>At half-past four he was on his legs in the midst of a crowded House.
+The chance,&mdash;perhaps the hope,&mdash;of some such encounter as that of the
+former day, brought members into their seats, and filled the gallery
+with strangers. We may say, perhaps, that the highest duty imposed
+upon us as a nation is the management of India; and we may also say
+that in a great national assembly personal squabbling among its
+members is the least dignified work in which it can employ itself.
+But the prospect of an explanation,&mdash;or otherwise of a
+fight,&mdash;between two leading politicians will fill the House; and any
+allusion to our Eastern Empire will certainly empty it. An aptitude
+for such encounters is almost a necessary qualification for a popular
+leader in Parliament, as is a capacity for speaking for three hours
+to the reporters, and to the reporters only,&mdash;a necessary
+qualification for an Under-Secretary of State for India.</p>
+
+<p>Phineas had the advantage of the temper of the moment in a House
+thoroughly crowded, and he enjoyed it. Let a man doubt ever so much
+his own capacity for some public exhibition which he has undertaken;
+yet he will always prefer to fail,&mdash;if fail he must,&mdash;before a large
+audience. But on this occasion there was no failure. That sense of
+awe from the surrounding circumstances of the moment, which had once
+been heavy on him, and which he still well remembered, had been
+overcome, and had never returned to him. He felt now that he should
+not lack words to pour out his own individual grievances were it not
+that he was prevented by a sense of the indiscretion of doing so. As
+it was, he did succeed in alluding to his own condition in a manner
+that brought upon him no reproach. He began by saying that he should
+not have added to the difficulty of the debate,&mdash;which was one simply
+of length,&mdash;were it not that he had been accused in advance of voting
+against a measure as to which he had pledged himself at the hustings
+to do all that he could to further it. No man was more anxious than
+he, an Irish Roman Catholic, to abolish that which he thought to be
+the anomaly of a State Church, and he did not in the least doubt that
+he should now be doing the best in his power with that object in
+voting against the second reading of the present bill. That such a
+measure should be carried by the gentlemen opposite, in their own
+teeth, at the bidding of the right honourable gentleman who led them,
+he thought to be impossible. Upon this he was hooted at from the
+other side with many gestures of indignant denial, and was, of
+course, equally cheered by those around him. Such interruptions are
+new breath to the nostrils of all orators, and Phineas enjoyed the
+noise. He repeated his assertion that it would be an evil thing for
+the country that the measure should be carried by men who in their
+hearts condemned it, and was vehemently called to order for this
+assertion about the hearts of gentlemen. But a speaker who can
+certainly be made amenable to authority for vilipending in debate the
+heart of any specified opponent, may with safety attribute all manner
+of ill to the agglomerated hearts of a party. To have told any
+individual Conservative,&mdash;Sir Orlando Drought for instance,&mdash;that he
+was abandoning all the convictions of his life, because he was a
+creature at the command of Mr. Daubeny, would have been an insult
+that would have moved even the Speaker from his serenity; but you can
+hardly be personal to a whole bench of Conservatives,&mdash;to bench above
+bench of Conservatives. The charge had been made and repeated over
+and over again, till all the Orlando Droughts were ready to cut some
+man's throat,&mdash;whether their own, or Mr. Daubeny's, or Mr. Gresham's,
+they hardly knew. It might probably have been Mr. Daubeny's for
+choice, had any real cutting of a throat been possible. It was now
+made again by Phineas Finn,&mdash;with the ostensible object of defending
+himself,&mdash;and he for the moment became the target for Conservative
+wrath. Some one asked him in fury by what right he took upon himself
+to judge of the motives of gentlemen on that side of the House of
+whom personally he knew nothing. Phineas replied that he did not at
+all doubt the motives of the honourable gentleman who asked the
+question, which he was sure were noble and patriotic. But
+unfortunately the whole country was convinced that the Conservative
+party as a body was supporting this measure, unwillingly, and at the
+bidding of one man;&mdash;and, for himself, he was bound to say that he
+agreed with the country. And so the row was renewed and prolonged,
+and the gentlemen assembled, members and strangers together, passed a
+pleasant evening.</p>
+
+<p>Before he sat down, Phineas made one allusion to that former
+scuttling of the ship,&mdash;an accusation as to which had been made
+against him so injuriously by Mr. Bonteen. He himself, he said, had
+been called impractical, and perhaps he might allude to a vote which
+he had given in that House when last he had the honour of sitting
+there, and on giving which he resigned the office which he had then
+held. He had the gratification of knowing that he had been so far
+practical as to have then foreseen the necessity of a measure which
+had since been passed. And he did not doubt that he would hereafter
+be found to have been equally practical in the view that he had
+expressed on the hustings at Tankerville, for he was convinced that
+before long the anomaly of which he had spoken would cease to exist
+under the influence of a Government that would really believe in the
+work it was doing.</p>
+
+<p>There was no doubt as to the success of his speech. The vehemence
+with which his insolence was abused by one after another of those who
+spoke later from the other side was ample evidence of its success.
+But nothing occurred then or at the conclusion of the debate to make
+him think that he had won his way back to Elysium. During the whole
+evening he exchanged not a syllable with Mr. Gresham,&mdash;who indeed was
+not much given to converse with those around him in the House. Erle
+said a few good-natured words to him, and Mr. Monk praised him
+highly. But in reading the general barometer of the party as regarded
+himself, he did not find that the mercury went up. He was wretchedly
+anxious, and angry with himself for his own anxiety. He scorned to
+say a word that should sound like an entreaty; and yet he had placed
+his whole heart on a thing which seemed to be slipping from him for
+the want of asking. In a day or two it would be known whether the
+present Ministry would or would not go out. That they must be out of
+office before a month was over seemed to him the opinion of
+everybody. His fate,&mdash;and what a fate it was!&mdash;would then be
+absolutely in the hands of Mr. Gresham. Yet he could not speak a word
+of his hopes and fears even to Mr. Gresham. He had given up
+everything in the world with the view of getting into office; and now
+that the opportunity had come,&mdash;an opportunity which if allowed to
+slip could hardly return again in time to be of service to him,&mdash;the
+prize was to elude his grasp!</p>
+
+<p>But yet he did not say a word to any one on the subject that was so
+near his heart, although in the course of the night he spoke to Lord
+Cantrip in the gallery of the House. He told his friend that a
+correspondence had taken place between himself and Mr. Bonteen, in
+which he thought that he had been ill-used, and as to which he was
+quite anxious to ask His Lordship's advice. "I heard that you and he
+had been tilting at each other," said Lord Cantrip, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you seen the letters?"</p>
+
+<p>"No;&mdash;but I was told of them by Lord Fawn, who has seen them."</p>
+
+<p>"I knew he would show them to every newsmonger about the clubs," said
+Phineas angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"You can't quarrel with Bonteen for showing them to Fawn, if you
+intend to show them to me."</p>
+
+<p>"He may publish them at Charing Cross if he likes."</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly. I am sure that there will have been nothing in them
+prejudicial to you. What I mean is that if you think it necessary,
+with a view to your own character, to show them to me or to another
+friend, you cannot complain that he should do the same."</p>
+
+<p>An appointment was made at Lord Cantrip's house for the next morning,
+and Phineas could but acknowledge to himself that the man's manner to
+himself had been kind and constant. Nevertheless, the whole affair
+was going against him. Lord Cantrip had not said a word prejudicial
+to that wretch Bonteen; much less had he hinted at any future
+arrangements which would be comfortable to poor Phineas. They two,
+Lord Cantrip and Phineas, had at one period been on most intimate
+terms together;&mdash;had worked in the same office, and had thoroughly
+trusted each other. The elder of the two,&mdash;for Lord Cantrip was about
+ten years senior to Phineas,&mdash;had frequently expressed the most
+lively interest in the prospects of the other; and Phineas had felt
+that in any emergency he could tell his friend all his hopes and
+fears. But now he did not say a word of his position, nor did Lord
+Cantrip allude to it. They were to meet on the morrow in order that
+Lord Cantrip might read the correspondence;&mdash;but Phineas was sure
+that no word would be said about the Government.</p>
+
+<p>At five o'clock in the morning the division took place, and the
+Government was beaten by a majority of 72. This was much higher than
+any man had expected. When the parties were marshalled in the
+opposite lobbies it was found that in the last moment the number of
+those Conservatives who dared to rebel against their Conservative
+leaders was swelled by the course which the debate had taken. There
+were certain men who could not endure to be twitted with having
+deserted the principles of their lives, when it was clear that
+nothing was to be gained by the party by such desertion.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c37"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXXVII.</h3>
+<h4>THE CONSPIRACY.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>On the morning following the great division Phineas was with his
+friend, Lord Cantrip, by eleven o'clock; and Lord Cantrip, when he
+had read the two letters in which were comprised the whole
+correspondence, made to our unhappy hero the following little speech.
+"I do not think that you can do anything. Indeed, I am sure that Mr.
+Monk is quite right. I don't quite see what it is that you wish to
+do. Privately,&mdash;between our two selves,&mdash;I do not hesitate to say
+that Mr. Bonteen has intended to be ill-natured. I fancy that he is
+an ill-natured&mdash;or at any rate a jealous&mdash;man; and that he would be
+willing to run down a competitor in the race who had made his running
+after a fashion different from his own. Bonteen has been a useful
+man,&mdash;a very useful man; and the more so perhaps because he has not
+entertained any high political theory of his own. You have chosen to
+do so,&mdash;and undoubtedly when you and Monk left us, to our very great
+regret, you did scuttle the ship."</p>
+
+<p>"We had no intention of that kind."</p>
+
+<p>"Do not suppose that I blame you. That which was odious to the eyes
+of Mr. Bonteen was to my thinking high and honourable conduct. I have
+known the same thing done by members of a Government perhaps
+half-a-dozen times, and the men by whom it has been done have been
+the best and noblest of our modern statesmen. There has generally
+been a hard contest in the man's breast between loyalty to his party
+and strong personal convictions, the result of which has been an
+inability on the part of the struggler to give even a silent support
+to a measure which he has disapproved. That inability is no doubt
+troublesome at the time to the colleagues of the seceder, and
+constitutes an offence hardly to be pardoned by such gentlemen as Mr.
+Bonteen."</p>
+
+<p>"For Mr. Bonteen personally I care nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"But of course you must endure the ill-effects of his influence,&mdash;be
+they what they may. When you seceded from our Government you looked
+for certain adverse consequences. If you did not, where was your
+self-sacrifice? That such men as Mr. Bonteen should feel that you had
+scuttled the ship, and be unable to forgive you for doing so,&mdash;that
+is exactly the evil which you knew you must face. You have to face it
+now, and surely you can do so without showing your teeth. Hereafter,
+when men more thoughtful than Mr. Bonteen shall have come to
+acknowledge the high principle by which your conduct has been
+governed, you will receive your reward. I suppose Mr. Daubeny must
+resign now."</p>
+
+<p>"Everybody says so."</p>
+
+<p>"I am by no means sure that he will. Any other Minister since Lord
+North's time would have done so, with such a majority against him on
+a vital measure; but he is a man who delights in striking out some
+wonderful course for himself."</p>
+
+<p>"A prime minister so beaten surely can't go on."</p>
+
+<p>"Not for long, one would think. And yet how are you to turn him out?
+It depends very much on a man's power of endurance."</p>
+
+<p>"His colleagues will resign, I should think."</p>
+
+<p>"Probably;&mdash;and then he must go. I should say that that will be the
+way in which the matter will settle itself. Good morning, Finn;&mdash;and
+take my word for it, you had better not answer Mr. Bonteen's letter."</p>
+
+<p>Not a word had fallen from Lord Cantrip's friendly lips as to the
+probability of Phineas being invited to join the future Government.
+An attempt had been made to console him with the hazy promise of some
+future reward,&mdash;which however was to consist rather of the good
+opinion of good men than of anything tangible and useful. But even
+this would never come to him. What would good men know of him and of
+his self-sacrifice when he should have been driven out of the world
+by poverty, and forced probably to go to some New Zealand or back
+Canadian settlement to look for his bread? How easy, thought Phineas,
+must be the sacrifices of rich men, who can stay their time, and wait
+in perfect security for their rewards! But for such a one as he,
+truth to a principle was political annihilation. Two or three years
+ago he had done what he knew to be a noble thing;&mdash;and now, because
+he had done that noble thing, he was to be regarded as unfit for that
+very employment for which he was peculiarly fitted. But Bonteen and
+Co. had not been his only enemies. His luck had been against him
+throughout. Mr. Quintus Slide, with his People's Banner, and the
+story of that wretched affair in Judd Street, had been as strong
+against him probably as Mr. Bonteen's ill-word. Then he thought of
+Lady Laura, and her love for him. His gratitude to Lady Laura was
+boundless. There was nothing he would not do for Lady Laura,&mdash;were it
+in his power to do anything. But no circumstance in his career had
+been so unfortunate for him as this affection. A wretched charge had
+been made against him which, though wholly untrue, was as it were so
+strangely connected with the truth, that slanderers might not
+improbably be able almost to substantiate their calumnies. She would
+be in London soon, and he must devote himself to her service. But
+every act of friendship that he might do for her would be used as
+proof of the accusation that had been made against him. As he thought
+of all this he was walking towards Park Lane in order that he might
+call upon Madame Goesler according to his promise. As he went up to
+the drawing-room he met old Mr. Maule coming down, and the two bowed
+to each other on the stairs. In the drawing-room, sitting with Madame
+Goesler, he found Mrs. Bonteen. Now Mrs. Bonteen was almost as odious
+to him as was her husband.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever know anything more shameful, Mr. Finn," said Mrs.
+Bonteen, "than the attack made upon Mr. Bonteen the night before
+last?" Phineas could see a smile on Madame Goesler's face as the
+question was asked;&mdash;for she knew, and he knew that she knew, how
+great was the antipathy between him and the Bonteens.</p>
+
+<p>"The attack was upon Mr. Gresham, I thought," said Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes; nominally. But of course everybody knows what was meant.
+Upon my word there is twice more jealousy among men than among women.
+Is there not, Madame Goesler?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think any man could be more jealous than I am myself," said
+Madame Goesler.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you're fit to be a member of a Government, that's all. I don't
+suppose that there is a man in England has worked harder for his
+party than Mr. Bonteen."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think there is," said Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>"Or made himself more useful in Parliament. As for work, only that
+his constitution is so strong, he would have killed himself."</p>
+
+<p>"He should take Thorley's mixture,&mdash;twice a day," said Madame
+Goesler.</p>
+
+<p>"Take!&mdash;he never has time to take anything. He breakfasts in his
+dressing-room, carries his lunch in his pocket, and dines with the
+division bell ringing him up between his fish and his mutton chop.
+Now he has got their decimal coinage in hand, and has not a moment to
+himself, even on Sundays!"</p>
+
+<p>"He'll be sure to go to Heaven for it,&mdash;that's one comfort."</p>
+
+<p>"And because they are absolutely obliged to make him Chancellor of
+the Exchequer,&mdash;just as if he had not earned it,&mdash;everybody is so
+jealous that they are ready to tear him to pieces!"</p>
+
+<p>"Who is everybody?" asked Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I know. It wasn't only Sir Orlando Drought. Who told Sir
+Orlando? Never mind, Mr. Finn."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't in the least, Mrs. Bonteen."</p>
+
+<p>"I should have thought you would have been so triumphant," said
+Madame Goesler.</p>
+
+<p>"Not in the least, Madame Goesler. Why should I be triumphant? Of
+course the position is very high,&mdash;very high indeed. But it's no more
+than what I have always expected. If a man give up his life to a
+pursuit he ought to succeed. As for ambition, I have less of it than
+any woman. Only I do hate jealousy, Mr. Finn." Then Mrs. Bonteen took
+her leave, kissing her dear friend, Madame Goesler, and simply bowing
+to Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>"What a detestable woman!" said Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>"I know of old that you don't love her."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe that you love her a bit better than I do, and yet
+you kiss her."</p>
+
+<p>"Hardly that, Mr. Finn. There has come up a fashion for ladies to
+pretend to be very loving, and so they put their faces together. Two
+hundred years ago ladies and gentlemen did the same thing with just
+as little regard for each other. Fashions change, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"That was a change for the worse, certainly, Madame Goesler."</p>
+
+<p>"It wasn't of my doing. So you've had a great victory."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes;&mdash;greater than we expected."</p>
+
+<p>"According to Mrs. Bonteen, the chief result to the country will be
+that the taxes will be so very safe in her husband's hands! I am sure
+she believes that all Parliament has been at work in order that he
+might be made a Cabinet Minister. I rather like her for it."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't like her, or her husband."</p>
+
+<p>"I do like a woman that can thoroughly enjoy her husband's success.
+When she is talking of his carrying about his food in his pocket she
+is completely happy. I don't think Lady Glencora ever cared in the
+least about her husband being Chancellor of the Exchequer."</p>
+
+<p>"Because it added nothing to her own standing."</p>
+
+<p>"That's very ill-natured, Mr. Finn; and I find that you are becoming
+generally ill-natured. You used to be the best-humoured of men."</p>
+
+<p>"I hadn't so much to try my temper as I have now, and then you must
+remember, Madame Goesler, that I regard these people as being
+especially my enemies."</p>
+
+<p>"Lady Glencora was never your enemy."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor my friend,&mdash;especially."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you wrong her. If I tell you something you must be discreet."</p>
+
+<p>"Am I not always discreet?"</p>
+
+<p>"She does not love Mr. Bonteen. She has had too much of him at
+Matching. And as for his wife, she is quite as unwilling to be kissed
+by her as you can be. Her Grace is determined to fight your battle
+for you."</p>
+
+<p>"I want her to do nothing of the kind, Madame Goesler."</p>
+
+<p>"You will know nothing about it. We have put our heads to work, and
+Mr. Palliser,&mdash;that is, the new Duke,&mdash;is to be made to tell Mr.
+Gresham that you are to have a place. It is no good you being angry,
+for the thing is done. If you have enemies behind your back, you must
+have friends behind your back also. Lady Cantrip is to do the same
+thing."</p>
+
+<p>"For Heaven's sake, not."</p>
+
+<p>"It's all arranged. You'll be called the ladies' pet, but you mustn't
+mind that. Lady Laura will be here before it's arranged, and she will
+get hold of Mr. Erle."</p>
+
+<p>"You are laughing at me, I know."</p>
+
+<p>"Let them laugh that win. We thought of besieging Lord Fawn through
+Lady Chiltern, but we are not sure that anybody cares for Lord Fawn.
+The man we specially want now is the other Duke. We're afraid of
+attacking him through the Duchess because we think that he is
+inhumanly indifferent to anything that his wife says to him."</p>
+
+<p>"If that kind of thing is done I shall not accept place even if it is
+offered me."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not? Are you going to let a man like Mr. Bonteen bowl you over?
+Did you ever know Lady Glen fail in anything that she attempted? She
+is preparing a secret with the express object of making Mr. Ratler
+her confidant. Lord Mount Thistle is her slave, but then I fear Lord
+Mount Thistle is not of much use. She'll do anything and
+everything,&mdash;except flatter Mr. Bonteen."</p>
+
+<p>"Heaven forbid that anybody should do that for my sake."</p>
+
+<p>"The truth is that he made himself so disagreeable at Matching that
+Lady Glen is broken-hearted at finding that he is to seem to owe his
+promotion to her husband's favour. Now you know all about it."</p>
+
+<p>"You have been very wrong to tell me."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps I have, Mr. Finn. But I thought it better that you should
+know that you have friends at work for you. We believe,&mdash;or rather,
+the Duchess believes,&mdash;that falsehoods have been used which are as
+disparaging to Lady Laura Kennedy as they are injurious to you, and
+she is determined to put it right. Some one has told Mr. Gresham that
+you have been the means of breaking the hearts both of Lord Brentford
+and Mr. Kennedy,&mdash;two members of the late Cabinet,&mdash;and he must be
+made to understand that this is untrue. If only for Lady Laura's sake
+you must submit."</p>
+
+<p>"Lord Brentford and I are the best friends in the world."</p>
+
+<p>"And Mr. Kennedy is a madman,&mdash;absolutely in custody of his friends,
+as everybody knows; and yet the story has been made to work."</p>
+
+<p>"And you do not feel that all this is derogatory to me?"</p>
+
+<p>Madame Goesler was silent for a moment, and then she answered boldly,
+"Not a whit. Why should it be derogatory? It is not done with the
+object of obtaining an improper appointment on behalf of an
+unimportant man. When falsehoods of that kind are told you can't meet
+them in a straightforward way. I suppose I know with fair accuracy
+the sort of connection there has been between you and Lady Laura."
+Phineas very much doubted whether she had any such knowledge; but he
+said nothing, though the lady paused a few moments for reply. "You
+can't go and tell Mr. Gresham all that; nor can any friend do so on
+your behalf. It would be absurd."</p>
+
+<p>"Most absurd."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet it is essential to your interests that he should know it.
+When your enemies are undermining you, you must countermine or you'll
+be blown up."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd rather fight above ground."</p>
+
+<p>"That's all very well, but your enemies won't stay above ground. Is
+that newspaper man above ground? And for a little job of clever
+mining, believe me, that there is not a better engineer going than
+Lady Glen;&mdash;not but what I've known her to be very nearly 'hoist with
+her own petard,'"&mdash;added Madame Goesler, as she remembered a certain
+circumstance in their joint lives.</p>
+
+<p>All that Madame Goesler said was true. A conspiracy had been formed,
+in the first place at the instance of Madame Goesler, but altogether
+by the influence of the young Duchess, for forcing upon the future
+Premier the necessity of admitting Phineas Finn into his Government.
+On the Wednesday following the conclusion of the debate,&mdash;the day on
+the morning of which the division was to take place,&mdash;there was no
+House. On the Thursday, the last day on which the House was to sit
+before the Easter holidays, Mr. Daubeny announced his intention of
+postponing the declaration of his intentions till after the
+adjournment. The House would meet, he said, on that day week, and
+then he would make his official statement. This communication he made
+very curtly, and in a manner that was thought by some to be almost
+insolent to the House. It was known that he had been grievously
+disappointed by the result of the debate,&mdash;not probably having
+expected a majority since his adversary's strategy had been declared,
+but always hoping that the deserters from his own standard would be
+very few. The deserters had been very many, and Mr. Daubeny was
+majestic in his wrath.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing, however, could be done till after Easter. The Ratlers of the
+Liberal party were very angry at the delay, declaring that it would
+have been much to the advantage of the country at large that the
+vacation week should have been used for constructing a Liberal
+Cabinet. This work of construction always takes time, and delays the
+business of the country. No one can have known better than did Mr.
+Daubeny how great was the injury of delay, and how advantageously the
+short holiday might have been used. With a majority of seventy-two
+against him, there could be no reason why he should not have at once
+resigned, and advised the Queen to send for Mr. Gresham. Nothing
+could be worse than his conduct. So said the Liberals, thirsting for
+office. Mr. Gresham himself did not open his mouth when the
+announcement was made;&mdash;nor did any man, marked for future office,
+rise to denounce the beaten statesman. But one or two independent
+Members expressed their great regret at the unnecessary delay which
+was to take place before they were informed who was to be the
+Minister of the Crown. But Mr. Daubeny, as soon as he had made his
+statement, stalked out of the House, and no reply whatever was made
+to the independent Members. Some few sublime and hot-headed gentlemen
+muttered the word "impeachment." Others, who were more practical and
+less dignified, suggested that the Prime Minister "ought to have his
+head punched."</p>
+
+<p>It thus happened that all the world went out of town that week,&mdash;so
+that the Duchess of Omnium was down at Matching when Phineas called
+at the Duke's house in Carlton Terrace on Friday. With what object he
+had called he hardly knew himself; but he thought that he intended to
+assure the Duchess that he was not a candidate for office, and that
+he must deprecate her interference. Luckily,&mdash;or unluckily,&mdash;he did
+not see her, and he felt that it would be impossible to convey his
+wishes in a letter. The whole subject was one which would have defied
+him to find words sufficiently discreet for his object.</p>
+
+<p>The Duke and Duchess of St. Bungay were at Matching for the
+Easter,&mdash;as also was Barrington Erle, and also that dreadful Mr.
+Bonteen, from whose presence the poor Duchess of Omnium could in
+these days never altogether deliver herself. "Duke," she said, "you
+know Mr. Finn?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly. It was not very long ago that I was talking to him."</p>
+
+<p>"He used to be in office, you remember."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes;&mdash;and a very good beginner he was. Is he a friend of Your
+Grace's?"</p>
+
+<p>"A great friend. I'll tell you what I want you to do. You must have
+some place found for him."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Duchess, I never interfere."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Duke, you've made more Cabinets than any man living."</p>
+
+<p>"I fear, indeed, that I have been at the construction of more
+Governments than most men. It's forty years ago since Lord Melbourne
+first did me the honour of consulting me. When asked for advice, my
+dear, I have very often given it. It has occasionally been my duty to
+say that I could not myself give my slender assistance to a Ministry
+unless I were supported by the presence of this or that political
+friend. But never in my life have I asked for an appointment as a
+personal favour; and I am sure you won't be angry with me if I say
+that I cannot begin to do so now."</p>
+
+<p>"But Mr. Finn ought to be there. He did so well before."</p>
+
+<p>"If so, let us presume that he will be there. I can only say, from
+what little I know of him, that I shall be happy to see him in any
+office to which the future Prime Minister may consider it to be his
+duty to appoint him." "To think," said the Duchess of Omnium
+afterwards to her friend Madame Goesler,&mdash;"to think that I should
+have had that stupid old woman a week in the house, and all for
+nothing!"</p>
+
+<p>"Upon my word, Duchess," said Barrington Erle, "I don't know why it
+is, but Gresham seems to have taken a dislike to him."</p>
+
+<p>"It's Bonteen's doing."</p>
+
+<p>"Very probably."</p>
+
+<p>"Surely you can get the better of that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I look upon Phineas Finn, Duchess, almost as a child of my own. He
+has come back to Parliament altogether at my instigation."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you ought to help him."</p>
+
+<p>"And so I would if I could. Remember I am not the man I used to be
+when dear old Mr. Mildmay reigned. The truth is, I never interfere
+now unless I'm asked."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe that every one of you is afraid of Mr. Gresham."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps we are."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you what. If he's passed over I'll make such a row that
+some of you shall hear it."</p>
+
+<p>"How fond all you women are of Phineas Finn."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care that for him," said the Duchess, snapping her
+fingers&mdash;"more than I do, that is, for any other mere acquaintance.
+The man is very well, as most men are."</p>
+
+<p>"Not all."</p>
+
+<p>"No, not all. Some are as little and jealous as a girl in her tenth
+season. He is a decently good fellow, and he is to be thrown over,
+<span class="nowrap">because&mdash;"</span></p>
+
+<p>"Because of what?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't choose to name any one. You ought to know all about it, and
+I do not doubt but you do. Lady Laura Kennedy is your own cousin."</p>
+
+<p>"There is not a spark of truth in all that."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course there is not; and yet he is to be punished. I know very
+well, Mr. Erle, that if you choose to put your shoulder to the wheel
+you can manage it; and I shall expect to have it managed."</p>
+
+<p>"Plantagenet," she said the next day to her husband, "I want you to
+do something for me."</p>
+
+<p>"To do something! What am I to do? It's very seldom you want anything
+in my line."</p>
+
+<p>"This isn't in your line at all, and yet I want you to do it."</p>
+
+<p>"Ten to one it's beyond my means."</p>
+
+<p>"No, it isn't. I know you can if you like. I suppose you are all sure
+to be in office within ten days or a fortnight?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can't say, my dear. I have promised Mr. Gresham to be of use to
+him if I can."</p>
+
+<p>"Everybody knows all that. You're going to be Privy Seal, and to work
+just the same as ever at those horrible two farthings."</p>
+
+<p>"And what is it you want, Glencora?"</p>
+
+<p>"I want you to say that you won't take any office unless you are
+allowed to bring in one or two friends with you."</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I do that? I shall not doubt any Cabinet chosen by Mr.
+Gresham."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not speaking of the Cabinet; I allude to men in lower offices,
+lords, and Under-Secretaries, and Vice-people. You know what I mean."</p>
+
+<p>"I never interfere."</p>
+
+<p>"But you must. Other men do continually. It's quite a common thing
+for a man to insist that one or two others should come in with him."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. If a man feels that he cannot sustain his own position without
+support, he declines to join the Government without it. But that
+isn't my case. The friends who are necessary to me in the Cabinet are
+the very men who will certainly be there. I would join no Government
+without the Duke; <span class="nowrap">but&mdash;"</span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, the Duke&mdash;the Duke! I hate dukes&mdash;and duchesses too. I'm not
+talking about a duke. I want you to oblige me by making a point with
+Mr. Gresham that Mr. Finn shall have an office."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Finn!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Mr. Finn. I'll explain it all if you wish it."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Glencora, I never interfere."</p>
+
+<p>"Who does interfere? Everybody says the same. Somebody interferes, I
+suppose. Mr. Gresham can't know everybody so well as to be able to
+fit all the pegs into all the holes without saying a word to
+anybody."</p>
+
+<p>"He would probably speak to Mr. Bonteen."</p>
+
+<p>"Then he would speak to a very disagreeable man, and one I'm as sick
+of as I ever was of any man I ever knew. If you can't manage this for
+me, Plantagenet, I shall take it very ill. It's a little thing, and
+I'm sure you could have it done. I don't very often trouble you by
+asking for anything."</p>
+
+<p>The Duke in his quiet way was an affectionate man, and an indulgent
+husband. On the following morning he was closeted with Mr. Bonteen,
+two private secretaries, and a leading clerk from the Treasury for
+four hours, during which they were endeavouring to ascertain whether
+the commercial world of Great Britain would be ruined or enriched if
+twelve pennies were declared to contain fifty farthings. The
+discussion had been grievously burdensome to the minds of the Duke's
+assistants in it, but he himself had remembered his wife through it
+all. "By the way," he said, whispering into Mr. Bonteen's private ear
+as he led that gentleman away to lunch, "if we do come
+<span class="nowrap">in&mdash;"</span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, we must come in."</p>
+
+<p>"If we do, I suppose something will be done for that Mr. Finn. He
+spoke well the other night."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bonteen's face became very long. "He helped to upset the coach
+when he was with us before."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think that that is much against him."</p>
+
+<p>"Is he&mdash;a personal friend of Your Grace's?"</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;not particularly. I never care about such things for myself; but
+Lady <span class="nowrap">Glencora&mdash;"</span></p>
+
+<p>"I think the Duchess can hardly know what has been his conduct to
+poor Kennedy. There was a most disreputable row at a public-house in
+London, and I am told that he behaved&mdash;very badly."</p>
+
+<p>"I never heard a word about it," said the Duke.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you just the truth," said Mr. Bonteen. "I've been asked
+about him, and I've been obliged to say that he would weaken any
+Government that would give him office."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, indeed!"</p>
+
+<p>That evening the Duke told the Duchess nearly all that he had heard,
+and the Duchess swore that she wasn't going to be beaten by Mr.
+Bonteen.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c38"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXXVIII.</h3>
+<h4>ONCE AGAIN IN PORTMAN SQUARE.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>On the Wednesday in Easter week Lord Brentford and Lady Laura Kennedy
+reached Portman Square from Dresden, and Phineas, who had remained in
+town, was summoned thither by a note written at Dover. "We arrived
+here to-day, and shall be in town to-morrow afternoon, between four
+and five. Papa wants to see you especially. Can you manage to be with
+us in the Square at about eight? I know it will be inconvenient, but
+you will put up with inconvenience. I don't like to keep Papa up
+late; and if he is tired he won't speak to you as he would if you
+came early.&mdash;L. K." Phineas was engaged to dine with Lord Cantrip;
+but he wrote to excuse himself,&mdash;telling the simple truth. He had
+been asked to see Lord Brentford on business, and must obey the
+summons.</p>
+
+<p>He was shown into a sitting-room on the ground floor, which he had
+always known as the Earl's own room, and there he found Lord
+Brentford alone. The last time he had been there he had come to plead
+with the Earl on behalf of Lord Chiltern, and the Earl had then been
+a stern self-willed man, vigorous from a sense of power, and very
+able to maintain and to express his own feelings. Now he was a
+broken-down old man,&mdash;whose mind had been, as it were, unbooted and
+put into moral slippers for the remainder of its term of existence
+upon earth. He half shuffled up out of his chair as Phineas came up
+to him, and spoke as though every calamity in the world were
+oppressing him. "Such a passage! Oh, very bad, indeed! I thought it
+would have been the death of me. Laura thought it better to come on."
+The fact, however, had been that the Earl had so many objections to
+staying at Calais, that his daughter had felt herself obliged to
+yield to him.</p>
+
+<p>"You must be glad at any rate to have got home," said Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>"Home! I don't know what you call home. I don't suppose I shall ever
+feel any place to be home again."</p>
+
+<p>"You'll go to Saulsby;&mdash;will you not?"</p>
+
+<p>"How can I tell? If Chiltern would have kept the house up, of course
+I should have gone there. But he never would do anything like anybody
+else. Violet wants me to go to that place they've got there, but I
+shan't do that."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a comfortable house."</p>
+
+<p>"I hate horses and dogs, and I won't go."</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing more to be said on that point. "I hope Lady Laura
+is well."</p>
+
+<p>"No, she's not. How should she be well? She's anything but well.
+She'll be in directly, but she thought I ought to see you first. I
+suppose this wretched man is really mad."</p>
+
+<p>"I am told so."</p>
+
+<p>"He never was anything else since I knew him. What are we to do now?
+Forster says it won't look well to ask for a separation only because
+he's insane. He tried to shoot you?"</p>
+
+<p>"And very nearly succeeded."</p>
+
+<p>"Forster says that if we do anything, all that must come out."</p>
+
+<p>"There need not be the slightest hesitation as far as I am concerned,
+Lord Brentford."</p>
+
+<p>"You know he keeps all her money."</p>
+
+<p>"At present I suppose he couldn't give it up."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not? Why shouldn't he give it up? God bless my soul! Forty
+thousand pounds and all for nothing. When he married he declared that
+he didn't care about it! Money was nothing to him! So she lent it to
+Chiltern."</p>
+
+<p>"I remember."</p>
+
+<p>"But they hadn't been together a year before he asked for it. Now
+there it is;&mdash;and if she were to die to-morrow it would be lost to
+the family. Something must be done, you know. I can't let her money
+go in that way."</p>
+
+<p>"You'll do what Mr. Forster suggests, no doubt."</p>
+
+<p>"But he won't suggest anything. They never do. He doesn't care what
+becomes of the money. It never ought to have been given up as it
+was."</p>
+
+<p>"It was settled, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes;&mdash;if there were children. And it will come back to her if he
+dies first. But mad people never do die. That's a well-known fact.
+They've nothing to trouble them, and they live for ever. It'll all go
+to some cousin of his that nobody ever saw."</p>
+
+<p>"Not as long as Lady Laura lives."</p>
+
+<p>"But she does not get a penny of the income;&mdash;not a penny. There
+never was anything so cruel. He has published all manner of
+accusations against her."</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody believes a word of that, my lord."</p>
+
+<p>"And then when she is dragged forward by the necessity of vindicating
+her character, he goes mad and keeps all her money! There never was
+anything so cruel since the world began."</p>
+
+<p>This continued for half-an-hour, and then Lady Laura came in. Nothing
+had come, or could have come, from the consultation with the Earl.
+Had it gone on for another hour, he would simply have continued to
+grumble, and have persevered in insisting upon the hardships he
+endured. Lady Laura was in black, and looked sad, and old, and
+careworn; but she did not seem to be ill. Phineas could not but think
+at the moment how entirely her youth had passed away from her. She
+came and sat close by him, and began at once to speak of the late
+debate. "Of course they'll go out," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"I presume they will."</p>
+
+<p>"And our party will come in."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes;&mdash;Mr. Gresham, and the two dukes, and Lord Cantrip,&mdash;with
+Legge Wilson, Sir Harry Coldfoot, and the rest of them."</p>
+
+<p>"And you?"</p>
+
+<p>Phineas smiled, and tried to smile pleasantly, as he answered, "I
+don't know that they'll put themselves out by doing very much for
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"They'll do something."</p>
+
+<p>"I fancy not. Indeed, Lady Laura, to tell the truth at once, I know
+that they don't mean to offer me anything."</p>
+
+<p>"After making you give up your place in Ireland?"</p>
+
+<p>"They didn't make me give it up. I should never dream of using such
+an argument to any one. Of course I had to judge for myself. There is
+nothing to be said about it;&mdash;only it is so." As he told her this he
+strove to look light-hearted, and so to speak that she should not see
+the depth of his disappointment;&mdash;but he failed altogether. She knew
+him too well not to read his whole heart in the matter.</p>
+
+<p>"Who has said it?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody says things of that kind, and yet one knows."</p>
+
+<p>"And why is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"How can I say? There are various reasons,&mdash;and, perhaps, very good
+reasons. What I did before makes men think that they can't depend on
+me. At any rate it is so."</p>
+
+<p>"Shall you not speak to Mr. Gresham?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you say, Papa?"</p>
+
+<p>"How can I understand it, my dear? There used to be a kind of honour
+in these things, but that's all old-fashioned now. Ministers used to
+think of their political friends; but in these days they only regard
+their political enemies. If you can make a Minister afraid of you,
+then it becomes worth his while to buy you up. Most of the young men
+rise now by making themselves thoroughly disagreeable. Abuse a
+Minister every night for half a session, and you may be sure to be in
+office the other half,&mdash;if you care about it."</p>
+
+<p>"May I speak to Barrington Erle?" asked Lady Laura.</p>
+
+<p>"I had rather you did not. Of course I must take it as it comes."</p>
+
+<p>"But, my dear Mr. Finn, people do make efforts in such cases. I don't
+doubt but that at this moment there are a dozen men moving heaven and
+earth to secure something. No one has more friends than you have."</p>
+
+<p>Had not her father been present he would have told her what his
+friends were doing for him, and how unhappy such interferences made
+him; but he could not explain all this before the Earl. "I would so
+much rather hear about yourself," he said, again smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"There is but little to say about us. I suppose Papa has told you?"</p>
+
+<p>But the Earl had told him nothing, and indeed, there was nothing to
+tell. The lawyer had advised that Mr. Kennedy's friends should be
+informed that Lady Laura now intended to live in England, and that
+they should be invited to make to her some statement as to Mr.
+Kennedy's condition. If necessary he, on her behalf, would justify
+her departure from her husband's roof by a reference to the
+outrageous conduct of which Mr. Kennedy had since been guilty. In
+regard to Lady Laura's fortune, Mr. Forster said that she could no
+doubt apply for alimony, and that if the application were pressed at
+law she would probably obtain it;&mdash;but he could not recommend such a
+step at the present moment. As to the accusation which had been made
+against her character, and which had become public through the malice
+of the editor of The People's Banner, Mr. Forster thought that the
+best refutation would be found in her return to England. At any rate
+he would advise no further step at the present moment. Should any
+further libel appear in the columns of the newspaper, then the
+question might be again considered. Mr. Forster had already been in
+Portman Square, and this had been the result of the conference.</p>
+
+<p>"There is not much comfort in it all,&mdash;is there?" said Lady Laura.</p>
+
+<p>"There is no comfort in anything," said the Earl.</p>
+
+<p>When Phineas took his leave Lady Laura followed him out into the
+hall, and they went together into the large, gloomy
+dining-room,&mdash;gloomy and silent now, but which in former days he had
+known to be brilliant with many lights, and cheerful with eager
+voices. "I must have one word with you," she said, standing close to
+him against the table, and putting her hand upon his arm. "Amidst all
+my sorrow, I have been so thankful that he did not&mdash;kill you."</p>
+
+
+<div class="center"><a id="ill38"></a>
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4px">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/ill38.jpg">
+      <img src="images/ill38-t.jpg" height="600"
+      alt='"I MUST HAVE ONE WORD WITH YOU."' /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption"><span class="smallcaps">"I must
+      have one word with you."</span><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/ill38.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>"I almost wish he had."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Phineas!&mdash;how can you say words so wicked! Would you have had
+him a murderer?"</p>
+
+<p>"A madman is responsible for nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"Where should I have been? What should I have done? But of course you
+do not mean it. You have everything in life before you. Say some word
+to me more comfortable than that. You cannot think how I have looked
+forward to meeting you again. It has robbed the last month of half
+its sadness." He put his arm round her waist and pressed her to his
+side, but he said nothing. "It was so good of you to go to him as you
+did. How was he looking?"</p>
+
+<p>"Twenty years older than when you saw him last."</p>
+
+<p>"But how in health?"</p>
+
+<p>"He was thin and haggard."</p>
+
+<p>"Was he pale?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; flushed and red. He had not shaved himself for days; nor, as I
+believe, had he been out of his room since he came up to London. I
+fancy that he will not live long."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor fellow;&mdash;unhappy man! I was very wrong to marry him, Phineas."</p>
+
+<p>"I have never said so;&mdash;nor, indeed, thought so."</p>
+
+<p>"But I have thought so; and I say it also,&mdash;to you. I owe him any
+reparation that I can make him; but I could not have lived with him.
+I had no idea, before, that the nature of two human beings could be
+so unlike. I so often remember what you told me of him,&mdash;here; in
+this house, when I first brought you together. Alas, how sad it has
+been!"</p>
+
+<p>"Sad, indeed."</p>
+
+<p>"But can this be true that you tell me of yourself?</p>
+
+<p>"It is quite true. I could not say so before your father, but it is
+Mr. Bonteen's doing. There is no remedy. I am sure of that. I am only
+afraid that people are interfering for me in a manner that will be as
+disagreeable to me as it will be useless."</p>
+
+<p>"What friends?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>He was still standing with his arm round her waist, and he did not
+like to mention the name of Madame Goesler.</p>
+
+<p>"The Duchess of Omnium,&mdash;whom you remember as Lady Glencora
+Palliser."</p>
+
+<p>"Is she a friend of yours?"</p>
+
+<p>"No;&mdash;not particularly. But she is an indiscreet woman, and hates
+Bonteen, and has taken it into her stupid head to interest herself in
+my concerns. It is no doing of mine, and yet I cannot help it."</p>
+
+<p>"She will succeed."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want assistance from such a quarter; and I feel sure that
+she will not succeed."</p>
+
+<p>"What will you do, Phineas?"</p>
+
+<p>"What shall I do? Carry on the battle as long as I can without
+getting into debt, and then&mdash;vanish."</p>
+
+<p>"You vanished once before,&mdash;did you not,&mdash;with a wife?"</p>
+
+<p>"And now I shall vanish alone. My poor little wife! It seems all like
+a dream. She was so good, so pure, so pretty, so loving!"</p>
+
+<p>"Loving! A man's love is so easily transferred;&mdash;as easily as a
+woman's hand;&mdash;is it not, Phineas? Say the word, for it is what you
+are thinking."</p>
+
+<p>"I was thinking of no such thing."</p>
+
+<p>"You must think it&mdash;You need not be afraid to reproach me. I could
+bear it from you. What could I not bear from you? Oh, Phineas;&mdash;if I
+had only known myself then, as I do now!"</p>
+
+<p>"It is too late for regrets," he said. There was something in the
+words which grated on her feelings, and induced her at length to
+withdraw herself from his arm. Too late for regrets! She had never
+told herself that it was not too late. She was the wife of another
+man, and therefore, surely it was too late. But still the word coming
+from his mouth was painful to her. It seemed to signify that for him
+at least the game was all over.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed," she said,&mdash;"if our regrets and remorse were at our own
+disposal! You might as well say that it is too late for unhappiness,
+too late for weariness, too late for all the misery that comes from a
+life's disappointment."</p>
+
+<p>"I should have said that indulgence in regrets is vain."</p>
+
+<p>"That is a scrap of philosophy which I have heard so often before!
+But we will not quarrel, will we, on the first day of my return?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hope not."</p>
+
+<p>"And I may speak to Barrington?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; certainly not."</p>
+
+<p>"But I shall. How can I help it? He will be here to-morrow, and will
+be full of the coming changes. How should I not mention your name? He
+knows&mdash;not all that has passed, but too much not to be aware of my
+anxiety. Of course your name will come up?"</p>
+
+<p>"What I request,&mdash;what I demand is, that you ask no favour for me.
+Your father will miss you,&mdash;will he not? I had better go now."</p>
+
+<p>"Good night, Phineas."</p>
+
+<p>"Good night, dear friend."</p>
+
+<p>"Dearest, dearest friend," she said. Then he left her, and without
+assistance, let himself out into the square. In her intercourse with
+him there was a passion the expression of which caused him sorrow and
+almost dismay. He did not say so even to himself, but he felt that a
+time might come in which she would resent the coldness of demeanour
+which it would be imperative upon him to adopt in his intercourse
+with her. He knew how imprudent he had been to stand there with his
+arm round her waist.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c39"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXXIX.</h3>
+<h4>CAGLIOSTRO.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>It had been settled that Parliament should meet on the Thursday in
+Easter week, and it was known to the world at large that Cabinet
+Councils were held on the Friday previous, on the Monday, and on the
+Tuesday; but nobody knew what took place at those meetings. Cabinet
+Councils are, of course, very secret. What kind of oath the members
+take not to divulge any tittle of the proceedings at these awful
+conferences, the general public does not know; but it is presumed
+that oaths are taken very solemn, and it is known that they are very
+binding. Nevertheless, it is not an uncommon thing to hear openly at
+the clubs an account of what has been settled; and, as we all know,
+not a council is held as to which the editor of The People's Banner
+does not inform its readers next day exactly what took place. But as
+to these three Cabinet Councils there was an increased mystery
+abroad. Statements, indeed, were made, very definite and
+circumstantial, but then they were various,&mdash;and directly opposed one
+to another. According to The People's Banner, Mr. Daubeny had
+resolved, with that enduring courage which was his peculiar
+characteristic, that he would not be overcome by faction, but would
+continue to exercise all the functions of Prime Minister until he had
+had an opportunity of learning whether his great measure had been
+opposed by the sense of the country, or only by the tactics of an
+angry and greedy party. Other journals declared that the Ministry as
+a whole had decided on resigning. But the clubs were in a state of
+agonising doubt. At the great stronghold of conservative policy in
+Pall Mall men were silent, embarrassed, and unhappy. The party was at
+heart divorced from its leaders,&mdash;and a party without leaders is
+powerless. To these gentlemen there could be no triumph, whether Mr.
+Daubeny went out or remained in office. They had been betrayed;&mdash;but
+as a body were unable even to accuse the traitor. As regarded most of
+them they had accepted the treachery and bowed their heads beneath
+it, by means of their votes. And as to the few who had been
+staunch,&mdash;they also were cowed by a feeling that they had been
+instrumental in destroying their own power by endeavouring to protect
+a doomed institution. Many a thriving county member in those days
+expressed a wish among his friends that he had never meddled with the
+affairs of public life, and hinted at the Chiltern Hundreds. On the
+other side, there was undoubtedly something of a rabid desire for
+immediate triumph, which almost deserved that epithet of greedy which
+was then commonly used by Conservatives in speaking of their
+opponents. With the Liberal leaders,&mdash;such men as Mr. Gresham and the
+two dukes,&mdash;the anxiety displayed was, no doubt, on behalf of the
+country. It is right, according to our constitution, that the
+Government should be entrusted to the hands of those whom the
+constituencies of the country have most trusted. And, on behalf of
+the country, it behoves the men in whom the country has placed its
+trust to do battle in season and out of season,&mdash;to carry on war
+internecine,&mdash;till the demands of the country are obeyed. A sound
+political instinct had induced Mr. Gresham on this occasion to attack
+his opponent simply on the ground of his being the leader only of a
+minority in the House of Commons. But from among Mr. Gresham's
+friends there had arisen a noise which sounded very like a clamour
+for place, and this noise of course became aggravated in the ears of
+those who were to be displaced. Now, during Easter week, the clamour
+became very loud. Could it be possible that the archfiend of a
+Minister would dare to remain in office till the end of a hurried
+Session, and then again dissolve Parliament? Men talked of rows in
+London,&mdash;even of revolution, and there were meetings in open places
+both by day and night. Petitions were to be prepared, and the country
+was to be made to express itself.</p>
+
+<p>When, however, Thursday afternoon came, Mr. Daubeny "threw up the
+sponge." Up to the last moment the course which he intended to pursue
+was not known to the country at large. He entered the House very
+slowly,&mdash;almost with a languid air, as though indifferent to its
+performances, and took his seat at about half-past four. Every man
+there felt that there was insolence in his demeanour,&mdash;and yet there
+was nothing on which it was possible to fasten in the way of
+expressed complaint. There was a faint attempt at a cheer,&mdash;for good
+soldiers acknowledge the importance of supporting even an unpopular
+general. But Mr. Daubeny's soldiers on this occasion were not very
+good. When he had been seated about five minutes he rose, still very
+languidly, and began his statement. He and his colleagues, he said,
+in their attempt to legislate for the good of their country had been
+beaten in regard to a very great measure by a large majority, and in
+compliance with what he acknowledged to be the expressed opinion of
+the House, he had considered it to be his duty&mdash;as his colleagues had
+considered it to be theirs&mdash;to place their joint resignations in the
+hands of Her Majesty. This statement was received with considerable
+surprise, as it was not generally known that Mr. Daubeny had as yet
+even seen the Queen. But the feeling most predominant in the House
+was one almost of dismay at the man's quiescence. He and his
+colleagues had resigned, and he had recommended Her Majesty to send
+for Mr. Gresham. He spoke in so low a voice as to be hardly audible
+to the House at large, and then paused,&mdash;ceasing to speak, as though
+his work were done. He even made some gesture, as though stepping
+back to his seat;&mdash;deceived by which Mr. Gresham, at the other side
+of the table, rose to his legs. "Perhaps," said Mr.
+Daubeny,&mdash;"Perhaps the right honourable gentleman would pardon him,
+and the House would pardon him, if still, for a moment, he interposed
+between the House and the right honourable gentleman. He could well
+understand the impatience of the right honourable gentleman,&mdash;who no
+doubt was anxious to reassume that authority among them, the
+temporary loss of which he had not perhaps borne with all the
+equanimity which might have been expected from him. He would promise
+the House and the right honourable gentleman that he would not detain
+them long." Mr. Gresham threw himself back into his seat, evidently
+not without annoyance, and his enemy stood for a moment looking at
+him. Unless they were angels these two men must at that moment have
+hated each other;&mdash;and it is supposed that they were no more than
+human. It was afterwards said that the little ruse of pretending to
+resume his seat had been deliberately planned by Mr. Daubeny with the
+view of seducing Mr. Gresham into an act of seeming impatience, and
+that these words about his opponent's failing equanimity had been
+carefully prepared.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Daubeny stood for a minute silent, and then began to pour forth
+that which was really his speech on the occasion. Those flaccid
+half-pronounced syllables in which he had declared that he had
+resigned,&mdash;had been studiously careless, purposely flaccid. It was
+his duty to let the House know the fact, and he did his duty. But now
+he had a word to say in which he himself could take some little
+interest. Mr. Daubeny could be fiery or flaccid as it suited
+himself;&mdash;and now it suited him to be fiery. He had a prophecy to
+make, and prophets have ever been energetic men. Mr. Daubeny
+conceived it to be his duty to inform the House, and through the
+House the country, that now, at last, had the day of ruin come upon
+the British Empire, because it had bowed itself to the dominion of an
+unscrupulous and greedy faction. It cannot be said that the language
+which he used was unmeasured, because no word that he uttered would
+have warranted the Speaker in calling him to order; but, within the
+very wide bounds of parliamentary etiquette, there was no limit to
+the reproach and reprobation which he heaped on the House of Commons
+for its late vote. And his audacity equalled his insolence. In
+announcing his resignation, he had condescended to speak of himself
+and his colleagues; but now he dropped his colleagues as though they
+were unworthy of his notice, and spoke only of his own doings,&mdash;of
+his own efforts to save the country, which was indeed willing to be
+saved, but unable to select fitting instruments of salvation. "He had
+been twitted," he said, "with inconsistency to his principles by men
+who were simply unable to understand the meaning of the word
+Conservatism. These gentlemen seemed to think that any man who did
+not set himself up as an apostle of constant change must therefore be
+bound always to stand still and see his country perish from
+stagnation. It might be that there were gentlemen in that House whose
+timid natures could not face the dangers of any movement; but for
+himself he would say that no word had ever fallen from his lips which
+justified either his friends or his adversaries in classing him among
+the number. If a man be anxious to keep his fire alight, does he
+refuse to touch the sacred coals as in the course of nature they are
+consumed? Or does he move them with the salutary poker and add fresh
+fuel from the basket? They all knew that enemy to the comfort of the
+domestic hearth, who could not keep his hands for a moment from the
+fire-irons. Perhaps he might be justified if he said that they had
+been very much troubled of late in that House by gentlemen who could
+not keep their fingers from poker and tongs. But there had now fallen
+upon them a trouble of a nature much more serious in its effects than
+any that had come or could come from would-be reformers. A spirit of
+personal ambition, a wretched thirst for office, a hankering after
+the power and privileges of ruling, had not only actuated men,&mdash;as,
+alas, had been the case since first the need for men to govern others
+had arisen in the world,&mdash;but had been openly avowed and put forward
+as an adequate and sufficient reason for opposing a measure in
+disapprobation of which no single argument had been used! The right
+honourable gentleman's proposition to the House had been simply
+this;&mdash;'I shall oppose this measure, be it good or bad, because I
+desire, myself, to be Prime Minister, and I call upon those whom I
+lead in politics to assist me in doing so, in order that they may
+share the good things on which we may thus be enabled to lay our
+hands!'"</p>
+
+<p>Then there arose a great row in the House, and there seemed to be a
+doubt whether the still existing Minister of the day would be allowed
+to continue his statement. Mr. Gresham rose to his feet, but sat down
+again instantly, without having spoken a word that was audible. Two
+or three voices were heard calling upon the Speaker for protection.
+It was, however, asserted afterwards that nothing had been said which
+demanded the Speaker's interference. But all moderate voices were
+soon lost in the enraged clamour of members on each side. The
+insolence showered upon those who generally supported Mr. Daubeny had
+equalled that with which he had exasperated those opposed to him; and
+as the words had fallen from his lips, there had been no purpose of
+cheering him from the conservative benches. But noise creates noise,
+and shouting is a ready and easy mode of contest. For a while it
+seemed as though the right side of the Speaker's chair was only
+beaten by the majority of lungs on the left side;&mdash;and in the midst
+of it all Mr. Daubeny still stood, firm on his feet, till gentlemen
+had shouted themselves silent,&mdash;and then he resumed his speech.</p>
+
+<p>The remainder of what he said was profound, prophetic, and
+unintelligible. The gist of it, so far as it could be understood when
+the bran was bolted from it, consisted in an assurance that the
+country had now reached that period of its life in which rapid decay
+was inevitable, and that, as the mortal disease had already shown
+itself in its worst form, national decrepitude was imminent, and
+natural death could not long be postponed. They who attempted to read
+the prophecy with accuracy were of opinion that the prophet had
+intimated that had the nation, even in this its crisis, consented to
+take him, the prophet, as its sole physician and to obey his
+prescription with childlike docility, health might not only have been
+re-established, but a new juvenescence absolutely created. The nature
+of the medicine that should have been taken was even supposed to have
+been indicated in some very vague terms. Had he been allowed to
+operate he would have cut the tap-roots of the national cancer, have
+introduced fresh blood into the national veins, and resuscitated the
+national digestion, and he seemed to think that the nation, as a
+nation, was willing enough to undergo the operation, and be treated
+as he should choose to treat it;&mdash;but that the incubus of Mr.
+Gresham, backed by an unworthy House of Commons, had prevented, and
+was preventing, the nation from having its own way. Therefore the
+nation must be destroyed. Mr. Daubeny as soon as he had completed his
+speech took up his hat and stalked out of the House.</p>
+
+<p>It was supposed at the time that the retiring Prime Minister had
+intended, when he rose to his legs, not only to denounce his
+opponents, but also to separate himself from his own unworthy
+associates. Men said that he had become disgusted with politics,
+disappointed, and altogether demoralized by defeat, and great
+curiosity existed as to the steps which might be taken at the time by
+the party of which he had hitherto been the leader. On that evening,
+at any rate, nothing was done. When Mr. Daubeny was gone, Mr. Gresham
+rose and said that in the present temper of the House he thought it
+best to postpone any statement from himself. He had received Her
+Majesty's commands only as he had entered that House, and in
+obedience to those commands, he should wait upon Her Majesty early
+to-morrow. He hoped to be able to inform the House at the afternoon
+sitting, what was the nature of the commands with which Her Majesty
+might honour him.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think of that?" Phineas asked Mr. Monk as they left the
+House together.</p>
+
+<p>"I think that our Chatham of to-day is but a very poor copy of him
+who misbehaved a century ago."</p>
+
+<p>"Does not the whole thing distress you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not particularly. I have always felt that there has been a mistake
+about Mr. Daubeny. By many he has been accounted as a statesman,
+whereas to me he has always been a political Cagliostro. Now a
+conjuror is I think a very pleasant fellow to have among us, if we
+know that he is a conjuror;&mdash;but a conjuror who is believed to do his
+tricks without sleight of hand is a dangerous man. It is essential
+that such a one should be found out and known to be a conjuror,&mdash;and
+I hope that such knowledge may have been communicated to some men
+this afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>"He was very great," said Ratler to Bonteen. "Did you not think so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I did,&mdash;very powerful indeed. But the party is broken up to
+atoms."</p>
+
+<p>"Atoms soon come together again in politics," said Ratler. "They
+can't do without him. They haven't got anybody else. I wonder what he
+did when he got home."</p>
+
+<p>"Had some gruel and went to bed," said Bonteen. "They say these
+scenes in the House never disturb him at home." From which
+conversations it may be inferred that Mr. Monk and Messrs. Ratler and
+Bonteen did not agree in their ideas respecting political conjurors.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c40"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XL.</h3>
+<h4>THE PRIME MINISTER IS HARD PRESSED.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>It can never be a very easy thing to form a Ministry. The one chosen
+chief is readily selected. Circumstances, indeed, have probably left
+no choice in the matter. Every man in the country who has at all
+turned his thoughts that way knows very well who will be the next
+Prime Minister when it comes to pass that a change is imminent. In
+these days the occupant of the throne can have no difficulty. Mr.
+Gresham recommends Her Majesty to send for Mr. Daubeny, or Mr.
+Daubeny for Mr. Gresham,&mdash;as some ten or a dozen years since Mr.
+Mildmay told her to send for Lord de Terrier, or Lord de Terrier for
+Mr. Mildmay. The Prime Minister is elected by the nation, but the
+nation, except in rare cases, cannot go below that in arranging
+details, and the man for whom the Queen sends is burdened with the
+necessity of selecting his colleagues. It may be,&mdash;probably must
+always be the case,&mdash;that this, that, and the other colleagues are
+clearly indicated to his mind, but then each of these colleagues may
+want his own inferior coadjutors, and so the difficulty begins,
+increases, and at length culminates. On the present occasion it was
+known at the end of a week that Mr. Gresham had not filled all his
+offices, and that there were difficulties. It was announced that the
+Duke of St. Bungay could not quite agree on certain points with Mr.
+Gresham, and that the Duke of Omnium would do nothing without the
+other Duke. The Duke of St. Bungay was very powerful, as there were
+three or four of the old adherents of Mr. Mildmay who would join no
+Government unless he was with them. Sir Harry Coldfoot and Lord
+Plinlimmon would not accept office without the Duke. The Duke was
+essential, and now, though the Duke's character was essentially that
+of a practical man who never raised unnecessary trouble, men said
+that the Duke was at the bottom of it all. The Duke did not approve
+of Mr. Bonteen. Mr. Gresham, so it was said, insisted on Mr.
+Bonteen,&mdash;appealing to the other Duke. But that other Duke, our own
+special Duke, Planty Pall that was, instead of standing up for Mr.
+Bonteen, was cold and unsympathetic. He could not join the Ministry
+without his friend, the Duke of St. Bungay, and as to Mr. Bonteen, he
+thought that perhaps a better selection might be made.</p>
+
+<p>Such were the club rumours which took place as to the difficulties of
+the day, and, as is generally the case, they were not far from the
+truth. Neither of the dukes had absolutely put a veto on poor Mr.
+Bonteen's elevation, but they had expressed themselves dissatisfied
+with the appointment, and the younger duke had found himself called
+upon to explain that although he had been thrown much into
+communication with Mr. Bonteen he had never himself suggested that
+that gentleman should follow him at the Exchequer. This was one of
+the many difficulties which beset the Prime Minister elect in the
+performance of his arduous duty.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Glencora, as people would still persist in calling her, was at
+the bottom of it all. She had sworn an oath inimical to Mr. Bonteen,
+and did not leave a stone unturned in her endeavours to accomplish
+it. If Phineas Finn might find acceptance, then Mr. Bonteen might be
+allowed to enter Elysium. A second Juno, she would allow the Romulus
+she hated to sit in the seats of the blessed, to be fed with nectar,
+and to have his name printed in the lists of unruffled Cabinet
+meetings,&mdash;but only on conditions. Phineas Finn must be allowed a
+seat also, and a little nectar,&mdash;though it were at the second table
+of the gods. For this she struggled, speaking her mind boldly to this
+and that member of her husband's party, but she struggled in vain.
+She could obtain no assurance on behalf of Phineas Finn. The Duke of
+St. Bungay would do nothing for her. Barrington Erle had declared
+himself powerless. Her husband had condescended to speak to Mr.
+Bonteen himself, and Mr. Bonteen's insolent answer had been reported
+to her. Then she went sedulously to work, and before a couple of days
+were over she did make her husband believe that Mr. Bonteen was not
+fit to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. This took place before Mr.
+Daubeny's statement, while the Duke and Duchess of St. Bungay were
+still at Matching,&mdash;while Mr. Bonteen, unconscious of what was being
+done, was still in the House. Before the two days were over, the Duke
+of St. Bungay had a very low opinion of Mr. Bonteen, but was quite
+ignorant of any connection between that low opinion and the fortunes
+of Phineas Finn.</p>
+
+<p>"Plantagenet, of all your men that are coming up, your Mr. Bonteen is
+the worst. I often think that you are going down hill, both in
+character and intellect, but if you go as low as that I shall prefer
+to cross the water, and live in America." This she said in the
+presence of the two dukes.</p>
+
+<p>"What has Mr. Bonteen done?" asked the elder, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"He was boasting this morning openly of whom he intended to bring
+with him into the Cabinet." Truth demands that the chronicler should
+say that this was a positive fib. Mr. Bonteen, no doubt, had talked
+largely and with indiscretion, but had made no such boast as that of
+which the Duchess accused him. "Mr. Gresham will get astray if he
+doesn't allow some one to tell him the truth."</p>
+
+<p>She did not press the matter any further then, but what she had said
+was not thrown away. "Your wife is almost right about that man," the
+elder Duke said to the younger.</p>
+
+<p>"It's Mr. Gresham's doing,&mdash;not mine," said the younger.</p>
+
+<p>"She is right about Gresham, too," said the elder. "With all his
+immense intellect and capacity for business no man wants more looking
+after."</p>
+
+<p>That evening Mr. Bonteen was singled out by the Duchess for her
+special attention, and in the presence of all who were there
+assembled he made himself an ass. He could not save himself from
+talking about himself when he was encouraged. On this occasion he
+offended all those feelings of official discretion and personal
+reticence which had been endeared to the old duke by the lessons
+which he had learned from former statesmen and by the experience of
+his own life. To be quiet, unassuming, almost affectedly modest in
+any mention of himself, low-voiced, reflecting always more than he
+resolved, and resolving always more than he said, had been his aim.
+Conscious of his high rank, and thinking, no doubt, much of the
+advantages in public life which his birth and position had given him,
+still he would never have ventured to speak of his own services as
+necessary to any Government. That he had really been indispensable to
+many he must have known, but not to his closest friend would he have
+said so in plain language. To such a man the arrogance of Mr. Bonteen
+was intolerable.</p>
+
+<p>There is probably more of the flavour of political aristocracy to be
+found still remaining among our liberal leading statesmen than among
+their opponents. A conservative Cabinet is, doubtless, never
+deficient in dukes and lords, and the sons of such; but conservative
+dukes and lords are recruited here and there, and as recruits, are
+new to the business, whereas among the old Whigs a halo of statecraft
+has, for ages past, so strongly pervaded and enveloped certain great
+families, that the power in the world of politics thus produced still
+remains, and is even yet efficacious in creating a feeling of
+exclusiveness. They say that "misfortune makes men acquainted with
+strange bedfellows." The old hereditary Whig Cabinet ministers must,
+no doubt, by this time have learned to feel themselves at home with
+strange neighbours at their elbows. But still with them something of
+the feeling of high blood, of rank, and of living in a park with deer
+about it, remains. They still entertain a pride in their Cabinets,
+and have, at any rate, not as yet submitted themselves to a conjuror.
+The Charles James Fox element of liberality still holds its own, and
+the fragrance of Cavendish is essential. With no man was this feeling
+stronger than with the Duke of St. Bungay, though he well knew how to
+keep it in abeyance,&mdash;even to the extent of self-sacrifice. Bonteens
+must creep into the holy places. The faces which he loved to
+see,&mdash;born chiefly of other faces he had loved when young,&mdash;could not
+cluster around the sacred table without others which were much less
+welcome to him. He was wise enough to know that exclusiveness did not
+suit the nation, though human enough to feel that it must have been
+pleasant to himself. There must be Bonteens;&mdash;but when any Bonteen
+came up, who loomed before his eyes as specially disagreeable, it
+seemed to him to be a duty to close the door against such a one, if
+it could be closed without violence. A constant, gentle pressure
+against the door would tend to keep down the number of the Bonteens.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not sure that you are not going a little too quick in regard to
+Mr. Bonteen," said the elder duke to Mr. Gresham before he had
+finally assented to a proposition originated by himself,&mdash;that he
+should sit in the Cabinet without a portfolio.</p>
+
+<p>"Palliser wishes it," said Mr. Gresham, shortly.</p>
+
+<p>"He and I think that there has been some mistake about that. You
+suggested the appointment to him, and he felt unwilling to raise an
+objection without giving the matter very mature consideration. You
+can understand that."</p>
+
+<p>"Upon my word I thought that the selection would be peculiarly
+agreeable to him." Then the duke made a suggestion. "Could not some
+special office at the Treasury be constructed for Mr. Bonteen's
+acceptance, having special reference to the question of decimal
+coinage?"</p>
+
+<p>"But how about the salary?" asked Mr. Gresham. "I couldn't propose a
+new office with a salary above &pound;2,000."</p>
+
+<p>"Couldn't we make it permanent," suggested the duke;&mdash;"with
+permission to hold a seat if he can get one?"</p>
+
+<p>"I fear not," said Mr. Gresham.</p>
+
+<p>"He got into a very unpleasant scrape when he was Financial
+Secretary," said the Duke.</p>
+
+
+<div class="center">
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0"><tr><td>
+<p class="noindent"><i>But whither would'st thou, Muse? Unmeet<br />
+<span class="ind2">For jocund lyre are themes like these.</span><br />
+Shalt thou the talk of Gods repeat,<br />
+Debasing by thy strains effete<br />
+<span class="ind2">Such lofty mysteries?</span></i></p>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>The absolute words of a conversation so lofty shall no longer be
+attempted, but it may be said that Mr. Gresham was too wise to treat
+as of no account the objections of such a one as the Duke of St.
+Bungay. He saw Mr. Bonteen, and he saw the other duke, and
+difficulties arose. Mr. Bonteen made himself very disagreeable
+indeed. As Mr. Bonteen had never absolutely been as yet more than a
+demigod, our Muse, light as she is, may venture to report that he
+told Mr. Ratler that "he'd be <span class="nowrap">d&mdash;&mdash;</span>
+if he'd stand it. If he were to
+be thrown over now, he'd make such a row, and would take such care
+that the fat should be in the fire, that his enemies, whoever they
+were, should wish that they had kept their fingers off him. He knew
+who was doing it." If he did not know, his guess was right. In his
+heart he accused the young duchess, though he mentioned her name to
+no one. And it was the young duchess. Then there was made an
+insidious proposition to Mr. Gresham,&mdash;which reached him at last
+through Barrington Erle,&mdash;that matters would go quieter if Phineas
+Finn were placed in his old office at the Colonies instead of Lord
+Fawn, whose name had been suggested, and for whom,&mdash;as Barrington
+Erle declared,&mdash;no one cared a brass farthing. Mr. Gresham, when he
+heard this, thought that he began to smell a rat, and was determined
+to be on his guard. Why should the appointment of Mr. Phineas Finn
+make things go easier in regard to Mr. Bonteen? There must be some
+woman's fingers in the pie. Now Mr. Gresham was firmly resolved that
+no woman's fingers should have anything to do with his pie.</p>
+
+<p>How the thing went from bad to worse, it would be bootless here to
+tell. Neither of the two dukes absolutely refused to join the
+Ministry; but they were persistent in their objection to Mr. Bonteen,
+and were joined in it by Lord Plinlimmon and Sir Harry Coldfoot. It
+was in vain that Mr. Gresham urged that he had no other man ready and
+fit to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. That excuse could not be
+accepted. There was Legge Wilson, who twelve years since had been at
+the Treasury, and would do very well. Now Mr. Gresham had always
+personally hated Legge Wilson,&mdash;and had, therefore, offered him the
+Board of Trade. Legge Wilson had disgusted him by accepting it, and
+the name had already been published in connection with the office.
+But in the lists which had appeared towards the end of the week, no
+name was connected with the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer,
+and no office was connected with the name of Mr. Bonteen. The editor
+of The People's Banner, however, expressed the gratification of
+that journal that even Mr. Gresham had not dared to propose Mr.
+Phineas Finn for any place under the Crown.</p>
+
+<p>At last Mr. Bonteen was absolutely told that he could not be
+Chancellor of the Exchequer. If he would consent to give his very
+valuable services to the country with the view of carrying through
+Parliament the great measure of decimal coinage he should be
+President of the Board of Trade,&mdash;but without a seat in the Cabinet.
+He would thus become the Right Honourable Bonteen, which, no doubt,
+would be a great thing for him,&mdash;and, not busy in the Cabinet, must
+be able to devote his time exclusively to the great measure
+above-named. What was to become of "Trade" generally, was not
+specially explained; but, as we all know, there would be a
+Vice-President to attend to details.</p>
+
+<p>The proposition very nearly broke the man's heart. With a voice
+stopped by agitation, with anger flashing from his eyes, almost in a
+convulsion of mixed feelings, he reminded his chief of what had been
+said about his appointment in the House. Mr. Gresham had already
+absolutely defended it. After that did Mr. Gresham mean to withdraw a
+promise that had so formally been made? But Mr. Gresham was not to be
+caught in that way. He had made no promise;&mdash;had not even stated to
+the House that such appointment was to be made. A very improper
+question had been asked as to a rumour,&mdash;in answering which he had
+been forced to justify himself by explaining that discussions
+respecting the office had been necessary. "Mr. Bonteen," said Mr.
+Gresham, "no one knows better than you the difficulties of a
+Minister. If you can act with us I shall be very grateful to you. If
+you cannot, I shall regret the loss of your services." Mr. Bonteen
+took twenty-four hours to consider, and was then appointed President
+of the Board of Trade without a seat in the Cabinet. Mr. Legge Wilson
+became Chancellor of the Exchequer. When the lists were completed, no
+office whatever was assigned to Phineas Finn. "I haven't done with
+Mr. Bonteen yet," said the young duchess to her friend Madame
+Goesler.</p>
+
+<p>The secrets of the world are very marvellous, but they are not
+themselves half so wonderful as the way in which they become known to
+the world. There could be no doubt that Mr. Bonteen's high ambition
+had foundered, and that he had been degraded through the secret
+enmity of the Duchess of Omnium. It was equally certain that his
+secret enmity to Phineas Finn had brought this punishment on his
+head. But before the Ministry had been a week in office almost
+everybody knew that it was so. The rumours were full of falsehood,
+but yet they contained the truth. The duchess had done it. The
+duchess was the bosom friend of Lady Laura Kennedy, who was in love
+with Phineas Finn. She had gone on her knees to Mr. Gresham to get a
+place for her friend's favourite, and Mr. Gresham had refused.
+Consequently, at her bidding, half-a-dozen embryo Ministers&mdash;her
+husband among the number&mdash;had refused to be amenable to Mr. Gresham.
+Mr. Gresham had at last consented to sacrifice Mr. Bonteen, who had
+originally instigated him to reject the claims of Phineas Finn. That
+the degradation of the one man had been caused by the exclusion of
+the other all the world knew.</p>
+
+<p>"It shuts the door to me for ever and ever," said Phineas to Madame
+Goesler.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see that."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course it does. Such an affair places a mark against a man's name
+which will never be forgotten."</p>
+
+<p>"Is your heart set upon holding some trifling appointment under a
+Minister?"</p>
+
+<p>"To tell you the truth, it is;&mdash;or rather it was. The prospect of
+office to me was more than perhaps to any other expectant. Even this
+man, Bonteen, has some fortune of his own, and can live if he be
+excluded. I have given up everything for the chance of something in
+this line."</p>
+
+<p>"Other lines are open."</p>
+
+<p>"Not to me, Madame Goesler. I do not mean to defend myself. I have
+been very foolish, very sanguine, and am now very unhappy."</p>
+
+<p>"What shall I say to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"The truth."</p>
+
+<p>"In truth, then, I do not sympathise with you. The thing lost is too
+small, too mean to justify unhappiness."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Madame Goesler, you are a rich woman."</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you were to lose it all, would you not be unhappy? It has been my
+ambition to live here in London as one of a special set which
+dominates all other sets in our English world. To do so a man should
+have means of his own. I have none; and yet I have tried
+it,&mdash;thinking that I could earn my bread at it as men do at other
+professions. I acknowledge that I should not have thought so. No man
+should attempt what I have attempted without means, at any rate to
+live on if he fail; but I am not the less unhappy because I have been
+silly."</p>
+
+<p>"What will you do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah,&mdash;what? Another friend asked me that the other day, and I told
+her that I should vanish."</p>
+
+<p>"Who was that friend?"</p>
+
+<p>"Lady Laura."</p>
+
+<p>"She is in London again now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; she and her father are in Portman Square."</p>
+
+<p>"She has been an injurious friend to you."</p>
+
+<p>"No, by heaven," exclaimed Phineas. "But for her I should never have
+been here at all, never have had a seat in Parliament, never have
+been in office, never have known you."</p>
+
+<p>"And might have been the better without any of these things."</p>
+
+<p>"No man ever had a better friend than Lady Laura has been to me.
+Malice, wicked and false as the devil, has lately joined our names
+together to the incredible injury of both of us; but it has not been
+her fault."</p>
+
+<p>"You are energetic in defending her."</p>
+
+<p>"And so would she be in defending me. Circumstances threw us together
+and made us friends. Her father and her brother were my friends. I
+happened to be of service to her husband. We belonged to the same
+party. And therefore&mdash;because she has been unfortunate in her
+marriage&mdash;people tell lies of her."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a pity he should&mdash;not die, and leave her," said Madame Goesler
+slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"Why so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because then you might justify yourself in defending her by making
+her your wife." She paused, but he made no answer to this. "You are
+in love with her," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"It is untrue."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Finn!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what would you have? I am not in love with her. To me she is
+no more than my sister. Were she as free as air I should not ask her
+to be my wife. Can a man and woman feel no friendship without being
+in love with each other?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hope they may," said Madame Goesler. Had he been lynx-eyed he
+might have seen that she blushed; but it required quick eyes to
+discover a blush on Madame Goesler's face. "You and I are friends."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed we are," he said, grasping her hand as he took his leave.</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+
+<p><a id="c41"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>VOLUME II.</h3>
+<h3>CHAPTER XLI.</h3>
+<h4>"I HOPE I'M NOT DISTRUSTED."<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>Gerard Maule, as the reader has been informed, wrote three lines to
+his dearest Adelaide to inform her that his father would not assent
+to the suggestion respecting Maule Abbey which had been made by Lady
+Chiltern, and then took no further steps in the matter. In the
+fortnight next after the receipt of his letter nothing was heard of
+him at Harrington Hall, and Adelaide, though she made no complaint,
+was unhappy. Then came the letter from Mr. Spooner,&mdash;with all its
+rich offers, and Adelaide's mind was for a while occupied with wrath
+against her second suitor. But as the egregious folly of Mr.
+Spooner,&mdash;for to her thinking the aspirations of Mr. Spooner were
+egregiously foolish,&mdash;died out of her mind, her thoughts reverted to
+her engagement. Why did not the man come to her, or why did he not
+write?</p>
+
+<p>She had received from Lady Chiltern an invitation to remain with
+them,&mdash;the Chilterns,&mdash;till her marriage. "But, dear Lady Chiltern,
+who knows when it will be?" Adelaide had said. Lady Chiltern had
+good-naturedly replied that the longer it was put off the better for
+herself. "But you'll be going to London or abroad before that day
+comes." Lady Chiltern declared that she looked forward to no
+festivities which could under any circumstances remove her
+four-and-twenty hours travelling distance from the kennels. Probably
+she might go up to London for a couple of months as soon as the
+hunting was over, and the hounds had been drafted, and the horses had
+been coddled, and every covert had been visited. From the month of
+May till the middle of July she might, perhaps, be allowed to be in
+town, as communications by telegram could now be made day and night.
+After that, preparations for cub-hunting would be imminent, and, as a
+matter of course, it would be necessary that she should be at
+Harrington Hall at so important a period of the year. During those
+couple of months she would be very happy to have the companionship of
+her friend, and she hinted that Gerard Maule would certainly be in
+town. "I begin to think it would have been better that I should never
+have seen Gerard Maule," said Adelaide Palliser.</p>
+
+<p>This happened about the middle of March, while hunting was still in
+force. Gerard's horses were standing in the neighbourhood, but Gerard
+himself was not there. Mr. Spooner, since that short, disheartening
+note had been sent to him by Lord Chiltern, had not been seen at
+Harrington. There was a Harrington Lawn Meet on one occasion, but he
+had not appeared till the hounds were at the neighbouring covert
+side. Nevertheless he had declared that he did not intend to give up
+the pursuit, and had even muttered something of the sort to Lord
+Chiltern. "I am one of those fellows who stick to a thing, you know,"
+he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid you had better give up sticking to her, because she's
+going to marry somebody else."</p>
+
+<p>"I've heard all about that, my lord. He's a very nice sort of young
+man, but I'm told he hasn't got his house ready yet for a family."
+All which Lord Chiltern repeated to his wife. Neither of them spoke
+to Adelaide again about Mr. Spooner; but this did cause a feeling in
+Lady Chiltern's mind that perhaps this engagement with young Maule
+was a foolish thing, and that, if so, she was in a great measure
+responsible for the folly.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you think you'd better write to him?" she said, one morning.</p>
+
+<p>"Why does he not write to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"But he did,&mdash;when he wrote you that his father would not consent to
+give up the house. You did not answer him then."</p>
+
+<p>"It was two lines,&mdash;without a date. I don't even know where he
+lives."</p>
+
+<p>"You know his club?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes,&mdash;I know his club. I do feel, Lady Chiltern, that I have become
+engaged to marry a man as to whom I am altogether in the dark. I
+don't like writing to him at his club."</p>
+
+<p>"You have seen more of him here and in Italy than most girls see of
+their future husbands."</p>
+
+<p>"So I have,&mdash;but I have seen no one belonging to him. Don't you
+understand what I mean? I feel all at sea about him. I am sure he
+does not mean any harm."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly he does not."</p>
+
+<p>"But then he hardly means any good."</p>
+
+<p>"I never saw a man more earnestly in love," said Lady Chiltern.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes,&mdash;he's quite enough in love. But&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But what?"</p>
+
+<p>"He'll just remain up in London thinking about it, and never tell
+himself that there's anything to be done. And then, down here, what
+is my best hope? Not that he'll come to see me, but that he'll come
+to see his horse, and that so, perhaps, I may get a word with him."
+Then Lady Chiltern suggested, with a laugh, that perhaps it might
+have been better that she should have accepted Mr. Spooner. There
+would have been no doubt as to Mr. Spooner's energy and purpose.
+"Only that if there was not another man in the world I wouldn't marry
+him, and that I never saw any other man except Gerard Maule whom I
+even fancied I could marry."</p>
+
+<p>About a fortnight after this, when the hunting was all over, in the
+beginning of April, she did write to him as follows, and did direct
+her letter to his club. In the meantime Lord Chiltern had intimated
+to his wife that if Gerard Maule behaved badly he should consider
+himself to be standing in the place of Adelaide's father or brother.
+His wife pointed out to him that were he her father or her brother he
+could do nothing,&mdash;that in these days let a man behave ever so badly,
+no means of punishing was within reach of the lady's friends. But
+Lord Chiltern would not assent to this. He muttered something about a
+horsewhip, and seemed to suggest that one man could, if he were so
+minded, always have it out with another, if not in this way, then in
+that. Lady Chiltern protested, and declared that horsewhips could not
+under any circumstances be efficacious. "He had better mind what he
+is about," said Lord Chiltern. It was after this that Adelaide wrote
+her letter:&mdash;<br />&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="jright">Harrington Hall, 5th April.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smallcaps">Dear Gerard</span>,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>I have been thinking that I should hear from you, and have been
+surprised,&mdash;I may say unhappy,&mdash;because I have not done so. Perhaps
+you thought I ought to have answered the three words which you wrote
+to me about your father; if so, I will apologise; only they did not
+seem to give me anything to say. I was very sorry that your father
+should have "cut up rough," as you call it, but you must remember
+that we both expected that he would refuse, and that we are only
+therefore where we thought we should be. I suppose we shall have to
+wait till Providence does something for us,&mdash;only, if so, it would be
+pleasanter to me to hear your own opinion about it.</p>
+
+<p>The Chilterns are surprised that you shouldn't have come back, and
+seen the end of the season. There were some very good runs just at
+last;&mdash;particularly one on last Monday. But on Wednesday Trumpeton
+Wood was again blank, and there was some row about wires. I can't
+explain it all; but you must come, and Lord Chiltern will tell you. I
+have gone down to see the horses ever so often;&mdash;but I don't care to
+go now as you never write to me. They are all three quite well, and
+Fan looks as silken and as soft as any lady need do.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Chiltern has been kinder than I can tell you. I go up to town
+with her in May, and shall remain with her while she is there. So far
+I have decided. After that my future home must, sir, depend on the
+resolution and determination, or perhaps on the vagaries and
+caprices, of him who is to be my future master. Joking apart, I must
+know to what I am to look forward before I can make up my mind
+whether I will or will not go back to Italy towards the end of the
+summer. If I do, I fear I must do so just in the hottest time of the
+year; but I shall not like to come down here again after leaving
+London,&mdash;unless something by that time has been settled.</p>
+
+<p>I shall send this to your club, and I hope that it will reach you. I
+suppose that you are in London.</p>
+
+<p>Good-bye, dearest Gerard.</p>
+
+<p class="ind8">Yours most affectionately,</p>
+
+<p class="ind15"><span class="smallcaps">Adelaide</span>.</p>
+
+<p>If there is anything that troubles you, pray tell me. I ask you
+because I think it would be better for you that I should know. I
+sometimes think that you would have written if there had not been
+some misfortune. God bless you.<br />&nbsp;</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+<p>Gerard was in London, and sent the following note by return of
+post:&mdash;<br />&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="jright">&mdash;&mdash; Club, Tuesday.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smallcaps">Dearest Adelaide</span>,</p>
+
+<p>All right. If Chiltern can take me for a couple of nights, I'll come
+down next week, and settle about the horses, and will arrange
+everything.</p>
+
+<p class="ind6">Ever your own, with all my heart,</p>
+
+<p class="ind15">G. M.<br />&nbsp;</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+<p>"He will settle about his horses, and arrange everything," said
+Adelaide, as she showed the letter to Lady Chiltern. "The horses
+first, and everything afterwards. The everything, of course, includes
+all my future happiness, the day of my marriage, whether to-morrow or
+in ten years' time, and the place where we shall live."</p>
+
+<p>"At any rate, he's coming."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes;&mdash;but when? He says next week, but he does not name any day. Did
+you ever hear or see anything so unsatisfactory?"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you would be glad to see him."</p>
+
+<p>"So I should be,&mdash;if there was any sense in him. I shall be glad, and
+shall kiss him."</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say you will."</p>
+
+<p>"And let him put his arm round my waist and be happy. He will be
+happy because he will think of nothing beyond. But what is to be the
+end of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"He says that he will settle everything."</p>
+
+<p>"But he will have thought of nothing. What must I settle? That is the
+question. When he was told to go to his father, he went to his
+father. When he failed there the work was done, and the trouble was
+off his mind. I know him so well."</p>
+
+<p>"If you think so ill of him why did you consent to get into his
+boat?" said Lady Chiltern, seriously.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think ill of him. Why do you say that I think ill of him? I
+think better of him than of anybody else in the world;&mdash;but I know
+his fault, and, as it happens, it is a fault so very prejudicial to
+my happiness. You ask me why I got into his boat. Why does any girl
+get into a man's boat? Why did you get into Lord Chiltern's?"</p>
+
+<p>"I promised to marry him when I was seven years old;&mdash;so he says."</p>
+
+<p>"But you wouldn't have done it, if you hadn't had a sort of feeling
+that you were born to be his wife. I haven't got into this man's boat
+yet; but I never can be happy unless I do, simply
+<span class="nowrap">because&mdash;"</span></p>
+
+<p>"You love him."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes;&mdash;just that. I have a feeling that I should like to be in his
+boat, and I shouldn't like to be anywhere else. After you have come
+to feel like that about a man I don't suppose it makes any difference
+whether you think him perfect or imperfect. He's just my own,&mdash;at
+least I hope so;&mdash;the one thing that I've got. If I wear a stuff
+frock, I'm not going to despise it because it's not silk."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Spooner would be the stuff frock."</p>
+
+<p>"No;&mdash;Mr. Spooner is shoddy, and very bad shoddy, too."</p>
+
+<p>On the Saturday in the following week Gerard Maule did arrive at
+Harrington Hall,&mdash;and was welcomed as only accepted lovers are
+welcomed. Not a word of reproach was uttered as to his delinquencies.
+No doubt he got the kiss with which Adelaide had herself suggested
+that his coming would be rewarded. He was allowed to stand on the rug
+before the fire with his arm round her waist. Lady Chiltern smiled on
+him. His horses had been specially visited that morning, and a lively
+report as to their condition was made to him. Not a word was said on
+that occasion which could distress him. Even Lord Chiltern when he
+came in was gracious to him. "Well, old fellow," he said, "you've
+missed your hunting."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; indeed. Things kept me in town."</p>
+
+<p>"We had some uncommonly good runs."</p>
+
+<p>"Have the horses stood pretty well?" asked Gerard.</p>
+
+<p>"I felt uncommonly tempted to borrow yours; and should have done so
+once or twice if I hadn't known that I should have been betrayed."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you had, with all my heart," said Gerard. And then they went
+to dress for dinner.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening, when the ladies had gone to bed, Lord Chiltern took
+his friend off to the smoking-room. At Harrington Hall it was not
+unusual for the ladies and gentlemen to descend together into the
+very comfortable Pandemonium which was so called, when,&mdash;as was the
+case at present,&mdash;the terms of intimacy between them were sufficient
+to warrant such a proceeding. But on this occasion Lady Chiltern went
+very discreetly upstairs, and Adelaide, with equal discretion,
+followed her. It had been arranged beforehand that Lord Chiltern
+should say a salutary word or two to the young man. Maule began about
+the hunting, asking questions about this and that, but his host
+stopped him at once. Lord Chiltern, when he had a task on hand, was
+always inclined to get through it at once,&mdash;perhaps with an energy
+that was too sudden in its effects. "Maule," he said, "you ought to
+make up your mind what you mean to do about that girl."</p>
+
+<p>"Do about her! How?"</p>
+
+<p>"You and she are engaged, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course we are. There isn't any doubt about it."</p>
+
+<p>"Just so. But when things come to be like that, all delays are good
+fun to the man, but they're the very devil to the girl."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought it was always the other way up, and that girls wanted
+delay?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's only a theoretical delicacy which never means much. When a
+girl is engaged she likes to have the day fixed. When there's a long
+interval the man can do pretty much as he pleases, while the girl can
+do nothing except think about him. Then it sometimes turns out that
+when he's wanted, he's not there."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope I'm not distrusted," said Gerard, with an air that showed
+that he was almost disposed to be offended.</p>
+
+<p>"Not in the least. The women here think you the finest paladin in the
+world, and Miss Palliser would fly at my throat if she thought that I
+said a word against you. But she's in my house, you see; and I'm
+bound to do exactly as I should if she were my sister."</p>
+
+<p>"And if she were your sister?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should tell you that I couldn't approve of the engagement unless
+you were prepared to fix the time of your marriage. And I should ask
+you where you intended to live."</p>
+
+<p>"Wherever she pleases. I can't go to Maule Abbey while my father
+lives, without his sanction."</p>
+
+<p>"And he may live for the next twenty years."</p>
+
+<p>"Or thirty."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you are bound to decide upon something else. It's no use saying
+that you leave it to her. You can't leave it to her. What I mean is
+this, that now you are here, I think you are bound to settle
+something with her. Good-night, old fellow."</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c42"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XLII.</h3>
+<h4>BOULOGNE.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>Gerard Maule, as he sat upstairs half undressed in his bedroom that
+night didn't like it. He hardly knew what it was that he did not
+like,&mdash;but he felt that there was something wrong. He thought that
+Lord Chiltern had not been warranted in speaking to him with a tone
+of authority, and in talking of a brother's position,&mdash;and the rest
+of it. He had lacked the presence of mind for saying anything at the
+moment; but he must say something sooner or later. He wasn't going to
+be driven by Lord Chiltern. When he looked back at his own conduct he
+thought that it had been more than noble,&mdash;almost romantic. He had
+fallen in love with Miss Palliser, and spoken his love out freely,
+without any reference to money. He didn't know what more any fellow
+could have done. As to his marrying out of hand, the day after his
+engagement, as a man of fortune can do, everybody must have known
+that that was out of the question. Adelaide of course had known it.
+It had been suggested to him that he should consult his father as to
+living at Maule Abbey. Now if there was one thing he hated more than
+another, it was consulting his father; and yet he had done it. He had
+asked for a loan of the old house in perfect faith, and it was not
+his fault that it had been refused. He could not make a house to live
+in, nor could he coin a fortune. He had &pound;800 a-year of his own, but
+of course he owed a little money. Men with such incomes always do owe
+a little money. It was almost impossible that he should marry quite
+at once. It was not his fault that Adelaide had no fortune of her
+own. When he fell in love with her he had been a great deal too
+generous to think of fortune, and that ought to be remembered now to
+his credit. Such was the sum of his thoughts, and his anger spread
+itself from Lord Chiltern even on to Adelaide herself. Chiltern would
+hardly have spoken in that way unless she had complained. She, no
+doubt, had been speaking to Lady Chiltern, and Lady Chiltern had
+passed it on to her husband. He would have it out with Adelaide on
+the next morning,&mdash;quite decidedly. And he would make Lord Chiltern
+understand that he would not endure interference. He was quite ready
+to leave Harrington Hall at a moment's notice if he were ill-treated.
+This was the humour in which Gerard Maule put himself to bed that
+night.</p>
+
+<p>On the following morning he was very late at breakfast,&mdash;so late that
+Lord Chiltern had gone over to the kennels. As he was dressing he had
+resolved that it would be fitting that he should speak again to his
+host before he said anything to Adelaide that might appear to impute
+blame to her. He would ask Chiltern whether anything was meant by
+what had been said over-night. But, as it happened, Adelaide had been
+left alone to pour out his tea for him, and,&mdash;as the reader will
+understand to have been certain on such an occasion,&mdash;they were left
+together for an hour in the breakfast parlour. It was impossible that
+such an hour should be passed without some reference to the grievance
+which was lying heavy on his heart. "Late; I should think you are,"
+said Adelaide laughing. "It is nearly eleven. Lord Chiltern has been
+out an hour. I suppose you never get up early except for hunting."</p>
+
+<p>"People always think it is so wonderfully virtuous to get up. What's
+the use of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your breakfast is so cold."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care about that. I suppose they can boil me an egg. I was
+very seedy when I went to bed."</p>
+
+<p>"You smoked too many cigars, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I didn't; but Chiltern was saying things that I didn't like."
+Adelaide's face at once became very serious. "Yes, a good deal of
+sugar, please. I don't care about toast, and anything does for me. He
+has gone to the kennels, has he?"</p>
+
+<p>"He said he should. What was he saying last night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing particular. He has a way of blowing up, you know; and he
+looks at one just as if he expected that everybody was to do just
+what he chooses."</p>
+
+<p>"You didn't quarrel?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all; I went off to bed without saying a word. I hate jaws. I
+shall just put it right this morning; that's all."</p>
+
+<p>"Was it about me, Gerard?"</p>
+
+<p>"It doesn't signify the least."</p>
+
+<p>"But it does signify. If you and he were to quarrel would it not
+signify to me very much? How could I stay here with them, or go up to
+London with them, if you and he had really quarrelled? You must tell
+me. I know that it was about me." Then she came and sat close to him.
+"Gerard," she continued, "I don't think you understand how much
+everything is to me that concerns you."</p>
+
+<p>When he began to reflect, he could not quite recollect what it was
+that Lord Chiltern had said to him. He did remember that something
+had been suggested about a brother and sister which had implied that
+Adelaide might want protection, but there was nothing unnatural or
+other than kind in the position which Lord Chiltern had declared that
+he would assume. "He seemed to think that I wasn't treating you
+well," said he, turning round from the breakfast-table to the fire,
+"and that is a sort of thing I can't stand."</p>
+
+<p>"I have never said so, Gerard."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what it is that he expects, or why he should interfere
+at all. I can't bear to be interfered with. What does he know about
+it? He has had somebody to pay everything for him half-a-dozen times,
+but I have to look out for myself."</p>
+
+<p>"What does all this mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"You would ask me, you know. I am bothered out of my life by ever so
+many things, and now he comes and adds his botheration."</p>
+
+<p>"What bothers you, Gerard? If anything bothers you, surely you will
+tell me. If there has been anything to trouble you since you saw your
+father why have you not written and told me? Is your trouble about
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, of course it is, in a sort of way."</p>
+
+<p>"I will not be a trouble to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Now you are going to misunderstand me! Of course, you are not a
+trouble to me. You know that I love you better than anything in the
+world."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope so."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I do." Then he put his arm round her waist and pressed her
+to his bosom. "But what can a man do? When Lady Chiltern recommended
+that I should go to my father and tell him, I did it. I knew that no
+good could come of it. He wouldn't lift his hand to do anything for
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"How horrid that is!"</p>
+
+<p>"He thinks it a shame that I should have my uncle's money, though he
+never had any more right to it than that man out there. He is always
+saying that I am better off than he is."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you are."</p>
+
+<p>"I am very badly off, I know that. People seem to think that &pound;800 is
+ever so much, but I find it to be very little."</p>
+
+<p>"And it will be much less if you are married," said Adelaide gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, everything must be changed. I must sell my horses, and we
+must cut and run, and go and live at Boulogne, I suppose. But a man
+can't do that kind of thing all in a moment. Then Chiltern comes and
+talks as though he were Virtue personified. What business is it of
+his?"</p>
+
+<p>Then Adelaide became still more grave. She had now removed herself
+from his embrace, and was standing a little apart from him on the
+rug. She did not answer him at first; and when she did so, she spoke
+very slowly. "We have been rash, I fear; and have done what we have
+done without sufficient thought."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't say that at all."</p>
+
+<p>"But I do. It does seem now that we have been imprudent." Then she
+smiled as she completed her speech. "There had better be no
+engagement between us."</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you say that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because it is quite clear that it has been a trouble to you rather
+than a happiness."</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't give it up for all the world."</p>
+
+<p>"But it will be better. I had not thought about it as I should have
+done. I did not understand that the prospect of marrying would make
+you&mdash;so very poor. I see it now. You had better tell Lord Chiltern
+that it is&mdash;done with, and I will tell her the same. It will be
+better; and I will go back to Italy at once."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not. It is not done with, and it shall not be done with."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think I will marry the man I love when he tells me that
+by&mdash;marrying&mdash;me, he will be&mdash;banished
+to&mdash;<span class="nowrap">Bou&mdash;logne?</span> You had better
+see Lord Chiltern; indeed you had." And then she walked out of the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>Then came upon him at once a feeling that he had behaved badly; and
+yet he had been so generous, so full of intentions to be devoted and
+true! He had never for a moment thought of breaking off the match,
+and would not think of it now. He loved her better than ever, and
+would live only with the intention of making her his wife. But he
+certainly should not have talked to her of his poverty, nor should he
+have mentioned Boulogne. And yet what should he have done? She would
+cross-question him about Lord Chiltern, and it was so essentially
+necessary that he should make her understand his real condition. It
+had all come from that man's unjustifiable interference,&mdash;as he would
+at once go and tell him. Of course he would marry Adelaide, but the
+marriage must be delayed. Everybody waits twelve months before they
+are married; and why should she not wait? He was miserable because he
+knew that he had made her unhappy;&mdash;but the fault had been with Lord
+Chiltern. He would speak his mind frankly to Chiltern, and then would
+explain with loving tenderness to his Adelaide that they would still
+be all in all to each other, but that a short year must elapse before
+he could put his house in order for her. After that he would sell his
+horses. That resolve was in itself so great that he did not think it
+necessary at the present moment to invent any more plans for the
+future. So he went out into the hall, took his hat, and marched off
+to the kennels.</p>
+
+<p>At the kennels he found Lord Chiltern surrounded by the denizens of
+the hunt. His huntsman, with the kennelman and feeder, and two whips,
+and old Doggett were all there, and the Master of the Hounds was in
+the middle of his business. The dogs were divided by ages, as well as
+by sex, and were being brought out and examined. Old Doggett was
+giving advice,&mdash;differing almost always from Cox, the huntsman, as to
+the propriety of keeping this hound or of cashiering that. Nose,
+pace, strength, and docility were all questioned with an eagerness
+hardly known in any other business; and on each question Lord
+Chiltern listened to everybody, and then decided with a single word.
+When he had once resolved, nothing further urged by any man then
+could avail anything. Jove never was so autocratic, and certainly
+never so much in earnest. From the look of Lord Chiltern's brow it
+almost seemed as though this weight of empire must be too much for
+any mere man. Very little notice was taken of Gerard Maule when he
+joined the conclave, though it was felt in reference to him that he
+was sufficiently staunch a friend to the hunt to be trusted with the
+secrets of the kennel. Lord Chiltern merely muttered some words of
+greeting, and Cox lifted the old hunting-cap which he wore. For
+another hour the conference was held. Those who have attended such
+meetings know well that a morning on the flags is apt to be a long
+affair. Old Doggett, who had privileges, smoked a pipe, and Gerard
+Maule lit one cigar after another. But Lord Chiltern had become too
+thorough a man of business to smoke when so employed. At last the
+last order was given,&mdash;Doggett snarled his last snarl,&mdash;and Cox
+uttered his last "My lord." Then Gerard Maule and the Master left the
+hounds and walked home together.</p>
+
+<p>The affair had been so long that Gerard had almost forgotten his
+grievance. But now as they got out together upon the park, he
+remembered the tone of Adelaide's voice as she left him, and
+remembered also that, as matters stood at present, it was essentially
+necessary that something should be said. "I suppose I shall have to
+go and see that woman," said Lord Chiltern.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean Adelaide?" asked Maule, in a tone of infinite surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean this new Duchess, who I'm told is to manage everything
+herself. That man Fothergill is going on with just the old game at
+Trumpeton."</p>
+
+<p>"Is he, indeed? I was thinking of something else just at that moment.
+You remember what you were saying about Miss Palliser last night."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Well;&mdash;I don't think, you know, you had a right to speak as you
+did."</p>
+
+<p>Lord Chiltern almost flew at his companion, as he replied, "I said
+nothing. I do say that when a man becomes engaged to a girl, he
+should let her hear from him, so that they may know what each other
+is about."</p>
+
+<p>"You hinted something about being her brother."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I did. If you mean well by her, as I hope you do, it can't
+fret you to think that she has got somebody to look after her till
+you come in and take possession. It is the commonest thing in the
+world when a girl is left all alone as she is."</p>
+
+<p>"You seemed to make out that I wasn't treating her well."</p>
+
+<p>"I said nothing of the kind, Maule; but if you ask
+<span class="nowrap">me&mdash;"</span></p>
+
+<p>"I don't ask you anything."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you do. You come and find fault with me for speaking last night
+in the most good-natured way in the world. And, therefore, I tell you
+now that you will be behaving very badly indeed, unless you make some
+arrangement at once as to what you mean to do."</p>
+
+<p>"That's your opinion," said Gerard Maule.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it is; and you'll find it to be the opinion of any man or woman
+that you may ask who knows anything about such things. And I'll tell
+you what, Master Maule, if you think you're going to face me down
+you'll find yourself mistaken. Stop a moment, and just listen to me.
+You haven't a much better friend than I am, and I'm sure she hasn't a
+better friend than my wife. All this has taken place under our roof,
+and I mean to speak my mind plainly. What do you propose to do about
+your marriage?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't propose to tell you what I mean to do."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you tell Miss Palliser,&mdash;or my wife?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is just as I may think fit."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I must tell you that you cannot meet her at my house."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll leave it to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"You needn't do that either. You sleep on it, and then make up your
+mind. You can't suppose that I have any curiosity about it. The girl
+is fond of you, and I suppose that you are fond of her. Don't quarrel
+for nothing. If I have offended you, speak to Lady Chiltern about
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well;&mdash;I will speak to Lady Chiltern."</p>
+
+<p>When they reached the house it was clear that something was wrong.
+Miss Palliser was not seen again before dinner, and Lady Chiltern was
+grave and very cold in her manner to Gerard Maule. He was left alone
+all the afternoon, which he passed with his horses and groom, smoking
+more cigars,&mdash;but thinking all the time of Adelaide Palliser's last
+words, of Lord Chiltern's frown, and of Lady Chiltern's manner to
+him. When he came into the drawing-room before dinner, Lady Chiltern
+and Adelaide were both there, and Adelaide immediately began to ask
+questions about the kennel and the huntsmen. But she studiously kept
+at a distance from him, and he himself felt that it would be
+impossible to resume at present the footing on which he stood with
+them both on the previous evening. Presently Lord Chiltern came in,
+and another man and his wife who had come to stay at Harrington.
+Nothing could be more dull than the whole evening. At least so Gerard
+found it. He did take Adelaide in to dinner, but he did not sit next
+to her at table, for which, however, there was an excuse, as, had he
+done so, the new-comer must have been placed by his wife. He was
+cross, and would not make an attempt to speak to his neighbour, and,
+though he tried once or twice to talk to Lady Chiltern&mdash;than whom, as
+a rule, no woman was ever more easy in conversation&mdash;he failed
+altogether. Now and again he strove to catch Adelaide's eye, but even
+in that he could not succeed. When the ladies left the room Chiltern
+and the new-comer&mdash;who was not a sporting man, and therefore did not
+understand the question&mdash;became lost in the mazes of Trumpeton Wood.
+But Gerard Maule did not put in a word; nor was a word addressed to
+him by Lord Chiltern. As he sat there sipping his wine, he made up
+his mind that he would leave Harrington Hall the next morning. When
+he was again in the drawing-room, things were conducted in just the
+same way. He spoke to Adelaide, and she answered him; but there was
+no word of encouragement&mdash;not a tone of comfort in her voice. He
+found himself driven to attempt conversation with the strange lady,
+and at last was made to play whist with Lady Chiltern and the two
+new-comers. Later on in the evening, when Adelaide had gone to her
+own chamber, he was invited by Lady Chiltern into her own
+sitting-room upstairs, and there the whole thing was explained to
+him. Miss Palliser had declared that the match should be broken off.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean altogether, Lady Chiltern?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly I do. Such a resolve cannot be a half-and-half
+arrangement."</p>
+
+<p>"But why?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think you must know why, Mr. Maule."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't in the least. I won't have it broken off. I have as much
+right to have a voice in the matter as she has, and I don't in the
+least believe it's her doing."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Maule!"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not care; I must speak out. Why does she not tell me so
+herself?"</p>
+
+<p>"She did tell you so."</p>
+
+<p>"No, she didn't. She said something, but not that. I don't suppose a
+man was ever so used before; and it's all Lord Chiltern;&mdash;just
+because I told him that he had no right to interfere with me. And he
+has no right."</p>
+
+<p>"You and Oswald were away together when she told me that she had made
+up her mind. Oswald has hardly spoken to her since you have been in
+the house. He certainly has not spoken to her about you since you
+came to us."</p>
+
+<p>"What is the meaning of it, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"You told her that your engagement had overwhelmed you with
+troubles."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course; there must be troubles."</p>
+
+<p>"And that&mdash;you would have to be banished to Boulogne when you were
+married."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't mean her to take that literally."</p>
+
+<p>"It wasn't a nice way, Mr. Maule, to speak of your future life to the
+girl to whom you were engaged. Of course it was her hope to make your
+life happier, not less happy. And when you made her understand&mdash;as
+you did very plainly&mdash;that your married prospects filled you with
+dismay, of course she had no other alternative but to retreat from
+her engagement."</p>
+
+<p>"I wasn't dismayed."</p>
+
+<p>"It is not my doing, Mr. Maule."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose she'll see me?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you insist upon it she will; but she would rather not."</p>
+
+<p>Gerard, however, did insist, and Adelaide was brought to him there
+into that room before he went to bed. She was very gentle with him,
+and spoke to him in a tone very different from that which Lady
+Chiltern had used; but he found himself utterly powerless to change
+her. That unfortunate allusion to a miserable exile at Boulogne had
+completed the work which the former plaints had commenced, and had
+driven her to a resolution to separate herself from him altogether.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Maule," she said, "when I perceived that our proposed marriage
+was looked upon by you as a misfortune, I could do nothing but put an
+end to our engagement."</p>
+
+<p>"But I didn't think it a misfortune."</p>
+
+<p>"You made me think that it would be unfortunate for you, and that is
+quite as strong a reason. I hope we shall part as friends."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't part at all," he said, standing his ground with his back to
+the fire. "I don't understand it, by heaven I don't. Because I said
+some stupid thing about Boulogne, all in
+<span class="nowrap">joke&mdash;"</span></p>
+
+<p>"It was not in joke when you said that troubles had come heavy on you
+since you were engaged."</p>
+
+<p>"A man may be allowed to know, himself, whether he was in joke or
+not. I suppose the truth is you don't care about me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hope, Mr. Maule, that in time it may come&mdash;not quite to that."</p>
+
+<p>"I think that you are&mdash;using me very badly. I think that you
+are&mdash;behaving&mdash;falsely to me. I think that I am&mdash;very&mdash;shamefully
+treated&mdash;among you. Of course I shall go. Of course I shall not stay
+in this house. A man can't make a girl keep her promise. No&mdash;I won't
+shake hands. I won't even say good-bye to you. Of course I shall go."
+So saying he slammed the door behind him.</p>
+
+<p>"If he cares for you he'll come back to you," Lady Chiltern said to
+Adelaide that night, who at the moment was lying on her bed in a sad
+condition, frantic with headache.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want him to come back; I will never make him go to
+Boulogne."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't think of it, dear."</p>
+
+<p>"Not think of it! how can I help thinking of it? I shall always think
+of it. But I never want to see him again&mdash;never! How can I want to
+marry a man who tells me that I shall be a trouble to him? He shall
+never,&mdash;never have to go to Boulogne for me."</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c43"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XLIII.</h3>
+<h4>THE SECOND THUNDERBOLT.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>The quarrel between Phineas Finn and Mr. Bonteen had now become the
+talk of the town, and had taken many various phases. The political
+phase, though it was perhaps the best understood, was not the most
+engrossing. There was the personal phase,&mdash;which had reference to the
+direct altercation that had taken place between the two gentlemen,
+and to the correspondence between them which had followed, as to
+which phase it may be said that though there were many rumours
+abroad, very little was known. It was reported in some circles that
+the two aspirants for office had been within an ace of striking each
+other; in some, again, that a blow had passed,&mdash;and in others,
+further removed probably from the House of Commons and the Universe
+Club, that the Irishman had struck the Englishman, and that the
+Englishman had given the Irishman a thrashing. This was a phase that
+was very disagreeable to Phineas Finn. And there was a third,&mdash;which
+may perhaps be called the general social phase, and which
+unfortunately dealt with the name of Lady Laura Kennedy. They all, of
+course, worked into each other, and were enlivened and made
+interesting with the names of a great many big persons. Mr. Gresham,
+the Prime Minister, was supposed to be very much concerned in this
+matter. He, it was said, had found himself compelled to exclude
+Phineas Finn from the Government, because of the unfortunate alliance
+between him and the wife of one of his late colleagues, and had also
+thought it expedient to dismiss Mr. Bonteen from his Cabinet,&mdash;for it
+had amounted almost to dismissal,&mdash;because Mr. Bonteen had made
+indiscreet official allusion to that alliance. In consequence of this
+working in of the first and third phase, Mr. Gresham encountered hard
+usage from some friends and from many enemies. Then, of course, the
+scene at Macpherson's Hotel was commented on very generally. An idea
+prevailed that Mr. Kennedy, driven to madness by his wife's
+infidelity, which had become known to him through the quarrel between
+Phineas and Mr. Bonteen,&mdash;had endeavoured to murder his wife's lover,
+who had with the utmost effrontery invaded the injured husband's
+presence with a view of deterring him by threats from a publication
+of his wrongs. This murder had been nearly accomplished in the centre
+of the metropolis,&mdash;by daylight, as if that made it worse,&mdash;on a
+Sunday, which added infinitely to the delightful horror of the
+catastrophe; and yet no public notice had been taken of it! The
+would-be murderer had been a Cabinet Minister, and the lover who was
+so nearly murdered had been an Under-Secretary of State, and was even
+now a member of Parliament. And then it was positively known that the
+lady's father, who had always been held in the highest respect as a
+nobleman, favoured his daughter's lover, and not his daughter's
+husband. All which things together filled the public with dismay, and
+caused a delightful excitement, giving quite a feature of its own to
+the season.</p>
+
+<p>No doubt general opinion was adverse to poor Phineas Finn, but he was
+not without his party in the matter. To oblige a friend by inflicting
+an injury on his enemy is often more easy than to confer a benefit on
+the friend himself. We have already seen how the young Duchess failed
+in her attempt to obtain an appointment for Phineas, and also how she
+succeeded in destroying the high hopes of Mr. Bonteen. Having done so
+much, of course she clung heartily to the side which she had
+adopted;&mdash;and, equally of course, Madame Goesler did the same.
+Between these two ladies there was a slight difference of opinion as
+to the nature of the alliance between Lady Laura and their hero. The
+Duchess was of opinion that young men are upon the whole averse to
+innocent alliances, and that, as Lady Laura and her husband certainly
+had long been separated, there was probably&mdash;something in it. "Lord
+bless you, my dear," the Duchess said, "they were known to be lovers
+when they were at Loughlinter together before she married Mr.
+Kennedy. It has been the most romantic affair! She made her father
+give him a seat for his borough."</p>
+
+<p>"He saved Mr. Kennedy's life," said Madame Goesler.</p>
+
+<p>"That was one of the most singular things that ever happened.
+Laurence Fitzgibbon says that it was all planned,&mdash;that the garotters
+were hired, but unfortunately two policemen turned up at the moment,
+so the men were taken. I believe there is no doubt they were pardoned
+by Sir Henry Coldfoot, who was at the Home Office, and was Lord
+Brentford's great friend. I don't quite believe it all,&mdash;it would be
+too delicious; but a great many do." Madame Goesler, however, was
+strong in her opinion that the report in reference to Lady Laura was
+scandalous. She did not believe a word of it, and was almost angry
+with the Duchess for her credulity.</p>
+
+<p>It is probable that very many ladies shared the opinion of the
+Duchess; but not the less on that account did they take part with
+Phineas Finn. They could not understand why he should be shut out of
+office because a lady had been in love with him, and by no means
+seemed to approve the stern virtue of the Prime Minister. It was an
+interference with things which did not belong to him. And many
+asserted that Mr. Gresham was much given to such interference. Lady
+Cantrip, though her husband was Mr. Gresham's most intimate friend,
+was altogether of this party, as was also the Duchess of St. Bungay,
+who understood nothing at all about it, but who had once fancied
+herself to be rudely treated by Mrs. Bonteen. The young Duchess was a
+woman very strong in getting up a party; and the old Duchess, with
+many other matrons of high rank, was made to believe that it was
+incumbent on her to be a Phineas Finnite. One result of this was,
+that though Phineas was excluded from the Liberal Government, all
+Liberal drawing-rooms were open to him, and that he was a lion.</p>
+
+<p>Additional zest was given to all this by the very indiscreet conduct
+of Mr. Bonteen. He did accept the inferior office of President of the
+Board of Trade, an office inferior at least to that for which he had
+been designated, and agreed to fill it without a seat in the Cabinet.
+But having done so he could not bring himself to bear his
+disappointment quietly. He could not work and wait and make himself
+agreeable to those around him, holding his vexation within his own
+bosom. He was dark and sullen to his chief, and almost insolent to
+the Duke of Omnium. Our old friend Plantagenet Palliser was a man who
+hardly knew insolence when he met it. There was such an absence about
+him of all self-consciousness, he was so little given to think of his
+own personal demeanour and outward trappings,&mdash;that he never brought
+himself to question the manners of others to him. Contradiction he
+would take for simple argument. Strong difference of opinion even on
+the part of subordinates recommended itself to him. He could put up
+with apparent rudeness without seeing it, and always gave men credit
+for good intentions. And with it all he had an assurance in his own
+position,&mdash;a knowledge of the strength derived from his intellect,
+his industry, his rank, and his wealth,&mdash;which made him altogether
+fearless of others. When the little dog snarls, the big dog does not
+connect the snarl with himself, simply fancying that the little dog
+must be uncomfortable. Mr. Bonteen snarled a good deal, and the new
+Lord Privy Seal thought that the new President of the Board of Trade
+was not comfortable within himself. But at last the little dog took
+the big dog by the ear, and then the big dog put out his paw and
+knocked the little dog over. Mr. Bonteen was told that he
+had&mdash;forgotten himself; and there arose new rumours. It was soon
+reported that the Lord Privy Seal had refused to work out decimal
+coinage under the management, in the House of Commons, of the
+President of the Board of Trade.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bonteen, in his troubled spirit, certainly did misbehave himself.
+Among his closer friends he declared very loudly that he didn't mean
+to stand it. He had not chosen to throw Mr. Gresham over at once, or
+to make difficulties at the moment;&mdash;but he would not continue to
+hold his present position or to support the Government without a seat
+in the Cabinet. Palliser had become quite useless,&mdash;so Mr. Bonteen
+said,&mdash;since his accession to the dukedom, and was quite unfit to
+deal with decimal coinage. It was a burden to kill any man, and he
+was not going to kill himself,&mdash;at any rate without the reward for
+which he had been working all his life, and to which he was fully
+entitled, namely, a seat in the Cabinet. Now there were Bonteenites
+in those days as well as Phineas Finnites. The latter tribe was for
+the most part feminine; but the former consisted of some half-dozen
+members of Parliament, who thought they saw their way in encouraging
+the forlorn hope of the unhappy financier.</p>
+
+<p>A leader of a party is nothing without an organ, and an organ came
+forward to support Mr. Bonteen,&mdash;not very creditable to him as a
+Liberal, being a Conservative organ,&mdash;but not the less gratifying to
+his spirit, inasmuch as the organ not only supported him, but exerted
+its very loudest pipes in abusing the man whom of all men he hated
+the most. The People's Banner was the organ, and Mr. Quintus Slide
+was, of course, the organist. The following was one of the tunes he
+played, and was supposed by himself to be a second thunderbolt, and
+probably a conclusively crushing missile. This thunderbolt fell on
+Monday, the 3rd of May:&mdash;<br />&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>Early in last March we found it to be our duty to bring under public
+notice the conduct of the member for Tankerville in reference to a
+transaction which took place at a small hotel in Judd Street, and as
+to which we then ventured to call for the interference of the police.
+An attempt to murder the member for Tankerville had been made by a
+gentleman once well known in the political world, who,&mdash;as it is
+supposed,&mdash;had been driven to madness by wrongs inflicted on him in
+his dearest and nearest family relations. That the unfortunate
+gentleman is now insane we believe we may state as a fact. It had
+become our special duty to refer to this most discreditable
+transaction, from the fact that a paper, still in our hands, had been
+confided to us for publication by the wretched husband before his
+senses had become impaired,&mdash;which, however, we were debarred from
+giving to the public by an injunction served upon us in sudden haste
+by the Vice-Chancellor. We are far from imputing evil motives, or
+even indiscretion, to that functionary; but we are of opinion that
+the moral feeling of the country would have been served by the
+publication, and we are sure that undue steps were taken by the
+member for Tankerville to procure that injunction.</p>
+
+<p>No inquiries whatever were made by the police in reference to that
+attempt at murder, and we do expect that some member will ask a
+question on the subject in the House. Would such culpable quiescence
+have been allowed had not the unfortunate lady whose name we are
+unwilling to mention been the daughter of one of the colleagues of
+our present Prime Minister, the gentleman who fired the pistol
+another of them, and the presumed lover, who was fired at, also
+another? We think that we need hardly answer that question.</p>
+
+<p>One piece of advice which we ventured to give Mr. Gresham in our
+former article he has been wise enough to follow. We took upon
+ourselves to tell him that if, after what has occurred, he ventured
+to place the member for Tankerville again in office, the country
+would not stand it;&mdash;and he has abstained. The jaunty footsteps of
+Mr. Phineas Finn are not heard ascending the stairs of any office at
+about two in the afternoon, as used to be the case in one of those
+blessed Downing Street abodes about three years since. That scandal
+is, we think, over,&mdash;and for ever. The good-looking Irish member of
+Parliament who had been put in possession of a handsome salary by
+feminine influences, will not, we think, after what we have already
+said, again become a burden on the public purse. But we cannot say
+that we are as yet satisfied in this matter, or that we believe that
+the public has got to the bottom of it,&mdash;as it has a right to do in
+reference to all matters affecting the public service. We have never
+yet learned why it is that Mr. Bonteen, after having been nominated
+Chancellor of the Exchequer,&mdash;for the appointment to that office was
+declared in the House of Commons by the head of his party,&mdash;was
+afterwards excluded from the Cabinet, and placed in an office made
+peculiarly subordinate by the fact of that exclusion. We have never
+yet been told why this was done;&mdash;but we believe that we are
+justified in saying that it was managed through the influence of the
+member for Tankerville; and we are quite sure that the public service
+of the country has thereby been subjected to grievous injury.</p>
+
+<p>It is hardly our duty to praise any of that very awkward team of
+horses which Mr. Gresham drives with an audacity which may atone for
+his incapacity if no fearful accident should be the consequence; but
+if there be one among them whom we could trust for steady work up
+hill, it is Mr. Bonteen. We were astounded at Mr. Gresham's
+indiscretion in announcing the appointment of his new Chancellor of
+the Exchequer some weeks before he had succeeded in driving Mr.
+Daubeny from office;&mdash;but we were not the less glad to find that the
+finances of the country were to be entrusted to the hands of the most
+competent gentleman whom Mr. Gresham has induced to follow his
+fortunes. But Mr. Phineas Finn, with his female forces, has again
+interfered, and Mr. Bonteen has been relegated to the Board of Trade,
+without a seat in the Cabinet. We should not be at all surprised if,
+as the result of this disgraceful man&oelig;uvring, Mr. Bonteen found
+himself at the head of the Liberal party before the Session be over.
+If so, evil would have worked to good. But, be that as it may, we
+cannot but feel that it is a disgrace to the Government, a disgrace
+to Parliament, and a disgrace to the country that such results should
+come from the private scandals of two or three people among us by no
+means of the best class.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+<p><a id="c44"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XLIV.</h3>
+<h4>THE BROWBOROUGH TRIAL.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>There was another matter of public interest going on at this time
+which created a great excitement. And this, too, added to the
+importance of Phineas Finn, though Phineas was not the hero of the
+piece. Mr. Browborough, the late member for Tankerville, was tried
+for bribery. It will be remembered that when Phineas contested the
+borough in the autumn, this gentleman was returned. He was afterwards
+unseated, as the result of a petition before the judge, and Phineas
+was declared to be the true member. The judge who had so decided had
+reported to the Speaker that further inquiry before a commission into
+the practices of the late and former elections at Tankerville would
+be expedient, and such commission had sat in the months of January
+and February. Half the voters in Tankerville had been examined, and
+many who were not voters. The commissioners swept very clean, being
+new brooms, and in their report recommended that Mr. Browborough,
+whom they had themselves declined to examine, should be prosecuted.
+That report was made about the end of March, when Mr. Daubeny's great
+bill was impending. Then there arose a double feeling about Mr.
+Browborough, who had been regarded by many as a model member of
+Parliament, a man who never spoke, constant in his attendance, who
+wanted nothing, who had plenty of money, who gave dinners, to whom a
+seat in Parliament was the be-all and the end-all of life. It could
+not be the wish of any gentleman, who had been accustomed to his slow
+step in the lobbies, and his burly form always quiescent on one of
+the upper seats just below the gangway on the Conservative side of
+the House, that such a man should really be punished. When the new
+laws regarding bribery came to take that shape the hearts of members
+revolted from the cruelty,&mdash;the hearts even of members on the other
+side of the House. As long as a seat was in question the battle
+should of course be fought to the nail. Every kind of accusation
+might then be lavished without restraint, and every evil practice
+imputed. It had been known to all the world,&mdash;known as a thing that
+was a matter of course,&mdash;that at every election Mr. Browborough had
+bought his seat. How should a Browborough get a seat without buying
+it,&mdash;a man who could not say ten words, of no family, with no natural
+following in any constituency, distinguished by no zeal in politics,
+entertaining no special convictions of his own? How should such a one
+recommend himself to any borough unless he went there with money in
+his hand? Of course, he had gone to Tankerville with money in his
+hand, with plenty of money, and had spent it&mdash;like a gentleman.
+Collectively the House of Commons had determined to put down bribery
+with a very strong hand. Nobody had spoken against bribery with more
+fervour than Sir Gregory Grogram, who had himself, as
+Attorney-General, forged the chains for fettering future bribers. He
+was now again Attorney-General, much to his disgust, as Mr. Gresham
+had at the last moment found it wise to restore Lord Weazeling to the
+woolsack; and to his hands was to be entrusted the prosecution of Mr.
+Browborough. But it was observed by many that the job was not much to
+his taste. The House had been very hot against bribery,&mdash;and certain
+members of the existing Government, when the late Bill had been
+passed, had expressed themselves with almost burning indignation
+against the crime. But, through it all, there had been a slight
+undercurrent of ridicule attaching itself to the question of which
+only they who were behind the scenes were conscious. The House was
+bound to let the outside world know that all corrupt practices at
+elections were held to be abominable by the House; but Members of the
+House, as individuals, knew very well what had taken place at their
+own elections, and were aware of the cheques which they had drawn.
+Public-houses had been kept open as a matter of course, and nowhere
+perhaps had more beer been drunk than at Clovelly, the borough for
+which Sir Gregory Grogram sat. When it came to be a matter of
+individual prosecution against one whom they had all known, and who,
+as a member, had been inconspicuous and therefore inoffensive,
+against a heavy, rich, useful man who had been in nobody's way, many
+thought that it would amount to persecution. The idea of putting old
+Browborough into prison for conduct which habit had made second
+nature to a large proportion of the House was distressing to Members
+of Parliament generally. The recommendation for this prosecution was
+made to the House when Mr. Daubeny was in the first agonies of his
+great Bill, and he at once resolved to ignore the matter altogether,
+at any rate for the present. If he was to be driven out of power
+there could be no reason why his Attorney-General should prosecute
+his own ally and follower,&mdash;a poor, faithful creature, who had never
+in his life voted against his party, and who had always been willing
+to accept as his natural leader any one whom his party might select.
+But there were many who had felt that as Mr. Browborough must
+certainly now be prosecuted sooner or later,&mdash;for there could be no
+final neglecting of the Commissioners' report,&mdash;it would be better
+that he should be dealt with by natural friends than by natural
+enemies. The newspapers, therefore, had endeavoured to hurry the
+matter on, and it had been decided that the trial should take place
+at the Durham Spring Assizes, in the first week of May. Sir Gregory
+Grogram became Attorney-General in the middle of April, and he
+undertook the task upon compulsion. Mr. Browborough's own friends,
+and Mr. Browborough himself, declared very loudly that there would be
+the greatest possible cruelty in postponing the trial. His lawyers
+thought that his best chance lay in bustling the thing on, and were
+therefore able to show that the cruelty of delay would be
+extreme,&mdash;nay, that any postponement in such a matter would be
+unconstitutional, if not illegal. It would, of course, have been just
+as easy to show that hurry on the part of the prosecutor was cruel,
+and illegal, and unconstitutional, had it been considered that the
+best chance of acquittal lay in postponement.</p>
+
+<p>And so the trial was forced forward, and Sir Gregory himself was to
+appear on behalf of the prosecuting House of Commons. There could be
+no doubt that the sympathies of the public generally were with Mr.
+Browborough, though there was as little doubt that he was guilty.
+When the evidence taken by the Commissioners had just appeared in the
+newspapers,&mdash;when first the facts of this and other elections at
+Tankerville were made public, and the world was shown how common it
+had been for Mr. Browborough to buy votes,&mdash;how clearly the knowledge
+of the corruption had been brought home to himself,&mdash;there had for a
+short week or so been a feeling against him. Two or three London
+papers had printed leading articles, giving in detail the salient
+points of the old sinner's criminality, and expressing a conviction
+that now, at least, would the real criminal be punished. But this had
+died away, and the anger against Mr. Browborough, even on the part of
+the most virtuous of the public press, had become no more than
+lukewarm. Some papers boldly defended him, ridiculed the
+Commissioners, and declared that the trial was altogether an
+absurdity. The People's Banner, setting at defiance with an
+admirable audacity all the facts as given in the Commissioners'
+report, declared that there was not one tittle of evidence against
+Mr. Browborough, and hinted that the trial had been got up by the
+malign influence of that doer of all evil, Phineas Finn. But men who
+knew better what was going on in the world than did Mr. Quintus
+Slide, were well aware that such assertions as these were both
+unavailing and unnecessary. Mr. Browborough was believed to be quite
+safe; but his safety lay in the indifference of his
+prosecutors,&mdash;certainly not in his innocence. Any one prominent in
+affairs can always see when a man may steal a horse and when a man
+may not look over a hedge. Mr. Browborough had stolen his horse, and
+had repeated the theft over and over again. The evidence of it all
+was forthcoming,&mdash;had, indeed, been already sifted. But Sir Gregory
+Grogram, who was prominent in affairs, knew that the theft might be
+condoned.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, the case came on at the Durham Assizes. Within the last
+two months Browborough had become quite a hero at Tankerville. The
+Church party had forgotten his broken pledges, and the Radicals
+remembered only his generosity. Could he have stood for the seat
+again on the day on which the judges entered Durham, he might have
+been returned without bribery. Throughout the whole county the
+prosecution was unpopular. During no portion of his Parliamentary
+career had Mr. Browborough's name been treated with so much respect
+in the grandly ecclesiastical city as now. He dined with the Dean on
+the day before the trial, and on the Sunday was shown by the head
+verger into the stall next to the Chancellor of the Diocese, with a
+reverence which seemed to imply that he was almost as graceful as a
+martyr. When he took his seat in the Court next to his attorney,
+everybody shook hands with him. When Sir Gregory got up to open his
+case, not one of the listeners then supposed that Mr. Browborough was
+about to suffer any punishment. He was arraigned before Mr. Baron
+Boultby, who had himself sat for a borough in his younger days, and
+who knew well how things were done. We are all aware how
+impassionately grand are the minds of judges, when men accused of
+crimes are brought before them for trial; but judges after all are
+men, and Mr. Baron Boultby, as he looked at Mr. Browborough, could
+not but have thought of the old days.</p>
+
+<p>It was nevertheless necessary that the prosecution should be
+conducted in a properly formal manner, and that all the evidence
+should be given. There was a cloud of witnesses over from
+Tankerville,&mdash;miners, colliers, and the like,&mdash;having a very good
+turn of it at the expense of the poor borough. All these men must be
+examined, and their evidence would no doubt be the same now as when
+it was given with so damnable an effect before those clean-sweeping
+Commissioners. Sir Gregory's opening speech was quite worthy of Sir
+Gregory. It was essentially necessary, he said, that the atmosphere
+of our boroughs should be cleansed and purified from the taint of
+corruption. The voice of the country had spoken very plainly on the
+subject, and a verdict had gone forth that there should be no more
+bribery at elections. At the last election at Tankerville, and, as he
+feared, at some former elections, there had been manifest bribery. It
+would be for the jury to decide whether Mr. Browborough himself had
+been so connected with the acts of his agents as to be himself within
+the reach of the law. If it were found that he had brought himself
+within the reach of the law, the jury would no doubt say so, and in
+such case would do great service to the cause of purity; but if Mr.
+Browborough had not been personally cognisant of what his agents had
+done, then the jury would be bound to acquit him. A man was not
+necessarily guilty of bribery in the eye of the law because bribery
+had been committed, even though the bribery so committed had been
+sufficiently proved to deprive him of the seat which he would
+otherwise have enjoyed. Nothing could be clearer than the manner in
+which Sir Gregory explained it all to the jury; nothing more eloquent
+than his denunciations against bribery in general; nothing more mild
+than his allegations against Mr. Browborough individually.</p>
+
+<p>In regard to the evidence Sir Gregory, with his two assistants, went
+through his work manfully. The evidence was given,&mdash;not to the same
+length as at Tankerville before the Commissioners,&mdash;but really to the
+same effect. But yet the record of the evidence as given in the
+newspapers seemed to be altogether different. At Tankerville there
+had been an indignant and sometimes an indiscreet zeal which had
+communicated itself to the whole proceedings. The general flavour of
+the trial at Durham was one of good-humoured raillery. Mr.
+Browborough's counsel in cross-examining the witnesses for the
+prosecution displayed none of that righteous wrath,&mdash;wrath righteous
+on behalf of injured innocence,&mdash;which is so common with gentlemen
+employed in the defence of criminals; but bowed and simpered, and
+nodded at Sir Gregory in a manner that was quite pleasant to behold.
+Nobody scolded anybody. There was no roaring of barristers, no
+clenching of fists and kicking up of dust, no threats, no allusions
+to witnesses' oaths. A considerable amount of gentle fun was poked at
+the witnesses by the defending counsel, but not in a manner to give
+any pain. Gentlemen who acknowledged to have received seventeen
+shillings and sixpence for their votes at the last election were
+asked how they had invested their money. Allusions were made to their
+wives, and a large amount of good-humoured sparring was allowed, in
+which the witnesses thought that they had the best of it. The men of
+Tankerville long remembered this trial, and hoped anxiously that
+there might soon be another. The only man treated with severity was
+poor Phineas Finn, and luckily for himself he was not present. His
+qualifications as member of Parliament for Tankerville were somewhat
+roughly treated. Each witness there, when he was asked what candidate
+would probably be returned for Tankerville at the next election,
+readily answered that Mr. Browborough would certainly carry the seat.
+Mr. Browborough sat in the Court throughout it all, and was the hero
+of the day.</p>
+
+<p>The judge's summing up was very short, and seemed to have been given
+almost with indolence. The one point on which he insisted was the
+difference between such evidence of bribery as would deprive a man of
+his seat, and that which would make him subject to the criminal law.
+By the criminal law a man could not be punished for the acts of
+another. Punishment must follow a man's own act. If a man were to
+instigate another to murder he would be punished, not for the murder,
+but for the instigation. They were now administering the criminal
+law, and they were bound to give their verdict for an acquittal
+unless they were convinced that the man on his trial had
+himself,&mdash;wilfully and wittingly,&mdash;been guilty of the crime imputed.
+He went through the evidence, which was in itself clear against the
+old sinner, and which had been in no instance validly contradicted,
+and then left the matter to the jury. The men in the box put their
+heads together, and returned a verdict of acquittal without one
+moment's delay. Sir Gregory Grogram and his assistants collected
+their papers together. The judge addressed three or four words almost
+of compliment to Mr. Browborough, and the affair was over, to the
+manifest contentment of every one there present. Sir Gregory Grogram
+was by no means disappointed, and everybody, on his own side in
+Parliament and on the other, thought that he had done his duty very
+well. The clean-sweeping Commissioners, who had been animated with
+wonderful zeal by the nature and novelty of their work, probably felt
+that they had been betrayed, but it may be doubted whether any one
+else was disconcerted by the result of the trial, unless it might be
+some poor innocents here and there about the country who had been
+induced to believe that bribery and corruption were in truth to be
+banished from the purlieus of Westminster.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Roby and Mr. Ratler, who filled the same office each for his own
+party, in and out, were both acquainted with each other, and apt to
+discuss parliamentary questions in the library and smoking-room of
+the House, where such discussions could be held on most matters. "I
+was very glad that the case went as it did at Durham," said Mr.
+Ratler.</p>
+
+<p>"And so am I," said Mr. Roby. "Browborough was always a good fellow."</p>
+
+<p>"Not a doubt about it; and no good could have come from a conviction.
+I suppose there has been a little money spent at Tankerville."</p>
+
+<p>"And at other places one could mention," said Mr. Roby.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course there has;&mdash;and money will be spent again. Nobody dislikes
+bribery more than I do. The House, of course, dislikes it. But if a
+man loses his seat, surely that is punishment enough."</p>
+
+<p>"It's better to have to draw a cheque sometimes than to be out in the
+cold."</p>
+
+<p>"Nevertheless, members would prefer that their seats should not cost
+them so much," continued Mr. Ratler. "But the thing can't be done all
+at once. That idea of pouncing upon one man and making a victim of
+him is very disagreeable to me. I should have been sorry to have seen
+a verdict against Browborough. You must acknowledge that there was no
+bitterness in the way in which Grogram did it."</p>
+
+<p>"We all feel that," said Mr. Roby,&mdash;who was, perhaps, by nature a
+little more candid than his rival,&mdash;"and when the time comes no doubt
+we shall return the compliment."</p>
+
+<p>The matter was discussed in quite a different spirit between two
+other politicians. "So Sir Gregory has failed at Durham," said Lord
+Cantrip to his friend, Mr. Gresham.</p>
+
+<p>"I was sure he would."</p>
+
+<p>"And why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah;&mdash;why? How am I to answer such a question? Did you think that Mr.
+Browborough would be convicted of bribery by a jury?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, indeed," answered Lord Cantrip.</p>
+
+<p>"And can you tell me why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because there was no earnestness in the matter,&mdash;either with the
+Attorney-General or with any one else."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet," said Mr. Gresham, "Grogram is a very earnest man when he
+believes in his case. No member of Parliament will ever be punished
+for bribery as for a crime till members of Parliament generally look
+upon bribery as a crime. We are very far from that as yet. I should
+have thought a conviction to be a great misfortune."</p>
+
+<p>"Why so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because it would have created ill blood, and our own hands in this
+matter are not a bit cleaner than those of our adversaries. We can't
+afford to pull their houses to pieces before we have put our own in
+order. The thing will be done; but it must, I fear, be done
+slowly,&mdash;as is the case with all reforms from within."</p>
+
+<p>Phineas Finn, who was very sore and unhappy at this time, and who
+consequently was much in love with purity and anxious for severity,
+felt himself personally aggrieved by the acquittal. It was almost
+tantamount to a verdict against himself. And then he knew so well
+that bribery had been committed, and was so confident that such a one
+as Mr. Browborough could have been returned to Parliament by none
+other than corrupt means! In his present mood he would have been
+almost glad to see Mr. Browborough at the treadmill, and would have
+thought six months' solitary confinement quite inadequate to the
+offence. "I never read anything in my life that disgusted me so
+much," he said to his friend, Mr. Monk.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't go along with you there."</p>
+
+<p>"If any man ever was guilty of bribery, he was guilty!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't doubt it for a moment."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet Grogram did not try to get a verdict."</p>
+
+<p>"Had he tried ever so much he would have failed. In a matter such as
+that,&mdash;political and not social in its nature,&mdash;a jury is sure to be
+guided by what it has, perhaps unconsciously, learned to be the
+feeling of the country. No disgrace is attached to their verdict, and
+yet everybody knows that Mr. Browborough had bribed, and all those
+who have looked into it know, too, that the evidence was conclusive."</p>
+
+<p>"Then are the jury all perjured," said Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>"I have nothing to say to that. No stain of perjury clings to them.
+They are better received in Durham to-day than they would have been
+had they found Mr. Browborough guilty. In business, as in private
+life, they will be held to be as trustworthy as before;&mdash;and they
+will be, for aught that we know, quite trustworthy. There are still
+circumstances in which a man, though on his oath, may be untrue with
+no more stain of falsehood than falls upon him when he denies himself
+at his front door though he happen to be at home."</p>
+
+<p>"What must we think of such a condition of things, Mr. Monk?"</p>
+
+<p>"That it's capable of improvement. I do not know that we can think
+anything else. As for Sir Gregory Grogram and Baron Boultby and the
+jury, it would be waste of power to execrate them. In political
+matters it is very hard for a man in office to be purer than his
+neighbours,&mdash;and, when he is so, he becomes troublesome. I have found
+that out before to-day."</p>
+
+<p>With Lady Laura Kennedy, Phineas did find some sympathy;&mdash;but then
+she would have sympathised with him on any subject under the sun. If
+he would only come to her and sit with her she would fool him to the
+top of his bent. He had resolved that he would go to Portman Square
+as little as possible, and had been confirmed in that resolution by
+the scandal which had now spread everywhere about the town in
+reference to himself and herself. But still he went. He never left
+her till some promise of returning at some stated time had been
+extracted from him. He had even told her of his own scruples and of
+her danger,&mdash;and they had discussed together that last thunderbolt
+which had fallen from the Jove of The People's Banner. But she had
+laughed his caution to scorn. Did she not know herself and her own
+innocence? Was she not living in her father's house, and with her
+father? Should she quail beneath the stings and venom of such a
+reptile as Quintus Slide? "Oh, Phineas," she said, "let us be braver
+than that." He would much prefer to have stayed away,&mdash;but still he
+went to her. He was conscious of her dangerous love for him. He knew
+well that it was not returned. He was aware that it would be best for
+both that he should be apart. But yet he could not bring himself to
+wound her by his absence. "I do not see why you should feel it so
+much," she said, speaking of the trial at Durham.</p>
+
+<p>"We were both on our trial,&mdash;he and I."</p>
+
+<p>"Everybody knows that he bribed and that you did not."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes;&mdash;and everybody despises me and pats him on the back. I am sick
+of the whole thing. There is no honesty in the life we lead."</p>
+
+<p>"You got your seat at any rate."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish with all my heart that I had never seen the dirty wretched
+place," said he.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Phineas, do not say that."</p>
+
+<p>"But I do say it. Of what use is the seat to me? If I could only feel
+that any one <span class="nowrap">knew&mdash;"</span></p>
+
+<p>"Knew what, Phineas?"</p>
+
+<p>"It doesn't matter."</p>
+
+<p>"I understand. I know that you have meant to be honest, while this
+man has always meant to be dishonest. I know that you have intended
+to serve your country, and have wished to work for it. But you cannot
+expect that it should all be roses."</p>
+
+<p>"Roses! The nosegays which are worn down at Westminster are made of
+garlick and dandelions!"</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c45"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XLV.</h3>
+<h4>SOME PASSAGES IN THE LIFE OF MR. EMILIUS.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>The writer of this chronicle is not allowed to imagine that any of
+his readers have read the wonderful and vexatious adventures of Lady
+Eustace, a lady of good birth, of high rank, and of large fortune,
+who, but a year or two since, became almost a martyr to a diamond
+necklace which was stolen from her. With her history the present
+reader has but small concern, but it may be necessary that he should
+know that the lady in question, who had been a widow with many
+suitors, at last gave her hand and her fortune to a clergyman whose
+name was Joseph Emilius. Mr. Emilius, though not an Englishman by
+birth,&mdash;and, as was supposed, a Bohemian Jew in the earlier days of
+his career,&mdash;had obtained some reputation as a preacher in London,
+and had moved,&mdash;if not in fashionable circles,&mdash;at any rate in
+circles so near to fashion as to be brought within the reach of Lady
+Eustace's charms. They were married, and for some few months Mr.
+Emilius enjoyed a halcyon existence, the delights of which were,
+perhaps, not materially marred by the necessity which he felt of
+subjecting his young wife to marital authority. "My dear," he would
+say, "you will know me better soon, and then things will be smooth."
+In the meantime he drew more largely upon her money than was pleasing
+to her and to her friends, and appeared to have requirements for cash
+which were both secret and unlimited. At the end of twelve months
+Lady Eustace had run away from him, and Mr. Emilius had made
+overtures, by accepting which his wife would be enabled to purchase
+his absence at the cost of half her income. The arrangement was not
+regarded as being in every respect satisfactory, but Lady Eustace
+declared passionately that any possible sacrifice would be preferable
+to the company of Mr. Emilius. There had, however, been a rumour
+before her marriage that there was still living in his old country a
+Mrs. Emilius when he married Lady Eustace; and, though it had been
+supposed by those who were most nearly concerned with Lady Eustace
+that this report had been unfounded and malicious, nevertheless, when
+the man's claims became so exorbitant, reference was again made to
+the charge of bigamy. If it could be proved that Mr. Emilius had a
+wife living in Bohemia, a cheaper mode of escape would be found for
+the persecuted lady than that which he himself had suggested.</p>
+
+<p>It had happened that, since her marriage with Mr. Emilius, Lady
+Eustace had become intimate with our Mr. Bonteen and his wife. She
+had been at one time engaged to marry Lord Fawn, one of Mr. Bonteen's
+colleagues, and during the various circumstances which had led to the
+disruption of that engagement, this friendship had been formed. It
+must be understood that Lady Eustace had a most desirable residence
+of her own in the country,&mdash;Portray Castle in Scotland,&mdash;and that it
+was thought expedient by many to cultivate her acquaintance. She was
+rich, beautiful, and clever; and, though her marriage with Mr.
+Emilius had never been looked upon as a success, still, in the
+estimation of some people, it added an interest to her career. The
+Bonteens had taken her up, and now both Mr. and Mrs. Bonteen were hot
+in pursuit of evidence which might prove Mr. Emilius to be a
+bigamist.</p>
+
+<p>When the disruption of conjugal relations was commenced, Lady Eustace
+succeeded in obtaining refuge at Portray Castle without the presence
+of her husband. She fled from London during a visit he made to
+Brighton with the object of preaching to a congregation by which his
+eloquence was held in great esteem. He left London in one direction
+by the 5 <span class="smallcaps">p.m.</span>
+express train on Saturday, and she in the other by the
+limited mail at 8.45. A telegram, informing him of what had taken
+place, reached him the next morning at Brighton while he was at
+breakfast. He preached his sermon, charming the congregation by the
+graces of his extempore eloquence,&mdash;moving every woman there to
+tears,&mdash;and then was after his wife before the ladies had taken their
+first glass of sherry at luncheon. But her ladyship had twenty-four
+hours' start of him,&mdash;although he did his best; and when he reached
+Portray Castle the door was shut in his face. He endeavoured to
+obtain the aid of blacksmiths to open, as he said, his own hall
+door,&mdash;to obtain the aid of constables to compel the blacksmiths, of
+magistrates to compel the constables,&mdash;and even of a judge to compel
+the magistrates; but he was met on every side by a statement that the
+lady of the castle declared that she was not his wife, and that
+therefore he had no right whatever to demand that the door should be
+opened. Some other woman,&mdash;so he was informed that the lady
+said,&mdash;out in a strange country was really his wife. It was her
+intention to prove him to be a bigamist, and to have him locked up.
+In the meantime she chose to lock herself up in her own mansion. Such
+was the nature of the message that was delivered to him through the
+bars of the lady's castle.</p>
+
+<p>How poor Lady Eustace was protected, and, at the same time, made
+miserable by the energy and unrestrained language of one of her own
+servants, Andrew Gowran by name, it hardly concerns us now to
+inquire. Mr. Emilius did not succeed in effecting an entrance; but he
+remained for some time in the neighbourhood, and had notices served
+on the tenants in regard to the rents, which puzzled the poor folk
+round Portray Castle very much. After a while Lady Eustace, finding
+that her peace and comfort imperatively demanded that she should
+prove the allegations which she had made, fled again from Portray
+Castle to London, and threw herself into the hands of the Bonteens.
+This took place just as Mr. Bonteen's hopes in regard to the
+Chancellorship of the Exchequer were beginning to soar high, and when
+his hands were very full of business. But with that energy for which
+he was so conspicuous, Mr. Bonteen had made a visit to Bohemia during
+his short Christmas holidays, and had there set people to work. When
+at Prague he had, he thought, very nearly unravelled the secret
+himself. He had found the woman whom he believed to be Mrs. Emilius,
+and who was now living somewhat merrily in Prague under another name.
+She acknowledged that in old days, when they were both young, she had
+been acquainted with a certain Yosef Mealyus, at a time in which he
+had been in the employment of a Jewish moneylender in the city;
+but,&mdash;as she declared,&mdash;she had never been married to him. Mr.
+Bonteen learned also that the gentleman now known as Mr. Joseph
+Emilius of the London Chapel had been known in his own country as
+Yosef Mealyus, the name which had been borne by the very respectable
+Jew who was his father. Then Mr. Bonteen had returned home, and, as
+we all know, had become engaged in matters of deeper import than even
+the deliverance of Lady Eustace from her thraldom.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Emilius made no attempt to obtain the person of his wife while
+she was under Mr. Bonteen's custody, but he did renew his offer to
+compromise. If the estate could not afford to give him the two
+thousand a year which he had first demanded, he would take fifteen
+hundred. He explained all this personally to Mr. Bonteen, who
+condescended to see him. He was very eager to make Mr. Bonteen
+understand how bad even then would be his condition. Mr. Bonteen was,
+of course, aware that he would have to pay very heavily for insuring
+his wife's life. He was piteous, argumentative, and at first gentle;
+but when Mr. Bonteen somewhat rashly told him that the evidence of a
+former marriage and of the present existence of the former wife would
+certainly be forthcoming, he defied Mr. Bonteen and his
+evidence,&mdash;and swore that if his claims were not satisfied, he would
+make use of the power which the English law gave him for the recovery
+of his wife's person. And as to her property,&mdash;it was his, not hers.
+From this time forward if she wanted to separate herself from him she
+must ask him for an allowance. Now, it certainly was the case that
+Lady Eustace had married the man without any sufficient precaution as
+to keeping her money in her own hands, and Mr. Emilius had insisted
+that the rents of the property which was hers for her life should be
+paid to him, and on his receipt only. The poor tenants had been
+noticed this way and noticed that till they had begun to doubt
+whether their safest course would not be to keep their rents in their
+own hands. But lately the lawyers of the Eustace family,&mdash;who were
+not, indeed, very fond of Lady Eustace personally,&mdash;came forward for
+the sake of the property, and guaranteed the tenants against all
+proceedings until the question of the legality of the marriage should
+be settled. So Mr. Emilius,&mdash;or the Reverend Mealyus, as everybody
+now called him,&mdash;went to law; and Lady Eustace went to law; and the
+Eustace family went to law;&mdash;but still, as yet, no evidence was
+forthcoming sufficient to enable Mr. Bonteen, as the lady's friend,
+to put the gentleman into prison.</p>
+
+<p>It was said for a while that Mealyus had absconded. After his
+interview with Mr. Bonteen he certainly did leave England and made a
+journey to Prague. It was thought that he would not return, and that
+Lady Eustace would be obliged to carry on the trial, which was to
+liberate her and her property, in his absence. She was told that the
+very fact of his absence would go far with a jury, and she was glad
+to be freed from his presence in England. But he did return,
+declaring aloud that he would have his rights. His wife should be
+made to put herself into his hands, and he would obtain possession of
+the income which was his own. People then began to doubt. It was
+known that a very clever lawyer's clerk had been sent to Prague to
+complete the work there which Mr. Bonteen had commenced. But the
+clerk did not come back as soon as was expected, and news arrived
+that he had been taken ill. There was a rumour that he had been
+poisoned at his hotel; but, as the man was not said to be dead,
+people hardly believed the rumour. It became necessary, however, to
+send another lawyer's clerk, and the matter was gradually progressing
+to a very interesting complication.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bonteen, to tell the truth, was becoming sick of it. When
+Emilius, or Mealyus, was supposed to have absconded, Lady Eustace
+left Mr. Bonteen's house, and located herself at one of the large
+London hotels; but when the man came back, bolder than ever, she
+again betook herself to the shelter of Mr. Bonteen's roof. She
+expressed the most lavish affection for Mrs. Bonteen, and professed
+to regard Mr. Bonteen as almost a political god, declaring her
+conviction that he, and he alone, as Prime Minister, could save the
+country, and became very loud in her wrath when he was robbed of his
+seat in the Cabinet. Lizzie Eustace, as her ladyship had always been
+called, was a clever, pretty, coaxing little woman, who knew how to
+make the most of her advantages. She had not been very wise in her
+life, having lost the friends who would have been truest to her, and
+confided in persons who had greatly injured her. She was neither true
+of heart or tongue, nor affectionate, nor even honest. But she was
+engaging; she could flatter; and could assume a reverential
+admiration which was very foreign to her real character. In these
+days she almost worshipped Mr. Bonteen, and could never be happy
+except in the presence of her dearest darling friend Mrs. Bonteen.
+Mr. Bonteen was tired of her, and Mrs. Bonteen was becoming almost
+sick of the constant kisses with which she was greeted; but Lizzie
+Eustace had got hold of them, and they could not turn her off.</p>
+
+<p>"You saw The People's Banner, Mrs. Bonteen, on Monday?" Lady
+Eustace had been reading the paper in her friend's drawing-room.
+"They seem to think that Mr. Bonteen must be Prime Minister before
+long."</p>
+
+
+<div class="center"><a id="ill45"></a>
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4px">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/ill45.jpg">
+      <img src="images/ill45-t.jpg" width="550"
+      alt='"THEY SEEM TO THINK THAT MR. BONTEEN
+      MUST BE PRIME MINISTER."' /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption"><span class="smallcaps">"They seem to
+      think that Mr. Bonteen must be Prime Minister."</span><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/ill45.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>"I don't think he expects that, my dear."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not? Everybody says The People's Banner is the cleverest paper
+we have now. I always hated the very name of that Phineas Finn."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you know him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not exactly. He was gone before my time; but poor Lord Fawn used to
+talk of him. He was one of those conceited Irish upstarts that are
+never good for anything."</p>
+
+<p>"Very handsome, you know," said Mrs. Bonteen.</p>
+
+<p>"Was he? I have heard it said that a good many ladies admired him."</p>
+
+<p>"It was quite absurd; with Lady Laura Kennedy it was worse than
+absurd. And there was Lady Glencora, and Violet Effingham, who
+married Lady Laura's brother, and that Madame Goesler, whom I
+hate,&mdash;and ever so many others."</p>
+
+<p>"And is it true that it was he who got Mr. Bonteen so shamefully
+used?"</p>
+
+<p>"It was his faction."</p>
+
+<p>"I do so hate that kind of thing," said Lady Eustace, with righteous
+indignation; "I used to hear a great deal about Government and all
+that when the affair was on between me and poor Lord Fawn, and that
+kind of dishonesty always disgusted me. I don't know that I think so
+much of Mr. Gresham after all."</p>
+
+<p>"He is a very weak man."</p>
+
+<p>"His conduct to Mr. Bonteen has been outrageous; and if he has done
+it just because that Duchess of Omnium has told him, I really do
+think that he is not fit to rule the nation. As for Mr. Phineas Finn,
+it is dreadful to think that a creature like that should be able to
+interfere with such a man as Mr. Bonteen."</p>
+
+<p>This was on Wednesday afternoon,&mdash;the day on which members of
+Parliament dine out,&mdash;and at that moment Mr. Bonteen entered the
+drawing-room, having left the House for his half-holiday at six
+o'clock. Lady Eustace got up, and gave him her hand, and smiled upon
+him as though he were indeed her god. "You look so tired and so
+worried, Mr. Bonteen."</p>
+
+<p>"Worried;&mdash;I should think so."</p>
+
+<p>"Is there anything fresh?" asked his wife.</p>
+
+<p>"That fellow Finn is spreading all manner of lies about me."</p>
+
+<p>"What lies, Mr. Bonteen?" asked Lady Eustace. "Not new lies, I hope."</p>
+
+<p>"It all comes from Carlton Terrace." The reader may perhaps remember
+that the young Duchess of Omnium lived in Carlton Terrace. "I can
+trace it all there. I won't stand it if it goes on like this. A
+clique of stupid women to take up the cudgels for a coal-heaving sort
+of fellow like that, and sting one like a lot of hornets! Would you
+believe it?&mdash;the Duke almost refused to speak to me just now&mdash;a man
+for whom I have been working like a slave for the last twelve
+months!"</p>
+
+<p>"I would not stand it," said Lady Eustace.</p>
+
+<p>"By the bye, Lady Eustace, we have had news from Prague."</p>
+
+<p>"What news?" said she, clasping her hands.</p>
+
+<p>"That fellow Pratt we sent out is dead."</p>
+
+<p>"No!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a doubt but what he was poisoned; but they seem to think that
+nothing can be proved. Coulson is on his way out, and I shouldn't
+wonder if they served him the same."</p>
+
+<p>"And it might have been you!" said Lady Eustace, taking hold of her
+friend's arm with almost frantic affection.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, indeed. It might have been the lot of Mr. Bonteen to have died
+at Prague&mdash;to have been poisoned by the machinations of the former
+Mrs. Mealyus, if such really had been the fortune of the unfortunate
+Mr. Pratt. For he had been quite as busy at Prague as his successor
+in the work. He had found out much, though not everything. It
+certainly had been believed that Yosef Mealyus was a married man, but
+he had brought the woman with him to Prague, and had certainly not
+married her in the city. She was believed to have come from Cracow,
+and Mr. Bonteen's zeal on behalf of his friend had not been
+sufficient to carry him so far East. But he had learned from various
+sources that the man and woman had been supposed to be married,&mdash;that
+she had borne the man's name, and that he had taken upon himself
+authority as her husband. There had been written communications with
+Cracow, and information was received that a man of the name of Yosef
+Mealyus had been married to a Jewess in that town. But this had been
+twenty years ago, and Mr. Emilius professed himself to be only
+thirty-five years old, and had in his possession a document from his
+synagogue professing to give a record of his birth, proving such to
+be his age. It was also ascertained that Mealyus was a name common at
+Cracow, and that there were very many of the family in Galicia.
+Altogether the case was full of difficulty, but it was thought that
+Mr. Bonteen's evidence would be sufficient to save the property from
+the hands of the cormorant, at any rate till such time as better
+evidence of the first marriage could be obtained. It had been hoped
+that when the man went away he would not return; but he had returned,
+and it was now resolved that no terms should be kept with him and no
+payment offered to him. The house at Portray was kept barred, and the
+servants were ordered not to admit him. No money was to be paid to
+him, and he was to be left to take any proceedings at law which he
+might please,&mdash;while his adversaries were proceeding against him with
+all the weapons at their disposal. In the meantime his chapel was of
+course deserted, and the unfortunate man was left penniless in the
+world.</p>
+
+<p>Various opinions prevailed as to Mr. Bonteen's conduct in the matter.
+Some people remembered that during the last autumn he and his wife
+had stayed three months at Portray Castle, and declared that the
+friendship between them and Lady Eustace had been very useful. Of
+these malicious people it seemed to be, moreover, the opinion that
+the connection might become even more useful if Mr. Emilius could be
+discharged. It was true that Mrs. Bonteen had borrowed a little money
+from Lady Eustace, but of this her husband knew nothing till the Jew
+in his wrath made the thing public. After all it had only been a poor
+&pound;25, and the money had been repaid before Mr. Bonteen took his
+journey to Prague. Mr. Bonteen was, however, unable to deny that the
+cost of that journey was defrayed by Lady Eustace, and it was thought
+mean in a man aspiring to be Chancellor of the Exchequer to have his
+travelling expenses paid for him by a lady. Many, however, were of
+opinion that Mr. Bonteen had been almost romantic in his friendship,
+and that the bright eyes of Lady Eustace had produced upon this
+dragon of business the wonderful effect that was noticed. Be that as
+it may, now, in the terrible distress of his mind at the political
+aspect of the times, he had become almost sick of Lady Eustace, and
+would gladly have sent her away from his house had he known how to do
+so without incurring censure.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c46"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XLVI.</h3>
+<h4>THE QUARREL.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>On that Wednesday evening Phineas Finn was at The Universe. He dined
+at the house of Madame Goesler, and went from thence to the club in
+better spirits than he had known for some weeks past. The Duke and
+Duchess had been at Madame Goesler's, and Lord and Lady Chiltern, who
+were now up in town, with Barrington Erle, and,&mdash;as it had
+happened,&mdash;old Mr. Maule. The dinner had been very pleasant, and two
+or three words had been spoken which had tended to raise the heart of
+our hero. In the first place Barrington Erle had expressed a regret
+that Phineas was not at his old post at the Colonies, and the young
+Duke had re-echoed it. Phineas thought that the manner of his old
+friend Erle was more cordial to him than it had been lately, and even
+that comforted him. Then it was a delight to him to meet the
+Chilterns, who were always gracious to him. But perhaps his greatest
+pleasure came from the reception which was accorded by his hostess to
+Mr. Maule, which was of a nature not easy to describe. It had become
+evident to Phineas that Mr. Maule was constant in his attentions to
+Madame Goesler; and, though he had no purpose of his own in reference
+to the lady,&mdash;though he was aware that former circumstances,
+circumstances of that previous life to which he was accustomed to
+look back as to another existence, made it impossible that he should
+have any such purpose,&mdash;still he viewed Mr. Maule with dislike. He
+had once ventured to ask her whether she really liked "that old
+padded dandy." She had answered that she did like the old dandy. Old
+dandies, she thought, were preferable to old men who did not care how
+they looked;&mdash;and as for the padding, that was his affair, not hers.
+She did not know why a man should not have a pad in his coat, as well
+as a woman one at the back of her head. But Phineas had known that
+this was her gentle raillery, and now he was delighted to find that
+she continued it, after a still more gentle fashion, before the man's
+face. Mr. Maule's manner was certainly peculiar. He was more than
+ordinarily polite,&mdash;and was afterwards declared by the Duchess to
+have made love like an old gander. But Madame Goesler, who knew
+exactly how to receive such attentions, turned a glance now and then
+upon Phineas Finn, which he could now read with absolute precision.
+"You see how I can dispose of a padded old dandy directly he goes an
+inch too far." No words could have said that to him more plainly than
+did these one or two glances;&mdash;and, as he had learned to dislike Mr.
+Maule, he was gratified.</p>
+
+<p>Of course they all talked about Lady Eustace and Mr. Emilius. "Do you
+remember how intensely interested the dear old Duke used to be when
+we none of us knew what had become of the diamonds?" said the
+Duchess.</p>
+
+<p>"And how you took her part," said Madame Goesler.</p>
+
+<p>"So did you,&mdash;just as much as I; and why not? She was a most
+interesting young woman, and I sincerely hope we have not got to the
+end of her yet. The worst of it is that she has got into such&mdash;very
+bad hands. The Bonteens have taken her up altogether. Do you know
+her, Mr. Finn?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Duchess;&mdash;and am hardly likely to make her acquaintance while
+she remains where she is now." The Duchess laughed and nodded her
+head. All the world knew by this time that she had declared herself
+to be the sworn enemy of the Bonteens.</p>
+
+<p>And there had been some conversation on that terribly difficult
+question respecting the foxes in Trumpeton Wood. "The fact is, Lord
+Chiltern," said the Duke, "I'm as ignorant as a child. I would do
+right if I knew how. What ought I to do? Shall I import some foxes?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't suppose, Duke, that in all England there is a spot in which
+foxes are more prone to breed."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed. I'm very glad of that. But something goes wrong afterwards,
+I fear."</p>
+
+<p>"The nurseries are not well managed, perhaps," said the Duchess.</p>
+
+<p>"Gipsy kidnappers are allowed about the place," said Madame Goesler.</p>
+
+<p>"Gipsies!" exclaimed the Duke.</p>
+
+<p>"Poachers!" said Lord Chiltern. "But it isn't that we mind. We could
+deal with that ourselves if the woods were properly managed. A head
+of game and foxes can be reared together very well,
+<span class="nowrap">if&mdash;"</span></p>
+
+<p>"I don't care a straw for a head of game, Lord Chiltern. As far as my
+own tastes go, I would wish that there was neither a pheasant nor a
+partridge nor a hare on any property that I own. I think that sheep
+and barn-door fowls do better for everybody in the long run, and that
+men who cannot live without shooting should go beyond
+thickly-populated regions to find it. And, indeed, for myself, I must
+say the same about foxes. They do not interest me, and I fancy that
+they will gradually be exterminated."</p>
+
+<p>"God forbid!" exclaimed Lord Chiltern.</p>
+
+<p>"But I do not find myself called upon to exterminate them myself,"
+continued the Duke. "The number of men who amuse themselves by riding
+after one fox is too great for me to wish to interfere with them. And
+I know that my neighbours in the country conceive it to be my duty to
+have foxes for them. I will oblige them, Lord Chiltern, as far as I
+can without detriment to other duties."</p>
+
+<p>"You leave it to me," said the Duchess to her neighbour, Lord
+Chiltern. "I'll speak to Mr. Fothergill myself, and have it put
+right." It unfortunately happened, however, that Lord Chiltern got a
+letter the very next morning from old Doggett telling him that a
+litter of young cubs had been destroyed that week in Trumpeton Wood.</p>
+
+<p>Barrington Erle and Phineas went off to The Universe together, and as
+they went the old terms of intimacy seemed to be re-established
+between them. "Nobody can be so sorry as I am," said Barrington, "at
+the manner in which things have gone. When I wrote to you, of course,
+I thought it certain that, if we came in, you would come with us."</p>
+
+<p>"Do not let that fret you."</p>
+
+<p>"But it does fret me,&mdash;very much. There are so many slips that of
+course no one can answer for anything."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not. I know who has been my friend."</p>
+
+<p>"The joke of it is, that he himself is at present so utterly
+friendless. The Duke will hardly speak to him. I know that as a fact.
+And Gresham has begun to find something is wrong. We all hoped that
+he would refuse to come in without a seat in the Cabinet;&mdash;but that
+was too good to be true. They say he talks of resigning. I shall
+believe it when I see it. He'd better not play any tricks, for if he
+did resign, it would be accepted at once." Phineas, when he heard
+this, could not help thinking how glorious it would be if Mr. Bonteen
+were to resign, and if the place so vacated, or some vacancy so
+occasioned, were to be filled by him!</p>
+
+<p>They reached the club together, and as they went up the stairs, they
+heard the hum of many voices in the room. "All the world and his wife
+are here to-night," said Phineas. They overtook a couple of men at
+the door, so that there was something of the bustle of a crowd as
+they entered. There was a difficulty in finding places in which to
+put their coats and hats,&mdash;for the accommodation of The Universe is
+not great. There was a knot of men talking not far from them, and
+among the voices Phineas could clearly hear that of Mr. Bonteen.
+Ratler's he had heard before, and also Fitzgibbon's, though he had
+not distinguished any words from them. But those spoken by Mr.
+Bonteen he did distinguish very plainly. "Mr. Phineas Finn, or some
+such fellow as that, would be after her at once," said Mr. Bonteen.
+Then Phineas walked immediately among the knot of men and showed
+himself. As soon as he heard his name mentioned, he doubted for a
+moment what he would do. Mr. Bonteen when speaking had not known of
+his presence, and it might be his duty not to seem to have listened.
+But the speech had been made aloud, in the open room,&mdash;so that those
+who chose might listen;&mdash;and Phineas could not but have heard it. In
+that moment he resolved that he was bound to take notice of what he
+had heard. "What is it, Mr. Bonteen, that Phineas Finn will do?" he
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bonteen had been&mdash;dining. He was not a man by any means
+habitually intemperate, and now any one saying that he was tipsy
+would have maligned him. But he was flushed with much wine, and he
+was a man whose arrogance in that condition was apt to become
+extreme. <i>"In vino veritas!"</i> The sober devil can hide his cloven
+hoof; but when the devil drinks he loses his cunning and grows
+honest. Mr. Bonteen looked Phineas full in the face a second or two
+before he answered, and then said,&mdash;quite aloud&mdash;"You have crept upon
+us unawares, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean by that, sir?" said Phineas. "I have come in as any
+other man comes."</p>
+
+<p>"Listeners at any rate never hear any good of themselves."</p>
+
+<p>Then there were present among those assembled clear indications of
+disapproval of Bonteen's conduct. In these days,&mdash;when no palpable
+and immediate punishment is at hand for personal insolence from man
+to man,&mdash;personal insolence to one man in a company seems almost to
+constitute an insult to every one present. When men could fight
+readily, an arrogant word or two between two known to be hostile to
+each other was only an invitation to a duel, and the angry man was
+doing that for which it was known that he could be made to pay. There
+was, or it was often thought that there was, a real spirit in the
+angry man's conduct, and they who were his friends before became
+perhaps more his friends when he had thus shown that he had an enemy.
+But a different feeling prevails at present;&mdash;a feeling so different,
+that we may almost say that a man in general society cannot speak
+even roughly to any but his intimate comrades without giving offence
+to all around him. Men have learned to hate the nuisance of a row,
+and to feel that their comfort is endangered if a man prone to rows
+gets among them. Of all candidates at a club a known quarreller is
+more sure of blackballs now than even in the times when such a one
+provoked duels. Of all bores he is the worst; and there is always an
+unexpressed feeling that such a one exacts more from his company than
+his share of attention. This is so strong, that too often the man
+quarrelled with, though he be as innocent as was Phineas on the
+present occasion, is made subject to the general aversion which is
+felt for men who misbehave themselves.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish to hear no good of myself from you," said Phineas, following
+him to his seat. "Who is it that you said,&mdash;I should be after?" The
+room was full, and every one there, even they who had come in with
+Phineas, knew that Lady Eustace was the woman. Everybody at present
+was talking about Lady Eustace.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind," said Barrington Erle, taking him by the arm. "What's
+the use of a row?"</p>
+
+<p>"No use at all;&mdash;but if you heard your name mentioned in such a
+manner you would find it impossible to pass it over. There is Mr.
+Monk;&mdash;ask him."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Monk was sitting very quietly in a corner of the room with
+another gentleman of his own age by him,&mdash;one devoted to literary
+pursuits and a constant attendant at The Universe. As he said
+afterwards, he had never known any unpleasantness of that sort in the
+club before. There were many men of note in the room. There was a
+foreign minister, a member of the Cabinet, two ex-members of the
+Cabinet, a great poet, an exceedingly able editor, two earls, two
+members of the Royal Academy, the president of a learned society, a
+celebrated professor,&mdash;and it was expected that Royalty might come in
+at any minute, speak a few benign words, and blow a few clouds of
+smoke. It was abominable that the harmony of such a meeting should be
+interrupted by the vinous insolence of Mr. Bonteen, and the useless
+wrath of Phineas Finn. "Really, Mr. Finn, if I were you I would let
+it drop," said the gentleman devoted to literary pursuits.</p>
+
+<p>Phineas did not much affect the literary gentleman, but in such a
+matter would prefer the advice of Mr. Monk to that of any man living.
+He again appealed to his friend. "You heard what was said?"</p>
+
+<p>"I heard Mr. Bonteen remark that you or somebody like you would in
+certain circumstances be after a certain lady. I thought it to be an
+ill-judged speech, and as your particular friend I heard it with
+great regret."</p>
+
+<p>"What a row about nothing!" said Mr. Bonteen, rising from his seat.
+"We were speaking of a very pretty woman, and I was saying that some
+young fellow generally supposed to be fond of pretty women would soon
+be after her. If that offends your morals you must have become very
+strict of late."</p>
+
+<p>There was something in the explanation which, though very bad and
+vulgar, it was almost impossible not to accept. Such at least was the
+feeling of those who stood around Phineas Finn. He himself knew that
+Mr. Bonteen had intended to assert that he would be after the woman's
+money and not her beauty; but he had taste enough to perceive that he
+could not descend to any such detail as that. "There are reasons, Mr.
+Bonteen," he said, "why I think you should abstain from mentioning my
+name in public. Your playful references should be made to your
+friends, and not to those who, to say the least of it, are not your
+friends."</p>
+
+<p>When the matter was discussed afterwards it was thought that Phineas
+Finn should have abstained from making the last speech. It was
+certainly evidence of great anger on his part. And he was very angry.
+He knew that he had been insulted,&mdash;and insulted by the man whom of
+all men he would feel most disposed to punish for any offence. He
+could not allow Mr. Bonteen to have the last word, especially as a
+certain amount of success had seemed to attend them. Fate at the
+moment was so far propitious to Phineas that outward circumstances
+saved him from any immediate reply, and thus left him in some degree
+triumphant. Expected Royalty arrived, and cast its salutary oil upon
+the troubled waters. The Prince, with some well-known popular
+attendant, entered the room, and for a moment every gentleman rose
+from his chair. It was but for a moment, and then the Prince became
+as any other gentleman, talking to his friends. One or two there
+present, who had perhaps peculiarly royal instincts, had crept up
+towards him so as to make him the centre of a little knot, but,
+otherwise, conversation went on much as it had done before the
+unfortunate arrival of Phineas. That quarrel, however, had been very
+distinctly trodden under foot by the Prince, for Mr. Bonteen had
+found himself quite incapacitated from throwing back any missile in
+reply to the last that had been hurled at him.</p>
+
+<p>Phineas took a vacant seat next to Mr. Monk,&mdash;who was deficient
+perhaps in royal instincts,&mdash;and asked him in a whisper his opinion
+of what had taken place. "Do not think any more of it," said Mr.
+Monk.</p>
+
+<p>"That is so much more easily said than done. How am I not to think of
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I mean that you are to act as though you had forgotten
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever know a more gratuitous insult? Of course he was talking
+of that Lady Eustace."</p>
+
+<p>"I had not been listening to him before, but no doubt he was. I need
+not tell you now what I think of Mr. Bonteen. He is not more gracious
+in my eyes than he is in yours. To-night I fancy he has been
+drinking, which has not improved him. You may be sure of this,
+Phineas,&mdash;that the less of resentful anger you show in such a
+wretched affair as took place just now, the more will be the blame
+attached to him and the less to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Why should any blame be attached to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't say that any will unless you allow yourself to become loud
+and resentful. The thing is not worth your anger."</p>
+
+<p>"I am angry."</p>
+
+<p>"Then go to bed at once, and sleep it off. Come with me, and we'll
+walk home together."</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't the proper thing, I fancy, to leave the room while the
+Prince is here."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I must do the improper thing," said Mr. Monk. "I haven't a key,
+and I musn't keep my servant up any longer. A quiet man like me can
+creep out without notice. Good night, Phineas, and take my advice
+about this. If you can't forget it, act and speak and look as though
+you had forgotten it." Then Mr. Monk, without much creeping, left the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>The club was very full, and there was a clatter of voices, and the
+clatter round the Prince was the noisiest and merriest. Mr. Bonteen
+was there, of course, and Phineas as he sat alone could hear him as
+he edged his words in upon the royal ears. Every now and again there
+was a royal joke, and then Mr. Bonteen's laughter was conspicuous. As
+far as Phineas could distinguish the sounds no special amount of the
+royal attention was devoted to Mr. Bonteen. That very able editor,
+and one of the Academicians, and the poet, seemed to be the most
+honoured, and when the Prince went,&mdash;which he did when his cigar was
+finished,&mdash;Phineas observed with inward satisfaction that the royal
+hand, which was given to the poet, to the editor, and to the painter,
+was not extended to the President of the Board of Trade. And then,
+having taken delight in this, he accused himself of meanness in
+having even observed a matter so trivial. Soon after this a ruck of
+men left the club, and then Phineas rose to go. As he went down the
+stairs Barrington Erle followed him with Laurence Fitzgibbon, and the
+three stood for a moment at the door in the street talking to each
+other. Finn's way lay eastward from the club, whereas both Erle and
+Fitzgibbon would go westwards towards their homes. "How well the
+Prince behaves at these sort of places!" said Erle.</p>
+
+<p>"Princes ought to behave well," said Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>"Somebody else didn't behave very well,&mdash;eh, Finn, my boy?" said
+Laurence.</p>
+
+<p>"Somebody else, as you call him," replied Phineas, "is very unlike a
+Prince, and never does behave well. To-night, however, he surpassed
+himself."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't bother your mind about it, old fellow," said Barrington.</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you what it is, Erle," said Phineas. "I don't think that I'm
+a vindictive man by nature, but with that man I mean to make it even
+some of these days. You know as well as I do what it is he has done
+to me, and you know also whether I have deserved it. Wretched reptile
+that he is! He has pretty nearly been able to ruin me,&mdash;and all from
+some petty feeling of jealousy."</p>
+
+<p>"Finn, me boy, don't talk like that," said Laurence.</p>
+
+<p>"You shouldn't show your hand," said Barrington.</p>
+
+<p>"I know what you mean, and it's all very well. After your different
+fashions you two have been true to me, and I don't care how much you
+see of my hand. That man's insolence angers me to such an extent that
+I cannot refrain from speaking out. He hasn't spirit enough to go out
+with me, or I would shoot him."</p>
+
+<p>"Blankenberg, eh!" said Laurence, alluding to the now notorious duel
+which had once been fought in that place between Phineas and Lord
+Chiltern.</p>
+
+<p>"I would," continued the angry man. "There are times in which one is
+driven to regret that there has come an end to duelling, and there is
+left to one no immediate means of resenting an injury."</p>
+
+<p>As they were speaking Mr. Bonteen came out from the front door alone,
+and seeing the three men standing, passed on towards the left,
+eastwards. "Good night, Erle," he said. "Good night, Fitzgibbon." The
+two men answered him, and Phineas stood back in the gloom. It was
+about one o'clock and the night was very dark. "By George, I do
+dislike that man," said Phineas. Then, with a laugh, he took a
+life-preserver out of his pocket, and made an action with it as
+though he were striking some enemy over the head. In those days there
+had been much garotting in the streets, and writers in the Press had
+advised those who walked about at night to go armed with sticks.
+Phineas Finn had himself been once engaged with garotters,&mdash;as has
+been told in a former chronicle,&mdash;and had since armed himself,
+thinking more probably of the thing which he had happened to see than
+men do who had only heard of it. As soon as he had spoken, he
+followed Mr. Bonteen down the street, at the distance of perhaps a
+couple of hundred yards.</p>
+
+<p>"They won't have a row,&mdash;will they?" said Erle.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear, no; Finn won't think of speaking to him; and you may be
+sure that Bonteen won't say a word to Finn. Between you and me,
+Barrington, I wish Master Phineas would give him a thorough good
+hiding."</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c47"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XLVII.</h3>
+<h4>WHAT CAME OF THE QUARREL.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>On the next morning at seven o'clock a superintendent of police
+called at the house of Mr. Gresham and informed the Prime Minister
+that Mr. Bonteen, the President of the Board of Trade, had been
+murdered during the night. There was no doubt of the fact. The body
+had been recognised, and information had been taken to the
+unfortunate widow at the house Mr. Bonteen had occupied in St.
+James's Place. The superintendent had already found out that Mr.
+Bonteen had been attacked as he was returning from his club late at
+night,&mdash;or rather, early in the morning, and expressed no doubt that
+he had been murdered close to the spot on which his body was found.
+There is a dark, uncanny-looking passage running from the end of
+Bolton Row, in May Fair, between the gardens of two great noblemen,
+coming out among the mews in Berkeley Street, at the corner of
+Berkeley Square, just opposite to the bottom of Hay Hill. It was on
+the steps leading up from the passage to the level of the ground
+above that the body was found. The passage was almost as near a way
+as any from the club to Mr. Bonteen's house in St. James's Place; but
+the superintendent declared that gentlemen but seldom used the
+passage after dark, and he was disposed to think that the unfortunate
+man must have been forced down the steps by the ruffian who had
+attacked him from the level above. The murderer, so thought the
+superintendent, must have been cognizant of the way usually taken by
+Mr. Bonteen, and must have lain in wait for him in the darkness of
+the mouth of the passage. The superintendent had been at work on his
+inquiries since four in the morning, and had heard from Lady
+Eustace,&mdash;and from Mrs. Bonteen, as far as that poor distracted woman
+had been able to tell her story,&mdash;some account of the cause of
+quarrel between the respective husbands of those two ladies. The
+officer, who had not as yet heard a word of the late disturbance
+between Mr. Bonteen and Phineas Finn, was strongly of opinion that
+the Reverend Mr. Emilius had been the murderer. Mr. Gresham, of
+course, coincided in that opinion. What steps had been taken as to
+the arrest of Mr. Emilius? The superintendent was of opinion that Mr.
+Emilius was already in custody. He was known to be lodging close to
+the Marylebone Workhouse, in Northumberland Street, having removed to
+that somewhat obscure neighbourhood as soon as his house in Lowndes
+Square had been broken up by the running away of his wife and his
+consequent want of means. Such was the story as told to the Prime
+Minister at seven o'clock in the morning.</p>
+
+<p>At eleven o'clock, at his private room at the Treasury Chambers, Mr.
+Gresham heard much more. At that time there were present with him two
+officers of the police force, his colleagues in the Cabinet, Lord
+Cantrip and the Duke of Omnium, three of his junior colleagues in the
+Government, Lord Fawn, Barrington Erle, and Laurence Fitzgibbon,&mdash;and
+Major Mackintosh, the chief of the London police. It was not exactly
+part of the duty of Mr. Gresham to investigate the circumstances of
+this murder; but there was so much in it that brought it closely home
+to him and his Government, that it became impossible for him not to
+concern himself in the business. There had been so much talk about
+Mr. Bonteen lately, his name had been so common in the newspapers,
+the ill-usage which he had been supposed by some to have suffered had
+been so freely discussed, and his quarrel, not only with Phineas
+Finn, but subsequently with the Duke of Omnium, had been so widely
+known,&mdash;that his sudden death created more momentary excitement than
+might probably have followed that of a greater man. And now, too, the
+facts of the past night, as they became known, seemed to make the
+crime more wonderful, more exciting, more momentous than it would
+have been had it been brought clearly home to such a wretch as the
+Bohemian Jew, Yosef Mealyus, who had contrived to cheat that wretched
+Lizzie Eustace into marrying him.</p>
+
+<p>As regarded Yosef Mealyus the story now told respecting him was this.
+He was already in custody. He had been found in bed at his lodgings
+between seven and eight, and had, of course, given himself up without
+difficulty. He had seemed to be horror-struck when he heard of the
+man's death,&mdash;but had openly expressed his joy. "He has endeavoured
+to ruin me, and has done me a world of harm. Why should I sorrow for
+him?"&mdash;he said to the policeman when rebuked for his inhumanity. But
+nothing had been found tending to implicate him in the crime. The
+servant declared that he had gone to bed before eleven o'clock, to
+her knowledge,&mdash;for she had seen him there,&mdash;and that he had not left
+the house afterwards. Was he in possession of a latch-key? It
+appeared that he did usually carry a latch-key, but that it was often
+borrowed from him by members of the family when it was known that he
+would not want it himself,&mdash;and that it had been so lent on this
+night. It was considered certain by those in the house that he had
+not gone out after he went to bed. Nobody in fact had left the house
+after ten; but in accordance with his usual custom Mr. Emilius had
+sent down the key as soon as he had found that he would not want it,
+and it had been all night in the custody of the mistress of the
+establishment. Nevertheless his clothes were examined minutely, but
+without affording any evidence against him. That Mr. Bonteen had been
+killed with some blunt weapon, such as a life-preserver, was assumed
+by the police, but no such weapon was in the possession of Mr.
+Emilius, nor had any such weapon yet been found. He was, however, in
+custody, with no evidence against him except that which was afforded
+by his known and acknowledged enmity to Mr. Bonteen.</p>
+
+<p>So far, Major Mackintosh and the two officers had told their story.
+Then came the united story of the other gentlemen assembled,&mdash;from
+hearing which, however, the two police officers were debarred. The
+Duke and Barrington Erle had both dined in company with Phineas Finn
+at Madame Goesler's, and the Duke was undoubtedly aware that ill
+blood had existed between Finn and Mr. Bonteen. Both Erle and
+Fitzgibbon described the quarrel at the club, and described also the
+anger which Finn had expressed against the wretched man as he stood
+talking at the club door. His gesture of vengeance was remembered and
+repeated, though both the men who heard it expressed their strongest
+conviction that the murder had not been committed by him. As Erle
+remarked, the very expression of such a threat was almost proof that
+he had not at that moment any intention on his mind of doing such a
+deed as had been done. But they told also of the life-preserver which
+Finn had shown them, as he took it from the pocket of his outside
+coat, and they marvelled at the coincidences of the night. Then Lord
+Fawn gave further evidence, which seemed to tell very hardly upon
+Phineas Finn. He also had been at the club, and had left it just
+before Finn and the two other men had clustered at the door. He had
+walked very slowly, having turned down to Curzon Street and Bolton
+Row, from whence he made his way into Piccadilly by Clarges Street.
+He had seen nothing of Mr. Bonteen; but as he crossed over to Clarges
+Street he was passed at a very rapid pace by a man muffled in a top
+coat, who made his way straight along Bolton Row towards the passage
+which has been described. At the moment he had not connected the
+person of the man who passed him with any acquaintance of his own;
+but he now felt sure,&mdash;after what he had heard,&mdash;that the man was Mr.
+Finn. As he passed out of the club Finn was putting on his overcoat,
+and Lord Fawn had observed the peculiarity of the grey colour. It was
+exactly a similar coat, only with its collar raised, that had passed
+him in the street. The man, too, was of Mr. Finn's height and build.
+He had known Mr. Finn well, and the man stepped with Mr. Finn's step.
+Major Mackintosh thought that Lord Fawn's evidence was&mdash;"very
+unfortunate as regarded Mr. Finn."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm d&mdash;&mdash; if that idiot won't
+hang poor Phinny," said Fitzgibbon
+afterwards to Erle. "And yet I don't believe a word of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Fawn wouldn't lie for the sake of hanging Phineas Finn," said Erle.</p>
+
+<p>"No;&mdash;I don't suppose he's given to lying at all. He believes it all.
+But he's such a muddle-headed fellow that he can get himself to
+believe anything. He's one of those men who always unconsciously
+exaggerate what they have to say for the sake of the importance it
+gives them." It might be possible that a jury would look at Lord
+Fawn's evidence in this light; otherwise it would bear very heavily,
+indeed, against Phineas Finn.</p>
+
+<p>Then a question arose as to the road which Mr. Bonteen usually took
+from the club. All the members who were there present had walked home
+with him at various times,&mdash;and by various routes, but never by the
+way through the passage. It was supposed that on this occasion he
+must have gone by Berkeley Square, because he had certainly not
+turned down by the first street to the right, which he would have
+taken had he intended to avoid the square. He had been seen by
+Barrington Erle and Fitzgibbon to pass that turning. Otherwise they
+would have made no remark as to the possibility of a renewed quarrel
+between him and Phineas, should Phineas chance to overtake him;&mdash;for
+Phineas would certainly go by the square unless taken out of his way
+by some special purpose. The most direct way of all for Mr. Bonteen
+would have been that followed by Lord Fawn; but as he had not turned
+down this street, and had not been seen by Lord Fawn, who was known
+to walk very slowly, and had often been seen to go by Berkeley
+Square,&mdash;it was presumed that he had now taken that road. In this
+case he would certainly pass the end of the passage towards which
+Lord Fawn declared that he had seen the man hurrying whom he now
+supposed to have been Phineas Finn. Finn's direct road home would, as
+has been already said, have been through the square, cutting off the
+corner of the square, towards Bruton Street, and thence across Bond
+Street by Conduit Street to Regent Street, and so to Great
+Marlborough Street, where he lived. But it had been, no doubt,
+possible for him to have been on the spot on which Lord Fawn had seen
+the man; for, although in his natural course thither from the club he
+would have at once gone down the street to the right,&mdash;a course which
+both Erle and Fitzgibbon were able to say that he did not take, as
+they had seen him go beyond the turning,&mdash;nevertheless there had been
+ample time for him to have retraced his steps to it in time to have
+caught Lord Fawn, and thus to have deceived Fitzgibbon and Erle as to
+the route he had taken.</p>
+
+<p>When they had got thus far Lord Cantrip was standing close to the
+window of the room at Mr. Gresham's elbow. "Don't allow yourself to
+be hurried into believing it," said Lord Cantrip.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know that we need believe it, or the reverse. It is a case
+for the police."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course it is;&mdash;but your belief and mine will have a weight.
+Nothing that I have heard makes me for a moment think it possible. I
+know the man."</p>
+
+<p>"He was very angry."</p>
+
+<p>"Had he struck him in the club I should not have been much surprised;
+but he never attacked his enemy with a bludgeon in a dark alley. I
+know him well."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think of Fawn's story?"</p>
+
+<p>"He was mistaken in his man. Remember;&mdash;it was a dark night."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not see that you and I can do anything," said Mr. Gresham. "I
+shall have to say something in the House as to the poor fellow's
+death, but I certainly shall not express a suspicion. Why should I?"</p>
+
+<p>Up to this moment nothing had been done as to Phineas Finn. It was
+known that he would in his natural course of business be in his place
+in Parliament at four, and Major Mackintosh was of opinion that he
+certainly should be taken before a magistrate in time to prevent the
+necessity of arresting him in the House. It was decided that Lord
+Fawn, with Fitzgibbon and Erle, should accompany the police officer
+to Bow Street, and that a magistrate should be applied to for a
+warrant if he thought the evidence was sufficient. Major Mackintosh
+was of opinion that, although by no possibility could the two men
+suspected have been jointly guilty of the murder, still the
+circumstances were such as to justify the immediate arrest of both.
+Were Yosef Mealyus really guilty and to be allowed to slip from their
+hands, no doubt it might be very difficult to catch him. Facts did
+not at present seem to prevail against him; but, as the Major
+observed, facts are apt to alter considerably when they are minutely
+sifted. His character was half sufficient to condemn him;&mdash;and then
+with him there was an adequate motive, and what Lord Cantrip regarded
+as "a possibility." It was not to be conceived that from mere rage
+Phineas Finn would lay a plot for murdering a man in the street. "It
+is on the cards, my lord," said the Major, "that he may have chosen
+to attack Mr. Bonteen without intending to murder him. The murder may
+afterwards have been an accident."</p>
+
+<p>It was impossible after this for even a Prime Minister and two
+Cabinet Ministers to go about their work calmly. The men concerned
+had been too well known to them to allow their minds to become clear
+of the subject. When Major Mackintosh went off to Bow Street with
+Erle and Laurence, it was certainly the opinion of the majority of
+those who had been present that the blow had been struck by the hand
+of Phineas Finn. And perhaps the worst aspect of it all was that
+there had been not simply a blow,&mdash;but blows. The constables had
+declared that the murdered man had been struck thrice about the head,
+and that the fatal stroke had been given on the side of his head
+after the man's hat had been knocked off. That Finn should have
+followed his enemy through the street, after such words as he had
+spoken, with the view of having the quarrel out in some shape, did
+not seem to be very improbable to any of them except Lord
+Cantrip;&mdash;and then had there been a scuffle, out in the open path, at
+the spot at which the angry man might have overtaken his adversary,
+it was not incredible to them that he should have drawn even such a
+weapon as a life-preserver from his pocket. But, in the case as it
+had occurred, a spot peculiarly traitorous had been selected, and the
+attack had too probably been made from behind. As yet there was no
+evidence that the murderer had himself encountered any ill-usage. And
+Finn, if he was the murderer, must, from the time he was standing at
+the club door, have contemplated a traitorous, dastardly attack. He
+must have counted his moments;&mdash;have returned slyly in the dark to
+the corner of the street which he had once passed;&mdash;have muffled his
+face in his coat;&mdash;and have then laid wait in a spot to which an
+honest man at night would hardly trust himself with honest purposes.
+"I look upon it as quite out of the question," said Lord Cantrip,
+when the three Ministers were left alone. Now Lord Cantrip had served
+for many months in the same office as Phineas Finn.</p>
+
+<p>"You are simply putting your own opinion of the man against the
+facts," said Mr. Gresham. "But facts always convince, and another
+man's opinion rarely convinces."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not sure that we know the facts yet," said the Duke.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course we are speaking of them as far as they have been told to
+us. As far as they go,&mdash;unless they can be upset and shown not to be
+facts,&mdash;I fear they would be conclusive to me on a jury."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean that you have heard enough to condemn him?" asked Lord
+Cantrip.</p>
+
+<p>"Remember what we have heard. The murdered man had two enemies."</p>
+
+<p>"He may have had a third."</p>
+
+<p>"Or ten; but we have heard of but two."</p>
+
+<p>"He may have been attacked for his money," said the Duke.</p>
+
+<p>"But neither his money nor his watch were touched," continued Mr. Gresham.
+"Anger, or the desire of putting the man out of the way, has caused
+the murder. Of the two enemies one,&mdash;according to the facts as we now
+have them,&mdash;could not have been there. Nor is it probable that he
+could have known that his enemy would be on that spot. The other not
+only could have been there, but was certainly near the place at the
+moment,&mdash;so near that did he not do the deed himself, it is almost
+wonderful that it should not have been interrupted in its doing by
+his nearness. He certainly knew that the victim would be there. He
+was burning with anger against him at the moment. He had just
+threatened him. He had with him such an instrument as was afterwards
+used. A man believed to be him is seen hurrying to the spot by a
+witness whose credibility is beyond doubt. These are the facts such
+as we have them at present. Unless they can be upset, I fear they
+would convince a jury,&mdash;as they have already convinced those officers
+of the police."</p>
+
+<p>"Officers of the police always believe men to be guilty," said Lord
+Cantrip.</p>
+
+<p>"They don't believe the Jew clergyman to be guilty," said Mr.
+Gresham.</p>
+
+<p>"I fear that there will be enough to send Mr. Finn to a trial," said
+the Duke.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a doubt of it," said Mr. Gresham.</p>
+
+<p>"And yet I feel as convinced of his innocence as I do of my own,"
+said Lord Cantrip.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c48"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XLVIII.</h3>
+<h4>MR. MAULE'S ATTEMPT.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>About three o'clock in the day the first tidings of what had taken
+place reached Madame Goesler in the following perturbed note from her
+friend the Duchess:&mdash;"Have you heard what took place last night? Good
+God! Mr. Bonteen was murdered as he came home from his club, and they
+say that it was done by Phineas Finn. Plantagenet has just come in
+from Downing Street, where everybody is talking about it. I can't get
+from him what he believes. One never can get anything from him. But I
+never will believe it;&mdash;nor will you, I'm sure. I vote we stick to
+him to the last. He is to be put in prison and tried. I can hardly
+believe that Mr. Bonteen has been murdered, though I don't know why
+he shouldn't as well as anybody else. Plantagenet talks about the
+great loss; I know which would be the greatest loss, and so do you.
+I'm going out now to try and find out something. Barrington Erle was
+there, and if I can find him he will tell me. I shall be home by
+half-past five. Do come, there's a dear woman; there is no one else I
+can talk to about it. If I'm not back, go in all the same, and tell
+them to bring you tea.</p>
+
+<p>"Only think of Lady Laura,&mdash;with one mad and the other in Newgate!
+G. P."</p>
+
+<p>This letter gave Madame Goesler such a blow that for a few minutes it
+altogether knocked her down. After reading it once she hardly knew
+what it contained beyond a statement that Phineas Finn was in
+Newgate. She sat for a while with it in her hands, almost swooning;
+and then with an effort she recovered herself, and read the letter
+again. Mr. Bonteen murdered, and Phineas Finn,&mdash;who had dined with
+her only yesterday evening, with whom she had been talking of all the
+sins of the murdered man, who was her special friend, of whom she
+thought more than of any other human being, of whom she could not
+bring herself to cease to think,&mdash;accused of the murder! Believe it!
+The Duchess had declared with that sort of enthusiasm which was
+common to her, that she never would believe it. No, indeed! What
+judge of character would any one be who could believe that Phineas
+Finn could be guilty of a midnight murder? "I vote we stick to him."
+"Stick to him!" Madame Goesler said, repeating the words to herself.
+"What is the use of sticking to a man who does not want you?" How can
+a woman cling to a man who, having said that he did not want her, yet
+comes again within her influence, but does not unsay what he had said
+before? Nevertheless, if it should be that the man was in real
+distress,&mdash;in absolutely dire sorrow,&mdash;she would cling to him with a
+constancy which, as she thought, her friend the Duchess would hardly
+understand. Though they should hang him, she would bathe his body
+with her tears, and live as a woman should live who had loved a
+murderer to the last.</p>
+
+
+<div class="center"><a id="ill48"></a>
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4px">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/ill48.jpg">
+      <img src="images/ill48-t.jpg" width="550"
+      alt='"WHAT IS THE USE OF STICKING TO A MAN
+      WHO DOES NOT WANT YOU?"' /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption"><span class="smallcaps">"What is the
+      use of sticking to a man who does not want you?"</span><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/ill48.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>But she swore to herself that she would not believe it. Nay, she did
+not believe it. Believe it, indeed! It was simply impossible. That he
+might have killed the wretch in some struggle brought on by the man's
+own fault was possible. Had the man attacked Phineas Finn it was only
+too probable that there might have been such result. But murder,
+secret midnight murder, could not have been committed by the man she
+had chosen as her friend. And yet, through it all, there was a
+resolve that even though he should have committed murder she would be
+true to him. If it should come to the very worst, then would she
+declare the intensity of the affection with which she regarded the
+murderer. As to Mr. Bonteen, what the Duchess said was true enough;
+why should not he be killed as well as another? In her present frame
+of mind she felt very little pity for Mr. Bonteen. After a fashion a
+verdict of "served him right" crossed her mind, as it had doubtless
+crossed that of the Duchess when she was writing her letter. The man
+had made himself so obnoxious that it was well that he should be out
+of the way. But not on that account would she believe that Phineas
+Finn had murdered him.</p>
+
+<p>Could it be true that the man after all was dead? Marvellous reports,
+and reports marvellously false, do spread themselves about the world
+every day. But this report had come from the Duke, and he was not a
+man given to absurd rumours. He had heard the story in Downing
+Street, and if so it must be true. Of course she would go down to the
+Duchess at the hour fixed. It was now a little after three, and she
+ordered the carriage to be ready for her at a quarter past five. Then
+she told the servant, at first to admit no one who might call, and
+then to come up and let her know, if any one should come, without
+sending the visitor away. It might be that some one would come to her
+expressly from Phineas, or at least with tidings about this affair.</p>
+
+<p>Then she read the letter again, and those few last words in it stuck
+to her thoughts like a burr. "Think of Lady Laura, with one mad and
+the other in Newgate." Was this man,&mdash;the only man whom she had ever
+loved,&mdash;more to Lady Laura Kennedy than to her; or rather, was Lady
+Laura more to him than was she herself? If so, why should she fret
+herself for his sake? She was ready enough to own that she could
+sacrifice everything for him, even though he should be standing as a
+murderer in the dock, if such sacrifice would be valued by him. He
+had himself told her that his feelings towards Lady Laura were simply
+those of an affectionate friend; but how could she believe that
+statement when all the world were saying the reverse? Lady Laura was
+a married woman,&mdash;a woman whose husband was still living,&mdash;and of
+course he was bound to make such an assertion when he and she were
+named together. And then it was certain,&mdash;Madame Goesler believed it
+to be certain,&mdash;that there had been a time in which Phineas had asked
+for the love of Lady Laura Standish. But he had never asked for her
+love. It had been tendered to him, and he had rejected it! And now
+the Duchess,&mdash;who, with all her inaccuracies, had that sharpness of
+vision which enables some men and women to see into facts,&mdash;spoke as
+though Lady Laura were to be pitied more than all others, because of
+the evil that had befallen Phineas Finn! Had not Lady Laura chosen
+her own husband; and was not the man, let him be ever so mad, still
+her husband? Madame Goesler was sore of heart, as well as broken down
+with sorrow, till at last, hiding her face on the pillow of the sofa,
+still holding the Duchess's letter in her hand, she burst into a fit
+of hysteric sobs.</p>
+
+<p>Few of those who knew Madame Max Goesler well, as she lived in town
+and in country, would have believed that such could have been the
+effect upon her of the news which she had heard. Credit was given to
+her everywhere for good nature, discretion, affability, and a certain
+grace of demeanour which always made her charming. She was known to
+be generous, wise, and of high spirit. Something of her conduct to
+the old Duke had crept into general notice, and had been told, here
+and there, to her honour. She had conquered the good opinion of many,
+and was a popular woman. But there was not one among her friends who
+supposed her capable of becoming a victim to a strong passion, or
+would have suspected her of reckless weeping for any sorrow. The
+Duchess, who thought that she knew Madame Goesler well, would not
+have believed it to be true, even if she had seen it. "You like
+people, but I don't think you ever love any one," the Duchess had
+once said to her. Madame Goesler had smiled, and had seemed to
+assent. To enjoy the world,&mdash;and to know that the best enjoyment must
+come from witnessing the satisfaction of others, had apparently been
+her philosophy. But now she was prostrate because this man was in
+trouble, and because she had been told that his trouble was more than
+another woman could bear!</p>
+
+<p>She was still sobbing and crushing the letter in her hand when the
+servant came up to tell her that Mr. Maule had called. He was below,
+waiting to know whether she would see him. She remembered at once
+that Mr. Maule had met Phineas at her table on the previous evening,
+and, thinking that he must have come with tidings respecting this
+great event, desired that he might be shown up to her. But, as it
+happened, Mr. Maule had not yet heard of the death of Mr. Bonteen. He
+had remained at home till nearly four, having a great object in view,
+which made him deem it expedient that he should go direct from his
+own rooms to Madame Goesler's house, and had not even looked in at
+his club. The reader will, perhaps, divine the great object. On this
+day he proposed to ask Madame Goesler to make him the happiest of
+men,&mdash;as he certainly would have thought himself for a time, had she
+consented to put him in possession of her large income. He had
+therefore padded himself with more than ordinary care,&mdash;reduced but
+not obliterated the greyness of his locks,&mdash;looked carefully to the
+fitting of his trousers, and spared himself those ordinary labours of
+the morning which might have robbed him of any remaining spark of his
+juvenility.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Goesler met him more than half across the room as he entered
+it. "What have you heard?" said she. Mr. Maule wore his sweetest
+smile, but he had heard nothing. He could only press her hand, and
+look blank,&mdash;understanding that there was something which he ought to
+have heard. She thought nothing of the pressure of her hand. Apt as
+she was to be conscious at an instant of all that was going on around
+her, she thought of nothing now but that man's peril, and of the
+truth or falsehood of the story that had been sent to her. "You have
+heard nothing of Mr. Finn?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a word," said Mr. Maule, withdrawing his hand. "What has
+happened to Mr. Finn?" Had Mr. Finn broken his neck it would have
+been nothing to Mr. Maule. But the lady's solicitude was something to
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Bonteen has been&mdash;murdered!"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Bonteen!"</p>
+
+<p>"So I hear. I thought you had come to tell me of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Bonteen murdered! No;&mdash;I have heard nothing. I do not know the
+gentleman. I thought you said&mdash;Mr. Finn."</p>
+
+<p>"It is not known about London, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot say, Madame Goesler. I have just come from home, and have
+not been out all the morning. Who has&mdash;murdered him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! I do not know. That is what I wanted you to tell me."</p>
+
+<p>"But what of Mr. Finn?"</p>
+
+<p>"I also have not been out, Mr. Maule, and can give you no
+information. I thought you had called because you knew that Mr. Finn
+had dined here."</p>
+
+<p>"Has Mr. Finn been murdered?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Bonteen! I said that the report was that Mr. Bonteen had been
+murdered." Madame Goesler was now waxing angry,&mdash;most unreasonably.
+"But I know nothing about it, and am just going out to make inquiry.
+The carriage is ordered." Then she stood, expecting him to go; and he
+knew that he was expected to go. It was at any rate clear to him that
+he could not carry out his great design on the present occasion.
+"This has so upset me that I can think of nothing else at present,
+and you must, if you please, excuse me. I would not have let you take
+the trouble of coming up, had not I thought that you were the bearer
+of some news." Then she bowed, and Mr. Maule bowed; and as he left
+the room she forgot to ring the bell.</p>
+
+<p>"What the deuce can she have meant about that fellow Finn?" he said
+to himself. "They cannot both have been murdered." He went to his
+club, and there he soon learned the truth. The information was given
+to him with clear and undoubting words. Phineas Finn and Mr. Bonteen
+had quarrelled at The Universe. Mr. Bonteen, as far as words went,
+had got the best of his adversary. This had taken place in the
+presence of the Prince, who had expressed himself as greatly annoyed
+by Mr. Finn's conduct. And afterwards Phineas Finn had waylaid Mr.
+Bonteen in the passage between Bolton Row and Berkeley Street, and
+had there&mdash;murdered him. As it happened, no one who had been at The
+Universe was at that moment present; but the whole affair was now
+quite well known, and was spoken of without a doubt.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope he'll be hung, with all my heart," said Mr. Maule, who
+thought that he could read the riddle which had been so
+unintelligible in Park Lane.</p>
+
+<p>When Madame Goesler reached Carlton Terrace, which she did before the
+time named by the Duchess, her friend had not yet returned. But she
+went upstairs, as she had been desired, and they brought her tea. But
+the teapot remained untouched till past six o'clock, and then the
+Duchess returned. "Oh, my dear, I am so sorry for being late. Why
+haven't you had tea?"</p>
+
+<p>"What is the truth of it all?" said Madame Goesler, standing up with
+her fists clenched as they hung by her side.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't seem to know nearly as much as I did when I wrote to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Has the man been&mdash;murdered?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh dear, yes. There's no doubt about that. I was quite sure of that
+when I sent the letter. I have had such a hunt. But at last I went up
+to the door of the House of Commons, and got Barrington Erle to come
+out to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Two men have been arrested."</p>
+
+<p>"Not Phineas Finn?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; Mr. Finn is one of them. Is it not awful? So much more dreadful
+to me than the other poor man's death! One oughtn't to say so, of
+course."</p>
+
+<p>"And who is the other man? Of course he did it."</p>
+
+<p>"That horrid Jew preaching man that married Lizzie Eustace. Mr.
+Bonteen had been persecuting him, and making out that he had another
+wife at home in Hungary, or Bohemia, or somewhere."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course he did it."</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I say. Of course the Jew did it. But then all the
+evidence goes to show that he didn't do it. He was in bed at the
+time; and the door of the house was locked up so that he couldn't get
+out; and the man who did the murder hadn't got on his coat, but had
+got on Phineas Finn's coat."</p>
+
+<p>"Was there&mdash;blood?" asked Madame Goesler, shaking from head to foot.</p>
+
+<p>"Not that I know. I don't suppose they've looked yet. But Lord Fawn
+saw the man, and swears to the coat."</p>
+
+<p>"Lord Fawn! How I have always hated that man! I wouldn't believe a
+word he would say."</p>
+
+<p>"Barrington doesn't think so much of the coat. But Phineas had a club
+in his pocket, and the man was killed by a club. There hasn't been
+any other club found, but Phineas Finn took his home with him."</p>
+
+<p>"A murderer would not have done that."</p>
+
+<p>"Barrington says that the head policeman says that it is just what a
+very clever murderer would do."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you believe it, Duchess?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not;&mdash;not though Lord Fawn swore that he had seen it. I
+never will believe what I don't like to believe, and nothing shall
+ever make me."</p>
+
+<p>"He couldn't have done it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well;&mdash;for the matter of that, I suppose he could."</p>
+
+<p>"No, Duchess, he could not have done it."</p>
+
+<p>"He is strong enough,&mdash;and brave enough."</p>
+
+<p>"But not enough of a coward. There is nothing cowardly about him. If
+Phineas Finn could have struck an enemy with a club, in a dark
+passage, behind his back, I will never care to speak to any man
+again. Nothing shall make me believe it. If I did, I could never
+again believe in any one. If they told you that your husband had
+murdered a man, what would you say?"</p>
+
+<p>"But he isn't your husband, Madame Max."</p>
+
+<p>"No;&mdash;certainly not. I cannot fly at them, when they say so, as you
+would do. But I can be just as sure. If twenty Lord Fawns swore that
+they had seen it, I would not believe them. Oh, God, what will they
+do with him!"</p>
+
+<p>The Duchess behaved very well to her friend, saying not a single word
+to twit her with the love which she betrayed. She seemed to take it
+as a matter of course that Madame Goesler's interest in Phineas Finn
+should be as it was. The Duke, she said, could not come home to
+dinner, and Madame Goesler should stay with her. Both Houses were in
+such a ferment about the murder, that nobody liked to be away.
+Everybody had been struck with amazement, not simply,&mdash;not
+chiefly,&mdash;by the fact of the murder, but by the double destruction of
+the two men whose ill-will to each other had been of late so often
+the subject of conversation. So Madame Goesler remained at Carlton
+Terrace till late in the evening, and during the whole visit there
+was nothing mentioned but the murder of Mr. Bonteen and the peril of
+Phineas Finn. "Some one will go and see him, I suppose," said Madame
+Goesler.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord Cantrip has been already,&mdash;and Mr. Monk."</p>
+
+<p>"Could not I go?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it would be rather strong."</p>
+
+<p>"If we both went together?" suggested Madame Goesler. And before she
+left Carlton Terrace she had almost extracted a promise from the
+Duchess that they would together proceed to the prison and endeavour
+to see Phineas Finn.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c49"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XLIX.</h3>
+<h4>SHOWING WHAT MRS. BUNCE SAID TO THE POLICEMAN.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>"We have left Adelaide Palliser down at the Hall. We are up here only
+for a couple of days to see Laura, and try to find out what had
+better be done about Kennedy." This was said to Phineas Finn in his
+own room in Great Marlborough Street by Lord Chiltern, on the morning
+after the murder, between ten and eleven o'clock. Phineas had not as
+yet heard of the death of the man with whom he had quarrelled. Lord
+Chiltern had now come to him with some proposition which he as yet
+did not understand, and which Lord Chiltern certainly did not know
+how to explain. Looked at simply, the proposition was one for
+providing Phineas Finn with an income out of the wealth belonging, or
+that would belong, to the Standish family. Lady Laura's fortune
+would, it was thought, soon be at her own disposal. They who acted
+for her husband had assured the Earl that the yearly interest of the
+money should be at her ladyship's command as soon as the law would
+allow them so to plan it. Of Robert Kennedy's inability to act for
+himself there was no longer any doubt whatever, and there was, they
+said, no desire to embarrass the estate with so small a disputed
+matter as the income derived from &pound;40,000. There was great pride of
+purse in the manner in which the information was conveyed;&mdash;but not
+the less on that account was it satisfactory to the Earl. Lady
+Laura's first thought about it referred to the imminent wants of
+Phineas Finn. How might it be possible for her to place a portion of
+her income at the command of the man she loved so that he should not
+feel disgraced by receiving it from her hand? She conceived some plan
+as to a loan to be made nominally by her brother,&mdash;a plan as to which
+it may at once be said that it could not be made to hold water for a
+minute. But she did succeed in inducing her brother to undertake the
+embassy, with the view of explaining to Phineas that there would be
+money for him when he wanted it. "If I make it over to Papa, Papa can
+leave it him in his will; and if he wants it at once there can be no
+harm in your advancing to him what he must have at Papa's death." Her
+brother had frowned angrily and had shaken his head. "Think how he
+has been thrown over by all the party," said Lady Laura. Lord
+Chiltern had disliked the whole affair,&mdash;had felt with dismay that
+his sister's name would become subject to reproach if it should be
+known that this young man was supported by her bounty. She, however,
+had persisted, and he had consented to see the young man, feeling
+sure that Phineas would refuse to bear the burden of the obligation.</p>
+
+<p>But he had not touched the disagreeable subject when they were
+interrupted. A knocking of the door had been heard, and now Mrs.
+Bunce came upstairs, bringing Mr. Low with her. Mrs. Bunce had not
+heard of the tragedy, but she had at once perceived from the
+barrister's manner that there was some serious matter forward,&mdash;some
+matter that was probably not only serious, but also calamitous. The
+expression of her countenance announced as much to the two men, and
+the countenance of Mr. Low when he followed her into the room told
+the same story still more plainly. "Is anything the matter?" said
+Phineas, jumping up.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, yes," said Mr. Low, who then looked at Lord Chiltern and was
+silent.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I go?" said Lord Chiltern. Mr. Low did not know him, and of
+course was still silent.</p>
+
+<p>"This is my friend, Mr. Low. This is my friend, Lord Chiltern," said
+Phineas, aware that each was well acquainted with the other's name.
+"I do not know of any reason why you should go. What is it, Low?"</p>
+
+<p>Lord Chiltern had come there about money, and it occurred to him that
+the impecunious young barrister might already be in some scrape on
+that head. In nineteen cases out of twenty, when a man is in a
+scrape, he simply wants money. "Perhaps I can be of help," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you heard, my Lord, what happened last night?" said Mr. Low,
+with his eyes fixed on Phineas Finn.</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard nothing," said Lord Chiltern.</p>
+
+<p>"What has happened?" asked Phineas, looking aghast. He knew Mr. Low
+well enough to be sure that the thing referred to was of great and
+distressing moment.</p>
+
+<p>"You, too, have heard nothing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a word&mdash;that I know of."</p>
+
+<p>"You were at The Universe last night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly I was."</p>
+
+<p>"Did anything occur?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Prince was there."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing has happened to the Prince?" said Chiltern.</p>
+
+<p>"His name has not been mentioned to me," said Mr. Low. "Was there not
+a quarrel?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes;"&mdash;said Phineas. "I quarrelled with Mr. Bonteen."</p>
+
+<p>"What then?"</p>
+
+<p>"He behaved like a brute;&mdash;as he always does. Thrashing a brute
+hardly answers nowadays, but if ever a man deserved a thrashing he
+does."</p>
+
+<p>"He has been murdered," said Mr. Low.</p>
+
+
+<div class="center"><a id="ill49"></a>
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4px">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/ill49.jpg">
+      <img src="images/ill49-t.jpg" height="600"
+      alt='"HE HAS BEEN MURDERED," SAID MR. LOW.' /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption"><span class="smallcaps">"He has
+      been murdered," said Mr. Low.</span><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/ill49.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>The reader need hardly be told that, as regards this great offence,
+Phineas Finn was as white as snow. The maintenance of any doubt on
+that matter,&mdash;were it even desirable to maintain a doubt,&mdash;would be
+altogether beyond the power of the present writer. The reader has
+probably perceived, from the first moment of the discovery of the
+body on the steps at the end of the passage, that Mr. Bonteen had
+been killed by that ingenious gentleman, the Rev. Mr. Emilius, who
+found it to be worth his while to take the step with the view of
+suppressing his enemy's evidence as to his former marriage. But Mr.
+Low, when he entered the room, had been inclined to think that his
+friend had done the deed. Laurence Fitzgibbon, who had been one of
+the first to hear the story, and who had summoned Erle to go with him
+and Major Mackintosh to Downing Street, had, in the first place, gone
+to the house in Carey Street, in which Bunce was wont to work, and
+had sent him to Mr. Low. He, Fitzgibbon, had not thought it safe that
+he himself should warn his countryman, but he could not bear to think
+that the hare should be knocked over on its form, or that his friend
+should be taken by policemen without notice. So he had sent Bunce to
+Mr. Low, and Mr. Low had now come with his tidings.</p>
+
+<p>"Murdered!" exclaimed Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>"Who has murdered him?" said Lord Chiltern, looking first at Mr. Low
+and then at Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>"That is what the police are now endeavouring to find out." Then
+there was a pause, and Phineas stood up with his hand on his
+forehead, looking savagely from one to the other. A glimmer of an
+idea of the truth was beginning to cross his brain. Mr. Low was there
+with the object of asking him whether he had murdered the man! "Mr.
+Fitzgibbon was with you last night," continued Mr. Low.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course he was."</p>
+
+<p>"It was he who has sent me to you."</p>
+
+<p>"What does it all mean?" asked Lord Chiltern. "I suppose they do not
+intend to say that&mdash;our friend, here&mdash;murdered the man."</p>
+
+<p>"I begin to suppose that is what they intend to say," rejoined
+Phineas, scornfully.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Low had entered the room, doubting indeed, but still inclined to
+believe,&mdash;as Bunce had very clearly believed,&mdash;that the hands of
+Phineas Finn were red with the blood of this man who had been killed.
+And, had he been questioned on such a matter, when no special case
+was before his mind, he would have declared of himself that a few
+tones from the voice, or a few glances from the eye, of a suspected
+man would certainly not suffice to eradicate suspicion. But now he
+was quite sure,&mdash;almost quite sure,&mdash;that Phineas was as innocent as
+himself. To Lord Chiltern, who had heard none of the details, the
+suspicion was so monstrous as to fill him with wrath. "You don't mean
+to tell us, Mr. Low, that any one says that Finn killed the man?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have come as his friend," said Low, "to put him on his guard. The
+accusation will be made against him."</p>
+
+<p>To Phineas, not clearly looking at it, not knowing very accurately
+what had happened, not being in truth quite sure that Mr. Bonteen was
+actually dead, this seemed to be a continuation of the persecution
+which he believed himself to have suffered from that man's hand. "I
+can believe anything from that quarter," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"From what quarter?" asked Lord Chiltern. "We had better let Mr. Low
+tell us what really has happened."</p>
+
+<p>Then Mr. Low told the story, as well as he knew it, describing the
+spot on which the body had been found. "Often as I go to the club,"
+said Phineas, "I never was through that passage in my life." Mr. Low
+went on with his tale, telling how the man had been killed with some
+short bludgeon. "I had that in my pocket," said Finn, producing the
+life-preserver. "I have almost always had something of the kind when
+I have been in London, since that affair of Kennedy's." Mr. Low cast
+one glance at it,&mdash;to see whether it had been washed or scraped, or
+in any way cleansed. Phineas saw the glance, and was angry. "There it
+is, as it is. You can make the most of it. I shall not touch it again
+till the policeman comes. Don't put your hand on it, Chiltern. Leave
+it there." And the instrument was left lying on the table, untouched.
+Mr. Low went on with his story. He had heard nothing of Yosef Mealyus
+as connected with the murder, but some indistinct reference to Lord
+Fawn and the top-coat had been made to him. "There is the coat, too,"
+said Phineas, taking it from the sofa on which he had flung it when
+he came home the previous night. It was a very light coat,&mdash;fitted
+for May use,&mdash;lined with silk, and by no means suited for enveloping
+the face or person. But it had a collar which might be made to stand
+up. "That at any rate was the coat I wore," said Finn, in answer to
+some observation from the barrister. "The man that Lord Fawn saw,"
+said Mr. Low, "was, as I understand, enveloped in a heavy great
+coat." "So Fawn has got his finger in the pie!" said Lord Chiltern.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Low had been there an hour, Lord Chiltern remaining also in the
+room, when there came three men belonging to the police,&mdash;a
+superintendent and with him two constables. When the men were shown
+up into the room neither the bludgeon or the coat had been moved from
+the small table as Phineas had himself placed them there. Both
+Phineas and Chiltern had lit cigars, and they were all there sitting
+in silence. Phineas had entertained the idea that Mr. Low believed
+the charge, and that the barrister was therefore an enemy. Mr. Low
+had perceived this, but had not felt it to be his duty to declare his
+opinion of his friend's innocence. What he could do for his friend he
+would do; but, as he thought, he could serve him better now by silent
+observation than by protestation. Lord Chiltern, who had been
+implored by Phineas not to leave him, continued to pour forth
+unabating execrations on the monstrous malignity of the accusers. "I
+do not know that there are any accusers," said Mr. Low, "except the
+circumstances which the police must, of course, investigate." Then
+the men came, and the nature of their duty was soon explained. They
+must request Mr. Finn to go with them to Bow Street. They took
+possession of many articles besides the two which had been prepared
+for them,&mdash;the dress coat and shirt which Phineas had worn, and the
+boots. He had gone out to dinner with a Gibus hat, and they took
+that. They took his umbrella and his latch-key. They asked, even, as
+to his purse and money;&mdash;but abstained from taking the purse when Mr.
+Low suggested that they could have no concern with that. As it
+happened, Phineas was at the moment wearing the shirt in which he had
+dined out on the previous day, and the men asked him whether he had
+any objection to change it in their presence,&mdash;as it might be
+necessary, after the examination, that it should be detained as
+evidence. He did so, in the presence of all the men assembled; but
+the humiliation of doing it almost broke his heart. Then they
+searched among his linen, clean and dirty, and asked questions of
+Mrs. Bunce in audible whispers behind the door. Whatever Mrs. Bunce
+could do to injure the cause of her favourite lodger by severity of
+manner, snubbing the policeman, and determination to give no
+information, she did do. "Had a shirt washed? How do you suppose a
+gentleman's shirts are washed? You were brought up near enough to a
+washtub yourself to know more than I can tell you!" But the very
+respectable constable did not seem to be in the least annoyed by the
+landlady's amenities.</p>
+
+<p>He was taken to Bow Street, going thither in a cab with the two
+policemen, and the superintendent followed them with Lord Chiltern
+and Mr. Low. "You don't mean to say that you believe it?" said Lord
+Chiltern to the officer. "We never believe and we never disbelieve
+anything, my Lord," replied the man. Nevertheless, the superintendent
+did most firmly believe that Phineas Finn had murdered Mr. Bonteen.</p>
+
+<p>At the police-office Phineas was met by Lord Cantrip and Barrington
+Erle, and soon became aware that both Lord Fawn and Fitzgibbon were
+present. It seemed that everything else was made to give way to this
+inquiry, as he was at once confronted by the magistrate. Everybody
+was personally very civil to him, and he was asked whether he would
+not wish to have professional advice while the charge was being made
+against him. But this he declined. He would tell the magistrate, he
+said, all he knew, but, at any rate for the present, he would have no
+need of advice. He was, at last, allowed to tell his own
+story,&mdash;after repeated cautions. There had been some words between
+him and Mr. Bonteen in the club; after which, standing at the door of
+the club with his friends, Mr. Erle and Mr. Fitzgibbon, who were now
+in court, he had seen Mr. Bonteen walk away towards Berkeley Square.
+He had soon followed, but had never overtaken Mr. Bonteen. When
+reaching the Square he had crossed over to the fountain standing
+there on the south side, and from thence had taken the shortest way
+up Bruton Street. He had seen Mr. Bonteen for the last time dimly, by
+the gaslight, at the corner of the Square. As far as he could
+remember, he himself had at the moment passed the fountain. He had
+not heard the sound of any struggle, or of words, round the corner
+towards Piccadilly. By the time that Mr. Bonteen would have reached
+the head of the steps leading into the passage, he would have been
+near Bruton Street, with his back completely turned to the scene of
+the murder. He had walked faster than Mr. Bonteen, having gradually
+drawn near to him; but he had determined in his own mind that he
+would not pass the man, or get so near him as to attract attention.
+Nor had he done so. He had certainly worn the grey coat which was now
+produced. The collar of it had not been turned up. The coat was
+nearly new, and to the best of his belief the collar had never been
+turned up. He had carried the life-preserver now produced with him
+because it had once before been necessary for him to attack garotters
+in the street. The life-preserver had never been used, and, as it
+happened, was quite new. It had been bought about a month since,&mdash;in
+consequence of some commotion about garotters which had just then
+taken place. But before the purchase of the life-preserver he had
+been accustomed to carry some stick or bludgeon at night. Undoubtedly
+he had quarrelled with Mr. Bonteen before this occasion, and had
+bought this instrument since the commencement of the quarrel. He had
+not seen any one on his way from the Square to his own house with
+sufficient observation to enable him to describe such person. He
+could not remember that he had passed a policeman on his way home.</p>
+
+<p>This took place after the hearing of such evidence as was then given.
+The statements made both by Erle and Fitzgibbon as to what had taken
+place in the club, and afterwards at the door, tallied exactly with
+that afterwards given by Phineas. An accurate measurement of the
+streets and ways concerned was already furnished. Taking the duration
+of time as surmised by Erle and Fitzgibbon to have passed after they
+had turned their back upon Phineas, a constable proved that the
+prisoner would have had time to hurry back to the corner of the
+street he had passed, and to be in the place where Lord Fawn saw the
+man,&mdash;supposing that Lord Fawn had walked at the rate of three miles
+an hour, and that Phineas had walked or run at twice that pace. Lord
+Fawn stated that he was walking very slow,&mdash;less he thought than
+three miles an hour, and that the man was hurrying very fast,&mdash;not
+absolutely running, but going as he thought at quite double his own
+pace. The two coats were shown to his lordship. Finn knew nothing of
+the other coat,&mdash;which had, in truth, been taken from the Rev. Mr.
+Emilius,&mdash;a rough, thick, brown coat, which had belonged to the
+preacher for the last two years. Finn's coat was grey in colour. Lord
+Fawn looked at the coats very attentively, and then said that the man
+he had seen had certainly not worn the brown coat. The night had been
+dark, but still he was sure that the coat had been grey. The collar
+had certainly been turned up. Then a tailor was produced who gave it
+as his opinion that Finn's coat had been lately worn with the collar
+raised.</p>
+
+<p>It was considered that the evidence given was sufficient to make a
+remand imperative, and Phineas Finn was committed to Newgate. He was
+assured that every attention should be paid to his comfort, and was
+treated with great consideration. Lord Cantrip, who still believed in
+him, discussed the subject both with the magistrate and with Major
+Mackintosh. Of course the strictest search would be made for a second
+life-preserver, or any such weapon as might have been used. Search
+had already been made, and no such weapon had been as yet found.
+Emilius had never been seen with any such weapon. No one about Curzon
+Street or Mayfair could be found who had seen the man with the quick
+step and raised collar, who doubtless had been the murderer, except
+Lord Fawn,&mdash;so that no evidence was forthcoming tending to show that
+Phineas Finn could not have been that man. The evidence adduced to
+prove that Mr. Emilius,&mdash;or Mealyus, as he was henceforth
+called,&mdash;could not have been on the spot was so very strong, that the
+magistrate told the constables that that man must be released on the
+next examination unless something could be adduced against him.</p>
+
+<p>The magistrate, with the profoundest regret, was unable to agree with
+Lord Cantrip in his opinion that the evidence adduced was not
+sufficient to demand the temporary committal of Mr. Finn.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c50"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER L.</h3>
+<h4>WHAT THE LORDS AND COMMONS SAID<br />ABOUT THE MURDER.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>When the House met on that Thursday at four o'clock everybody was
+talking about the murder, and certainly four-fifths of the members
+had made up their minds that Phineas Finn was the murderer. To have
+known a murdered man is something, but to have been intimate with a
+murderer is certainly much more. There were many there who were
+really sorry for poor Bonteen,&mdash;of whom without a doubt the end had
+come in a very horrible manner; and there were more there who were
+personally fond of Phineas Finn,&mdash;to whom the future of the young
+member was very sad, and the fact that he should have become a
+murderer very awful. But, nevertheless, the occasion was not without
+its consolations. The business of the House is not always exciting,
+or even interesting. On this afternoon there was not a member who did
+not feel that something had occurred which added an interest to
+Parliamentary life.</p>
+
+<p>Very soon after prayers Mr. Gresham entered the House, and men who
+had hitherto been behaving themselves after a most unparliamentary
+fashion, standing about in knots, talking by no means in whispers,
+moving in and out of the House rapidly, all crowded into their
+places. Whatever pretence of business had been going on was stopped
+in a moment, and Mr. Gresham rose to make his statement. "It was with
+the deepest regret,&mdash;nay, with the most profound sorrow,&mdash;that he was
+called upon to inform the House that his right honourable friend and
+colleague, Mr. Bonteen, had been basely and cruelly murdered during
+the past night." It was odd then to see how the name of the man, who,
+while he was alive and a member of that House, could not have been
+pronounced in that assembly without disorder, struck the members
+almost with dismay. "Yes, his friend Mr. Bonteen, who had so lately
+filled the office of President of the Board of Trade, and whose loss
+the country and that House could so ill bear, had been beaten to
+death in one of the streets of the metropolis by the arm of a
+dastardly ruffian during the silent watches of the night." Then Mr.
+Gresham paused, and every one expected that some further statement
+would be made. "He did not know that he had any further communication
+to make on the subject. Some little time must elapse before he could
+fill the office. As for adequately supplying the loss, that would be
+impossible. Mr. Bonteen's services to the country, especially in
+reference to decimal coinage, were too well known to the House to
+allow of his holding out any such hope." Then he sat down without
+having as yet made an allusion to Phineas Finn.</p>
+
+<p>But the allusion was soon made. Mr. Daubeny rose, and with much
+graceful and mysterious circumlocution asked the Prime Minister
+whether it was true that a member of the House had been arrested, and
+was now in confinement on the charge of having been concerned in the
+murder of the late much-lamented President of the Board of Trade.
+He&mdash;Mr. Daubeny&mdash;had been given to understand that such a charge had
+been made against an honourable member of that House, who had once
+been a colleague of Mr. Bonteen's, and who had always supported the
+right honourable gentleman opposite. Then Mr. Gresham rose again. "He
+regretted to say that the honourable member for Tankerville was in
+custody on that charge. The House would of course understand that he
+only made that statement as a fact, and that he was offering no
+opinion as to who was the perpetrator of the murder. The case seemed
+to be shrouded in great mystery. The two gentlemen had unfortunately
+differed, but he did not at all think that the House would on that
+account be disposed to attribute guilt so black and damning to a
+gentleman they had all known so well as the honourable member for
+Tankerville." So much and no more was spoken publicly, to the
+reporters; but members continued to talk about the affair the whole
+evening.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing, perhaps, more astonishing than the absence of
+rancour or abhorrence with which the name of Phineas was mentioned,
+even by those who felt most certain of his guilt. All those who had
+been present at the club acknowledged that Bonteen had been the
+sinner in reference to the transaction there; and it was acknowledged
+to have been almost a public misfortune that such a man as Bonteen
+should have been able to prevail against such a one as Phineas Finn
+in regard to the presence of the latter in the Government. Stories
+which were exaggerated, accounts worse even than the truth, were
+bandied about as to the perseverance with which the murdered man had
+destroyed the prospects of the supposed murderer, and robbed the
+country of the services of a good workman. Mr. Gresham, in the
+official statement which he had made, had, as a matter of course,
+said many fine things about Mr. Bonteen. A man can always have fine
+things said about him for a few hours after his death. But in the
+small private conferences which were held the fine things said all
+referred to Phineas Finn. Mr. Gresham had spoken of a "dastardly
+ruffian in the silent watches," but one would have almost thought
+from overhearing what was said by various gentlemen in different
+parts of the House that upon the whole Phineas Finn was thought to
+have done rather a good thing in putting poor Mr. Bonteen out of the
+way.</p>
+
+<p>And another pleasant feature of excitement was added by the prevalent
+idea that the Prince had seen and heard the row. Those who had been
+at the club at the time of course knew that this was not the case;
+but the presence of the Prince at The Universe between the row and
+the murder had really been a fact, and therefore it was only natural
+that men should allow themselves the delight of mixing the Prince
+with the whole concern. In remote circles the Prince was undoubtedly
+supposed to have had a great deal to do with the matter, though
+whether as abettor of the murdered or of the murderer was never
+plainly declared. A great deal was said about the Prince that evening
+in the House, so that many members were able to enjoy themselves
+thoroughly.</p>
+
+<p>"What a godsend for Gresham," said one gentleman to Mr. Ratler very
+shortly after the strong eulogium which had been uttered on poor Mr.
+Bonteen by the Prime Minister.</p>
+
+<p>"Well,&mdash;yes; I was afraid that the poor fellow would never have got
+on with us."</p>
+
+<p>"Got on! He'd have been a thorn in Gresham's side as long as he held
+office. If Finn should be acquitted, you ought to do something
+handsome for him." Whereupon Mr. Ratler laughed heartily.</p>
+
+<p>"It will pretty nearly break them up," said Sir Orlando Drought, one
+of Mr. Daubeny's late Secretaries of State to Mr. Roby, Mr. Daubeny's
+late patronage secretary.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't quite see that. They'll be able to drop their decimal
+coinage with a good excuse, and that will be a great comfort. They
+are talking of getting Monk to go back to the Board of Trade."</p>
+
+<p>"Will that strengthen them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Bonteen would have weakened them. The man had got beyond himself,
+and lost his head. They are better without him."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose Finn did it?" asked Sir Orlando.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a doubt about it, I'm told. The queer thing is that he should
+have declared his purpose beforehand to Erle. Gresham says that all
+that must have been part of his plan,&mdash;so as to make men think
+afterwards that he couldn't have done it. Grogram's idea is that he
+had planned the murder before he went to the club."</p>
+
+<p>"Will the Prince have to give evidence?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no," said Mr. Roby. "That's all wrong. The Prince had left the
+club before the row commenced. Confucius Putt says that the Prince
+didn't hear a word of it. He was talking to the Prince all the time."
+Confucius Putt was the distinguished artist with whom the Prince had
+shaken hands on leaving the club.</p>
+
+<p>Lord Drummond was in the Peers' Gallery, and Mr. Boffin was talking
+to him over the railings. It may be remembered that those two
+gentlemen had conscientiously left Mr. Daubeny's Cabinet because they
+had been unable to support him in his views about the Church. After
+such sacrifice on their parts their minds were of course intent on
+Church matters. "There doesn't seem to be a doubt about it," said Mr.
+Boffin.</p>
+
+<p>"Cantrip won't believe it," said the peer.</p>
+
+<p>"He was at the Colonies with Cantrip, and Cantrip found him very
+agreeable. Everybody says that he was one of the pleasantest fellows
+going. This makes it out of the question that they should bring in
+any Church bill this Session."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes;&mdash;certainly. There will be nothing else thought of now till
+the trial."</p>
+
+<p>"So much the better," said his Lordship. "It's an ill wind that blows
+no one any good. Will they have evidence for a conviction?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh dear yes; not a doubt about it. Fawn can swear to him," said Mr.
+Boffin.</p>
+
+<p>Barrington Erle was telling his story for the tenth time when he was
+summoned out of the Library to the Duchess of Omnium, who had made
+her way up into the lobby. "Oh, Mr. Erle, do tell me what you really
+think," said the Duchess.</p>
+
+<p>"That is just what I can't do."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because I don't know what to think."</p>
+
+<p>"He can't have done it, Mr. Erle."</p>
+
+<p>"That's just what I say to myself, Duchess."</p>
+
+<p>"But they do say that the evidence is so very strong against him."</p>
+
+<p>"Very strong."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish we could get that Lord Fawn out of the way."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah;&mdash;but we can't."</p>
+
+<p>"And will they&mdash;hang him?"</p>
+
+<p>"If they convict him, they will."</p>
+
+<p>"A man we all knew so well! And just when we had made up our minds to
+do everything for him. Do you know I'm not a bit surprised. I've felt
+before now as though I should like to have done it myself."</p>
+
+<p>"He could be very nasty, Duchess!"</p>
+
+<p>"I did so hate that man. But I'd give,&mdash;oh, I don't know what I'd
+give to bring him to life again this minute. What will Lady Laura
+do?" In answer to this, Barrington Erle only shrugged his shoulders.
+Lady Laura was his cousin. "We mustn't give him up, you know, Mr.
+Erle."</p>
+
+<p>"What can we do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Surely we can do something. Can't we get it in the papers that he
+must be innocent,&mdash;so that everybody should be made to think so? And
+if we could get hold of the lawyers, and make them not want to&mdash;to
+destroy him! There's nothing I wouldn't do. There's no getting hold
+of a judge, I know."</p>
+
+<p>"No, Duchess. The judges are stone."</p>
+
+<p>"Not that they are a bit better than anybody else,&mdash;only they like to
+be safe."</p>
+
+<p>"They do like to be safe."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure we could do it if we put our shoulders to the wheel. I
+don't believe, you know, for a moment that he murdered him. It was
+done by Lizzie Eustace's Jew."</p>
+
+<p>"It will be sifted, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"But what's the use of sifting if Mr. Finn is to be hung while it's
+being done? I don't think anything of the police. Do you remember how
+they bungled about that woman's necklace? I don't mean to give him
+up, Mr. Erle; and I expect you to help me." Then the Duchess returned
+home, and, as we know, found Madame Goesler at her house.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing whatever was done that night, either in the Lords or Commons.
+A "statement" about Mr. Bonteen was made in the Upper as well as in
+the Lower House, and after that statement any real work was out of
+the question. Had Mr. Bonteen absolutely been Chancellor of the
+Exchequer, and in the Cabinet when he was murdered, and had Phineas
+Finn been once more an Under-Secretary of State, the commotion and
+excitement could hardly have been greater. Even the Duke of St.
+Bungay had visited the spot,&mdash;well known to him, as there the urban
+domains meet of two great Whig peers, with whom and whose
+predecessors he had long been familiar. He also had known Phineas
+Finn, and not long since had said civil words to him and of him. He,
+too, had, of late days, especially disliked Mr. Bonteen, and had
+almost insisted that the man now murdered should not be admitted into
+the Cabinet. He had heard what was the nature of the evidence;&mdash;had
+heard of the quarrel, the life-preserver, and the grey coat. "I
+suppose he must have done it," said the Duke of St. Bungay to himself
+as he walked away up Hay Hill.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c51"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER LI.</h3>
+<h4>"YOU THINK IT SHAMEFUL."<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>The tidings of what had taken place first reached Lady Laura Kennedy
+from her brother on his return to Portman Square after the scene in
+the police court. The object of his visit to Finn's lodgings has been
+explained, but the nature of Lady Laura's vehemence in urging upon
+her brother the performance of a very disagreeable task has not been
+sufficiently described. No brother would willingly go on such a
+mission from a married sister to a man who had been publicly named as
+that sister's lover;&mdash;and no brother could be less likely to do so
+than Lord Chiltern. But Lady Laura had been very stout in her
+arguments, and very strong-willed in her purpose. The income arising
+from this money,&mdash;which had been absolutely her own,&mdash;would again be
+exclusively her own should the claim to it on behalf of her husband's
+estate be abandoned. Surely she might do what she liked with her own.
+If her brother would not assist her in making this arrangement, it
+must be done by other means. She was quite willing that it should
+appear to come to Mr. Finn from her father and not from herself. Did
+her brother think any ill of her? Did he believe in the calumnies of
+the newspapers? Did he or his wife for a moment conceive that she had
+a lover? When he looked at her, worn out, withered, an old woman
+before her time, was it possible that he should so believe? She
+herself asked him these questions. Lord Chiltern of course declared
+that he had no suspicion of the kind. "No;&mdash;indeed," said Lady Laura.
+"I defy any one to suspect me who knows me. And if so, why am not I
+as much entitled to help a friend as you might be? You need not even
+mention my name." He endeavoured to make her understand that her name
+would be mentioned, and others would believe and would say evil
+things. "They cannot say worse than they have said," she continued.
+"And yet what harm have they done to me,&mdash;or you?" Then he demanded
+why she desired to go so far out of her way with the view of spending
+her money upon one who was in no way connected with her. "Because I
+like him better than any one else," she answered, boldly. "There is
+very little left for which I care at all;&mdash;but I do care for his
+prosperity. He was once in love with me and told me so,&mdash;but I had
+chosen to give my hand to Mr. Kennedy. He is not in love with me
+now,&mdash;nor I with him; but I choose to regard him as my friend." He
+assured her over and over again that Phineas Finn would certainly
+refuse to touch her money;&mdash;but this she declined to believe. At any
+rate the trial might be made. He would not refuse money left to him
+by will, and why should he not now enjoy that which was intended for
+him? Then she explained how certain it was that he must speedily
+vanish out of the world altogether, unless some assurance of an
+income were made to him. So Lord Chiltern went on his mission, hardly
+meaning to make the offer, and confident that it would be refused if
+made. We know the nature of the new trouble in which he found Phineas
+Finn enveloped. It was such that Lord Chiltern did not open his mouth
+about money, and now, having witnessed the scene at the
+police-office, he had come back to tell his tale to his sister. She
+was sitting with his wife when he entered the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you heard anything?" he asked at once.</p>
+
+<p>"Heard what?" said his wife.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you have not heard it. A man has been murdered."</p>
+
+<p>"What man?" said Lady Laura, jumping suddenly from her seat. "Not
+Robert!" Lord Chiltern shook his head. "You do not mean that Mr. Finn
+has been&mdash;killed!" Again he shook his head; and then she sat down as
+though the asking of the two questions had exhausted her.</p>
+
+<p>"Speak, Oswald," said his wife. "Why do you not tell us? Is it one
+whom we knew?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think that Laura used to know him. Mr. Bonteen was murdered last
+night in the streets."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Bonteen! The man who was Mr. Finn's enemy," said Lady Chiltern.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Bonteen!" said Lady Laura, as though the murder of twenty Mr.
+Bonteens were nothing to her.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes;&mdash;the man whom you talk of as Finn's enemy. It would be better
+if there were no such talk."</p>
+
+<p>"And who killed him?" said Lady Laura, again getting up and coming
+close to her brother.</p>
+
+<p>"Who was it, Oswald?" asked his wife; and she also was now too deeply
+interested to keep her seat.</p>
+
+<p>"They have arrested two men," said Lord Chiltern;&mdash;"that Jew who
+married Lady Eustace, <span class="nowrap">and&mdash;"</span>
+But there he paused. He had determined
+beforehand that he would tell his sister the double arrest that the
+doubt this implied might lessen the weight of the blow; but now he
+found it almost impossible to mention the name.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is the other, Oswald?" said his wife.</p>
+
+<p>"Not Phineas," screamed Lady Laura.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed; they have arrested him, and I have just come from the
+court." He had no time to go on, for his sister was crouching
+prostrate on the floor before him. She had not fainted. Women do not
+faint under such shocks. But in her agony she had crouched down
+rather than fallen, as though it were vain to attempt to stand
+upright with so crushing a weight of sorrow on her back. She uttered
+one loud shriek, and then covering her face with her hands burst out
+into a wail of sobs. Lady Chiltern and her brother both tried to
+raise her, but she would not be lifted. "Why will you not hear me
+through, Laura?" said he.</p>
+
+<p>"You do not think he did it?" said his wife.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure he did not," replied Lord Chiltern.</p>
+
+<p>The poor woman, half-lying, half-seated, on the floor, still hiding
+her face with her hands, still bursting with half suppressed sobs,
+heard and understood both the question and the answer. But the fact
+was not altered to her,&mdash;nor the condition of the man she loved. She
+had not yet begun to think whether it were possible that he should
+have been guilty of such a crime. She had heard none of the
+circumstances, and knew nothing of the manner of the man's death. It
+might be that Phineas had killed the man, bringing himself within the
+reach of the law, and that yet he should have done nothing to merit
+her reproaches;&mdash;hardly even her reprobation! Hitherto she felt only
+the sorrow, the annihilation of the blow;&mdash;but not the shame with
+which it would overwhelm the man for whom she so much coveted the
+good opinion of the world.</p>
+
+<p>"You hear what he says, Laura."</p>
+
+<p>"They are determined to destroy him," she sobbed out, through her
+tears.</p>
+
+<p>"They are not determined to destroy him at all," said Lord Chiltern.
+"It will have to go by evidence. You had better sit up and let me
+tell you all. I will tell you nothing till you are seated again. You
+disgrace yourself by sprawling there."</p>
+
+<p>"Do not be hard to her, Oswald."</p>
+
+<p>"I am disgraced," said Lady Laura, slowly rising and placing herself
+again on the sofa. "If there is anything more to tell, you can tell
+it. I do not care what happens to me now, or who knows it. They
+cannot make my life worse than it is."</p>
+
+<p>Then he told all the story,&mdash;of the quarrel, and the position of the
+streets, of the coat, and the bludgeon, and the three blows, each on
+the head, by which the man had been killed. And he told them also how
+the Jew was said never to have been out of his bed, and how the Jew's
+coat was not the coat Lord Fawn had seen, and how no stain of blood
+had been found about the raiment of either of the men. "It was the
+Jew who did it, Oswald, surely," said Lady Chiltern.</p>
+
+<p>"It was not Phineas Finn who did it," he replied.</p>
+
+<p>"And they will let him go again?"</p>
+
+<p>"They will let him go when they find out the truth, I suppose. But
+those fellows blunder so, I would never trust them. He will get some
+sharp lawyer to look into it; and then perhaps everything will come
+out. I shall go and see him to-morrow. But there is nothing further
+to be done."</p>
+
+<p>"And I must see him," said Lady Laura slowly.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Chiltern looked at her husband, and his face became redder than
+usual with an angry flush. When his sister had pressed him to take
+her message about the money, he had assured her that he suspected her
+of no evil. Nor had he ever thought evil of her. Since her marriage
+with Mr. Kennedy, he had seen but little of her or of her ways of
+life. When she had separated herself from her husband he had approved
+of the separation, and had even offered to assist her should she be
+in difficulty. While she had been living a sad lonely life at
+Dresden, he had simply pitied her, declaring to himself and his wife
+that her lot in life had been very hard. When these calumnies about
+her and Phineas Finn had reached his ears,&mdash;or his eyes,&mdash;as such
+calumnies always will reach the ears and eyes of those whom they are
+most capable of hurting, he had simply felt a desire to crush some
+Quintus Slide, or the like, into powder for the offence. He had
+received Phineas in his own house with all his old friendship. He had
+even this morning been with the accused man as almost his closest
+friend. But, nevertheless, there was creeping into his heart a sense
+of the shame with which he would be afflicted, should the world
+really be taught to believe that the man had been his sister's lover.
+Lady Laura's distress on the present occasion was such as a wife
+might show, or a girl weeping for her lover, or a mother for her son,
+or a sister for a brother; but was extravagant and exaggerated in
+regard to such friendship as might be presumed to exist between the
+wife of Mr. Robert Kennedy and the member for Tankerville. He could
+see that his wife felt this as he did, and he thought it necessary to
+say something at once, that might force his sister to moderate at any
+rate her language, if not her feelings. Two expressions of face were
+natural to him; one eloquent of good humour, in which the reader of
+countenances would find some promise of coming frolic;&mdash;and the
+other, replete with anger, sometimes to the extent almost of
+savagery. All those who were dependent on him were wont to watch his
+face with care and sometimes with fear. When he was angry it would
+almost seem that he was about to use personal violence on the object
+of his wrath. At the present moment he was rather grieved than
+enraged; but there came over his face that look of wrath with which
+all who knew him were so well acquainted. "You cannot see him," he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not I, as well as you?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you do not understand, I cannot tell you. But you must not see
+him;&mdash;and you shall not."</p>
+
+<p>"Who will hinder me?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you put me to it, I will see that you are hindered. What is the
+man to you that you should run the risk of evil tongues, for the sake
+of visiting him in gaol? You cannot save his life,&mdash;though it may be
+that you might endanger it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oswald," she said very slowly, "I do not know that I am in any way
+under your charge, or bound to submit to your orders."</p>
+
+<p>"You are my sister."</p>
+
+<p>"And I have loved you as a sister. How should it be possible that my
+seeing him should endanger his life?"</p>
+
+<p>"It will make people think that the things are true which have been
+said."</p>
+
+<p>"And will they hang him because I love him? I do love him. Violet
+knows how well I have always loved him." Lord Chiltern turned his
+angry face upon his wife. Lady Chiltern put her arm round her
+sister-in-law's waist, and whispered some words into her ear. "What
+is that to me?" continued the half-frantic woman. "I do love him. I
+have always loved him. I shall love him to the end. He is all my life
+to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Shame should prevent your telling it," said Lord Chiltern.</p>
+
+<p>"I feel no shame. There is no disgrace in love. I did disgrace myself
+when I gave the hand for which he asked to another man,
+because,&mdash;<span class="nowrap">because&mdash;"</span>
+But she was too noble to tell her brother even
+then that at the moment of her life to which she was alluding she had
+married the rich man, rejecting the poor man's hand, because she had
+given up all her fortune to the payment of her brother's debts. And
+he, though he had well known what he had owed to her, and had never
+been easy till he had paid the debt, remembered nothing of all this
+now. No lending and paying back of money could alter the nature
+either of his feelings or his duty in such an emergency as this.
+"And, mind you," she continued, turning to her sister-in-law, "there
+is no place for the shame of which he is thinking," and she pointed
+her finger out at her brother. "I love him,&mdash;as a mother might love
+her child, I fancy; but he has no love for me; none;&mdash;none. When I am
+with him, I am only a trouble to him. He comes to me, because he is
+good; but he would sooner be with you. He did love me once;&mdash;but then
+I could not afford to be so loved."</p>
+
+<p>"You can do no good by seeing him," said her brother.</p>
+
+<p>"But I will see him. You need not scowl at me as though you wished to
+strike me. I have gone through that which makes me different from
+other women, and I care not what they say of me. Violet understands
+it all;&mdash;but you understand nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"Be calm, Laura," said her sister-in-law, "and Oswald will do all
+that can be done."</p>
+
+<p>"But they will hang him."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense!" said her brother. "He has not been as yet committed for
+his trial. Heaven knows how much has to be done. It is as likely as
+not that in three days' time he will be out at large, and all the
+world will be running after him just because he has been in Newgate."</p>
+
+<p>"But who will look after him?"</p>
+
+<p>"He has plenty of friends. I will see that he is not left without
+everything that he wants."</p>
+
+<p>"But he will want money."</p>
+
+<p>"He has plenty of money for that. Do you take it quietly, and not
+make a fool of yourself. If the worst comes to the
+<span class="nowrap">worst&mdash;"</span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, heavens!"</p>
+
+<p>"Listen to me, if you can listen. Should the worst come to the worst,
+which I believe to be altogether impossible,&mdash;mind, I think it next
+to impossible, for I have never for a moment believed him to be
+guilty,&mdash;we will,&mdash;visit him,&mdash;together. Good-bye now. I am going to
+see that friend of his, Mr. Low." So saying Lord Chiltern went,
+leaving the two women together.</p>
+
+<p>"Why should he be so savage with me?" said Lady Laura.</p>
+
+<p>"He does not mean to be savage."</p>
+
+<p>"Does he speak to you like that? What right has he to tell me of
+shame? Has my life been so bad, and his so good? Do you think it
+shameful that I should love this man?" She sat looking into her
+friend's face, but her friend for a while hesitated to answer. "You
+shall tell me, Violet. We have known each other so well that I can
+bear to be told by you. Do not you love him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I love him!&mdash;certainly not."</p>
+
+<p>"But you did."</p>
+
+<p>"Not as you mean. Who can define love, and say what it is? There are
+so many kinds of love. We say that we love the Queen."</p>
+
+<p>"Psha!"</p>
+
+<p>"And we are to love all our neighbours. But as men and women talk of
+love, I never at any moment of my life loved any man but my husband.
+Mr. Finn was a great favourite with me,&mdash;always."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed he was."</p>
+
+<p>"As any other man might be,&mdash;or any woman. He is so still, and with
+all my heart I hope that this may be untrue."</p>
+
+<p>"It is false as the Devil. It must be false. Can you think of the
+man,&mdash;his sweetness, the gentle nature of him, his open, free speech,
+and courage, and believe that he would go behind his enemy and knock
+his brains out in the dark? I can conceive it of myself, that I
+should do it, much easier than of him."</p>
+
+<p>"Oswald says it is false."</p>
+
+<p>"But he says it as partly believing that it is true. If it be true I
+will hang myself. There will be nothing left among men or women fit
+to live for. You think it shameful that I should love him."</p>
+
+<p>"I have not said so."</p>
+
+<p>"But you do."</p>
+
+<p>"I think there is cause for shame in your confessing it."</p>
+
+<p>"I do confess it."</p>
+
+<p>"You ask me, and press me, and because we have loved one another so
+well I must answer you. If a woman,&mdash;a married woman,&mdash;be oppressed by
+such a feeling, she should lay it down at the bottom of her heart,
+out of sight, never mentioning it, even to herself."</p>
+
+<p>"You talk of the heart as though we could control it."</p>
+
+<p>"The heart will follow the thoughts, and they may be controlled. I am
+not passionate, perhaps, as you are, and I think I can control my
+heart. But my fortune has been kind to me, and I have never been
+tempted. Laura, do not think I am preaching to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no;&mdash;but your husband; think of him, and think of mine! You have
+babies."</p>
+
+<p>"May God make me thankful. I have every good thing on earth that God
+can give."</p>
+
+<p>"And what have I? To see that man prosper in life, who they tell me
+is a murderer; that man who is now in a felon's gaol,&mdash;whom they will
+hang for ought we know,&mdash;to see him go forward and justify my
+thoughts of him! that yesterday was all I had. To-day I have
+nothing,&mdash;except the shame with which you and Oswald say that I have
+covered myself."</p>
+
+<p>"Laura, I have never said so."</p>
+
+<p>"I saw it in your eye when he accused me. And I know that it is
+shameful. I do know that I am covered with shame. But I can bear my
+own disgrace better than his danger." After a long pause,&mdash;a silence
+of probably some fifteen minutes,&mdash;she spoke again. "If Robert should
+die,&mdash;what would happen then?"</p>
+
+<p>"It would be&mdash;a release, I suppose," said Lady Chiltern in a voice so
+low, that it was almost a whisper.</p>
+
+<p>"A release indeed;&mdash;and I would become that man's wife the next day,
+at the foot of the gallows;&mdash;if he would have me. But he would not
+have me."</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c52"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER LII.</h3>
+<h4>MR. KENNEDY'S WILL.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>Mr. Kennedy had fired a pistol at Phineas Finn in Macpherson's Hotel
+with the manifest intention of blowing out the brains of his presumed
+enemy, and no public notice had been taken of the occurrence. Phineas
+himself had been only too willing to pass the thing by as a trifling
+accident, if he might be allowed to do so, and the Macphersons had
+been by far too true to their great friend to think of giving him in
+charge to the police. The affair had been talked about, and had come
+to the knowledge of reporters and editors. Most of the newspapers had
+contained paragraphs giving various accounts of the matter; and one
+or two had followed the example of The People's Banner in demanding
+that the police should investigate the matter. But the matter had not
+been investigated. The police were supposed to know nothing about
+it,&mdash;as how should they, no one having seen or heard the shot but
+they who were determined to be silent? Mr. Quintus Slide had been
+indignant all in vain, so far as Mr. Kennedy and his offence had been
+concerned. As soon as the pistol had been fired and Phineas had
+escaped from the room, the unfortunate man had sunk back in his
+chair, conscious of what he had done, knowing that he had made
+himself subject to the law, and expecting every minute that
+constables would enter the room to seize him. He had seen his enemy's
+hat lying on the floor, and, when nobody would come to fetch it, had
+thrown it down the stairs. After that he had sat waiting for the
+police, with the pistol, still loaded in every barrel but one, lying
+by his side,&mdash;hardly repenting the attempt, but trembling for the
+result,&mdash;till Macpherson, the landlord, who had been brought home
+from chapel, knocked at his door. There was very little said between
+them; and no positive allusion was made to the shot that had been
+fired; but Macpherson succeeded in getting the pistol into his
+possession,&mdash;as to which the unfortunate man put no impediment in his
+way, and he managed to have it understood that Mr. Kennedy's cousin
+should be summoned on the following morning. "Is anybody else
+coming?" Robert Kennedy asked, when the landlord was about to leave
+the room. "Naebody as I ken o', yet, laird," said Macpherson, "but
+likes they will." Nobody, however, did come, and the "laird" had
+spent the evening by himself in very wretched solitude.</p>
+
+<p>On the following day the cousin had come, and to him the whole story
+was told. After that, no difficulty was found in taking the miserable
+man back to Loughlinter, and there he had been for the last two
+months in the custody of his more wretched mother and of his cousin.
+No legal steps had been taken to deprive him of the management either
+of himself or of his property,&mdash;so that he was in truth his own
+master. And he exercised his mastery in acts of petty tyranny about
+his domain, becoming more and more close-fisted in regard to money,
+and desirous, as it appeared, of starving all living things about the
+place,&mdash;cattle, sheep, and horses, so that the value of their food
+might be saved. But every member of the establishment knew that the
+laird was "nae just himself," and consequently his orders were not
+obeyed. And the laird knew the same of himself, and, though he would
+give the orders not only resolutely, but with imperious threats of
+penalties to follow disobedience, still he did not seem to expect
+compliance. While he was in this state, letters addressed to him came
+for a while into his own hands, and thus more than one reached him
+from Lord Brentford's lawyer, demanding that restitution should be
+made of the interest arising from Lady Laura's fortune. Then he would
+fly out into bitter wrath, calling his wife foul names, and swearing
+that she should never have a farthing of his money to spend upon her
+paramour. Of course it was his money, and his only. All the world
+knew that. Had she not left his roof, breaking her marriage vows,
+throwing aside every duty, and bringing him down to his present state
+of abject misery? Her own fortune! If she wanted the interest of her
+wretched money, let her come to Loughlinter and receive it there. In
+spite of all her wickedness, her cruelty, her misconduct, which had
+brought him,&mdash;as he now said,&mdash;to the verge of the grave, he would
+still give her shelter and room for repentance. He recognised his
+vows, though she did not. She should still be his wife, though she
+had utterly disgraced both herself and him. She should still be his
+wife, though she had so lived as to make it impossible that there
+should be any happiness in their household.</p>
+
+<p>It was thus he spoke when first one and then another letter came from
+the Earl's lawyer, pointing out to him the injustice to which Lady
+Laura was subjected by the loss of her fortune. No doubt these
+letters would not have been written in the line assumed had not Mr.
+Kennedy proved himself to be unfit to have the custody of his wife by
+attempting to shoot the man whom he accused of being his wife's
+lover. An act had been done, said the lawyer, which made it quite out
+of the question that Lady Laura should return to her husband. To
+this, when speaking of the matter to those around him,&mdash;which he did
+with an energy which seemed to be foreign to his character,&mdash;Mr.
+Kennedy made no direct allusion; but he swore most positively that
+not a shilling should be given up. The fear of policemen coming down
+to Loughlinter to take account of that angry shot had passed away;
+and, though he knew, with an uncertain knowledge, that he was not in
+all respects obeyed as he used to be,&mdash;that his orders were disobeyed
+by stewards and servants, in spite of his threats of dismissal,&mdash;he
+still felt that he was sufficiently his own master to defy the Earl's
+attorney and to maintain his claim upon his wife's person. Let her
+return to him first of all!</p>
+
+<p>But after a while the cousin interfered still further; and Robert
+Kennedy, who so short a time since had been a member of the
+Government, graced by permission to sit in the Cabinet, was not
+allowed to open his own post-bag. He had written a letter to one
+person, and then again to another, which had induced those who
+received them to return answers to the cousin. To Lord Brentford's
+lawyer he had used a few very strong words. Mr. Forster had replied
+to the cousin, stating how grieved Lord Brentford would be, how much
+grieved would be Lady Laura, to find themselves driven to take steps
+in reference to what they conceived to be the unfortunate condition
+of Mr. Robert Kennedy; but that such steps must be taken unless some
+arrangement could be made which should be at any rate reasonable.
+Then Mr. Kennedy's post-bag was taken from him; the letters which he
+wrote were not sent;&mdash;and he took to his bed. It was during this
+condition of affairs that the cousin took upon himself to intimate to
+Mr. Forster that the managers of Mr. Kennedy's estate were by no
+means anxious of embarrassing their charge by so trumpery an
+additional matter as the income derived from Lady Laura's forty
+thousand pounds.</p>
+
+<p>But things were in a terrible confusion at Loughlinter. Rents were
+paid as heretofore on receipts given by Robert Kennedy's agent; but
+the agent could only pay the money to Robert Kennedy's credit at his
+bank. Robert Kennedy's cheques would, no doubt, have drawn the money
+out again;&mdash;but it was almost impossible to induce Robert Kennedy to
+sign a cheque. Even in bed he inquired daily about his money, and
+knew accurately the sum lying at his banker's; but he could be
+persuaded to disgorge nothing. He postponed from day to day the
+signing of certain cheques that were brought to him, and alleged very
+freely that an attempt was being made to rob him. During all his life
+he had been very generous in subscribing to public charities; but now
+he stopped all his subscriptions. The cousin had to provide even for
+the payment of wages, and things went very badly at Loughlinter. Then
+there arose the question whether legal steps should be taken for
+placing the management of the estate in other hands, on the ground of
+the owner's insanity. But the wretched old mother begged that this
+might not be done;&mdash;and Dr. Macnuthrie, from Callender, was of
+opinion that no steps should be taken at present. Mr. Kennedy was
+very ill,&mdash;very ill indeed; would take no nourishment, and seemed to
+be sinking under the pressure of his misfortunes. Any steps such as
+those suggested would probably send their friend out of the world at
+once.</p>
+
+<p>In fact Robert Kennedy was dying;&mdash;and in the first week of May, when
+the beauty of the spring was beginning to show itself on the braes of
+Loughlinter, he did die. The old woman, his mother, was seated by his
+bedside, and into her ears he murmured his last wailing complaint.
+"If she had the fear of God before her eyes, she would come back to
+me." "Let us pray that He may soften her heart," said the old lady.
+"Eh, mother;&mdash;nothing can soften the heart Satan has hardened, till
+it be hard as the nether millstone." And in that faith he died
+believing, as he had ever believed, that the spirit of evil was
+stronger than the spirit of good.</p>
+
+
+<div class="center"><a id="ill52"></a>
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4px">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/ill52.jpg">
+      <img src="images/ill52-t.jpg" height="600"
+      alt='"HE MAY SOFTEN HER HEART."' /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption"><span class="smallcaps">"He
+      may soften her heart."</span><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/ill52.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>For some time past there had been perturbation in the mind of that
+cousin, and of all other Kennedys of that ilk, as to the nature of
+the will of the head of the family. It was feared lest he should have
+been generous to the wife who was believed by them all to have been
+so wicked and treacherous to her husband;&mdash;and so it was found to be
+when the will was read. During the last few months no one near him
+had dared to speak to him of his will, for it had been known that his
+condition of mind rendered him unfit to alter it; nor had he ever
+alluded to it himself. As a matter of course there had been a
+settlement, and it was supposed that Lady Laura's own money would
+revert to her; but when it was found that in addition to this the
+Loughlinter estate became hers for life, in the event of Mr. Kennedy
+dying without a child, there was great consternation among the
+Kennedys generally. There were but two or three of them concerned,
+and for those there was money enough; but it seemed to them now that
+the bad wife, who had utterly refused to acclimatise herself to the
+soil to which she had been transplanted, was to be rewarded for her
+wicked stubbornness. Lady Laura would become mistress of her own
+fortune and of all Loughlinter, and would be once more a free woman,
+with all the power that wealth and fashion can give. Alas, alas! it
+was too late now for the taking of any steps to sever her from her
+rich inheritance! "And the false harlot will come and play havoc
+here, in my son's mansion," said the old woman with extremest
+bitterness.</p>
+
+<p>The tidings were conveyed to Lady Laura through her lawyer, but did
+not reach her in full till some eight or ten days after the news of
+her husband's death. The telegram announcing that event had come to
+her at her father's house in Portman Square, on the day after that on
+which Phineas had been arrested, and the Earl had of course known
+that his great longing for the recovery of his wife's fortune had
+been now realised. To him there was no sorrow in the news. He had
+only known Robert Kennedy as one who had been thoroughly disagreeable
+to himself, and who had persecuted his daughter throughout their
+married life. There had come no happiness,&mdash;not even
+prosperity,&mdash;through the marriage. His daughter had been forced to
+leave the man's house,&mdash;and had been forced also to leave her money
+behind her. Then she had been driven abroad, fearing persecution, and
+had only dared to return when the man's madness became so notorious
+as to annul his power of annoying her. Now by his death, a portion of
+the injury which he had inflicted on the great family of Standish
+would be remedied. The money would come back,&mdash;together with the
+stipulated jointure,&mdash;and there could no longer be any question of
+return. The news delighted the old Lord,&mdash;and he was almost angry
+with his daughter because she also would not confess her delight.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Papa, he was my husband."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, no doubt. I was always against it, you will remember."</p>
+
+<p>"Pray do not talk in that way now, Papa. I know that I was not to him
+what I should have been."</p>
+
+<p>"You used to say it was all his fault."</p>
+
+<p>"We will not talk of it now, Papa. He is gone, and I remember his
+past goodness to me."</p>
+
+<p>She clothed herself in the deepest of mourning, and made herself a
+thing of sorrow by the sacrificial uncouthness of her garments. And
+she tried to think of him;&mdash;to think of him, and not to think of
+Phineas Finn. She remembered with real sorrow the words she had
+spoken to her sister-in-law, in which she had declared, while still
+the wife of another man, that she would willingly marry Phineas at
+the foot even of the gallows if she were free. She was free now; but
+she did not repeat her assertion. It was impossible not to think of
+Phineas in his present strait, but she abstained from speaking of him
+as far as she could, and for the present never alluded to her former
+purpose of visiting him in his prison.</p>
+
+<p>From day to day, for the first few days of her widowhood, she heard
+what was going on. The evidence against him became stronger and
+stronger, whereas the other man, Yosef Mealyus, had been already
+liberated. There were still many who felt sure that Mealyus had been
+the murderer, among whom were all those who had been ranked among the
+staunch friends of our hero. The Chilterns so believed, and Lady
+Laura; the Duchess so believed, and Madame Goesler. Mr. Low felt sure
+of it, and Mr. Monk and Lord Cantrip; and nobody was more sure than
+Mrs. Bunce. There were many who professed that they doubted; men such
+as Barrington Erle, Laurence Fitzgibbon, the two Dukes,&mdash;though the
+younger Duke never expressed such doubt at home,&mdash;and Mr. Gresham
+himself. Indeed, the feeling of Parliament in general was one of
+great doubt. Mr. Daubeny never expressed an opinion one way or the
+other, feeling that the fate of two second-class Liberals could not
+be matter of concern to him;&mdash;but Sir Orlando Drought, and Mr. Roby,
+and Mr. Boffin, were as eager as though they had not been
+Conservatives, and were full of doubt. Surely, if Phineas Finn were
+not the murderer, he had been more ill-used by Fate than had been any
+man since Fate first began to be unjust. But there was also a very
+strong party by whom no doubt whatever was entertained as to his
+guilt,&mdash;at the head of which, as in duty bound, was the poor widow,
+Mrs. Bonteen. She had no doubt as to the hand by which her husband
+had fallen, and clamoured loudly for the vengeance of the law. All
+the world, she said, knew how bitter against her husband had been
+this wretch, whose villainy had been exposed by her dear, gracious
+lord; and now the evidence against him was, to her thinking,
+complete. She was supported strongly by Lady Eustace, who, much as
+she wished not to be the wife of the Bohemian Jew, thought even that
+preferable to being known as the widow of a murderer who had been
+hung. Mr. Ratler, with one or two others in the House, was certain of
+Finn's guilt. The People's Banner, though it prefaced each one of
+its daily paragraphs on the subject with a statement as to the
+manifest duty of an influential newspaper to abstain from the
+expression of any opinion on such a subject till the question had
+been decided by a jury, nevertheless from day to day recapitulated
+the evidence against the Member for Tankerville, and showed how
+strong were the motives which had existed for such a deed. But, among
+those who were sure of Finn's guilt, there was no one more sure than
+Lord Fawn, who had seen the coat and the height of the man,&mdash;and the
+step. He declared among his intimate friends that of course he could
+not swear to the person. He could not venture, when upon his oath, to
+give an opinion. But the man who had passed him at so quick a pace
+had been half a foot higher than Mealyus;&mdash;of that there could be no
+doubt. Nor could there be any doubt as to the grey coat. Of course
+there might be other men with grey coats besides Mr. Phineas
+Finn,&mdash;and other men half a foot taller than Yosef Mealyus. And there
+might be other men with that peculiarly energetic step. And the man
+who hurried by him might not have been the man who murdered Mr.
+Bonteen. Of all that Lord Fawn could say nothing. But what he did
+say,&mdash;of that he was sure. And all those who knew him were well aware
+that in his own mind he was convinced of the guilt of Phineas Finn.
+And there was another man equally convinced. Mr. Maule, Senior,
+remembered well the manner in which Madame Goesler spoke of Phineas
+Finn in reference to the murder, and was quite sure that Phineas was
+the murderer.</p>
+
+<p>For a couple of days Lord Chiltern was constantly with the poor
+prisoner, but after that he was obliged to return to Harrington Hall.
+This he did a day after the news arrived of the death of his
+brother-in-law. Both he and Lady Chiltern had promised to return
+home, having left Adelaide Palliser alone in the house, and already
+they had overstayed their time. "Of course I will remain with you,"
+Lady Chiltern had said to her sister-in-law; but the widow had
+preferred to be left alone. For these first few days,&mdash;when she must
+make pretence of sorrow because her husband had died; and had such
+real cause for sorrow in the miserable condition of the man she
+loved,&mdash;she preferred to be alone. Who could sympathise with her now,
+or with whom could she speak of her grief? Her father was talking to
+her always of her money;&mdash;but from him she could endure it. She was
+used to him, and could remember when he spoke to her of her forty
+thousand pounds, and of her twelve hundred a year of jointure, that
+it had not always been with him like that. As yet nothing had been
+heard of the will, and the Earl did not in the least anticipate any
+further accession of wealth from the estate of the man whom they had
+all hated. But his daughter would now be a rich woman; and was yet
+young, and there might still be splendour. "I suppose you won't care
+to buy land," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Papa, do not talk of buying anything yet."</p>
+
+<p>"But, my dear Laura, you must put your money into something. You can
+get very nearly 5 per cent. from Indian Stock."</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet, Papa," she said. But he proceeded to explain to her how
+very important an affair money is, and that persons who have got
+money cannot be excused for not considering what they had better do
+with it. No doubt she could get 4 per cent. on her money by buying up
+certain existing mortgages on the Saulsby property,&mdash;which would no
+doubt be very convenient if, hereafter, the money should go to her
+brother's child. "Not yet, Papa," she said again, having, however,
+already made up her mind that her money should have a different
+destination.</p>
+
+<p>She could not interest her father at all in the fate of Phineas Finn.
+When the story of the murder had first been told to him, he had been
+amazed,&mdash;and, no doubt, somewhat gratified, as we all are, at tragic
+occurrences which do not concern ourselves. But he could not be made
+to tremble for the fate of Phineas Finn. And yet he had known the man
+during the last few years most intimately, and had had much in common
+with him. He had trusted Phineas in respect to his son, and had
+trusted him also in respect to his daughter. Phineas had been his
+guest at Dresden; and, on his return to London, had been the first
+friend he had seen, with the exception of his lawyer. And yet he
+could hardly be induced to express the slightest interest as to the
+fate of this friend who was to be tried for murder. "Oh;&mdash;he's
+committed, is he? I think I remember that Protheroe once told me
+that, in thirty-nine cases out of forty, men committed for serious
+offences have been guilty of them." The Protheroe here spoken of as
+an authority in criminal matters was at present Lord Weazeling, the
+Lord Chancellor.</p>
+
+<p>"But Mr. Finn has not been guilty, Papa."</p>
+
+<p>"There is always the one chance out of forty. But, as I was saying,
+if you like to take up the Saulsby mortgages, Mr. Forster can't be
+told too soon."</p>
+
+<p>"Papa, I shall do nothing of the kind," said Lady Laura. And then she
+rose and walked out of the room.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of ten days from the death of Mr. Kennedy, there came the
+tidings of the will. Lady Laura had written to Mrs. Kennedy a letter
+which had taken her much time in composition, expressing her deep
+sorrow, and condoling with the old woman. And the old woman had
+answered. "Madam, I am too old now to express either grief or anger.
+My dear son's death, caused by domestic wrong, has robbed me of any
+remaining comfort which the undeserved sorrows of his latter years
+had not already dispelled. Your obedient servant, Sarah Kennedy."
+From which it may be inferred that she had also taken considerable
+trouble in the composition of her letter. Other communications
+between Loughlinter and Portman Square there were none, but there
+came through the lawyers a statement of Mr. Kennedy's will, as far as
+the interests of Lady Laura were concerned. This reached Mr. Forster
+first, and he brought it personally to Portman Square. He asked for
+Lady Laura, and saw her alone. "He has bequeathed to you the use of
+Loughlinter for your life, Lady Laura."</p>
+
+<p>"To me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Lady Laura. The will is dated in the first year of his
+marriage, and has not been altered since."</p>
+
+<p>"What can I do with Loughlinter? I will give it back to them." Then
+Mr. Forster explained that the legacy referred not only to the house
+and immediate grounds,&mdash;but to the whole estate known as the domain
+of Loughlinter. There could be no reason why she should give it up,
+but very many why she should not do so. Circumstanced as Mr. Kennedy
+had been, with no one nearer to him than a first cousin, with a
+property purchased with money saved by his father,&mdash;a property to
+which no cousin could by inheritance have any claim,&mdash;he could not
+have done better with it than to leave it to his widow in fault of
+any issue of his own. Then the lawyer explained that were she to give
+it up, the world would of course say that she had done so from a
+feeling of her own unworthiness. "Why should I feel myself to be
+unworthy?" she asked. The lawyer smiled, and told her that of course
+she would retain Loughlinter.</p>
+
+<p>Then, at her request, he was taken to the Earl's room and there
+repeated the good news. Lady Laura preferred not to hear her father's
+first exultations. But while this was being done she also exulted.
+Might it not still be possible that there should be before her a
+happy evening to her days; and that she might stand once more beside
+the falls of Linter, contented, hopeful, nay, almost glorious, with
+her hand in his to whom she had once refused her own on that very
+spot?</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c53"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER LIII.</h3>
+<h4>NONE BUT THE BRAVE DESERVE THE FAIR.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>Though Mr. Robert Kennedy was lying dead at Loughlinter, and though
+Phineas Finn, a member of Parliament, was in prison, accused of
+murdering another member of Parliament, still the world went on with
+its old ways, down in the neighbourhood of Harrington Hall and Spoon
+Hall as at other places. The hunting with the Brake hounds was now
+over for the season,&mdash;had indeed been brought to an auspicious end
+three weeks since,&mdash;and such gentlemen as Thomas Spooner had time on
+their hands to look about their other concerns. When a man hunts five
+days a week, regardless of distances, and devotes a due proportion of
+his energies to the necessary circumstances of hunting, the
+preservation of foxes, the maintenance of good humour with the
+farmers, the proper compensation for poultry really killed by
+four-legged favourites, the growth and arrangement of coverts, the
+lying-in of vixens, and the subsequent guardianship of nurseries, the
+persecution of enemies, and the warm protection of friends,&mdash;when he
+follows the sport, accomplishing all the concomitant duties of a true
+sportsman, he has not much time left for anything. Such a one as Mr.
+Spooner of Spoon Hall finds that his off day is occupied from
+breakfast to dinner with grooms, keepers, old women with turkeys'
+heads, and gentlemen in velveteens with information about wires and
+unknown earths. His letters fall naturally to the Sunday afternoon,
+and are hardly written before sleep overpowers him. Many a large
+fortune has been made with less of true devotion to the work than is
+given to hunting by so genuine a sportsman as Mr. Spooner.</p>
+
+<p>Our friend had some inkling of this himself, and felt that many of
+the less important affairs of his life were neglected because he was
+so true to the one great object of his existence. He had wisely
+endeavoured to prevent wrack and ruin among the affairs of Spoon
+Hall,&mdash;and had thoroughly succeeded by joining his cousin Ned with
+himself in the administration of his estate,&mdash;but there were things
+which Ned with all his zeal and all his cleverness could not do for
+him. He was conscious that had he been as remiss in the matter of
+hunting, as that hard-riding but otherwise idle young scamp, Gerard
+Maule, he might have succeeded much better than he had hitherto done
+with Adelaide Palliser. "Hanging about and philandering, that's what
+they want," he said to his cousin Ned.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose it is," said Ned. "I was fond of a girl once myself, and I
+hung about a good deal. But we hadn't sixpence between us."</p>
+
+<p>"That was Polly Maxwell. I remember. You behaved very badly then."</p>
+
+<p>"Very badly, Tom; about as bad as a man could behave,&mdash;and she was as
+bad. I loved her with all my heart, and I told her so. And she told
+me the same. There never was anything worse. We had just nothing
+between us, and nobody to give us anything."</p>
+
+<p>"It doesn't pay; does it, Ned, that kind of thing?"</p>
+
+<p>"It doesn't pay at all. I wouldn't give her up,&mdash;nor she me. She was
+about as pretty a girl as I remember to have seen."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you were a decent-looking fellow in those days yourself.
+They say so, but I never quite believed it."</p>
+
+<p>"There wasn't much in that," said Ned. "Girls don't want a man to be
+good-looking, but that he should speak up and not be afraid of them.
+There were lots of fellows came after her. You remember Blinks, of
+the Carabineers. He was full of money, and he asked her three times.
+She is an old maid to this day, and is living as companion to some
+crusty crochetty countess."</p>
+
+<p>"I think you did behave badly, Ned. Why didn't you set her free?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, I behaved badly. And why didn't she set me free, if you
+come to that? I might have found a female Blinks of my own,&mdash;only for
+her. I wonder whether it will come against us when we die, and
+whether we shall be brought up together to receive punishment."</p>
+
+<p>"Not if you repent, I suppose," said Tom Spooner, very seriously.</p>
+
+<p>"I sometimes ask myself whether she has repented. I made her swear
+that she'd never give me up. She might have broken her word a score
+of times, and I wish she had."</p>
+
+<p>"I think she was a fool, Ned."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course she was a fool. She knows that now, I dare say. And
+perhaps she has repented. Do you mean to try it again with that girl
+at Harrington Hall?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Thomas Spooner did mean to try it again with the girl at
+Harrington Hall. He had never quite trusted the note which he had got
+from his friend Chiltern, and had made up his mind that, to say the
+least of it, there had been very little friendship shown in the
+letter. Had Chiltern meant to have stood to him "like a brick," as he
+ought to have stood by his right hand man in the Brake country, at
+any rate a fair chance might have been given him. "Where the devil
+would he be in such a country as this without me,"&mdash;Tom had said to
+his cousin,&mdash;"not knowing a soul, and with all the shooting men
+against him? I might have had the hounds myself,&mdash;and might have 'em
+now if I cared to take them. It's not standing by a fellow as he
+ought to do. He writes to me, by George, just as he might do to some
+fellow who never had a fox about his place."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose he didn't put the two things together," said Ned Spooner.</p>
+
+<p>"I hate a fellow that can't put two things together. If I stand to
+you you've a right to stand to me. That's what you mean by putting
+two things together. I mean to have another shy at her. She has
+quarrelled with that fellow Maule altogether. I've learned that from
+the gardener's girl at Harrington."</p>
+
+<p>Yes,&mdash;he would make another attempt. All history, all romance, all
+poetry and all prose, taught him that perseverance in love was
+generally crowned with success,&mdash;that true love rarely was crowned
+with success except by perseverance. Such a simple little tale of
+boy's passion as that told him by his cousin had no attraction for
+him. A wife would hardly be worth having, and worth keeping, so won.
+And all proverbs were on his side. "None but the brave deserve the
+fair," said his cousin. "I shall stick to it," said Tom Spooner.
+"Labor omnia vincit," said his cousin. But what should be his next
+step? Gerard Maule had been sent away with a flea in his ear,&mdash;so, at
+least, Mr. Spooner asserted, and expressed an undoubting opinion that
+this imperative dismissal had come from the fact that Gerard Maule,
+when "put through his facings" about income was not able to "show the
+money." "She's not one of your Polly Maxwells, Ned." Ned said that he
+supposed she was not one of that sort. "Heaven knows I couldn't show
+the money," said Ned, "but that didn't make her any wiser." Then Tom
+gave it as his opinion that Miss Palliser was one of those young
+women who won't go anywhere without having everything about them.
+"She could have her own carriage with me, and her own horses, and her
+own maid, and everything."</p>
+
+<p>"Her own way into the bargain," said Ned. Whereupon Tom Spooner
+winked, and suggested that that might be as things turned out after
+the marriage. He was quite willing to run his chance for that.</p>
+
+<p>But how was he to get at her to prosecute his suit? As to writing to
+her direct,&mdash;he didn't much believe in that. "It looks as though one
+were afraid of her, you know;&mdash;which I ain't the least. I stood up to
+her before, and I wasn't a bit more nervous than I am at this moment.
+Were you nervous in that affair with Miss Maxwell?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah;&mdash;it's a long time ago. There wasn't much nervousness there."</p>
+
+<p>"A sort of milkmaid affair?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just that."</p>
+
+<p>"That is different, you know. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll just
+drive slap over to Harrington and chance it. I'll take the two bays
+in the phaeton. Who's afraid?"</p>
+
+<p>"There's nothing to be afraid of," said Ned.</p>
+
+<p>"Old Chiltern is such a d&mdash;&mdash;
+cantankerous fellow, and perhaps Lady
+C. may say that I oughtn't to have taken advantage of her absence.
+But, what's the odds? If she takes me there'll be an end of it. If
+she don't, they can't eat me."</p>
+
+<p>"The only thing is whether they'll let you in."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll try at any rate," said Tom, "and you shall go over with me. You
+won't mind trotting about the grounds while I'm carrying on the war
+inside? I'll take the two bays, and Dick Farren behind, and I don't
+think there's a prettier got-up trap in the county. We'll go
+to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>And on the morrow they did start, having heard on that very morning
+of the arrest of Phineas Finn. "By George, don't it feel odd," said
+Tom just as they started,&mdash;"a fellow that we used to know down here,
+having him out hunting and all that, and now he's&mdash;a murderer! Isn't
+it a coincidence?"</p>
+
+<p>"It startles one," said Ned.</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I mean. It's such a strange thing that it should be the
+man we know ourselves. These things always are happening to me. Do
+you remember when poor Fred Fellows got his bad fall and died the
+next year? You weren't here then."</p>
+
+<p>"I've heard you speak of it."</p>
+
+<p>"I was in the very same field, and should have been the man to pick
+him up, only the hounds had just turned to the left. It's very odd
+that these coincidences always are happening to some men and never do
+happen to others. It makes one feel that he's marked out, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you'll be marked out by victory to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"Well;&mdash;yes. That's more important just now than Mr. Bonteen's
+murder. Do you know, I wish you'd drive. These horses are pulling,
+and I don't want to be all in a flurry when I get to Harrington." Now
+it was a fact very well known to all concerned with Spoon Hall, that
+there was nothing as to which the Squire was so jealous as the
+driving of his own horses. He would never trust the reins to a
+friend, and even Ned had hardly ever been allowed the honour of the
+whip when sitting with his cousin. "I'm apt to get red in the face
+when I'm overheated," said Tom as he made himself comfortable and
+easy in the left hand seat.</p>
+
+<p>There were not many more words spoken during the journey. The lover
+was probably justified in feeling some trepidation. He had been quite
+correct in suggesting that the matter between him and Miss Palliser
+bore no resemblance at all to that old affair between his cousin Ned
+and Polly Maxwell. There had been as little trepidation as money in
+that case,&mdash;simply love and kisses, parting, despair, and a broken
+heart. Here things were more august. There was plenty of money, and,
+let affairs go as they might, there would be no broken heart. But
+that perseverance in love of which Mr. Spooner intended to make
+himself so bright an example does require some courage. The Adelaide
+Pallisers of the world have a way of making themselves uncommonly
+unpleasant to a man when they refuse him for the third or fourth
+time. They allow themselves sometimes to express a contempt which is
+almost akin to disgust, and to speak to a lover as though he were no
+better than a footman. And then the lover is bound to bear it all,
+and when he has borne it, finds it so very difficult to get out of
+the room. Mr. Spooner had some idea of all this as his cousin drove
+him up to the door, at what he then thought a very fast pace.
+<span class="nowrap">"D&mdash;&mdash;</span>
+it all," he said, "you needn't have brought them up so confoundedly
+hot." But it was not of the horses that he was really thinking, but
+of the colour of his own nose. There was something working within him
+which had flurried him, in spite of the tranquillity of his idle
+seat.</p>
+
+<p>Not the less did he spring out of the phaeton with a quite youthful
+jump. It was well that every one about Harrington Hall should know
+how alert he was on his legs; a little weather-beaten about the face
+he might be; but he could get in and out of his saddle as quickly as
+Gerard Maule even yet; and for a short distance would run Gerard
+Maule for a ten-pound note. He dashed briskly up to the door, and
+rang the bell as though he feared neither Adelaide nor Lord Chiltern
+any more than he did his own servants at Spoon Hall. "Was Miss
+Palliser at home?" The maid-servant who opened the door told him that
+Miss Palliser was at home, with a celerity which he certainly had not
+expected. The male members of the establishment were probably
+disporting themselves in the absence of their master and mistress,
+and Adelaide Palliser was thus left to the insufficient guardianship
+of young women who were altogether without discretion. "Yes, sir;
+Miss Palliser is at home." So said the indiscreet female, and Mr.
+Spooner was for the moment confounded by his own success. He had
+hardly told himself what reception he had expected, or whether, in
+the event of the servant informing him at the front door that the
+young lady was not at home he would make any further immediate effort
+to prolong the siege so as to force an entry; but now, when he had
+carried the very fortress by surprise, his heart almost misgave him.
+He certainly had not thought, when he descended from his chariot like
+a young Bacchus in quest of his Ariadne, that he should so soon be
+enabled to repeat the tale of his love. But there he was, confronted
+with Ariadne before he had had a moment to shake his godlike locks or
+arrange the divinity of his thoughts. "Mr. Spooner," said the maid,
+opening the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh dear!" exclaimed Ariadne, feeling the vainness of her wish to fly
+from the god. "You know, Mary, that Lady Chiltern is up in London."</p>
+
+<p>"But he didn't ask for Lady Chiltern, Miss." Then there was a pause,
+during which the maid-servant managed to shut the door and to escape.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord Chiltern is up in London," said Miss Palliser, rising from her
+chair, "and Lady Chiltern is with him. They will be at home, I think,
+to-morrow, but I am not quite sure." She looked at him rather as
+Diana might have looked at poor Orion than as any Ariadne at any
+Bacchus; and for a moment Mr. Spooner felt that the pale chillness of
+the moon was entering in upon his very heart and freezing the blood
+in his veins.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Palliser&mdash;" he began.</p>
+
+<p>But Adelaide was for the moment an unmitigated Diana. "Mr. Spooner,"
+she said, "I cannot for an instant suppose that you wish to say
+anything to me."</p>
+
+<p>"But I do," said he, laying his hand upon his heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I must declare that&mdash;that&mdash;that you ought not to. And I hope
+you won't. Lady Chiltern is not in the house, and I think that&mdash;that
+you ought to go away. I do, indeed."</p>
+
+<p>But Mr. Spooner, though the interview had been commenced with
+unexpected and almost painful suddenness, was too much a man to be
+driven off by the first angry word. He remembered that this Diana was
+but mortal; and he remembered, too, that though he had entered in
+upon her privacy he had done so in a manner recognised by the world
+as lawful. There was no reason why he should allow himself to be
+congealed,&mdash;or even banished out of the grotto of the nymph,&mdash;without
+speaking a word on his own behalf. Were he to fly now, he must fly
+for ever; whereas, if he fought now,&mdash;fought well, even though not
+successfully at the moment,&mdash;he might fight again. While Miss
+Palliser was scowling at him he resolved upon fighting. "Miss
+Palliser," he said, "I did not come to see Lady Chiltern; I came to
+see you. And now that I have been happy enough to find you I hope you
+will listen to me for a minute. I shan't do you any harm."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not afraid of any harm, but I cannot think that you have
+anything to say that can do anybody any good." She sat down, however,
+and so far yielded. "Of course I cannot make you go away, Mr.
+Spooner; but I should have thought, when I asked
+<span class="nowrap">you&mdash;"</span></p>
+
+<p>Mr. Spooner also seated himself, and uttered a sigh. Making love to a
+sweet, soft, blushing, willing, though silent girl is a pleasant
+employment; but the task of declaring love to a stony-hearted,
+obdurate, ill-conditioned Diana is very disagreeable for any
+gentleman. And it is the more so when the gentleman really loves,&mdash;or
+thinks that he loves,&mdash;his Diana. Mr. Spooner did believe himself to
+be verily in love. Having sighed, he began: "Miss Palliser, this
+opportunity of declaring to you the state of my heart is too valuable
+to allow me to give it up without&mdash;without using it."</p>
+
+<p>"It can't be of any use."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Miss Palliser,&mdash;if you knew my feelings!"</p>
+
+<p>"But I know my own."</p>
+
+<p>"They may change, Miss Palliser."</p>
+
+<p>"No, they can't."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't say that, Miss Palliser."</p>
+
+<p>"But I do say it. I say it over and over again. I don't know what any
+gentleman can gain by persecuting a lady. You oughtn't to have been
+shown up here at all."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Spooner knew well that women have been won even at the tenth time
+of asking, and this with him was only the third. "I think if you knew
+my <span class="nowrap">heart&mdash;"</span> he commenced.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to know your heart."</p>
+
+<p>"You might listen to a man, at any rate."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to listen. It can't do any good. I only want you to
+leave me alone, and go away."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what you take me for," said Mr. Spooner, beginning to
+wax angry.</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't taken you for anything at all. This is very disagreeable
+and very foolish. A lady has a right to know her own mind, and she
+has a right not to be persecuted." She would have referred to Lord
+Chiltern's letter had not all the hopes of her heart been so terribly
+crushed since that letter had been written. In it he had openly
+declared that she was already engaged to be married to Mr. Maule,
+thinking that he would thus put an end to Mr. Spooner's little
+adventure. But since the writing of Lord Chiltern's letter that
+unfortunate reference had been made to Boulogne, and every particle
+of her happiness had been destroyed. She was a miserable, blighted
+young woman, who had quarrelled irretrievably with her lover, feeling
+greatly angry with herself because she had made the quarrel, and yet
+conscious that her own self-respect had demanded the quarrel. She was
+full of regret, declaring to herself from morning to night that, in
+spite of all his manifest wickedness in having talked of Boulogne,
+she never could care at all for any other man. And now there was this
+aggravation to her misery,&mdash;this horrid suitor, who disgraced her by
+making those around her suppose it to be possible that she should
+ever accept him; who had probably heard of her quarrel, and had been
+mean enough to suppose that therefore there might be a chance for
+himself! She did despise him, and wanted him to understand that she
+despised him.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe I am in a condition to offer my hand and fortune to any
+young lady without impropriety," said Mr. Spooner.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know anything about your condition."</p>
+
+<p>"But I will tell you everything."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to know anything about it."</p>
+
+<p>"I have an estate of&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to know about your estate. I won't hear about your
+estate. It can be nothing to me."</p>
+
+<p>"It is generally considered to be a matter of some importance."</p>
+
+<p>"It is of no importance to me, at all, Mr. Spooner; and I won't hear
+anything about it. If all the parish belonged to you, it would not
+make any difference."</p>
+
+<p>"All the parish does belong to me, and nearly all the next," replied
+Mr. Spooner, with great dignity.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you'd better find some lady who would like to have two
+parishes. They haven't any weight with me at all." At that moment she
+told herself how much she would prefer even Bou&mdash;logne, to Mr.
+Spooner's two parishes.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it that you find so wrong about me?" asked the unhappy
+suitor.</p>
+
+<p>Adelaide looked at him, and longed to tell him that his nose was red.
+And, though she would not quite do that, she could not bring herself
+to spare him. What right had he to come to her,&mdash;a nasty, red-nosed
+old man, who knew nothing about anything but foxes and horses,&mdash;to
+her, who had never given him the encouragement of a single smile? She
+could not allude to his nose, but in regard to his other defects she
+would not spare him. "Our tastes are not the same, Mr. Spooner."</p>
+
+<p>"You are very fond of hunting."</p>
+
+<p>"And our ages are not the same."</p>
+
+<p>"I always thought that there should be a difference of age," said Mr.
+Spooner, becoming very red.</p>
+
+<p>"And,&mdash;and,&mdash;and,&mdash;it's altogether quite preposterous. I don't
+believe that you can really think it yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"But I do."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you must unthink it. And, indeed, Mr. Spooner, since you drive
+me to say so,&mdash;I consider it to be very unmanly of you, after what
+Lord Chiltern told you in his letter."</p>
+
+<p>"But I believe that is all over."</p>
+
+<p>Then her anger flashed up very high. "And if you do believe it, what
+a mean man you must be to come to me when you must know how miserable
+I am, and to think that I should be driven to accept you after losing
+him! You never could have been anything to me. If you wanted to get
+married at all, you should have done it before I was born." This was
+hard upon the man, as at that time he could not have been much more
+than twenty. "But you don't know anything of the difference in people
+if you think that any girl would look at you, after having
+been&mdash;loved by Mr. Maule. Now, as you do not seem inclined to go
+away, I shall leave you." So saying, she walked off with stately
+step, out of the room, leaving the door open behind her to facilitate
+her escape.</p>
+
+<p>She had certainly been very rude to him, and had treated him very
+badly. Of that he was sure. He had conferred upon her what is
+commonly called the highest compliment which a gentleman can pay to a
+lady, and she had insulted him;&mdash;had doubly insulted him. She had
+referred to his age, greatly exaggerating his misfortune in that
+respect; and she had compared him to that poor beggar Maule in
+language most offensive. When she left him, he put his hand beneath
+his waistcoat, and turned with an air almost majestic towards the
+window. But in an instant he remembered that there was nobody there
+to see how he bore his punishment, and he sank down into human
+nature. "Damnation!" he said, as he put his hands into his trousers
+pockets.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly he made his way down into the hall, and slowly he opened for
+himself the front door, and escaped from the house on to the gravel
+drive. There he found his cousin Ned still seated in the phaeton, and
+slowly driving round the circle in front of the hall door. The squire
+succeeded in gaining such command over his own gait and countenance
+that his cousin divined nothing of the truth as he clambered up into
+his seat. But he soon showed his temper. "What the devil have you got
+the reins in this way for?"</p>
+
+<p>"The reins are all right," said Ned.</p>
+
+<p>"No they ain't;&mdash;they're all wrong." And then he drove down the
+avenue to Spoon Hall as quickly as he could make the horses trot.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you see her?" said Ned, as soon as they were beyond the gates.</p>
+
+<p>"See your grandmother."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to say that I'm not to ask?"</p>
+
+<p>"There's nothing I hate so much as a fellow that's always asking
+questions," said Tom Spooner. "There are some men so
+<span class="nowrap">d&mdash;&mdash;d</span>
+thick-headed that they never know when they ought to hold their
+tongue."</p>
+
+<p>For a minute or two Ned bore the reproof in silence, and then he
+spoke. "If you are unhappy, Tom, I can bear a good deal; but don't
+overdo it,&mdash;unless you want me to leave you."</p>
+
+<p>"She's the d&mdash;&mdash;t vixen that
+ever had a tongue in her head," said Tom
+Spooner, lifting his whip and striking the poor off-horse in his
+agony. Then Ned forgave him.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c54"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER LIV.</h3>
+<h4>THE DUCHESS TAKES COUNSEL.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>Phineas Finn, when he had been thrice remanded before the Bow Street
+magistrate, and four times examined, was at last committed to be
+tried for the murder of Mr. Bonteen. This took place on Wednesday,
+May 19th, a fortnight after the murder. But during those fourteen
+days little was learned, or even surmised, by the police, in addition
+to the circumstances which had transpired at once. Indeed the delay,
+slight as it was, had arisen from a desire to find evidence that
+might affect Mr. Emilius, rather than with a view to strengthen that
+which did affect Phineas Finn. But no circumstance could be found
+tending in any way to add to the suspicion to which the converted Jew
+was made subject by his own character, and by the supposition that he
+would have been glad to get rid of Mr. Bonteen. He did not even
+attempt to run away,&mdash;for which attempt certain pseudo-facilities
+were put in his way by police ingenuity. But Mr. Emilius stood his
+ground and courted inquiry. Mr. Bonteen had been to him, he said, a
+very bitter, unjust, and cruel enemy. Mr. Bonteen had endeavoured to
+rob him of his dearest wife;&mdash;had charged him with bigamy;&mdash;had got
+up false evidence in the hope of ruining him. He had undoubtedly
+hated Mr. Bonteen, and might probably have said so. But, as it
+happened, through God's mercy, he was enabled to prove that he could
+not possibly have been at the scene of the murder when the murder was
+committed. During that hour of the night he had been in his own bed;
+and, had he been out, could not have re-entered the house without
+calling up the inmates. But, independently of his alibi, Mealyus was
+able to rely on the absolute absence of any evidence against him. No
+grey coat could be traced to his hands, even for an hour. His height
+was very much less than that attributed by Lord Fawn to the man whom
+he had seen hurrying to the spot. No weapon was found in his
+possession by which the deed could have been done. Inquiry was made
+as to the purchase of life-preservers, and the reverend gentleman was
+taken to half-a-dozen shops at which such instruments had lately been
+sold. But there had been a run upon life-preservers, in consequence
+of recommendations as to their use given by certain newspapers;&mdash;and
+it was found as impossible to trace one particular purchase as it
+would be that of a loaf of bread. At none of the half-dozen shops to
+which he was taken was Mr. Emilius remembered; and then all further
+inquiry in that direction was abandoned, and Mr. Emilius was set at
+liberty. "I forgive my persecutors from the bottom of my heart," he
+said,&mdash;"but God will requite it to them."</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime Phineas was taken to Newgate, and was there confined,
+almost with the glory and attendance of a State prisoner. This was no
+common murder, and no common murderer. Nor were they who interested
+themselves in the matter the ordinary rag, tag, and bobtail of the
+people,&mdash;the mere wives and children, or perhaps fathers and mothers,
+or brothers and sisters of the slayer or the slain. Dukes and Earls,
+Duchesses and Countesses, Members of the Cabinet, great statesmen,
+Judges, Bishops, and Queen's Counsellors, beautiful women, and women
+of highest fashion, seemed for a while to think of but little else
+than the fate of Mr. Bonteen and the fate of Phineas Finn. People
+became intimately acquainted with each other through similar
+sympathies in this matter, who had never before spoken to or seen
+each other. On the day after the full committal of the man, Mr. Low
+received a most courteous letter from the Duchess of Omnium, begging
+him to call in Carlton Terrace if his engagements would permit him to
+do so. The Duchess had heard that Mr. Low was devoting all his
+energies to the protection of Phineas Finn; and, as a certain friend
+of hers,&mdash;a lady,&mdash;was doing the same, she was anxious to bring them
+together. Indeed, she herself was equally prepared to devote her
+energies for the present to the same object. She had declared to all
+her friends,&mdash;especially to her husband and to the Duke of St.
+Bungay,&mdash;her absolute conviction of the innocence of the accused man,
+and had called upon them to defend him. "My dear," said the elder
+Duke, "I do not think that in my time any innocent man has ever lost
+his life upon the scaffold."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that a reason why our friend should be the first instance?" said
+the Duchess.</p>
+
+<p>"He must be tried according to the laws of his country," said the
+younger Duke.</p>
+
+<p>"Plantagenet, you always speak as if everything were perfect, whereas
+you know very well that everything is imperfect. If that man is&mdash;is
+hung, <span class="nowrap">I&mdash;"</span></p>
+
+<p>"Glencora," said her husband, "do not connect yourself with the fate
+of a stranger from any misdirected enthusiasm."</p>
+
+<p>"I do connect myself. If that man be hung&mdash;I shall go into mourning
+for him. You had better look to it."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Low obeyed the summons, and called on the Duchess. But, in truth,
+the invitation had been planned by Madame Goesler, who was present
+when the lawyer, about five o'clock in the afternoon, was shown into
+the presence of the Duchess. Tea was immediately ordered, and Mr. Low
+was almost embraced. He was introduced to Madame Goesler, of whom he
+did not before remember that he had heard the name, and was at once
+given to understand that the fate of Phineas was now in question. "We
+know so well," said the Duchess, "how true you are to him."</p>
+
+<p>"He is an old friend of mine," said the lawyer, "and I cannot believe
+him to have been guilty of a murder."</p>
+
+<p>"Guilty!&mdash;he is no more guilty than I am. We are as sure of that as
+we are of the sun. We know that he is innocent;&mdash;do we not, Madame
+Goesler? And we, too, are very dear friends of his;&mdash;that is, I am."</p>
+
+<p>"And so am I," said Madame Goesler, in a voice very low and sweet,
+but yet so energetic as to make Mr. Low almost rivet his attention
+upon her.</p>
+
+<p>"You must understand, Mr. Low, that Mr. Finn is a man horribly hated
+by certain enemies. That wretched Mr. Bonteen hated his very name.
+But there are other people who think very differently of him. He must
+be saved."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed I hope he may," said Mr. Low.</p>
+
+<p>"We wanted to see you for ever so many reasons. Of course you
+understand that&mdash;that any sum of money can be spent that the case may
+want."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing will be spared on that account certainly," said the lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>"But money will do a great many things. We would send all round the
+world if we could get evidence against that other man,&mdash;Lady
+Eustace's husband, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Can any good be done by sending all round the world?"</p>
+
+<p>"He went back to his own home not long ago,&mdash;in Poland, I think,"
+said Madame Goesler. "Perhaps he got the instrument there, and
+brought it with him." Mr. Low shook his head. "Of course we are very
+ignorant;&mdash;but it would be a pity that everything should not be
+tried."</p>
+
+<p>"He might have got in and out of the window, you know," said the
+Duchess. Still Mr. Low shook his head. "I believe things can always
+be found out, if only you take trouble enough. And trouble means
+money;&mdash;does it not? We wouldn't mind how many thousand pounds it
+cost; would we, Marie?"</p>
+
+<p>"I fear that the spending of thousands can do no good," said Mr. Low.</p>
+
+<p>"But something must be done. You don't mean to say that Mr. Finn is
+to be hung because Lord Fawn says that he saw a man running along the
+street in a grey coat."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not."</p>
+
+<p>"There is nothing else against him;&mdash;nobody else saw him."</p>
+
+<p>"If there be nothing else against him he will be acquitted."</p>
+
+<p>"You think then," said Madame Goesler, "that there will be no use in
+tracing what the man Mealyus did when he was out of England. He might
+have bought a grey coat then, and have hidden it till this night, and
+then have thrown it away." Mr. Low listened to her with close
+attention, but again shook his head. "If it could be shown that the
+man had a grey coat at that time it would certainly weaken the effect
+of Mr. Finn's grey coat."</p>
+
+<p>"And if he bought a bludgeon there, it would weaken the effect of Mr.
+Finn's bludgeon. And if he bought rope to make a ladder it would show
+that he had got out. It was a dark night, you know, and nobody would
+have seen it. We have been talking it all over, Mr. Low, and we
+really think you ought to send somebody."</p>
+
+<p>"I will mention what you say to the gentlemen who are employed on Mr.
+Finn's defence."</p>
+
+<p>"But will not you be employed?" Then Mr. Low explained that the
+gentlemen to whom he referred were the attorneys who would get up the
+case on their friend's behalf, and that as he himself practised in
+the Courts of Equity only, he could not defend Mr. Finn on his trial.</p>
+
+<p>"He must have the very best men," said the Duchess.</p>
+
+<p>"He must have good men, certainly."</p>
+
+<p>"And a great many. Couldn't we get Sir Gregory Grogram?" Mr. Low
+shook his head. "I know very well that if you get men who are
+really,&mdash;really swells, for that is what it is, Mr. Low,&mdash;and pay
+them well enough, and so make it really an important thing, they can
+browbeat any judge and hoodwink any jury. I daresay it is very
+dreadful to say so, Mr. Low; but, nevertheless, I believe it, and as
+this man is certainly innocent it ought to be done. I daresay it's
+very shocking, but I do think that twenty thousand pounds spent among
+the lawyers would get him off."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope we can get him off without expending twenty thousand pounds,
+Duchess."</p>
+
+<p>"But you can have the money and welcome;&mdash;cannot he, Madame Goesler?"</p>
+
+<p>"He could have double that, if double were necessary."</p>
+
+<p>"I would fill the court with lawyers for him," continued the Duchess.
+"I would cross-examine the witnesses off their legs. I would rake up
+every wicked thing that horrid Jew has done since he was born. I
+would make witnesses speak. I would give a carriage and pair of
+horses to every one of the jurors' wives, if that would do any good.
+You may shake your head, Mr. Low; but I would. And I'd carry Lord
+Fawn off to the Antipodes, too;&mdash;and I shouldn't care if you left him
+there. I know that this man is innocent, and I'd do anything to save
+him. A woman, I know, can't do much;&mdash;but she has this privilege,
+that she can speak out what men only think. I'd give them two
+carriages and two pairs of horses a-piece if I could do it that way."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Low did his best to explain to the Duchess that the desired
+object could hardly be effected after the fashion she proposed, and
+he endeavoured to persuade her that justice was sure to be done in an
+English court of law. "Then why are people so very anxious to get
+this lawyer or that to bamboozle the witnesses?" said the Duchess.
+Mr. Low declared it to be his opinion that the poorest man in England
+was not more likely to be hung for a murder he had not committed than
+the richest. "Then why would you, if you were accused, have ever so
+many lawyers to defend you?" Mr. Low went on to explain. "The more
+money you spend," said the Duchess, "the more fuss you make. And the
+longer a trial is about and the greater the interest, the more chance
+a man has to escape. If a man is tried for three days you always
+think he'll get off, but if it lasts ten minutes he is sure to be
+convicted and hung. I'd have Mr. Finn's trial made so long that they
+never could convict him. I'd tire out all the judges and juries in
+London. If you get lawyers enough they may speak for ever." Mr. Low
+endeavoured to explain that this might prejudice the prisoner. "And
+I'd examine every member of the House of Commons, and all the
+Cabinet, and all their wives. I'd ask them all what Mr. Bonteen had
+been saying. I'd do it in such a way as a trial was never done
+before;&mdash;and I'd take care that they should know what was coming."</p>
+
+<p>"And if he were convicted afterwards?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'd buy up the Home Secretary. It's very horrid to say so, of
+course, Mr. Low; and I dare say there is nothing wrong ever done in
+Chancery. But I know what Cabinet Ministers are. If they could get a
+majority by granting a pardon they'd do it quick enough."</p>
+
+<p>"You are speaking of a liberal Government, of course, Duchess."</p>
+
+<p>"There isn't twopence to choose between them in that respect. Just at
+this moment I believe Mr. Finn is the most popular member of the
+House of Commons; and I'd bring all that to bear. You can't but know
+that if everything of that kind is done it will have an effect. I
+believe you could make him so popular that the people would pull down
+the prison rather than have him hung;&mdash;so that a jury would not dare
+to say he was guilty."</p>
+
+<p>"Would that be justice, ladies?" asked the just man.</p>
+
+<p>"It would be success, Mr. Low,&mdash;which is a great deal the better
+thing of the two."</p>
+
+<p>"If Mr. Finn were found guilty, I could not in my heart believe that
+that would be justice," said Madame Goesler.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Low did his best to make them understand that the plan of pulling
+down Newgate by the instrumentality of Phineas Finn's popularity, or
+of buying up the Home Secretary by threats of Parliamentary
+defection, would hardly answer their purpose. He would, he assured
+them, suggest to the attorneys employed the idea of searching for
+evidence against the man Mealyus in his own country, and would
+certainly take care that nothing was omitted from want of means. "You
+had better let us put a cheque in your hands," said the Duchess. But
+to this he would not assent. He did admit that it would be well to
+leave no stone unturned, and that the turning of such stones must
+cost money;&mdash;but the money, he said, would be forthcoming. "He's not
+a rich man himself," said the Duchess. Mr. Low assured her that if
+money were really wanting he would ask for it. "And now," said the
+Duchess, "there is one other thing that we want. Can we see him?"</p>
+
+<p>"You, yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes;&mdash;I myself, and Madame Goesler. You look as if it would be very
+wicked." Mr. Low thought that it would be wicked;&mdash;that the Duke
+would not like it; and that such a visit would occasion ill-natured
+remarks. "People do visit him, I suppose. He's not locked up like a
+criminal."</p>
+
+<p>"I visit him," said Mr. Low, "and one or two other friends have done
+so. Lord Chiltern has been with him, and Mr. Erle."</p>
+
+<p>"Has no lady seen him?" asked the Duchess.</p>
+
+<p>"Not to my knowledge."</p>
+
+<p>"Then it's time some lady should do so. I suppose we could be
+admitted. If we were his sisters they'd let us in."</p>
+
+<p>"You must excuse me, Duchess, but&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I will excuse you. But what?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are not his sisters."</p>
+
+<p>"If I were engaged to him, to be his wife?&mdash;" said Madame Goesler,
+standing up. "I am not so. There is nothing of that kind. You must
+not misunderstand me. But if I were?"</p>
+
+<p>"On that plea I presume you could be admitted."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not as a friend? Lord Chiltern is admitted as his friend."</p>
+
+<p>"Because of the prudery of a prison," said the Duchess. "All things
+are wrong to the lookers after wickedness, my dear. If it would
+comfort him to see us, why should he not have that comfort?"</p>
+
+<p>"Would you have gone to him in his own lodgings?" asked Mr. Low.</p>
+
+<p>"I would,&mdash;if he'd been ill," said Madame Goesler.</p>
+
+<p>"Madam," said Mr. Low, speaking with a gravity which for a moment had
+its effect even upon the Duchess of Omnium, "I think, at any rate,
+that if you visit Mr. Finn in prison, you should do so through the
+instrumentality of his Grace, your husband."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you suspect me of all manner of evil."</p>
+
+<p>"I suspect nothing;&mdash;but I am sure that it should be so."</p>
+
+<p>"It shall be so," said the Duchess. "Thank you, sir. We are much
+obliged to you for your wise counsel."</p>
+
+<p>"I am obliged to you," said Madame Goesler, "because I know that you
+have his safety at heart."</p>
+
+<p>"And so am I," said the Duchess, relenting, and giving him her hand.
+"We are really ever so much obliged to you. You don't quite
+understand about the Duke; and how should you? I never do anything
+without telling him, but he hasn't time to attend to things."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope I have not offended you."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh dear, no. You can't offend me unless you mean it. Good-bye,&mdash;and
+remember to have a great many lawyers, and all with new wigs; and let
+them all get in a great rage that anybody should suppose it possible
+that Mr. Finn is a murderer. I'm sure I am. Good-bye, Mr. Low."</p>
+
+<p>"You'll never be able to get to him," said the Duchess, as soon as
+they were alone.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose not."</p>
+
+<p>"And what good could you do? Of course I'd go with you if we could
+get in;&mdash;but what would be the use?"</p>
+
+<p>"To let him know that people do not think him guilty."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Low will tell him that. I suppose, too, we can write to him.
+Would you mind writing?"</p>
+
+<p>"I would rather go."</p>
+
+<p>"You might as well tell the truth when you are about it. You are
+breaking your heart for him."</p>
+
+<p>"If he were to be condemned, and&mdash;executed, I should break my heart.
+I could never appear bright before the world again."</p>
+
+<p>"That is just what I told Plantagenet. I said I would go into
+mourning."</p>
+
+<p>"And I should really mourn. And yet were he free to-morrow he would
+be no more to me than any other friend."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean you would not marry him?"</p>
+
+<p>"No;&mdash;I would not. Nor would he ask me. I will tell you what will be
+his lot in life,&mdash;if he escapes from the present danger."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course he will escape. They don't really hang innocent men."</p>
+
+<p>"Then he will become the husband of Lady Laura Kennedy."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor fellow! If I believed that, I should think it cruel to help him
+escape from Newgate."</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c55"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER LV.</h3>
+<h4>PHINEAS IN PRISON.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>Phineas Finn himself, during the fortnight in which he was carried
+backwards and forwards between his prison and the Bow Street
+Police-office, was able to maintain some outward show of manly
+dignity,&mdash;as though he felt that the terrible accusation and great
+material inconvenience to which he was subjected were only, and could
+only be, temporary in their nature, and that the truth would soon
+prevail. During this period he had friends constantly with
+him,&mdash;either Mr. Low, or Lord Chiltern, or Barrington Erle, or his
+landlord, Mr. Bunce, who, in these days, was very true to him. And he
+was very frequently visited by the attorney, Mr. Wickerby, who had
+been expressly recommended to him for this occasion. If anybody could
+be counted upon to see him through his difficulty it was Wickerby.
+But the company of Mr. Wickerby was not pleasant to him, because, as
+far as he could judge, Mr. Wickerby did not believe in his innocence.
+Mr. Wickerby was willing to do his best for him; was, so to speak,
+moving heaven and earth on his behalf; was fully conscious that this
+case was a great affair, and in no respect similar to those which
+were constantly placed in his hands; but there never fell from him a
+sympathetic expression of assurance of his client's absolute freedom
+from all taint of guilt in the matter. From day to day, and ten times
+a day, Phineas would express his indignant surprise that any one
+should think it possible that he had done this deed, but to all these
+expressions Mr. Wickerby would make no answer whatever. At last
+Phineas asked him the direct question. "I never suspect anybody of
+anything," said Mr. Wickerby. "Do you believe in my innocence?"
+demanded Phineas. "Everybody is entitled to be believed innocent till
+he has been proved to be guilty," said Mr. Wickerby. Then Phineas
+appealed to his friend Mr. Low, asking whether he might not be
+allowed to employ some lawyer whose feelings would be more in unison
+with his own. But Mr. Low adjured him to make no change. Mr. Wickerby
+understood the work and was a most zealous man. His client was
+entitled to his services, but to nothing more than his services. And
+so Mr. Wickerby carried on the work, fully believing that Phineas
+Finn had in truth murdered Mr. Bonteen.</p>
+
+<p>But the prisoner was not without sympathy and confidence. Mr. Low,
+Lord Chiltern, and Lady Chiltern, who, on one occasion, came to visit
+him with her husband, entertained no doubts prejudicial to his
+honour. They told him perhaps almost more than was quite true of the
+feelings of the world in his favour. He heard of the friendship and
+faith of the Duchess of Omnium, of Madame Goesler, and of Lady Laura
+Kennedy,&mdash;hearing also that Lady Laura was now a widow. And then at
+length his two sisters came over to him from Ireland, and wept and
+sobbed, and fell into hysterics in his presence. They were sure that
+he was innocent, as was every one, they said, throughout the length
+and breadth of Ireland. And Mrs. Bunce, who came to see Phineas in
+his prison, swore that she would tear the judge from his bench if he
+did not at once pronounce a verdict in favour of her darling without
+waiting for any nonsense of a jury. And Bunce, her husband, having
+convinced himself that his lodger had not committed the murder, was
+zealous in another way, taking delight in the case, and proving that
+no jury could find a verdict of guilty.</p>
+
+<p>During that week Phineas, buoyed up by the sympathy of his friends,
+and in some measure supported by the excitement of the occasion,
+carried himself well, and bore bravely the terrible misfortune to
+which he had been subjected by untoward circumstances. But when the
+magistrate fully committed him, giving the first public decision on
+the matter from the bench, declaring to the world at large that on
+the evidence as given, prima facie, he, Phineas Finn, must be
+regarded as the murderer of Mr. Bonteen, our hero's courage almost
+gave way. If such was now the judicial opinion of the magistrate, how
+could he expect a different verdict from a jury in two months' time,
+when he would be tried before a final court? As far as he could
+understand, nothing more could be learned on the matter. All the
+facts were known that could be known,&mdash;as far as he, or rather his
+friends on his behalf, were able to search for facts. It seemed to
+him that there was no tittle whatever of evidence against him. He had
+walked straight home from his club with the life-preserver in his
+pocket, and had never turned to the right or to the left. Till he
+found himself committed, he would not believe that any serious and
+prolonged impediment could be thrown in the way of his liberty. He
+would not believe that a man altogether innocent could be in danger
+of the gallows on a false accusation. It had seemed to him that the
+police had kept their hold on him with a rabid ferocity, straining
+every point with the view of showing that it was possible that he
+should have been the murderer. Every policeman who had been near him,
+carrying him backward and forward from his prison, or giving evidence
+as to the circumstances of the locality and of his walk home on that
+fatal night, had seemed to him to be an enemy. But he had looked for
+impartiality from the magistrate,&mdash;and now the magistrate had failed
+him. He had seen in court the faces of men well known to him,&mdash;men
+known in the world,&mdash;with whom he had been on pleasant terms in
+Parliament, who had sat upon the bench while he was standing as a
+culprit between two constables; and they who had been his familiar
+friends had appeared at once to have been removed from him by some
+unmeasurable distance. But all that he had, as it were, discounted,
+believing that a few hours,&mdash;at the very longest a few days,&mdash;would
+remove the distance; but now he was sent back to his prison, there to
+await his trial for the murder.</p>
+
+<p>And it seemed to him that his committal startled no one but himself.
+Could it be that even his dearest friends thought it possible that he
+had been guilty? When that day came, and he was taken back to Newgate
+on his last journey there from Bow Street, Lord Chiltern had returned
+for a while to Harrington Hall, having promised that he would be back
+in London as soon as his business would permit; but Mr. Low came to
+him almost immediately to his prison room. "This is a pleasant state
+of things," said Phineas, with a forced laugh. But as he laughed he
+also sobbed, with a low, irrepressible, convulsive movement in his
+throat.</p>
+
+<p>"Phineas, the time has come in which you must show yourself to be a
+man."</p>
+
+<p>"A man! Oh, yes, I can be a man. A murderer you mean. I shall have to
+be&mdash;hung, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"May God, in His mercy, forbid."</p>
+
+<p>"No;&mdash;not in His mercy; in His justice. There can be no need for
+mercy here,&mdash;not even from Heaven. When they take my life may He
+forgive my sins through the merits of my Saviour. But for this there
+can be no mercy. Why do you not speak? Do you mean to say that I am
+guilty?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure that you are innocent."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet, look here. What more can be done to prove it than has been
+done? That blundering fool will swear my life away." Then he threw
+himself on his bed, and gave way to his sobs.</p>
+
+<p>That evening he was alone,&mdash;as, indeed, most of his evenings had been
+spent, and the minutes were minutes of agony to him. The external
+circumstances of his position were as comfortable as circumstances
+would allow. He had a room to himself looking out through heavy iron
+bars into one of the courts of the prison. The chamber was carpeted,
+and was furnished with bed and chairs and two tables. Books were
+allowed him as he pleased, and pen and ink. It was May, and no fire
+was necessary. At certain periods of the day he could walk alone in
+the court below,&mdash;the restriction on such liberty being that at other
+certain hours the place was wanted for other prisoners. As far as he
+knew no friend who called was denied to him, though he was by no
+means certain that his privilege in that respect would not be
+curtailed now that he had been committed for trial. His food had been
+plentiful and well cooked, and even luxuries, such as fish and wine
+and fruit, had been supplied to him. That the fruit had come from the
+hot-houses of the Duchess of Omnium, and the wine from Mr. Low's
+cellar, and the fish and lamb and spring vegetables, the cream and
+coffee and fresh butter from the unrestricted orders of another
+friend, that Lord Chiltern had sent him champagne and cigars, and
+that Lady Chiltern had given directions about the books and
+stationery, he did not know. But as far as he could be consoled by
+such comforts, there had been the consolation. If lamb and salad
+could make him happy he might have enjoyed his sojourn in Newgate.
+Now, this evening, he was past all enjoyment. It was impossible that
+he should read. How could a man fix his attention on any book, with a
+charge of murder against himself affirmed by the deliberate decision
+of a judge? And he knew himself to be as innocent as the magistrate
+himself. Every now and then he would rise from his bed, and almost
+rush across the room as though he would dash his head against the
+wall. Murder! They really believed that he had deliberately murdered
+the man;&mdash;he, Phineas Finn, who had served his country with repute,
+who had sat in Parliament, who had prided himself on living with the
+best of his fellow-creatures, who had been the friend of Mr. Monk and
+of Lord Cantrip, the trusted intimate of such women as Lady Laura and
+Lady Chiltern, who had never put his hand to a mean action, or
+allowed his tongue to speak a mean word! He laughed in his wrath, and
+then almost howled in his agony. He thought of the young loving wife
+who had lived with him little more than for one fleeting year, and
+wondered whether she was looking down upon him from Heaven, and how
+her spirit would bear this accusation against the man upon whose
+bosom she had slept, and in whose arms she had gone to her long rest.
+"They can't believe it," he said aloud. "It is impossible. Why should
+I have murdered him?" And then he remembered an example in Latin from
+some rule of grammar, and repeated it to himself over and over
+again.&mdash;"No one at an instant,&mdash;of a sudden,&mdash;becomes most base." It
+seemed to him that there was such a want of knowledge of human nature
+in the supposition that it was possible that he should have committed
+such a crime. And yet&mdash;there he was, committed to take his trial for
+the murder of Mr. Bonteen.</p>
+
+<p>The days were long, and it was daylight till nearly nine. Indeed the
+twilight lingered, even through those iron bars, till after nine. He
+had once asked for candles, but had been told that they could not be
+allowed him without an attendant in the room,&mdash;and he had dispensed
+with them. He had been treated doubtless with great respect, but
+nevertheless he had been treated as a prisoner. They hardly denied
+him anything that he asked, but when he asked for that which they did
+not choose to grant they would annex conditions which induced him to
+withdraw his request. He understood their ways now, and did not rebel
+against them.</p>
+
+<p>On a sudden he heard the key in the door, and the man who attended
+him entered the room with a candle in his hand. A lady had come to
+call, and the governor had given permission for her entrance. He
+would return for the light,&mdash;and for the lady, in half an hour. He
+had said all this before Phineas could see who the lady was. And when
+he did see the form of her who followed the gaoler, and who stood
+with hesitating steps behind him in the doorway, he knew her by her
+sombre solemn raiment, and not by her countenance. She was dressed
+from head to foot in the deepest weeds of widowhood, and a heavy veil
+fell from her bonnet over her face. "Lady Laura, is it you?" said
+Phineas, putting out his hand. Of course it was Lady Laura. While the
+Duchess of Omnium and Madame Goesler were talking about such a visit,
+allowing themselves to be deterred by the wisdom of Mr. Low, she had
+made her way through bolts and bars, and was now with him in his
+prison.</p>
+
+
+<div class="center"><a id="ill55"></a>
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4px">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/ill55.jpg">
+      <img src="images/ill55-t.jpg" width="550"
+      alt="OF COURSE IT WAS LADY LAURA." /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption"><span class="smallcaps">Of
+      course it was Lady Laura.</span><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/ill55.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>"Oh, Phineas!" She slowly raised her veil, and stood gazing at him.
+"Of all my troubles this,&mdash;to see you here,&mdash;is the heaviest."</p>
+
+<p>"And of all my consolations to see you here is the greatest." He
+should not have so spoken. Could he have thought of things as they
+were, and have restrained himself, he should not have uttered words
+to her which were pleasant but not true. There came a gleam of
+sunshine across her face as she listened to him, and then she threw
+herself into his arms, and wept upon his shoulder. "I did not expect
+that you would have found me," he said.</p>
+
+<p>She took the chair opposite to that on which he usually sat, and then
+began her tale. Her cousin, Barrington Erle, had brought her there,
+and was below, waiting for her in the Governor's house. He had
+procured an order for her admission that evening, direct from Sir
+Harry Coldfoot, the Home Secretary,&mdash;which, however, as she admitted,
+had been given under the idea that she and Erle were to see him
+together. "But I would not let him come with me," she said. "I could
+not have spoken to you, had he been here;&mdash;could I?"</p>
+
+<p>"It would not have been the same, Lady Laura." He had thought much of
+his mode of addressing her on occasions before this, at Dresden and
+at Portman Square, and had determined that he would always give her
+her title. Once or twice he had lacked the courage to be so hard to
+her. Now as she heard the name the gleam of sunshine passed from her
+altogether. "We hardly expected that we should ever meet in such a
+place as this?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot understand it. They cannot really think you killed him." He
+smiled, and shook his head. Then she spoke of her own condition. "You
+have heard what has happened? You know that I am&mdash;a widow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes;&mdash;I had heard." And then he smiled again. "You will have
+understood why I could not come to you,&mdash;as I should have done but
+for this little accident."</p>
+
+<p>"He died on the day that they arrested you. Was it not strange that
+such a double blow should fall together? Oswald, no doubt, told you
+all."</p>
+
+<p>"He told me of your husband's death."</p>
+
+<p>"But not of his will? Perhaps he has not seen you since he heard it."
+Lord Chiltern had heard of the will before his last visit to Phineas
+in Newgate, but had not chosen then to speak of his sister's wealth.</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard nothing of Mr. Kennedy's will."</p>
+
+<p>"It was made immediately after our marriage,&mdash;and he never changed
+it, though he had so much cause of anger against me."</p>
+
+<p>"He has not injured you, then,&mdash;as regards money."</p>
+
+<p>"Injured me! No, indeed. I am a rich woman,&mdash;very rich. All
+Loughlinter is my own,&mdash;for life. But of what use can it be to me?"
+He in his present state could tell her of no uses for such a
+property. "I suppose, Phineas, it cannot be that you are really in
+danger?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the greatest danger, I fancy."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean that they will say&mdash;you are guilty?"</p>
+
+<p>"The magistrates have said so already."</p>
+
+<p>"But surely that is nothing. If I thought so, I should die. If I
+believed it, they should never take me out of the prison while you
+are here. Barrington says that it cannot be. Oswald and Violet are
+sure that such a thing can never happen. It was that Jew who did it."</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot say who did it. I did not."</p>
+
+<p>"You! Oh, Phineas! The world must be mad when any can believe it!"</p>
+
+<p>"But they do believe it?" This, he said, meaning to ask a question as
+to that outside world.</p>
+
+<p>"We do not. Barrington says&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What does Barrington say?"</p>
+
+<p>"That there are some who do;&mdash;just a few, who were Mr. Bonteen's
+special friends."</p>
+
+<p>"The police believe it. That is what I cannot understand;&mdash;men who
+ought to be keen-eyed and quick-witted. That magistrate believes it.
+I saw men in the Court who used to know me well, and I could see that
+they believed it. Mr. Monk was here yesterday."</p>
+
+<p>"Does he believe it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I asked him, and he told me&mdash;no. But I did not quite trust him as he
+told me. There are two or three who believe me innocent."</p>
+
+<p>"Who are they?"</p>
+
+<p>"Low, and Chiltern, and his wife;&mdash;and that man Bunce, and his wife.
+If I escape from this,&mdash;if they do not hang me,&mdash;I will remember
+them. And there are two other women who know me well enough not to
+think me a murderer."</p>
+
+<p>"Who are they, Phineas?"</p>
+
+<p>"Madame Goesler, and the Duchess of Omnium."</p>
+
+<p>"Have they been here?" she asked, with jealous eagerness.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no. But I hear that it is so,&mdash;and I know it. One learns to feel
+even from hearsay what is in the minds of people."</p>
+
+<p>"And what do I believe, Phineas? Can you read my thoughts?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know them of old, without reading them now." Then he put forth his
+hand and took hers. "Had I murdered him in real truth, you would not
+have believed it."</p>
+
+<p>"Because I love you, Phineas."</p>
+
+<p>Then the key was again heard in the door, and Barrington Erle
+appeared with the gaolers. The time was up, he said, and he had come
+to redeem his promise. He spoke cordially to his old friend, and
+grasped the prisoner's hand cordially,&mdash;but not the less did he
+believe that there was blood on it, and Phineas knew that such was
+his belief. It appeared on his arrival that Lady Laura had not at all
+accomplished the chief object of her visit. She had brought with her
+various cheques, all drawn by Barrington Erle on his
+banker,&mdash;amounting altogether to many hundreds of pounds,&mdash;which it
+was intended that Phineas should use from time to time for the
+necessities of his trial. Barrington Erle explained that the money
+was in fact to be a loan from Lady Laura's father, and was simply
+passed through his banker's account. But Phineas knew that the loan
+must come from Lady Laura, and he positively refused to touch it. His
+friend, Mr. Low, was managing all that for him, and he would not
+embarrass the matter by a fresh account. He was very obstinate, and
+at last the cheques were taken away in Barrington Erle's pocket.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night, old fellow," said Erle, affectionately. "I'll see you
+again before long. May God send you through it all."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night, Barrington. It was kind of you to come to me." Then Lady
+Laura, watching to see whether her cousin would leave her alone for a
+moment with the object of her idolatry, paused before she gave him
+her hand. "Good-night, Lady Laura," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night!" Barrington Erle was now just outside the door.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not forget your coming here to me."</p>
+
+<p>"How should we, either of us, forget it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Laura," said Barrington Erle, "we had better make an end of
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"But if I should never see him again!"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you will see him again."</p>
+
+<p>"When! and where! Oh, God,&mdash;if they should murder him!" Then she
+threw herself into his arms, and covered him with kisses, though her
+cousin had returned into the room and stood over her as she embraced
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"Laura," said he, "you are doing him an injury. How should he support
+himself if you behave like this! Come away."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my God, if they should kill him!" she exclaimed. But she allowed
+her cousin to take her in his arms, and Phineas Finn was left alone
+without having spoken another word to either of them.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c56"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER LVI.</h3>
+<h4>THE MEAGER FAMILY.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>On the day after the committal a lady, who had got out of a cab at
+the corner of Northumberland Street, in the Marylebone Road, walked
+up that very uninviting street, and knocked at a door just opposite
+to the deadest part of the dead wall of the Marylebone Workhouse.
+Here lived Mrs. and Miss Meager,&mdash;and also on occasions Mr. Meager,
+who, however, was simply a trouble and annoyance in the world, going
+about to race-courses, and occasionally, perhaps, to worse places,
+and being of no slightest use to the two poor hard-worked
+women,&mdash;mother and daughter,&mdash;who endeavoured to get their living by
+letting lodgings. The task was difficult, for it is not everybody who
+likes to look out upon the dead wall of a workhouse, and they who do
+are disposed to think that their willingness that way should be
+considered in the rent. But Mr. Emilius, when the cruelty of his
+wife's friends deprived him of the short-lived luxury of his mansion
+in Lowndes Square, had found in Northumberland Street a congenial
+retreat, and had for a while trusted to Mrs. and Miss Meager for all
+his domestic comforts. Mr. Emilius was always a favourite with new
+friends, and had not as yet had his Northumberland Street gloss
+rubbed altogether off him when Mr. Bonteen was murdered. As it
+happened, on that night,&mdash;or rather early in the day, for Meager had
+returned to the bosom of his family after a somewhat prolonged
+absence in the provinces, and therefore the date had become specially
+remarkable in the Meager family from the double event,&mdash;Mr. Meager
+had declared that unless his wife could supply him with a five-pound
+note he must cut his throat instantly. His wife and daughter had
+regretted the necessity, but had declared the alternative to be out
+of the question. Whereupon Mr. Meager had endeavoured to force the
+lock of an old bureau with a carving-knife, and there had been some
+slight personal encounter,&mdash;after which he had had some gin and had
+gone to bed. Mrs. Meager remembered the day very well indeed, and
+Miss Meager, when the police came the next morning, had accounted for
+her black eye by a tragical account of a fall she had had against the
+bed-post in the dark. Up to that period Mr. Emilius had been
+everything that was sweet and good,&mdash;an excellent, eloquent
+clergyman, who was being ill-treated by his wife's wealthy relations,
+who was soft in his manners and civil in his words, and never gave
+more trouble than was necessary. The period, too, would have been one
+of comparative prosperity to the Meager ladies,&mdash;but for that
+inopportune return of the head of the family,&mdash;as two other lodgers
+had been inclined to look out upon the dead wall, or else into the
+cheerful back-yard; which circumstance came to have some bearing upon
+our story, as Mrs. Meager had been driven by the press of her
+increased household to let that good-natured Mr. Emilius know that if
+"he didn't mind it" the latch-key might be an accommodation on
+occasions. To give him his due, indeed, he had, when first taking the
+rooms, offered to give up the key when not intending to be out at
+night.</p>
+
+<p>After the murder Mr. Emilius had been arrested, and had been kept in
+durance for a week. Miss Meager had been sure that he was innocent;
+Mrs. Meager had trusted the policemen, who evidently thought that the
+clergyman was guilty. Of the policemen who were concerned on the
+occasion, it may be said in a general way that they believed that
+both the gentlemen had committed the murder,&mdash;so anxious were they
+not to be foiled in the attempts at discovery which their duty called
+upon them to make. Mr. Meager had left the house on the morning of
+the arrest, having arranged that little matter of the five-pound note
+by a compromise. When the policeman came for Mr. Emilius, Mr. Meager
+was gone. For a day or two the lodger's rooms were kept vacant for
+the clergyman till Mrs. Meager became quite convinced that he had
+committed the murder, and then all his things were packed up and
+placed in the passage. When he was liberated he returned to the
+house, and expressed unbounded anger at what had been done. He took
+his two boxes away in a cab, and was seen no more by the ladies of
+Northumberland Street.</p>
+
+<p>But a further gleam of prosperity fell upon them in consequence of
+the tragedy which had been so interesting to them. Hitherto the
+inquiries made at their house had had reference solely to the habits
+and doings of their lodger during the last few days; but now there
+came to them a visitor who made a more extended investigation; and
+this was one of their own sex. It was Madame Goesler who got out of
+the cab at the workhouse corner, and walked from thence to Mrs.
+Meager's house. This was her third appearance in Northumberland
+Street, and at each coming she had spoken kind words, and had left
+behind her liberal recompense for the trouble which she gave. She had
+no scruples as to paying for the evidence which she desired to
+obtain,&mdash;no fear of any questions which might afterwards be asked in
+cross-examination. She dealt out sovereigns&mdash;womanfully, and had had
+Mrs. and Miss Meager at her feet. Before the second visit was
+completed they were both certain that the Bohemian converted Jew had
+murdered Mr. Bonteen, and were quite willing to assist in hanging
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Ma'am," said Mrs. Meager, "he did take the key with him. Amelia
+remembers we were a key short at the time he was away." The absence
+here alluded to was that occasioned by the journey which Mr. Emilius
+took to Prague, when he heard that evidence of his former marriage
+was being sought against him in his own country.</p>
+
+<p>"That he did," said Amelia, "because we were put out ever so. And he
+had no business, for he was not paying for the room."</p>
+
+<p>"You have only one key."</p>
+
+<p>"There is three, Ma'am. The front attic has one regular because he's
+on a daily paper, and of course he doesn't get to bed till morning.
+Meager always takes another, and we can't get it from him ever so."</p>
+
+<p>"And Mr. Emilius took the other away with him?" asked Madame Goesler.</p>
+
+<p>"That he did, Ma'am. When he came back he said it had been in a
+drawer,&mdash;but it wasn't in the drawer. We always knows what's in the
+drawers."</p>
+
+<p>"The drawer wasn't left locked, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it was, Ma'am, and he took that key&mdash;unbeknownst to us," said
+Mrs. Meager. "But there is other keys that open the drawers. We are
+obliged in our line to know about the lodgers, Ma'am."</p>
+
+<p>This was certainly no time for Madame Goesler to express
+disapprobation of the practices which were thus divulged. She smiled,
+and nodded her head, and was quite sympathetic with Mrs. Meager. She
+had learned that Mr. Emilius had taken the latch-key with him to
+Bohemia, and was convinced that a dozen other latch-keys might have
+been made after the pattern without any apparent detection by the
+London police. "And now about the coat, Mrs. Meager."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Ma'am?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Meager has not been here since?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Ma'am. Mr. Meager, Ma'am, isn't what he ought to be. I never do
+own it up, only when I'm driven. He hasn't been home."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose he still has the coat."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Ma'am, no. We sent a young man after him, as you said, and the
+young man found him at the Newmarket Spring."</p>
+
+<p>"Some water cure?" asked Madame Goesler.</p>
+
+<p>"No, Ma'am. It ain't a water cure, but the races. He hadn't got the
+coat. He does always manage a tidy great coat when November is coming
+on, because it covers everything, and is respectable, but he mostly
+parts with it in April. He gets short, and then he&mdash;just pawns it."</p>
+
+<p>"But he had it the night of the murder?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Ma'am, he had. Amelia and I remembered it especial. When we
+went to bed, which we did soon after ten, it was left in this room,
+lying there on the sofa." They were now sitting in the little back
+parlour, in which Mrs. and Miss Meager were accustomed to live.</p>
+
+<p>"And it was there in the morning?"</p>
+
+<p>"Father had it on when he went out," said Amelia.</p>
+
+<p>"If we paid him he would get it out of the pawnshop, and bring it to
+us, would he not?" asked the lady.</p>
+
+<p>To this Mrs. Meager suggested that it was quite on the cards that Mr.
+Meager might have been able to do better with his coat by selling it,
+and if so, it certainly would have been sold, as no prudent idea of
+redeeming his garment for the next winter's wear would ever enter his
+mind. And Mrs. Meager seemed to think that such a sale would not have
+taken place between her husband and any old friend. "He wouldn't know
+where he sold it," said Mrs. Meager.</p>
+
+<p>"Anyways he'd tell us so," said Amelia.</p>
+
+<p>"But if we paid him to be more accurate?" said Madame Goesler.</p>
+
+<p>"They is so afraid of being took up themselves," said Mrs. Meager.
+There was, however, ample evidence that Mr. Meager had possessed a
+grey great coat, which during the night of the murder had been left
+in the little sitting-room, and which they had supposed to have lain
+there all night. To this coat Mr. Emilius might have had easy access.
+"But then it was a big man that was seen, and Emilius isn't no ways a
+big man. Meager's coat would be too long for him, ever so much."</p>
+
+<p>"Nevertheless we must try and get the coat," said Madame Goesler.
+"I'll speak to a friend about it. I suppose we can find your husband
+when we want him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know, Ma'am. We never can find him; but then we never do
+want him,&mdash;not now. The police know him at the races, no doubt. You
+won't go and get him into trouble, Ma'am, worse than he is? He's
+always been in trouble, but I wouldn't like to be means of making it
+worse on him than it is."</p>
+
+<p>Madame Goesler, as she again paid the woman for her services, assured
+her that she would do no injury to Mr. Meager. All that she wanted of
+Mr. Meager was his grey coat, and that not with any view that could
+be detrimental either to his honour or to his safety, and she was
+willing to pay any reasonable price,&mdash;or almost any unreasonable
+price,&mdash;for the coat. But the coat must be made to be forthcoming if
+it were still in existence, and had not been as yet torn to pieces by
+the shoddy makers.</p>
+
+<p>"It ain't near come to that yet," said Amelia. "I don't know that I
+ever see father more respectable,&mdash;that is, in the way of a great
+coat."</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c57"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER LVII.</h3>
+<h4>THE BEGINNING OF THE SEARCH<br />FOR THE KEY AND THE COAT.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>When Madame Goesler revealed her plans and ideas to Mr. Wickerby, the
+attorney, who had been employed to bring Phineas Finn through his
+troubles, that gentleman evidently did not think much of the
+unprofessional assistance which the lady proposed to give him. "I'm
+afraid it is far-fetched, Ma'am,&mdash;if you understand what I mean,"
+said Mr. Wickerby. Madame Goesler declared that she understood very
+well what Mr. Wickerby meant, but that she could hardly agree with
+him. "According to that the gentleman must have plotted the murder
+more than a month before he committed it," said Mr. Wickerby.</p>
+
+<p>"And why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Murder plots are generally the work of a few hours at the longest,
+Madame Goesler. Anger, combined with an indifference to
+self-sacrifice, does not endure the wear of many days. And the object
+here was insufficient. I don't think we can ask to have the trial put
+off in order to find out whether a false key may have been made in
+Prague."</p>
+
+<p>"And you will not look for the coat?"</p>
+
+<p>"We can look for it, and probably get it, if the woman has not lied
+to you; but I don't think it will do us any good. The woman probably
+is lying. You have been paying her very liberally, so that she has
+been making an excellent livelihood out of the murder. No jury would
+believe her. And a grey coat is a very common thing. After all, it
+would prove nothing. It would only let the jury know that Mr. Meager
+had a grey coat as well as Mr. Finn. That Mr. Finn wore a grey coat
+on that night is a fact which we can't upset. If you got hold of
+Meager's coat you wouldn't be a bit nearer to proof that Emilius had
+worn it."</p>
+
+<p>"There would be the fact that he might have worn it."</p>
+
+<p>"Madame Goesler, indeed it would not help our client. You see what
+are the difficulties in our way. Mr. Finn was on the spot at the
+moment, or so near it as to make it certainly possible that he might
+have been there. There is no such evidence as to Emilius, even if he
+could be shown to have had a latch-key. The man was killed by such an
+instrument as Mr. Finn had about him. There is no evidence that Mr.
+Emilius had such an instrument in his hand. A tall man in a grey coat
+was seen hurrying to the spot at the exact hour. Mr. Finn is a tall
+man and wore a grey coat at the time. Emilius is not a tall man, and,
+even though Meager had a grey coat, there is no evidence to show that
+Emilius ever wore it. Mr. Finn had quarrelled violently with Mr.
+Bonteen within the hour. It does not appear that Emilius ever
+quarrelled with Mr. Bonteen, though Mr. Bonteen had exerted himself
+in opposition to Emilius."</p>
+
+<p>"Is there to be no defence, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly there will be a defence, and such a defence as I think
+will prevent any jury from being unanimous in convicting my client.
+Though there is a great deal of evidence against him, it is all&mdash;what
+we call circumstantial."</p>
+
+<p>"I understand, Mr. Wickerby."</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody saw him commit the murder."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed no," said Madame Goesler.</p>
+
+<p>"Although there is personal similarity, there is no personal
+identity. There is no positive proof of anything illegal on his part,
+or of anything that would have been suspicious had no murder been
+committed,&mdash;such as the purchase of poison, or carrying of a
+revolver. The life-preserver, had no such instrument been
+unfortunately used, might have been regarded as a thing of custom."</p>
+
+<p>"But I am sure that that Bohemian did murder Mr. Bonteen," said
+Madame Goesler, with enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>"Madame," said Mr. Wickerby, holding up both his hands, "I can only
+wish that you could be upon the jury."</p>
+
+<p>"And you won't try to show that the other man might have done it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think not. Next to an alibi that breaks down;&mdash;you know what an
+alibi is, Madame Goesler?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Mr. Wickerby; I know what an alibi is."</p>
+
+<p>"Next to an alibi that breaks down, an unsuccessful attempt to affix
+the fault on another party is the most fatal blow which a prisoner's
+counsel can inflict upon him. It is always taken by the jury as so
+much evidence against him. We must depend altogether on a different
+line of defence."</p>
+
+<p>"What line, Mr. Wickerby?"</p>
+
+<p>"Juries are always unwilling to hang,"&mdash;Madame Goesler shuddered as
+the horrid word was broadly pronounced,&mdash;"and are apt to think that
+simply circumstantial evidence cannot be suffered to demand so
+disagreeable a duty. They are peculiarly averse to hanging a
+gentleman, and will hardly be induced to hang a member of Parliament.
+Then Mr. Finn is very good-looking, and has been popular,&mdash;which is
+all in his favour. And we shall have such evidence on the score of
+character as was never before brought into one of our courts. We
+shall have half the Cabinet. There will be two dukes." Madame
+Goesler, as she listened to the admiring enthusiasm of the attorney
+while he went on with his list, acknowledged to herself that her dear
+friend, the Duchess, had not been idle. "There will be three
+Secretaries of State. The Secretary of State for the Home Department
+himself will be examined. I am not quite sure that we mayn't get the
+Lord Chancellor. There will be Mr. Monk,&mdash;about the most popular man
+in England,&mdash;who will speak of the prisoner as his particular friend.
+I don't think any jury would hang a particular friend of Mr. Monk's.
+And there will be ever so many ladies. That has never been done
+before, but we mean to try it." Madame Goesler had heard all this,
+and had herself assisted in the work. "I rather think we shall get
+four or five leading members of the Opposition, for they all disliked
+Mr. Bonteen. If we could manage Mr. Daubeny and Mr. Gresham, I think
+we might reckon ourselves quite safe. I forgot to say that the Bishop
+of Barchester has promised."</p>
+
+<p>"All that won't prove his innocence, Mr. Wickerby." Mr. Wickerby
+shrugged his shoulders. "If he be acquitted after that fashion men
+then will say&mdash;that he was guilty."</p>
+
+<p>"We must think of his life first, Madame Goesler," said the attorney.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Goesler when she left the attorney's room was very
+ill-satisfied with him. She desired some adherent to her cause who
+would with affectionate zeal resolve upon washing Phineas Finn white
+as snow in reference to the charge now made against him. But no man
+would so resolve who did not believe in his innocence,&mdash;as Madame
+Goesler believed herself. She herself knew that her own belief was
+romantic and unpractical. Nevertheless, the conviction of the guilt
+of that other man, towards which she still thought that much could be
+done if that coat were found and the making of a secret key were
+proved, was so strong upon her that she would not allow herself to
+drop it. It would not be sufficient for her that Phineas Finn should
+be acquitted. She desired that the real murderer should be hung for
+the murder, so that all the world might be sure,&mdash;as she was
+sure,&mdash;that her hero had been wrongfully accused.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean that you are going to start yourself?" the Duchess said
+to her that same afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I am."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you must be very far gone in love, indeed."</p>
+
+<p>"You would do as much, Duchess, if you were free as I am. It isn't a
+matter of love at all. It's womanly enthusiasm for the cause one has
+taken up."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm quite as enthusiastic,&mdash;only I shouldn't like to go to Prague in
+June."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd go to Siberia in January if I could find out that that horrid
+man really committed the murder."</p>
+
+<p>"Who are going with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"We shall be quite a company. We have got a detective policeman, and
+an interpreter who understands Czech and German to go about with the
+policeman, and a lawyer's clerk, and there will be my own maid."</p>
+
+<p>"Everybody will know all about it before you get there."</p>
+
+<p>"We are not to go quite together. The policeman and the interpreter
+are to form one party, and I and my maid another. The poor clerk is
+to be alone. If they get the coat, of course you'll telegraph to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Who is to have the coat?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose they'll take it to Mr. Wickerby. He says he doesn't want
+it,&mdash;that it would do no good. But I think that if we could show that
+the man might very easily have been out of the house,&mdash;that he had
+certainly provided himself with means of getting out of the house
+secretly,&mdash;the coat would be of service. I am going at any rate; and
+shall be in Paris to-morrow morning."</p>
+
+<p>"I think it very grand of you, my dear; and for your sake I hope he
+may live to be Prime Minister. Perhaps, after all, he may give
+Plantagenet his 'Garter.'"</p>
+
+<p>When the old Duke died, a Garter became vacant, and had of course
+fallen to the gift of Mr. Gresham. The Duchess had expected that it
+would be continued in the family, as had been the Lieutenancy of
+Barsetshire, which also had been held by the old Duke. But the Garter
+had been given to Lord Cantrip, and the Duchess was sore. With all
+her Radical propensities and inclination to laugh at dukes and
+marquises, she thought very much of Garters and Lieutenancies;&mdash;but
+her husband would not think of them at all, and hence there were
+words between them. The Duchess had declared that the Duke should
+insist on having the Garter. "These are things that men do not ask
+for," the Duke had said.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't tell me, Plantagenet, about not asking. Everybody asks for
+everything nowadays."</p>
+
+<p>"Your everybody is not correct, Glencora. I never yet asked for
+anything,&mdash;and never shall. No honour has any value in my eyes unless
+it comes unasked." Thereupon it was that the Duchess now suggested
+that Phineas Finn, when Prime Minister, might perhaps bestow a Garter
+upon her husband.</p>
+
+<p>And so Madame Goesler started for Prague with the determination of
+being back, if possible, before the trial began. It was to be
+commenced at the Old Bailey towards the end of June, and people
+already began to foretell that it would extend over a very long
+period. The circumstances seemed to be simple; but they who
+understood such matters declared that the duration of a trial
+depended a great deal more on the public interest felt in the matter
+than upon its own nature. Now it was already perceived that no trial
+of modern days had ever been so interesting as would be this trial.
+It was already known that the Attorney-General, Sir Gregory Grogram,
+was to lead the case for the prosecution, and that the
+Solicitor-General, Sir Simon Slope, was to act with him. It had been
+thought to be due to the memory and character of Mr. Bonteen, who
+when he was murdered had held the office of President of the Board of
+Trade, and who had very nearly been Chancellor of the Exchequer, that
+so unusual a task should be imposed on these two high legal officers
+of the Government. No doubt there would be a crowd of juniors with
+them, but it was understood that Sir Gregory Grogram would himself
+take the burden of the task upon his own shoulders. It was declared
+everywhere that Sir Gregory did believe Phineas Finn to be guilty,
+but it was also declared that Sir Simon Slope was convinced he was
+innocent. The defence was to be entrusted to the well-practised but
+now aged hands of that most experienced practitioner Mr.
+Chaffanbrass, than whom no barrister living or dead ever rescued more
+culprits from the fangs of the law. With Mr. Chaffanbrass, who quite
+late in life had consented to take a silk gown, was to be associated
+Mr. Serjeant Birdbolt,&mdash;who was said to be employed in order that the
+case might be in safe hands should the strength of Mr. Chaffanbrass
+fail him at the last moment; and Mr. Snow, who was supposed to handle
+a witness more judiciously than any of the rising men, and that
+subtle, courageous, eloquent, and painstaking youth, Mr. Golightly,
+who now, with no more than ten or fifteen years' practice, was
+already known to be earning his bread and supporting a wife and
+family.</p>
+
+<p>But the glory of this trial would not depend chiefly on the array of
+counsel, nor on the fact that the Lord Chief Justice himself would be
+the judge, so much as on the social position of the murdered man and
+of the murderer. Noble lords and great statesmen would throng the
+bench of the court to see Phineas Finn tried, and all the world who
+could find an entrance would do the same to see the great statesmen
+and the noble lords. The importance of such an affair increases like
+a snowball as it is rolled on. Many people talk much, and then very
+many people talk very much more. The under-sheriffs of the City,
+praiseworthy gentlemen not hitherto widely known to fame, became
+suddenly conspicuous and popular, as being the dispensers of
+admissions to seats in the court. It had been already admitted by
+judges and counsel that sundry other cases must be postponed, because
+it was known that the Bonteen murder would occupy at least a week. It
+was supposed that Mr. Chaffanbrass would consume a whole day at the
+beginning of the trial in getting a jury to his mind,&mdash;a matter on
+which he was known to be very particular,&mdash;and another whole day at
+the end of the trial in submitting to the jury the particulars of all
+the great cases on record in which circumstantial evidence was known
+to have led to improper verdicts. It was therefore understood that
+the last week in June would be devoted to the trial, to the exclusion
+of all other matters of interest. When Mr. Gresham, hard pressed by
+Mr. Turnbull for a convenient day, offered that gentleman Thursday,
+the 24th of June, for suggesting to the House a little proposition of
+his own with reference to the English Church establishment, Mr.
+Turnbull openly repudiated the offer, because on that day the trial
+of Phineas Finn would be commenced. "I hope," said Mr. Gresham, "that
+the work of the country will not be impeded by that unfortunate
+affair." "I am afraid," said Mr. Turnbull, "that the right honourable
+gentleman will find that the member for Tankerville will on that day
+monopolise the attention of this House." The remark was thought to
+have been made in very bad taste, but nobody doubted its truth.
+Perhaps the interest was enhanced among politicians by the existence
+very generally of an opinion that though Phineas Finn had murdered
+Mr. Bonteen, he would certainly be acquitted. Nothing could then
+prevent the acquitted murderer from resuming his seat in the House,
+and gentlemen were already beginning to ask themselves after what
+fashion it would become them to treat him. Would the Speaker catch
+his eye when he rose to speak? Would he still be "Phineas" to the
+very large number of men with whom his general popularity had made
+him intimate? Would he be cold-shouldered at the clubs, and treated
+as one whose hands were red with blood? or would he become more
+popular than ever, and receive an ovation after his acquittal?</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime Madame Goesler started on her journey for Prague.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c58"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER LVIII.</h3>
+<h4>THE TWO DUKES.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>It was necessary that the country should be governed, even though Mr.
+Bonteen had been murdered;&mdash;and in order that it should be duly
+governed it was necessary that Mr. Bonteen's late place at the Board
+of Trade should be filled. There was some hesitation as to the
+filling it, and when the arrangement was completed people were very
+much surprised indeed. Mr. Bonteen had been appointed chiefly because
+it was thought that he might in that office act as a quasi House of
+Commons deputy to the Duke of Omnium in carrying out his great scheme
+of a five-farthinged penny and a ten-pennied shilling. The Duke, in
+spite of his wealth and rank and honour, was determined to go on with
+his great task. Life would be nothing to him now unless he could at
+least hope to arrange the five farthings. When his wife had bullied
+him about the Garter he had declared to her, and with perfect truth,
+that he had never asked for anything. He had gone on to say that he
+never would ask for anything; and he certainly did not think that he
+was betraying himself with reference to that assurance when he
+suggested to Mr. Gresham that he would himself take the place left
+vacant by Mr. Bonteen&mdash;of course retaining his seat in the Cabinet.</p>
+
+<p>"I should hardly have ventured to suggest such an arrangement to your
+Grace," said the Prime Minister.</p>
+
+<p>"Feeling that it might be so, I thought that I would venture to ask,"
+said the Duke. "I am sure you know that I am the last man to
+interfere as to place or the disposition of power."</p>
+
+<p>"Quite the last man," said Mr. Gresham.</p>
+
+<p>"But it has always been held that the Board of Trade is not
+incompatible with the Peerage."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh dear, yes."</p>
+
+<p>"And I can feel myself nearer to this affair of mine there than I can
+elsewhere."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Gresham of course had no objection to urge. This great nobleman,
+who was now asking for Mr. Bonteen's shoes, had been Chancellor of
+the Exchequer, and would have remained Chancellor of the Exchequer
+had not the mantle of his nobility fallen upon him. At the present
+moment he held an office in which peers are often temporarily
+shelved, or put away, perhaps, out of harm's way for the time, so
+that they may be brought down and used when wanted, without having
+received crack or detriment from that independent action into which a
+politician is likely to fall when his party is "in" but he is still
+"out". He was Lord Privy Seal,&mdash;a Lordship of State which does carry
+with it a status and a seat in the Cabinet, but does not necessarily
+entail any work. But the present Lord, who cared nothing for status,
+and who was much more intent on his work than he was even on his seat
+in the Cabinet, was possessed by what many of his brother politicians
+regarded as a morbid dislike to pretences. He had not been happy
+during his few weeks of the Privy Seal, and had almost envied Mr.
+Bonteen the realities of the Board of Trade. "I think upon the whole
+it will be best to make the change," he said to Mr. Gresham. And Mr.
+Gresham was delighted.</p>
+
+<p>But there were one or two men of mark,&mdash;one or two who were older
+than Mr. Gresham probably, and less perfect in their Liberal
+sympathies,&mdash;who thought that the Duke of Omnium was derogating from
+his proper position in the step which he was now taking. Chief among
+these was his friend the Duke of St. Bungay, who alone perhaps could
+venture to argue the matter with him. "I almost wish that you had
+spoken to me first," said the elder Duke.</p>
+
+<p>"I feared that I should find you so strongly opposed to my
+resolution."</p>
+
+<p>"If it was a resolution."</p>
+
+<p>"I think it was," said the younger. "It was a great misfortune to me
+that I should have been obliged to leave the House of Commons."</p>
+
+<p>"You should not feel it so."</p>
+
+<p>"My whole life was there," said he who, as Plantagenet Palliser, had
+been so good a commoner.</p>
+
+<p>"But your whole life should certainly not be there now,&mdash;nor your
+whole heart. On you the circumstances of your birth have imposed
+duties quite as high, and I will say quite as useful, as any which a
+career in the House of Commons can put within the reach of a man."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think so, Duke?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly I do. I do think that the England which we know could not
+be the England that she is but for the maintenance of a high-minded,
+proud, and self-denying nobility. And though with us there is no line
+dividing our very broad aristocracy into two parts, a higher and a
+lower, or a greater and a smaller, or a richer and a poorer,
+nevertheless we all feel that the success of our order depends
+chiefly on the conduct of those whose rank is the highest and whose
+means are the greatest. To some few, among whom you are conspicuously
+one, wealth has been given so great and rank so high that much of the
+welfare of your country depends on the manner in which you bear
+yourself as the Duke of Omnium."</p>
+
+<p>"I would not wish to think so."</p>
+
+<p>"Your uncle so thought. And, though he was a man very different from
+you, not inured to work in his early life, with fewer attainments,
+probably a slower intellect, and whose general conduct was inferior
+to your own,&mdash;I speak freely because the subject is important,&mdash;he
+was a man who understood his position and the requirements of his
+order very thoroughly. A retinue almost Royal, together with an
+expenditure which Royalty could not rival, secured for him the
+respect of the nation."</p>
+
+<p>"Your life has not been as was his, and you have won a higher
+respect."</p>
+
+<p>"I think not. The greater part of my life was spent in the House of
+Commons, and my fortune was never much more than the tenth of his.
+But I wish to make no such comparison."</p>
+
+<p>"I must make it, if I am to judge which I would follow."</p>
+
+<p>"Pray understand me, my friend," said the old man, energetically. "I
+am not advising you to abandon public life in order that you may live
+in repose as a great nobleman. It would not be in your nature to do
+so, nor could the country afford to lose your services. But you need
+not therefore take your place in the arena of politics as though you
+were still Plantagenet Palliser, with no other duties than those of a
+politician,&mdash;as you might so well have done had your uncle's titles
+and wealth descended to a son."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish they had," said the regretful Duke.</p>
+
+<p>"It cannot be so. Your brother perhaps wishes that he were a Duke,
+but it has been arranged otherwise. It is vain to repine. Your wife
+is unhappy because your uncle's Garter was not at once given to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Glencora is like other women,&mdash;of course."</p>
+
+<p>"I share her feelings. Had Mr. Gresham consulted me, I should not
+have scrupled to tell him that it would have been for the welfare of
+his party that the Duke of Omnium should be graced with any and every
+honour in his power to bestow. Lord Cantrip is my friend, almost as
+warmly as are you; but the country would not have missed the ribbon
+from the breast of Lord Cantrip. Had you been more the Duke, and less
+the slave of your country, it would have been sent to you. Do I make
+you angry by speaking so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not in the least. I have but one ambition."</p>
+
+<p>"And that is&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"To be the serviceable slave of my country."</p>
+
+<p>"A master is more serviceable than a slave," said the old man.</p>
+
+<p>"No; no; I deny it. I can admit much from you, but I cannot admit
+that. The politician who becomes the master of his country sinks from
+the statesman to the tyrant."</p>
+
+<p>"We misunderstand each other, my friend. Pitt, and Peel, and
+Palmerston were not tyrants, though each assumed and held for
+himself to the last the mastery of which I speak. Smaller men who
+have been slaves, have been as patriotic as they, but less useful. I
+regret that you should follow Mr. Bonteen in his office."</p>
+
+<p>"Because he was Mr. Bonteen."</p>
+
+<p>"All the circumstances of the transfer of office occasioned by your
+uncle's death seem to me to make it undesirable. I would not have you
+make yourself too common. This very murder adds to the feeling.
+Because Mr. Bonteen has been lost to us, the Minister has recourse to
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"It was my own suggestion."</p>
+
+<p>"But who knows that it was so? You, and I, and Mr. Gresham&mdash;and
+perhaps one or two others."</p>
+
+<p>"It is too late now, Duke; and, to tell the truth of myself, not even
+you can make me other than I am. My uncle's life to me was always a
+problem which I could not understand. Were I to attempt to walk in
+his ways I should fail utterly, and become absurd. I do not feel the
+disgrace of following Mr. Bonteen."</p>
+
+<p>"I trust you may at least be less unfortunate."</p>
+
+<p>"Well;&mdash;yes. I need not expect to be murdered in the streets because
+I am going to the Board of Trade. I shall have made no enemy by my
+political success."</p>
+
+<p>"You think that&mdash;Mr. Finn&mdash;did do that deed?" asked the elder Duke.</p>
+
+<p>"I hardly know what I think. My wife is sure that he is innocent."</p>
+
+<p>"The Duchess is enthusiastic always."</p>
+
+<p>"Many others think the same. Lord and Lady Chiltern are sure of
+that."</p>
+
+<p>"They were always his best friends."</p>
+
+<p>"I am told that many of the lawyers are sure that it will be
+impossible to convict him. If he be acquitted I shall strive to think
+him innocent. He will come back to the House, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"I should think he would apply for the Hundreds," said the Duke of
+St. Bungay.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not see why he should. I would not in his place. If he be
+innocent, why should he admit himself unfit for a seat in Parliament?
+I tell you what he might do;&mdash;resign, and then throw himself again
+upon his constituency." The other Duke shook his head, thereby
+declaring his opinion that Phineas Finn was in truth the man who had
+murdered Mr. Bonteen.</p>
+
+<p>When it was publicly known that the Duke of Omnium had stepped into
+Mr. Bonteen's shoes, the general opinion certainly coincided with
+that given by the Duke of St. Bungay. It was not only that the late
+Chancellor of the Exchequer should not have consented to fill so low
+an office, or that the Duke of Omnium should have better known his
+own place, or that he should not have succeeded a man so
+insignificant as Mr. Bonteen. These things, no doubt, were said,&mdash;but
+more was said also. It was thought that he should not have gone to an
+office which had been rendered vacant by the murder of a man who had
+been placed there merely to assist himself. If the present
+arrangement was good, why should it not have been made independently
+of Mr. Bonteen? Questions were asked about it in both Houses, and the
+transfer no doubt did have the effect of lowering the man in the
+estimation of the political world. He himself felt that he did not
+stand so high with his colleagues as when he was Chancellor of the
+Exchequer; not even so high as when he held the Privy Seal. In the
+printed lists of those who attended the Cabinets his name generally
+was placed last, and an opponent on one occasion thought, or
+pretended to think, that he was no more than Postmaster-General. He
+determined to bear all this without wincing,&mdash;but he did wince. He
+would not own to himself that he had been wrong, but he was sore,&mdash;as
+a man is sore who doubts about his own conduct; and he was not the
+less so because he strove to bear his wife's sarcasms without showing
+that they pained him.</p>
+
+<p>"They say that poor Lord Fawn is losing his mind," she said to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord Fawn! I haven't heard anything about it."</p>
+
+<p>"He was engaged to Lady Eustace once, you remember. They say that
+he'll be made to declare why he didn't marry her if this bigamy case
+goes on. And then it's so unfortunate that he should have seen the
+man in the grey coat; I hope he won't have to resign."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope not, indeed."</p>
+
+<p>"Because, of course, you'd have to take his place as
+Under-Secretary." This was very awkward;&mdash;but the husband only
+smiled, and expressed a hope that if he did so he might himself be
+equal to his new duties. "By the bye, Plantagenet, what do you mean
+to do about the jewels?"</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't thought about them. Madame Goesler had better take them."</p>
+
+<p>"But she won't."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose they had better be sold."</p>
+
+<p>"By auction?"</p>
+
+<p>"That would be the proper way."</p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't like that at all. Couldn't we buy them ourselves, and
+let the money stand till she choose to take it? It's an affair of
+trade, I suppose, and you're at the head of all that now." Then again
+she asked him some question about the Home Secretary, with reference
+to Phineas Finn; and when he told her that it would be highly
+improper for him to speak to that officer on such a subject, she
+pretended to suppose that the impropriety would consist in the
+interference of a man holding so low a position as he was. "Of course
+it is not the same now," she said, "as it used to be when you were at
+the Exchequer." All which he took without uttering a word of anger,
+or showing a sign of annoyance. "You only get two thousand a year, do
+you, at the Board of Trade, Plantagenet?"</p>
+
+<p>"Upon my word, I forget. I think it's two thousand five hundred."</p>
+
+<p>"How nice! It was five at the Exchequer, wasn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; five thousand at the Exchequer."</p>
+
+<p>"When you're a Lord of the Treasury it will only be one;&mdash;will it?"</p>
+
+<p>"What a goose you are, Glencora. If it suited me to be a Lord of the
+Treasury, what difference would the salary make?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not the least;&mdash;nor yet the rank, or the influence, or the prestige,
+or the general fitness of things. You are above all such sublunary
+ideas. You would clean Mr. Gresham's shoes for him, if&mdash;the service
+of your country required it." These last words she added in a tone of
+voice very similar to that which her husband himself used on
+occasions.</p>
+
+<p>"I would even allow you to clean them,&mdash;if the service of the country
+required it," said the Duke.</p>
+
+<p>But, though he was magnanimous, he was not happy, and perhaps the
+intense anxiety which his wife displayed as to the fate of Phineas
+Finn added to his discomfort. The Duchess, as the Duke of St. Bungay
+had said, was enthusiastic, and he never for a moment dreamed of
+teaching her to change her nature; but it would have been as well if
+her enthusiasm at the present moment could have been brought to
+display itself on some other subject. He had been brought to feel
+that Phineas Finn had been treated badly when the good things of
+Government were being given away, and that this had been caused by
+the jealous prejudices of the man who had been since murdered. But an
+expectant Under-Secretary of State, let him have been ever so cruelly
+left out in the cold, should not murder the man by whom he has been
+ill-treated. Looking at all the evidence as best he could, and
+listening to the opinions of others, the Duke did think that Phineas
+had been guilty. The murder had clearly been committed by a personal
+enemy, not by a robber. Two men were known to have entertained
+feelings of enmity against Mr. Bonteen; as to one of whom he was
+assured that it was impossible that he should have been on the spot.
+As to the other it seemed equally manifest that he must have been
+there. If it were so, it would have been much better that his wife
+should not display her interest publicly in the murderer's favour.
+But the Duchess, wherever she went, spoke of the trial as a
+persecution; and seemed to think that the prisoner should already be
+treated as a hero and a martyr. "Glencora," he said to her, "I wish
+that you could drop the subject of this trial till it be over."</p>
+
+<p>"But I can't."</p>
+
+<p>"Surely you can avoid speaking of it."</p>
+
+<p>"No more than you can avoid your decimals. Out of the full heart the
+mouth speaks, and my heart is very full. What harm do I do?"</p>
+
+<p>"You set people talking of you."</p>
+
+<p>"They have been doing that ever since we were married;&mdash;but I do not
+know that they have made out much against me. We must go after our
+nature, Plantagenet. Your nature is decimals. I run after units." He
+did not deem it wise to say anything further,&mdash;knowing that to this
+evil also of Phineas Finn the gods would at last vouchsafe an ending.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c59"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER LIX.</h3>
+<h4>MRS. BONTEEN.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>At the time of the murder, Lady Eustace, whom we must regard as the
+wife of Mr. Emilius till it be proved that he had another wife when
+he married her, was living as the guest of Mr. Bonteen. Mr. Bonteen
+had pledged himself to prove the bigamy, and Mrs. Bonteen had opened
+her house and her heart to the injured lady. Lizzie Eustace, as she
+had always been called, was clever, rich, and pretty, and knew well
+how to ingratiate herself with the friend of the hour. She was a
+greedy, grasping little woman, but, when she had before her a
+sufficient object, she could appear to pour all that she had into her
+friend's lap with all the prodigality of a child. Perhaps Mrs.
+Bonteen had liked to have things poured into her lap. Perhaps Mr.
+Bonteen had enjoyed the confidential tears of a pretty woman. It may
+be that the wrongs of a woman doomed to live with Mr. Emilius as his
+wife had touched their hearts. Be that as it might, they had become
+the acknowledged friends and supporters of Lady Eustace, and she was
+living with them in their little house in St. James's Place on that
+fatal night.</p>
+
+
+<div class="center"><a id="ill59"></a>
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4px">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/ill59.jpg">
+      <img src="images/ill59-t.jpg" height="600"
+      alt="LIZZIE EUSTACE." /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption"><span class="smallcaps">Lizzie
+      Eustace.</span><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/ill59.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>Lizzie behaved herself very well when the terrible tidings were
+brought home. Mr. Bonteen was so often late at the House or at his
+club that his wife rarely sat up for him; and when the servants were
+disturbed between six and seven o'clock in the morning, no surprise
+had as yet been felt at his absence. The sergeant of police who had
+brought the news sent for the maid of the unfortunate lady, and the
+maid, in her panic, told her story to Lady Eustace before daring to
+communicate it to her mistress. Lizzie Eustace, who in former days
+had known something of policemen, saw the man, and learned from him
+all that there was to learn. Then, while the sergeant remained on the
+landing place, outside, to support her, if necessary, with the maid
+by her side to help her, kneeling by the bed, she told the wretched
+woman what had happened. We need not witness the paroxysms of the
+widow's misery, but we may understand that Lizzie Eustace was from
+that moment more strongly fixed than ever in her friendship with Mrs.
+Bonteen.</p>
+
+<p>When the first three or four days of agony and despair had passed by,
+and the mind of the bereaved woman was able to turn itself from the
+loss to the cause of the loss, Mrs. Bonteen became fixed in her
+certainty that Phineas Finn had murdered her husband, and seemed to
+think that it was the first and paramount duty of the present
+Government to have the murderer hung,&mdash;almost without a trial. When
+she found that, at the best, the execution of the man she so
+vehemently hated could not take place for two months after the doing
+of the deed, even if then, she became almost frantic in her anger.
+Surely they would not let him escape! What more proof could be
+needed? Had not the miscreant quarrelled with her husband, and
+behaved abominably to him but a few minutes before the murder? Had he
+not been on the spot with the murderous instrument in his pocket? Had
+he not been seen by Lord Fawn hastening on the steps of her dear and
+doomed husband? Mrs. Bonteen, as she sat enveloped in her new weeds,
+thirsting for blood, could not understand that further evidence
+should be needed, or that a rational doubt should remain in the mind
+of any one who knew the circumstances. It was to her as though she
+had seen the dastard blow struck, and with such conviction as this on
+her mind did she insist on talking of the coming trial to her inmate,
+Lady Eustace. But Lizzie had her own opinion, though she was forced
+to leave it unexpressed in the presence of Mrs. Bonteen. She knew the
+man who claimed her as his wife, and did not think that Phineas Finn
+was guilty of the murder. Her Emilius,&mdash;her Yosef Mealyus, as she had
+delighted to call him, since she had separated herself from
+him,&mdash;was, as she thought, the very man to commit a murder. He was by
+no means degraded in her opinion by the feeling. To commit great
+crimes is the line of life that comes naturally to some men, and was,
+as she thought, a line less objectionable than that which confines
+itself to small crimes. She almost felt that the audacity of her
+husband in doing such a deed redeemed her from some of the ignominy
+to which she had subjected herself by her marriage with a runaway who
+had another wife living. There was a dash of adventure about it which
+was almost gratifying. But these feelings she was obliged, at any
+rate for the present, to keep to herself. Not only must she
+acknowledge the undoubted guilt of Phineas Finn for the sake of her
+friend, Mrs. Bonteen; but she must consider carefully whether she
+would gain or lose more by having a murderer for her husband. She did
+not relish the idea of being made a widow by the gallows. She was
+still urgent as to the charge of bigamy, and should she succeed in
+proving that the man had never been her husband, then she did not
+care how soon they might hang him. But for the present it was better
+for all reasons that she should cling to the Phineas Finn
+theory,&mdash;feeling certain that it was the bold hand of her own Emilius
+who had struck the blow.</p>
+
+<p>She was by no means free from the solicitations of her husband, who
+knew well where she was, and who still adhered to his purpose of
+reclaiming his wife and his wife's property. When he was released by
+the magistrate's order, and had recovered his goods from Mr. Meager's
+house, and was once more established in lodgings, humbler, indeed,
+than those in Northumberland Street, he wrote the following letter to
+her who had been for one blessed year the partner of his joys, and
+his bosom's mistress:&mdash;<br />&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="jright">3, Jellybag Street, Edgware Road,<br />
+May 26, 18&mdash;.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smallcaps">Dearest Wife</span>,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>You will have heard to what additional sorrow and disgrace I have
+been subjected through the malice of my enemies. But all in vain!
+Though princes and potentates have been arrayed against me [the
+princes and potentates had no doubt been Lord Chiltern and Mr. Low],
+innocence has prevailed, and I have come out from the ordeal white as
+bleached linen or unsullied snow. The murderer is in the hands of
+justice, and though he be the friend of kings and princes [Mr.
+Emilius had probably heard that the
+Prince had been at the club with Phineas],
+yet shall justice be done upon him,
+and the truth of the Lord shall
+be made to prevail. Mr. Bonteen has been very hostile to me,
+believing evil things of me, and instigating you, my beloved, to
+believe evil of me. Nevertheless, I grieve for his death. I lament
+bitterly that he should have been cut off in his sins, and hurried
+before the judgment seat of the great Judge without an hour given to
+him for repentance. Let us pray that the mercy of the Lord may be
+extended even to him. I beg that you will express my deepest
+commiseration to his widow, and assure her that she has my prayers.</p>
+
+<p>And now, my dearest wife, let me approach my own affairs. As I have
+come out unscorched from the last fiery furnace which has been heated
+for me by my enemies seven times hot, so shall I escape from that
+other fire with which the poor man who has gone from us endeavoured
+to envelop me. If they have made you believe that I have any wife but
+yourself they have made you believe a falsehood. You, and you only,
+have my hand. You, and you only, have my heart. I know well what
+attempts are being made to suborn false evidence in my old country,
+and how the follies of my youth are being pressed against me,&mdash;how
+anxious are proud Englishmen that the poor Bohemian should be robbed
+of the beauty and wit and wealth which he had won for himself. But
+the Lord fights on my side, and I shall certainly prevail.</p>
+
+<p>If you will come back to me all shall be forgiven. My heart is as it
+ever was. Come, and let us leave this cold and ungenial country and
+go to the sunny south; to the islands of the blest,&mdash;<br />&nbsp;</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+<p class="noindent">Mr. Emilius
+during his married life had not quite fathomed the depths
+of his wife's character, though, no doubt, he had caught some points
+of it with sufficient accuracy.<br />&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="noindent">&mdash;where we may forget these blood-stained
+sorrows, and mutually forgive
+each other. What happiness, what joys can you expect in your present
+mode of life? Even your income,&mdash;which in truth is my income,&mdash;you
+cannot obtain, because the tenants will not dare to pay it in
+opposition to my legal claims. But of what use is gold? What can
+purple do for us, and fine linen, and rich jewels, without love and a
+contented heart? Come, dearest, once more to your own one, who will
+never remember aught of the sad rupture which enemies have made, and
+we will hurry to the setting sun, and recline on mossy banks, and
+give up our souls to Elysium.<br />&nbsp;</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+<p class="noindent">As Lizzie read this
+she uttered an exclamation of disgust. Did the
+man after all know so little of her as to suppose that she, with all
+her experiences, did not know how to keep her own life and her own
+pocket separate from her romance? She despised him for this, almost
+as much as she respected him for the murder.<br />&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>If you will only say that you will see me, I will be at your feet in
+a moment. Till the solemnity with which the late tragical event must
+have filled you shall have left you leisure to think of all this, I
+will not force myself into your presence, or seek to secure by law
+rights which will be much dearer to me if they are accorded by your
+own sweet goodwill. And in the meantime, I will agree that the income
+shall be drawn, provided that it be equally divided between us. I
+have been sorely straitened in my circumstances by these last events.
+My congregation is of course dispersed. Though my innocence has been
+triumphantly displayed, my name has been tarnished. It is with
+difficulty that I find a spot where to lay my weary head. I am
+ahungered and athirst;&mdash;and my very garments are parting from me in
+my need. Can it be that you willingly doom me to such misery because
+of my love for you? Had I been less true to you, it might have been
+otherwise.</p>
+
+<p>Let me have an answer at once, and I will instantly take steps about
+the money if you will agree.</p>
+
+<p class="ind8">Your truly most loving husband,</p>
+
+<p class="ind14"><span class="smallcaps">Joseph Emilius</span>.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">To Lady Eustace, wife of the Rev.
+Joseph Emilius.<br />&nbsp;</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+<p>When Lizzie had read the letter twice through she resolved that she
+would show it to her friend. "I know it will reopen the floodgates of
+your grief," she said; "but unless you see it, how can I ask from you
+the advice which is so necessary to me?" But Mrs. Bonteen was a woman
+sincere at any rate in this,&mdash;that the loss of her husband had been
+to her so crushing a calamity that there could be no reopening of the
+floodgates. The grief that cannot bear allusion to its causes has
+generally something of affectation in its composition. The floodgates
+with this widowed one had never yet been for a moment closed. It was
+not that her tears were ever flowing, but that her heart had never
+yet for a moment ceased to feel that its misery was incapable of
+alleviation. No utterances concerning her husband could make her more
+wretched than she was. She took the letter and read it through. "I
+daresay he is a bad man," said Mrs. Bonteen.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed he is," said the bad man's wife.</p>
+
+<p>"But he was not guilty of this crime."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no;&mdash;I am sure of that," said Lady Eustace, feeling certain at
+the same time that Mr. Bonteen had fallen by her husband's hands.</p>
+
+<p>"And therefore I am glad they have given him up. There can be no
+doubt now about it."</p>
+
+<p>"Everybody knows who did it now," said Lady Eustace.</p>
+
+<p>"Infamous ruffian! My poor dear lost one always knew what he was. Oh
+that such a creature should have been allowed to come among us."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course he'll be hung, Mrs. Bonteen."</p>
+
+<p>"Hung! I should think so! What other end would be fit for him? Oh,
+yes; they must hang him. But it makes one think that the world is too
+hard a place to live in, when such a one as he can cause so great a
+ruin."</p>
+
+<p>"It has been very terrible."</p>
+
+<p>"Think what the country has lost! They tell me that the Duke of
+Omnium is to take my husband's place; but the Duke cannot do what he
+did. Every one knows that for real work there was no one like him.
+Nothing was more certain than that he would have been Prime
+Minister,&mdash;oh, very soon. They ought to pinch him to death with
+red-hot tweezers."</p>
+
+<p>But Lady Eustace was anxious at the present moment to talk about her
+own troubles. "Of course, Mr. Emilius did not commit the murder."</p>
+
+<p>"Phineas Finn committed it," said the half-maddened woman, rising
+from her chair. "And Phineas Finn shall hang by his neck till he is
+dead."</p>
+
+<p>"But Emilius has certainly got another wife in Prague."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you know. He said it was so, and he was always right."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure of it,&mdash;just as you are sure of this horrid Mr. Finn."</p>
+
+<p>"The two things can't be named together, Lady Eustace."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not. I wouldn't think of being so unfeeling. But he has
+written me this letter, and what must I do? It is very dreadful about
+the money, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"He cannot touch your money. My dear one always said that he could
+not touch it."</p>
+
+<p>"But he prevents me from touching it. What they give me only comes by
+a sort of favour from the lawyer. I almost wish that I had
+compromised."</p>
+
+<p>"You would not be rid of him that way."</p>
+
+<p>"No;&mdash;not quite rid of him. You see I never had to take that horrid
+name because of the title. I suppose I'd better send the letter to
+the lawyer."</p>
+
+<p>"Send it to the lawyer, of course. That is what he would have done.
+They tell me that the trial is to be on the 24th of June. Why should
+they postpone it so long? They know all about it. They always
+postpone everything. If he had lived, there would be an end of that
+before long."</p>
+
+<p>Lady Eustace was tired of the virtues of her friend's martyred lord,
+and was very anxious to talk of her own affairs. She was still
+holding her husband's letter open in her hand, and was thinking how
+she could force her friend's dead lion to give place for a while to
+her own live dog, when a servant announced that Mr. Camperdown, the
+attorney, was below. In former days there had been an old Mr.
+Camperdown, who was vehemently hostile to poor Lizzie Eustace; but
+now, in her new troubles, the firm that had ever been true to her
+first husband had taken up her case for the sake of the family and
+her property&mdash;and for the sake of the heir, Lizzie Eustace's little
+boy; and Mr. Camperdown's firm had, next to Mr. Bonteen, been the
+depository of her trust. He had sent clerks out to Prague,&mdash;one who
+had returned ill,&mdash;as some had said poisoned, though the poison had
+probably been nothing more than the diet natural to Bohemians. And
+then another had been sent. This, of course, had all been previous to
+Madame Goesler's self-imposed mission,&mdash;which, though it was
+occasioned altogether by the suspected wickednesses of Mr. Emilius,
+had no special reference to his matrimonial escapades. And now Mr.
+Camperdown was down stairs. "Shall I go down to him, dear Mrs.
+Bonteen?"</p>
+
+<p>"He may come here if you please."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps I had better go down. He will disturb you."</p>
+
+<p>"My darling lost one always thought that there should be two present
+to hear such matters. He said it was safer." Mr. Camperdown, junior,
+was therefore shown upstairs to Mrs. Bonteen's drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p>"We have found it all out, Lady Eustace," said Mr. Camperdown.</p>
+
+<p>"Found out what?"</p>
+
+<p>"We've got Madame Mealyus over here."</p>
+
+<p>"No!" said Mrs. Bonteen, with her hands raised. Lady Eustace sat
+silent, with her mouth open.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed;&mdash;and photographs of the registry of the marriage from
+the books of the synagogue at Cracow. His signature was Yosef
+Mealyus, and his handwriting isn't a bit altered. I think we could
+have proved it without the lady; but of course it was better to bring
+her if possible."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is she?" asked Lizzie, thinking that she would like to see her
+own predecessor.</p>
+
+<p>"We have her safe, Lady Eustace. She's not in custody; but as she
+can't speak a word of English or French, she finds it more
+comfortable to be kept in private. We're afraid it will cost a little
+money."</p>
+
+<p>"Will she swear that she is his wife?" asked Mrs. Bonteen.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes; there'll be no difficulty about that. But her swearing
+alone mightn't be enough."</p>
+
+<p>"Surely that settles it all," said Lady Eustace.</p>
+
+<p>"For the money that we shall have to pay," said Mr. Camperdown, "we
+might probably have got a dozen Bohemian ladies to come and swear
+that they were married to Yosef Mealyus at Cracow. The difficulty has
+been to bring over documentary evidence which will satisfy a jury
+that this is the woman she says she is. But I think we've got it."</p>
+
+<p>"And I shall be free!" said Lady Eustace, clasping her hands
+together.</p>
+
+<p>"It will cost a good deal, I fear," said Mr. Camperdown.</p>
+
+<p>"But I shall be free! Oh, Mr. Camperdown, there is not a woman in all
+the world who cares so little for money as I do. But I shall be free
+from the power of that horrid man who has entangled me in the meshes
+of his sinful life." Mr. Camperdown told her that he thought that she
+would be free, and went on to say that Yosef Mealyus had already been
+arrested, and was again in prison. The unfortunate man had not
+therefore long enjoyed that humbler apartment which he had found for
+himself in Jellybag Street.</p>
+
+<p>When Mr. Camperdown went, Mrs. Bonteen followed him out to the top of
+the stairs. "You have heard about the trial, Mr. Camperdown?" He said
+that he knew that it was to take place at the Central Criminal Court
+in June. "Yes; I don't know why they have put it off so long. People
+know that he did it&mdash;eh?" Mr. Camperdown, with funereal sadness,
+declared that he had never looked into the matter. "I cannot
+understand that everybody should not know it," said Mrs. Bonteen.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c60"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER LX.</h3>
+<h4>TWO DAYS BEFORE THE TRIAL.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>There was a scene in the private room of Mr. Wickerby, the attorney
+in Hatton Garden, which was very distressing indeed to the feelings
+of Lord Fawn, and which induced his lordship to think that he was
+being treated without that respect which was due to him as a peer and
+a member of the Government. There were present at this scene Mr.
+Chaffanbrass, the old barrister, Mr. Wickerby himself, Mr. Wickerby's
+confidential clerk, Lord Fawn, Lord Fawn's solicitor,&mdash;that same Mr.
+Camperdown whom we saw in the last chapter calling upon Lady
+Eustace,&mdash;and a policeman. Lord Fawn had been invited to attend, with
+many protestations of regret as to the trouble thus imposed upon him,
+because the very important nature of the evidence about to be given
+by him at the forthcoming trial seemed to render it expedient that
+some questions should be asked. This was on Tuesday, the 22nd June,
+and the trial was to be commenced on the following Thursday. And
+there was present in the room, very conspicuously, an old heavy grey
+great coat, as to which Mr. Wickerby had instructed Mr. Chaffanbrass
+that evidence was forthcoming, if needed, to prove that that coat was
+lying on the night of the murder in a downstairs room in the house in
+which Yosef Mealyus was then lodging. The reader will remember the
+history of the coat. Instigated by Madame Goesler, who was still
+absent from England, Mr. Wickerby had traced the coat, and had
+purchased the coat, and was in a position to prove that this very
+coat was the coat which Mr. Meager had brought home with him to
+Northumberland Street on that day. But Mr. Wickerby was of opinion
+that the coat had better not be used. "It does not go far enough,"
+said Mr. Wickerby. "It don't go very far, certainly," said Mr.
+Chaffanbrass. "And if you try to show that another man has done it,
+and he hasn't," said Mr. Wickerby, "it always tells against you with
+a jury." To this Mr. Chaffanbrass made no reply, preferring to form
+his own opinion, and to keep it to himself when formed. But in
+obedience to his instructions, Lord Fawn was asked to attend at Mr.
+Wickerby's chambers, in the cause of truth, and the coat was brought
+out on the occasion. "Was that the sort of coat the man wore, my
+lord?" said Mr. Chaffanbrass as Mr. Wickerby held up the coat to
+view. Lord Fawn walked round and round the coat, and looked at it
+very carefully before he would vouchsafe a reply. "You see it is a
+grey coat," said Mr. Chaffanbrass, not speaking at all in the tone
+which Mr. Wickerby's note had induced Lord Fawn to expect.</p>
+
+<p>"It is grey," said Lord Fawn.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps it's not the same shade of grey, Lord Fawn. You see, my
+lord, we are most anxious not to impute guilt where guilt doesn't
+lie. You are a witness for the Crown, and, of course, you will tell
+the Crown lawyers all that passes here. Were it possible, we would
+make this little preliminary inquiry in their presence;&mdash;but we can
+hardly do that. Mr. Finn's coat was a very much smaller coat."</p>
+
+<p>"I should think it was," said his lordship, who did not like being
+questioned about coats.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't think the coat the man wore when you saw him was a big
+coat like that? You think he wore a little coat?"</p>
+
+<p>"He wore a grey coat," said Lord Fawn.</p>
+
+<p>"This is grey;&mdash;a coat shouldn't be greyer than that."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think Lord Fawn should be asked any more questions on the
+matter till he gives his evidence in court," said Mr. Camperdown.</p>
+
+<p>"A man's life depends on it, Mr. Camperdown," said the barrister. "It
+isn't a matter of cross-examination. If I bring that coat into court
+I must make a charge against another man by the very act of doing so.
+And I will not do so unless I believe that other man to be guilty.
+It's an inquiry I can't postpone till we are before the jury. It
+isn't that I want to trump up a case against another man for the sake
+of extricating my client on a false issue. Lord Fawn doesn't want to
+hang Mr. Finn if Mr. Finn be not guilty."</p>
+
+<p>"God forbid!" said his lordship.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Finn couldn't have worn that coat, or a coat at all like it."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it you do want to learn, Mr. Chaffanbrass?" asked Mr.
+Camperdown.</p>
+
+<p>"Just put on the coat, Mr. Scruby." Then at the order of the
+barrister, Mr. Scruby, the attorney's clerk, did put on Mr. Meager's
+old great coat, and walked about the room in it. "Walk quick," said
+Mr. Chaffanbrass;&mdash;and the clerk did "walk quick." He was a stout,
+thick-set little man, nearly half a foot shorter than Phineas Finn.
+"Is that at all like the figure?" asked Mr. Chaffanbrass.</p>
+
+<p>"I think it is like the figure," said Lord Fawn.</p>
+
+<p>"And like the coat?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's the same colour as the coat."</p>
+
+<p>"You wouldn't swear it was not the coat?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not on my oath at all, Mr. Chaffanbrass."</p>
+
+<p>"No, my lord;&mdash;but to me your word is as good as your oath. If you
+think it possible that was the
+<span class="nowrap">coat&mdash;"</span></p>
+
+<p>"I don't think anything about it at all. When Mr. Scruby hurries down
+the room in that way he looks as the man looked when he was hurrying
+under the lamp-post. I am not disposed to say any more at present."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a matter of regret to me that Lord Fawn should have come here
+at all," said Mr. Camperdown, who had been summoned to meet his
+client at the chambers, but had come with him.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose his lordship wishes us to know all that he knew, seeing
+that it's a question of hanging the right man or the wrong one. I
+never heard such trash in my life. Take it off, Mr. Scruby, and let
+the policeman keep it. I understand Lord Fawn to say that the man's
+figure was about the same as yours. My client, I believe, stands
+about twelve inches taller. Thank you, my lord;&mdash;we shall get at the
+truth at last, I don't doubt." It was afterwards said that Mr.
+Chaffanbrass's conduct had been very improper in enticing Lord Fawn
+to Mr. Wickerby's chambers; but Mr. Chaffanbrass never cared what any
+one said. "I don't know that we can make much of it," he said, when
+he and Mr. Wickerby were alone, "but it may be as well to bring it
+into court. It would prove nothing against the Jew even if that
+fellow,"&mdash;he meant Lord Fawn,&mdash;"could be made to swear that the coat
+worn was exactly similar to this. I am thinking now about the
+height."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't doubt but you'll get him off."</p>
+
+<p>"Well;&mdash;I may do so. They ought not to hang any man on such evidence
+as there is against him, even though there were no moral doubt of his
+guilt. There is nothing really to connect Mr. Phineas Finn with the
+murder,&mdash;nothing tangible. But there is no saying nowadays what a
+jury will do. Juries depend a great deal more on the judge than they
+used to do. If I were on trial for my life, I don't think I'd have
+counsel at all."</p>
+
+<p>"No one could defend you as well as yourself, Mr. Chaffanbrass."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't mean that. No;&mdash;I shouldn't defend myself. I should say to
+the judge, 'My lord, I don't doubt the jury will do just as you tell
+them, and you'll form your own opinion quite independent of the
+arguments.'"</p>
+
+<p>"You'd be hung, Mr. Chaffanbrass."</p>
+
+<p>"No; I don't know that I should," said Mr. Chaffanbrass, slowly. "I
+don't think I could affront a judge of the present day into hanging
+me. They've too much of what I call thick-skinned honesty for that.
+It's the temper of the time to resent nothing,&mdash;to be mealy-mouthed
+and mealy-hearted. Jurymen are afraid of having their own opinion,
+and almost always shirk a verdict when they can."</p>
+
+<p>"But we do get verdicts."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; the judges give them. And they are mealy-mouthed verdicts,
+tending to equalise crime and innocence, and to make men think that
+after all it may be a question whether fraud is violence, which,
+after all, is manly, and to feel that we cannot afford to hate
+dishonesty. It was a bad day for the commercial world, Mr. Wickerby,
+when forgery ceased to be capital."</p>
+
+<p>"It was a horrid thing to hang a man for writing another man's name
+to a receipt for thirty shillings."</p>
+
+<p>"We didn't do it, but the fact that the law held certain frauds to be
+hanging matters operated on the minds of men in regard to all fraud.
+What with the joint-stock working of companies, and the confusion
+between directors who know nothing and managers who know everything,
+and the dislike of juries to tread upon people's corns, you can't
+punish dishonest trading. Caveat emptor is the only motto going,
+and the worst proverb that ever came from dishonest stony-hearted
+Rome. With such a motto as that to guide us no man dare trust his
+brother. Caveat lex,&mdash;and let the man who cheats cheat at his
+peril."</p>
+
+<p>"You'd give the law a great deal to do."</p>
+
+<p>"Much less than at present. What does your Caveat emptor come to?
+That every seller tries to pick the eyes out of the head of the
+purchaser. Sooner or later the law must interfere, and Caveat
+emptor falls to the ground. I bought a horse the other day; my
+daughter wanted something to look pretty, and like an old ass as I am
+I gave a hundred and fifty pounds for the brute. When he came home he
+wasn't worth a feed of corn."</p>
+
+<p>"You had a warranty, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, indeed! Did you ever hear of such an old fool?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should have thought any dealer would have taken him back for the
+sake of his character."</p>
+
+<p>"Any dealer would; but&mdash;I bought him of a gentleman."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Chaffanbrass!"</p>
+
+<p>"I ought to have known better, oughtn't I? Caveat emptor."</p>
+
+<p>"It was just giving away your money, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"A great deal worse than that. I could have given the&mdash;gentleman&mdash;a
+hundred and fifty pounds, and not have minded it much. I ought to
+have had the horse killed, and gone to a dealer for another. Instead
+of that,&mdash;I went to an attorney."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mr. Chaffanbrass;&mdash;the idea of your going to an attorney."</p>
+
+<p>"I did then. I never had so much honest truth told me in my life."</p>
+
+<p>"By an attorney!"</p>
+
+<p>"He said that he did think I'd been born long enough to have known
+better than that! I pleaded on my own behalf that the gentleman said
+the horse was all right. 'Gentleman!' exclaimed my friend. 'You go to
+a gentleman for a horse; you buy a horse from a gentleman without a
+warranty; and then you come to me! Didn't you ever hear of Caveat
+emptor, Mr. Chaffanbrass? What can I do for you?' That's what my
+friend, the attorney, said to me."</p>
+
+<p>"And what came of it, Mr. Chaffanbrass? Arbitration, I should say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just that;&mdash;with the horse eating his head off every meal at ever so
+much per week,&mdash;till at last I fairly gave in from sheer vexation. So
+the&mdash;gentleman&mdash;got my money, and I added something to my stock of
+experience. Of course, that's only my story, and it may be that the
+gentleman could tell it another way. But I say that if my story be
+right the doctrine of Caveat emptor does not encourage trade. I
+don't know how we got to all this from Mr. Finn. I'm to see him
+to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes;&mdash;he is very anxious to speak to you."</p>
+
+<p>"What's the use of it, Wickerby? I hate seeing a client.&mdash;What comes
+of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course he wants to tell his own story."</p>
+
+<p>"But I don't want to hear his own story. What good will his own story
+do me? He'll tell me either one of two things. He'll swear he didn't
+murder the <span class="nowrap">man&mdash;"</span></p>
+
+<p>"That's what he'll say."</p>
+
+<p>"Which can have no effect upon me one way or the other; or else he'll
+say that he did,&mdash;which would cripple me altogether."</p>
+
+<p>"He won't say that, Mr. Chaffanbrass."</p>
+
+<p>"There's no knowing what they'll say. A man will go on swearing by
+his God that he is innocent, till at last, in a moment of emotion, he
+breaks down, and out comes the truth. In such a case as this I do not
+in the least want to know the truth about the murder."</p>
+
+<p>"That is what the public wants to know."</p>
+
+<p>"Because the public is ignorant. The public should not wish to know
+anything of the kind. What we should all wish to get at is the truth
+of the evidence about the murder. The man is to be hung not because
+he committed the murder,&mdash;as to which no positive knowledge is
+attainable; but because he has been proved to have committed the
+murder,&mdash;as to which proof, though it be enough for hanging, there
+must always be attached some shadow of doubt. We were delighted to
+hang Palmer,&mdash;but we don't know that he killed Cook. A learned man
+who knew more about it than we can know seemed to think that he
+didn't. Now the last man to give us any useful insight into the
+evidence is the prisoner himself. In nineteen cases out of twenty a
+man tried for murder in this country committed the murder for which
+he is tried."</p>
+
+<p>"There really seems to be a doubt in this case."</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say. If there be only nineteen guilty out of twenty, there
+must be one innocent; and why not Mr. Phineas Finn? But, if it be so,
+he, burning with the sense of injustice, thinks that everybody should
+see it as he sees it. He is to be tried, because, on investigation,
+everybody sees it just in a different light. In such case he is
+unfortunate, but he can't assist me in liberating him from his
+misfortune. He sees what is patent and clear to him,&mdash;that he walked
+home on that night without meddling with any one. But I can't see
+that, or make others see it, because he sees it."</p>
+
+<p>"His manner of telling you may do something."</p>
+
+<p>"If it do, Mr. Wickerby, it is because I am unfit for my business. If
+he have the gift of protesting well, I am to think him innocent; and,
+therefore, to think him guilty, if he be unprovided with such
+eloquence! I will neither believe or disbelieve anything that a
+client says to me,&mdash;unless he confess his guilt, in which case my
+services can be but of little avail. Of course I shall see him, as he
+asks it. We had better meet there,&mdash;say at half-past ten." Whereupon
+Mr. Wickerby wrote to the governor of the prison begging that Phineas
+Finn might be informed of the visit.</p>
+
+<p>Phineas had now been in gaol between six and seven weeks, and the
+very fact of his incarceration had nearly broken his spirits. Two of
+his sisters, who had come from Ireland to be near him, saw him every
+day, and his two friends, Mr. Low and Lord Chiltern, were very
+frequently with him; Lady Laura Kennedy had not come to him again;
+but he heard from her frequently through Barrington Erle. Lord
+Chiltern rarely spoke of his sister,&mdash;alluding to her merely in
+connection with her father and her late husband. Presents still came
+to him from various quarters,&mdash;as to which he hardly knew whence they
+came. But the Duchess and Lady Chiltern and Lady Laura all catered
+for him,&mdash;while Mrs. Bunce looked after his wardrobe, and saw that he
+was not cut down to prison allowance of clean shirts and socks. But
+the only friend whom he recognised as such was the friend who would
+freely declare a conviction of his innocence. They allowed him books
+and pens and paper, and even cards, if he chose to play at Patience
+with them or build castles. The paper and pens he could use because
+he could write about himself. From day to day he composed a diary in
+which he was never tired of expatiating on the terrible injustice of
+his position. But he could not read. He found it to be impossible to
+fix his attention on matters outside himself. He assured himself from
+hour to hour that it was not death he feared,&mdash;not even death from
+the hangman's hand. It was the condemnation of those who had known
+him that was so terrible to him&mdash;the feeling that they with whom he
+had aspired to work and live, the leading men and women of his day,
+Ministers of the Government and their wives, statesmen and their
+daughters, peers and members of the House in which he himself had
+sat;&mdash;that these should think that, after all, he had been a base
+adventurer unworthy of their society! That was the sorrow that broke
+him down, and drew him to confess that his whole life had been a
+failure.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Low had advised him not to see Mr. Chaffanbrass;&mdash;but he had
+persisted in declaring that there were instructions which no one but
+himself could give to the counsellor whose duty it would be to defend
+him at the trial. Mr. Chaffanbrass came at the hour fixed, and with
+him came Mr. Wickerby. The old barrister bowed courteously as he
+entered the prison room, and the attorney introduced the two
+gentlemen with more than all the courtesy of the outer world. "I am
+sorry to see you here, Mr. Finn," said the barrister.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a bad lodging, Mr. Chaffanbrass, but the term will soon be
+over. I am thinking a good deal more of my next abode."</p>
+
+<p>"It has to be thought of, certainly," said the barrister. "Let us
+hope that it may be all that you would wish it to be. My services
+shall not be wanting to make it so."</p>
+
+<p>"We are doing all we can, Mr. Finn," said Mr. Wickerby.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Chaffanbrass," said Phineas, "there is one special thing that I
+want you to do." The old man, having his own idea as to what was
+coming, laid one of his hands over the other, bowed his head, and
+looked meek. "I want you to make men believe that I am innocent of
+this crime."</p>
+
+<p>This was better than Mr. Chaffanbrass expected. "I trust that we may
+succeed in making twelve men believe it," said he.</p>
+
+<p>"Comparatively I do not care a straw for the twelve men. It is not to
+them especially that I am anxious that you should address
+<span class="nowrap">yourself&mdash;"</span></p>
+
+<p>"But that will be my bounden duty, Mr. Finn."</p>
+
+<p>"I can well believe, sir, that though I have myself been bred a
+lawyer, I may not altogether understand the nature of an advocate's
+duty to his client. But I would wish something more to be done than
+what you intimate."</p>
+
+<p>"The duty of an advocate defending a prisoner is to get a verdict of
+acquittal if he can, and to use his own discretion in making the
+attempt."</p>
+
+<p>"But I want something more to be attempted, even if in the struggle
+something less be achieved. I have known men to be so acquitted that
+every man in court believed them to be guilty."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt;&mdash;and such men have probably owed much to their advocates."</p>
+
+<p>"It is not such a debt that I wish to owe. I know my own innocence."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Chaffanbrass takes that for granted," said Mr. Wickerby.</p>
+
+<p>"To me it is a matter of astonishment that any human being should
+believe me to have committed this murder. I am lost in surprise when
+I remember that I am here simply because I walked home from my club
+with a loaded stick in my pocket. The magistrate, I suppose, thought
+me guilty."</p>
+
+<p>"He did not think about it, Mr. Finn. He went by the evidence;&mdash;the
+quarrel, your position in the streets at the time, the colour of the
+coat you wore and that of the coat worn by the man whom Lord Fawn saw
+in the street; the doctor's evidence as to the blows by which the man
+was killed; and the nature of the weapon which you carried. He put
+these things together, and they were enough to entitle the public to
+demand that a jury should decide. He didn't say you were guilty. He
+only said that the circumstances were sufficient to justify a trial."</p>
+
+<p>"If he thought me innocent he would not have sent me here."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he would;&mdash;if the evidence required that he should do so."</p>
+
+<p>"We will not argue about that, Mr. Chaffanbrass."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not, Mr. Finn."</p>
+
+<p>"Here I am, and to-morrow I shall be tried for my life. My life will
+be nothing to me unless it can be made clear to all the world that I
+am innocent. I would be sooner hung for this,&mdash;with the certainty at
+my heart that all England on the next day would ring with the
+assurance of my innocence, than be acquitted and afterwards be looked
+upon as a murderer." Phineas, when he was thus speaking, had stepped
+out into the middle of the room, and stood with his head thrown back,
+and his right hand forward. Mr. Chaffanbrass, who was himself an
+ugly, dirty old man, who had always piqued himself on being
+indifferent to appearance, found himself struck by the beauty and
+grace of the man whom he now saw for the first time. And he was
+struck, too, by his client's eloquence, though he had expressly
+declared to the attorney that it was his duty to be superior to any
+such influence. "Oh, Mr. Chaffanbrass, for the love of Heaven, let
+there be no quibbling."</p>
+
+<p>"We never quibble, I hope, Mr. Finn."</p>
+
+<p>"No subterfuges, no escaping by a side wind, no advantage taken of
+little forms, no objection taken to this and that as though delay
+would avail us anything."</p>
+
+<p>"Character will go a great way, we hope."</p>
+
+<p>"It should go for nothing. Though no one would speak a word for me,
+still am I innocent. Of course the truth will be known some day."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not so sure of that, Mr. Finn."</p>
+
+<p>"It will certainly be known some day. That it should not be known as
+yet is my misfortune. But in defending me I would have you hurl
+defiance at my accusers. I had the stick in my pocket,&mdash;having
+heretofore been concerned with ruffians in the street. I did quarrel
+with the man, having been insulted by him at the club. The coat which
+I wore was such as they say. But does that make a murderer of me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Somebody did the deed, and that somebody could probably say all that
+you say."</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir;&mdash;he, when he is known, will be found to have been skulking
+in the streets; he will have thrown away his weapon; he will have
+been secret in his movements; he will have hidden his face, and have
+been a murderer in more than the deed. When they came to me in the
+morning did it seem to them that I was a murderer? Has my life been
+like that? They who have really known me cannot believe that I have
+been guilty. They who have not known me, and do believe, will live to
+learn their error."</p>
+
+<p>He then sat down and listened patiently while the old lawyer
+described to him the nature of the case,&mdash;wherein lay his danger, and
+wherein what hope there was of safety. There was no evidence against
+him other than circumstantial evidence, and both judges and jury were
+wont to be unwilling to accept such, when uncorroborated, as
+sufficient in cases of life and death. Unfortunately, in this case
+the circumstantial evidence was very strong against him. But, on the
+other hand, his character, as to which men of great mark would speak
+with enthusiasm, would be made to stand very high. "I would not have
+it made to stand higher than it is," said Phineas. As to the opinion
+of the world afterwards, Mr. Chaffanbrass went on to say, of that he
+must take his chance. But surely he himself might fight better for it
+living than any friend could do for him after his death. "You must
+believe me in this, Mr. Finn, that a verdict of acquittal from the
+jury is the one object that we must have before us."</p>
+
+<p>"The one object that I shall have before me is the verdict of the
+public," said Phineas. "I am treated with so much injustice in being
+thought a murderer that they can hardly add anything to it by hanging
+me."</p>
+
+<p>When Mr. Chaffanbrass left the prison he walked back with Mr.
+Wickerby to the attorney's chambers in Hatton Garden, and he lingered
+for awhile on the Viaduct expressing his opinion of his client. "He's
+not a bad fellow, Wickerby."</p>
+
+<p>"A very good sort of fellow, Mr. Chaffanbrass."</p>
+
+<p>"I never did,&mdash;and I never will,&mdash;express an opinion of my own as to
+the guilt or innocence of a client till after the trial is over. But
+I have sometimes felt as though I would give the blood out of my
+veins to save a man. I never felt in that way more strongly than I do
+now."</p>
+
+<p>"It'll make me very unhappy, I know, if it goes against him," said
+Mr. Wickerby.</p>
+
+<p>"People think that the special branch of the profession into which I
+have chanced to fall is a very low one,&mdash;and I do not know whether,
+if the world were before me again, I would allow myself to drift into
+an exclusive practice in criminal courts."</p>
+
+<p>"Yours has been a very useful life, Mr. Chaffanbrass."</p>
+
+<p>"But I often feel," continued the barrister, paying no attention to
+the attorney's last remark, "that my work touches the heart more
+nearly than does that of gentlemen who have to deal with matters of
+property and of high social claims. People think I am savage,&mdash;savage
+to witnesses."</p>
+
+<p>"You can frighten a witness, Mr. Chaffanbrass."</p>
+
+<p>"It's just the trick of the trade that you learn, as a girl learns
+the notes of her piano. There's nothing in it. You forget it all the
+next hour. But when a man has been hung whom you have striven to
+save, you do remember that. Good-morning, Mr. Wickerby. I'll be there
+a little before ten. Perhaps you may have to speak to me."</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c61"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER LXI.</h3>
+<h4>THE BEGINNING OF THE TRIAL.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>The task of seeing an important trial at the Old Bailey is by no
+means a pleasant business, unless you be what the denizens of the
+Court would call "one of the swells,"&mdash;so as to enjoy the privilege
+of being a benchfellow with the judge on the seat of judgment. And
+even in that case the pleasure is not unalloyed. You have, indeed,
+the gratification of seeing the man whom all the world has been
+talking about for the last nine days, face to face; and of being seen
+in a position which causes you to be acknowledged as a man of mark;
+but the intolerable stenches of the Court and its horrid heat come up
+to you there, no doubt, as powerfully as they fall on those below.
+And then the tedium of a prolonged trial, in which the points of
+interest are apt to be few and far between, grows upon you till you
+begin to feel that though the Prime Minister who is out should murder
+the Prime Minister who is in, and all the members of the two Cabinets
+were to be called in evidence, you would not attend the trial, though
+the seat of honour next to the judge were accorded to you. Those
+be-wigged ones, who are the performers, are so insufferably long in
+their parts, so arrogant in their bearing,&mdash;so it strikes you, though
+doubtless the fashion of working has been found to be efficient for
+the purposes they have in hand,&mdash;and so uninteresting in their
+repetition, that you first admire, and then question, and at last
+execrate the imperturbable patience of the judge, who might, as you
+think, force the thing through in a quarter of the time without any
+injury to justice. And it will probably strike you that the length of
+the trial is proportioned not to the complicity but to the
+importance, or rather to the public interest, of the case,&mdash;so that
+the trial which has been suggested of a disappointed and
+bloody-minded ex-Prime Minister would certainly take at least a
+fortnight, even though the Speaker of the House of Commons and the
+Lord Chancellor had seen the blow struck, whereas a collier may knock
+his wife's brains out in the dark and be sent to the gallows with a
+trial that shall not last three hours. And yet the collier has to be
+hung,&mdash;if found guilty,&mdash;and no one thinks that his life is
+improperly endangered by reckless haste. Whether lives may not be
+improperly saved by the more lengthened process is another question.</p>
+
+<p>But the honours of such benchfellowship can be accorded but to few,
+and the task becomes very tiresome when the spectator has to enter
+the Court as an ordinary mortal. There are two modes open to him,
+either of which is subject to grievous penalties. If he be the
+possessor of a decent coat and hat, and can scrape any acquaintance
+with any one concerned, he may get introduced to that overworked and
+greatly perplexed official, the under-sheriff, who will stave him off
+if possible,&mdash;knowing that even an under-sheriff cannot make space
+elastic,&mdash;but, if the introduction has been acknowledged as good,
+will probably find a seat for him if he persevere to the end. But the
+seat when obtained must be kept in possession from morning to
+evening, and the fight must be renewed from day to day. And the
+benches are hard, and the space is narrow, and you feel that the
+under-sheriff would prod you with his sword if you ventured to
+sneeze, or to put to your lips the flask which you have in your
+pocket. And then, when all the benchfellows go out to lunch at
+half-past one, and you are left to eat your dry sandwich without room
+for your elbows, a feeling of unsatisfied ambition will pervade you.
+It is all very well to be the friend of an under-sheriff, but if you
+could but have known the judge, or have been a cousin of the real
+sheriff, how different it might have been with you!</p>
+
+<p>But you may be altogether independent, and, as a matter of right,
+walk into an open English court of law as one of the British public.
+You will have to stand of course,&mdash;and to commence standing very
+early in the morning if you intend to succeed in witnessing any
+portion of the performance. And when you have made once good your
+entrance as one of the British public, you are apt to be a good deal
+knocked about, not only by your public brethren, but also by those
+who have to keep the avenues free for witnesses, and who will regard
+you from first to last as a disagreeable excrescence on the
+officialities of the work on hand. Upon the whole it may be better
+for you, perhaps, to stay at home and read the record of the affair
+as given in the next day's Times. Impartial reporters, judicious
+readers, and able editors between them will preserve for you all the
+kernel, and will save you from the necessity of having to deal with
+the shell.</p>
+
+<p>At this trial there were among the crowd who succeeded in entering
+the Court three persons of our acquaintance who had resolved to
+overcome the various difficulties. Mr. Monk, who had formerly been a
+Cabinet Minister, was seated on the bench,&mdash;subject, indeed, to the
+heat and stenches, but priviledged to eat the lunch. Mr. Quintus
+Slide, of The People's Banner,&mdash;who knew the Court well, for in
+former days he had worked many an hour in it as a reporter,&mdash;had
+obtained the good graces of the under-sheriff. And Mr. Bunce, with
+all the energy of the British public, had forced his way in among the
+crowd, and had managed to wedge himself near to the dock, so that he
+might be able by a hoist of the neck to see his lodger as he stood at
+the bar. Of these three men, Bunce was assured that the prisoner was
+innocent,&mdash;led to such assurance partly by belief in the man, and
+partly by an innate spirit of opposition to all exercise of
+restrictive power. Mr. Quintus Slide was certain of the prisoner's
+guilt, and gave himself considerable credit for having assisted in
+running down the criminal. It seemed to be natural to Mr. Quintus
+Slide that a man who had openly quarrelled with the Editor of The
+People's Banner should come to the gallows. Mr. Monk, as Phineas
+himself well knew, had doubted. He had received the suspected
+murderer into his warmest friendship, and was made miserable even by
+his doubts. Since the circumstances of the case had come to his
+knowledge, they had weighed upon his mind so as to sadden his whole
+life. But he was a man who could not make his reason subordinate to
+his feelings. If the evidence against his friend was strong enough to
+send his friend for trial, how should he dare to discredit the
+evidence because the man was his friend? He had visited Phineas in
+prison, and Phineas had accused him of doubting. "You need not answer
+me," the unhappy man had said, "but do not come unless you are able
+to tell me from your heart that you are sure of my innocence. There
+is no person living who could comfort me by such assurance as you
+could do." Mr. Monk had thought about it very much, but he had not
+repeated his visit.</p>
+
+<p>At a quarter past ten the Chief Justice was on the bench, with a
+second judge to help him, and with lords and distinguished commoners
+and great City magnates crowding the long seat between him and the
+doorway; the Court was full, so that you would say that another head
+could not be made to appear; and Phineas Finn, the member for
+Tankerville, was in the dock. Barrington Erle, who was there to
+see,&mdash;as one of the great ones, of course,&mdash;told the Duchess of
+Omnium that night that Phineas was thin and pale, and in many
+respects an altered man,&mdash;but handsomer than ever.</p>
+
+<p>"He bore himself well?" asked the Duchess.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well,&mdash;very well indeed. We were there for six hours, and he
+maintained the same demeanour throughout. He never spoke but once,
+and that was when Chaffanbrass began his fight about the jury."</p>
+
+<p>"What did he say?"</p>
+
+<p>"He addressed the judge, interrupting Slope, who was arguing that
+some man would make a very good juryman, and declared that it was not
+by his wish that any objection was raised against any gentleman."</p>
+
+<p>"What did the judge say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Told him to abide by his counsel. The Chief Justice was very civil
+to him,&mdash;indeed better than civil."</p>
+
+<p>"We'll have him down to Matching, and make ever so much of him," said
+the Duchess.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't go too fast, Duchess, for he may have to hang poor Phineas
+yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh dear; I wish you wouldn't use that word. But what did he say?"</p>
+
+<p>"He told Finn that as he had thought fit to employ counsel for his
+defence,&mdash;in doing which he had undoubtedly acted wisely,&mdash;he must
+leave the case to the discretion of his counsel."</p>
+
+<p>"And then poor Phineas was silenced?"</p>
+
+<p>"He spoke another word. 'My lord,' said he, 'I for my part wish that
+the first twelve men on the list might be taken.' But old
+Chaffanbrass went on just the same. It took them two hours and a half
+before they could swear a jury."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Mr. Erle,&mdash;taking it altogether,&mdash;which way is it going?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody can even guess as yet. There was ever so much delay besides
+that about the jury. It seemed that somebody had called him Phinees
+instead of Phineas, and that took half an hour. They begin with the
+quarrel at the club, and are to call the first witness to-morrow
+morning. They are to examine Ratler about the quarrel, and
+Fitzgibbon, and Monk, and, I believe, old Bouncer, the man who
+writes, you know. They all heard what took place."</p>
+
+<p>"So did you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have managed to escape that. They can't very well examine all the
+club. But I shall be called afterwards as to what took place at the
+door. They will begin with Ratler."</p>
+
+<p>"Everybody knows there was a quarrel, and that Mr. Bonteen had been
+drinking, and that he behaved as badly as a man could behave."</p>
+
+<p>"It must all be proved, Duchess."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you what, Mr. Erle. If,&mdash;if,&mdash;if this ends badly for Mr.
+Finn I'll wear mourning to the day of my death. I'll go to the
+Drawing Room in mourning, to show what I think of it."</p>
+
+<p>Lord Chiltern, who was also on the bench, took his account of the
+trial home to his wife and sister in Portman Square. At this time
+Miss Palliser was staying with them, and the three ladies were
+together when the account was brought to them. In that house it was
+taken as doctrine that Phineas Finn was innocent. In the presence of
+her brother, and before her sister-in-law's visitor, Lady Laura had
+learned to be silent on the subject, and she now contented herself
+with listening, knowing that she could relieve herself by speech when
+alone with Lady Chiltern. "I never knew anything so tedious in my
+life," said the Master of the Brake hounds. "They have not done
+anything yet."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose they have made their speeches?" said his wife.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Gregory Grogram opened the case, as they call it; and a very
+strong case he made of it. I never believe anything that a lawyer
+says when he has a wig on his head and a fee in his hand. I prepare
+myself beforehand to regard it all as mere words, supplied at so much
+the thousand. I know he'll say whatever he thinks most likely to
+forward his own views. But upon my word he put it very strongly. He
+brought it all within so very short a space of time! Bonteen and Finn
+left the club within a minute of each other. Bonteen must have been
+at the top of the passage five minutes afterwards, and Phineas at
+that moment could not have been above two hundred yards from him.
+There can be no doubt of that."</p>
+
+<p>"Oswald, you don't mean to say that it's going against him!"
+exclaimed Lady Chiltern.</p>
+
+<p>"It's not going any way at present. The witnesses have not been
+examined. But so far, I suppose, the Attorney-General was right. He
+has got to prove it all, but so much no doubt he can prove. He can
+prove that the man was killed with some blunt weapon, such as Finn
+had. And he can prove that exactly at the same time a man was running
+to the spot very like to Finn, and that by a route which would not
+have been his route, but by using which he could have placed himself
+at that moment where the man was seen."</p>
+
+<p>"How very dreadful!" said Miss Palliser.</p>
+
+<p>"And yet I feel that I know it was that other man," said Lady
+Chiltern. Lady Laura sat silent through it all, listening with her
+eyes intent on her brother's face, with her elbow on the table and
+her brow on her hand. She did not speak a word till she found herself
+alone with her sister-in-law, and then it was hardly more than a
+word. "Violet, they will murder him!" Lady Chiltern endeavoured to
+comfort her, telling her that as yet they had heard but one side of
+the case; but the wretched woman only shook her head. "I know they
+will murder him," she said, "and then when it is too late they will
+find out what they have done!"</p>
+
+
+<div class="center"><a id="ill61"></a>
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4px">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/ill61.jpg">
+      <img src="images/ill61-t.jpg" height="600"
+      alt='"VIOLET, THEY WILL MURDER HIM."' /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption"><span class="smallcaps">"Violet,
+      they will murder him."</span><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/ill61.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>On the following day the crowd in Court was if possible greater, so
+that the benchfellows were very much squeezed indeed. But it was
+impossible to exclude from the high seat such men as Mr. Ratler and
+Lord Fawn when they were required in the Court as witnesses;&mdash;and not
+a man who had obtained a seat on the first day was willing to be
+excluded on the second. And even then the witnesses were not called
+at once. Sir Gregory Grogram began the work of the day by saying that
+he had heard that morning for the first time that one of his
+witnesses had been,&mdash;"tampered with" was the word that he
+unfortunately used,&mdash;by his learned friend on the other side. He
+alluded, of course, to Lord Fawn, and poor Lord Fawn, sitting up
+there on the seat of honour, visible to all the world, became very
+hot and very uncomfortable. Then there arose a vehement dispute
+between Sir Gregory, assisted by Sir Simon, and old Mr. Chaffanbrass,
+who rejected with disdain any assistance from the gentler men who
+were with him. "Tampered with! That word should be recalled by the
+honourable gentleman who was at the head of the bar,
+or&mdash;<span class="nowrap">or&mdash;"</span> Had
+Mr. Chaffanbrass declared that as an alternative he would pull the
+Court about their ears, it would have been no more than he meant.
+Lord Fawn had been invited,&mdash;not summoned to attend; and why? In
+order that no suspicion of guilt might be thrown on another man,
+unless the knowledge that was in Lord Fawn's bosom, and there alone,
+would justify such a line of defence. Lord Fawn had been attended by
+his own solicitor, and might have brought the Attorney-General with
+him had he so pleased. There was a great deal said on both sides, and
+something said also by the judge. At last Sir Gregory withdrew the
+objectionable word, and substituted in lieu of it an assertion that
+his witness had been "indiscreetly questioned." Mr. Chaffanbrass
+would not for a moment admit the indiscretion, but bounced about in
+his place, tearing his wig almost off his head, and defying every one
+in the Court. The judge submitted to Mr. Chaffanbrass that he had
+been indiscreet.&mdash;"I never contradicted the Bench yet, my lord," said
+Mr. Chaffanbrass,&mdash;at which there was a general titter throughout the
+bar,&mdash;"but I must claim the privilege of conducting my own practice
+according to my own views. In this Court I am subject to the Bench.
+In my own chamber I am subject only to the law of the land." The
+judge looking over his spectacles said a mild word about the
+profession at large. Mr. Chaffanbrass, twisting his wig quite on one
+side, so that it nearly fell on Mr. Serjeant Birdbolt's face,
+muttered something as to having seen more work done in that Court
+than any other living lawyer, let his rank be what it might. When the
+little affair was over, everybody felt that Sir Gregory had been
+vanquished.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ratler, and Laurence Fitzgibbon, and Mr. Monk, and Mr. Bouncer
+were examined about the quarrel at the club, and proved that the
+quarrel had been a very bitter quarrel. They all agreed that Mr.
+Bonteen had been wrong, and that the prisoner had had cause for
+anger. Of the three distinguished legislators and statesmen above
+named Mr. Chaffanbrass refused to take the slightest notice. "I have
+no question to put to you," he said to Mr. Ratler. "Of course there
+was a quarrel. We all know that." But he did ask a question or two of
+Mr. Bouncer. "You write books, I think, Mr. Bouncer?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do," said Mr. Bouncer, with dignity. Now there was no peculiarity
+in a witness to which Mr. Chaffanbrass was so much opposed as an
+assumption of dignity.</p>
+
+<p>"What sort of books, Mr. Bouncer?"</p>
+
+<p>"I write novels," said Mr. Bouncer, feeling that Mr. Chaffanbrass
+must have been ignorant indeed of the polite literature of the day to
+make such a question necessary.</p>
+
+<p>"You mean fiction."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, yes; fiction,&mdash;if you like that word better."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't like either, particularly. You have to find plots, haven't
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bouncer paused a moment. "Yes; yes," he said. "In writing a novel
+it is necessary to construct a plot."</p>
+
+<p>"Where do you get 'em from?"</p>
+
+<p>"Where do I get 'em from?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes,&mdash;where do you find them? You take them from the French
+mostly;&mdash;don't you?" Mr. Bouncer became very red. "Isn't that the way
+our English writers get their plots?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes,&mdash;perhaps."</p>
+
+<p>"Your's ain't French then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well;&mdash;no;&mdash;that is&mdash;I won't undertake to say
+that&mdash;<span class="nowrap">that&mdash;"</span></p>
+
+<p>"You won't undertake to say that they're not French."</p>
+
+<p>"Is this relevant to the case before us, Mr. Chaffanbrass?" asked the
+judge.</p>
+
+<p>"Quite so, my lud. We have a highly-distinguished novelist before us,
+my lud, who, as I have reason to believe, is intimately acquainted
+with the French system of the construction of plots. It is a business
+which the French carry to perfection. The plot of a novel should, I
+imagine, be constructed in accordance with human nature?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," said Mr. Bouncer.</p>
+
+<p>"You have murders in novels?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes," said Mr. Bouncer, who had himself done many murders in
+his time.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever know a French novelist have a premeditated murder
+committed by a man who could not possibly have conceived the murder
+ten minutes before he committed it;&mdash;with whom the cause of the
+murder anteceded the murder no more than ten minutes?" Mr. Bouncer
+stood thinking for a while. "We will give you your time, because an
+answer to the question from you will be important testimony."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think I do," said Mr. Bouncer, who in his confusion had been
+quite unable to think of the plot of a single novel.</p>
+
+<p>"And if there were such a French plot that would not be the plot that
+you would borrow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not," said Mr. Bouncer.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever read poetry, Mr. Bouncer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes;&mdash;I read a great deal of poetry."</p>
+
+<p>"Shakespeare, perhaps?" Mr. Bouncer did not condescend to do more
+than nod his head. "There is a murder described in <i>Hamlet</i>. Was that
+supposed by the poet to have been devised suddenly?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should say not."</p>
+
+<p>"So should I, Mr. Bouncer. Do you remember the arrangements for the
+murder in <i>Macbeth</i>? That took a little time in concocting;&mdash;didn't
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt it did."</p>
+
+<p>"And when Othello murdered Desdemona, creeping up to her in her
+sleep, he had been thinking of it for some time?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose he had."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you ever read English novels as well as French, Mr. Bouncer?" The
+unfortunate author again nodded his head. "When Amy Robsart was lured
+to her death, there was some time given to the preparation,&mdash;eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course there was."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course there was. And Eugene Aram, when he murdered a man in
+Bulwer's novel, turned the matter over in his mind before he did it?"</p>
+
+<p>"He was thinking a long time about it, I believe."</p>
+
+<p>"Thinking about it a long time! I rather think he was. Those great
+masters of human nature, those men who knew the human heart, did not
+venture to describe a secret murder as coming from a man's brain
+without premeditation?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not that I can remember."</p>
+
+<p>"Such also is my impression. But now, I bethink me of a murder that
+was almost as sudden as this is supposed to have been. Didn't a Dutch
+smuggler murder a Scotch lawyer, all in a moment as it were?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dirk Hatteraick did murder Glossop in <i>The Antiquary</i> very
+suddenly;&mdash;but he did it from passion."</p>
+
+<p>"Just so, Mr. Bouncer. There was no plot there, was there? No
+arrangement; no secret creeping up to his victim; no escape even?"</p>
+
+<p>"He was chained."</p>
+
+<p>"So he was; chained like a dog;&mdash;and like a dog he flew at his enemy.
+If I understand you, then, Mr. Bouncer, you would not dare so to
+violate probability in a novel, as to produce a murderer to the
+public who should contrive a secret hidden murder,&mdash;contrive it and
+execute it, all within a quarter of an hour?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bouncer, after another minute's consideration, said that he
+thought he would not do so. "Mr. Bouncer," said Mr. Chaffanbrass, "I
+am uncommonly obliged to our excellent friend, Sir Gregory, for
+having given us the advantage of your evidence."</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c62"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER LXII.</h3>
+<h4>LORD FAWN'S EVIDENCE.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>A crowd of witnesses were heard on the second day after Mr.
+Chaffanbrass had done with Mr. Bouncer, but none of them were of much
+interest to the public. The three doctors were examined as to the
+state of the dead man's head when he was picked up, and as to the
+nature of the instrument with which he had probably been killed; and
+the fact of Phineas Finn's life-preserver was proved,&mdash;in the middle
+of which he begged that the Court would save itself some little
+trouble, as he was quite ready to acknowledge that he had walked home
+with the short bludgeon, which was then produced, in his pocket. "We
+would acknowledge a great deal if they would let us," said Mr.
+Chaffanbrass. "We acknowledge the quarrel, we acknowledge the walk
+home at night, we acknowledge the bludgeon, and we acknowledge a grey
+coat." But that happened towards the close of the second day, and
+they had not then reached the grey coat. The question of the grey
+coat was commenced on the third morning,&mdash;on the Saturday,&mdash;which
+day, as was well known, would be opened with the examination of Lord
+Fawn. The anxiety to hear Lord Fawn undergo his penance was intense,
+and had been greatly increased by the conviction that Mr.
+Chaffanbrass would resent upon him the charge made by the
+Attorney-General as to tampering with a witness. "I'll tamper with
+him by-and-bye," Mr. Chaffanbrass had whispered to Mr. Wickerby, and
+the whispered threat had been spread abroad. On the table before Mr.
+Chaffanbrass, when he took his place in the Court on the Saturday,
+was laid a heavy grey coat, and on the opposite side of the table,
+just before the Solicitor-General, was laid another grey coat, of
+much lighter material. When Lord Fawn saw the two coats as he took
+his seat on the bench his heart failed him.</p>
+
+<p>He was hardly allowed to seat himself before he was called upon to be
+sworn. Sir Simon Slope, who was to examine him, took it for granted
+that his lordship could give his evidence from his place on the
+bench, but to this Mr. Chaffanbrass objected. He was very well aware,
+he said, that such a practice was usual. He did not doubt but that in
+his time he had examined some hundreds of witnesses from the bench.
+In nineteen cases out of twenty there could be no objection to such a
+practice. But in this case the noble lord would have to give evidence
+not only as to what he had seen, but as to what he then saw. It would
+be expedient that he should see colours as nearly as possible in the
+same light as the jury, which he would do if he stood in the
+witness-box. And there might arise questions of identity, in speaking
+of which it would be well that the noble lord should be as near as
+possible to the thing or person to be identified. He was afraid that
+he must trouble the noble lord to come down from the Elysium of the
+bench. Whereupon Lord Fawn descended, and was sworn in at the
+witness-box.</p>
+
+<p>His treatment from Sir Simon Slope was all that was due from a
+Solicitor-General to a distinguished peer who was a member of the
+same Government as himself. Sir Simon put his questions so as almost
+to reassure the witness; and very quickly,&mdash;only too
+quickly,&mdash;obtained from him all the information that was needed on
+the side of the prosecution. Lord Fawn, when he had left the club,
+had seen both Mr. Bonteen and Mr. Finn preparing to follow him, but
+he had gone alone, and had never seen Mr. Bonteen since. He walked
+very slowly down into Curzon Street and Bolton Row, and when there,
+as he was about to cross the road at the top of Clarges Street,&mdash;as
+he believed, just as he was crossing the street,&mdash;he saw a man come
+at a very fast pace out of the mews which runs into Bolton Row,
+opposite to Clarges Street, and from thence hurry very quickly
+towards the passage which separates the gardens of Devonshire and
+Lansdowne Houses. It had already been proved that had Phineas Finn
+retraced his steps after Erle and Fitzgibbon had turned their backs
+upon him, his shortest and certainly most private way to the spot on
+which Lord Fawn had seen the man would have been by the mews in
+question. Lord Fawn went on to say that the man wore a grey coat,&mdash;as
+far as he could judge it was such a coat as Sir Simon now showed him;
+he could not at all identify the prisoner; he could not say whether
+the man he had seen was as tall as the prisoner; he thought that as
+far as he could judge, there was not much difference in the height.
+He had not thought of Mr. Finn when he saw the man hurrying along,
+nor had he troubled his mind about the man. That was the end of Lord
+Fawn's evidence-in-chief, which he would gladly have prolonged to the
+close of the day could he thereby have postponed the coming horrors
+of his cross-examination. But there he was,&mdash;in the clutches of the
+odious, dirty, little man, hating the little man, despising him
+because he was dirty, and nothing better than an Old Bailey
+barrister,&mdash;and yet fearing him with so intense a fear!</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Chaffanbrass smiled at his victim, and for a moment was quite
+soft with him,&mdash;as a cat is soft with a mouse. The reporters could
+hardly hear his first question,&mdash;"I believe you are an
+Under-Secretary of State?" Lord Fawn acknowledged the fact. Now it
+was the case that in the palmy days of our hero's former career he
+had filled the very office which Lord Fawn now occupied, and that
+Lord Fawn had at the time filled a similar position in another
+department. These facts Mr. Chaffanbrass extracted from his
+witness,&mdash;not without an appearance of unwillingness, which was
+produced, however, altogether by the natural antagonism of the victim
+to his persecutor; for Mr. Chaffanbrass, even when asking the
+simplest questions, in the simplest words, even when abstaining from
+that sarcasm of tone under which witnesses were wont to feel that
+they were being flayed alive, could so look at a man as to create an
+antagonism which no witness could conceal. In asking a man his name,
+and age, and calling, he could produce an impression that the man was
+unwilling to tell anything, and that, therefore, the jury were
+entitled to regard his evidence with suspicion. "Then," continued Mr.
+Chaffanbrass, "you must have met him frequently in the intercourse of
+your business?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose I did,&mdash;sometimes."</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes? You belonged to the same party?"</p>
+
+<p>"We didn't sit in the same House."</p>
+
+<p>"I know that, my lord. I know very well what House you sat in. But I
+suppose you would condescend to be acquainted with even a commoner
+who held the very office which you hold now. You belonged to the same
+club with him."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't go much to the clubs," said Lord Fawn.</p>
+
+<p>"But the quarrel of which we have heard so much took place at a club
+in your presence?" Lord Fawn assented. "In fact you cannot but have
+been intimately and accurately acquainted with the personal
+appearance of the gentleman who is now on his trial. Is that so?"</p>
+
+<p>"I never was intimate with him."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Chaffanbrass looked up at the jury and shook his head sadly. "I
+am not presuming, Lord Fawn, that you so far derogated as to be
+intimate with this gentleman,&mdash;as to whom, however, I shall be able
+to show by and by that he was the chosen friend of the very man under
+whose mastership you now serve. I ask whether his appearance is not
+familiar to you?" Lord Fawn at last said that it was. "Do you know
+his height? What should you say was his height?" Lord Fawn altogether
+refused to give an opinion on such a subject, but acknowledged that
+he should not be surprised if he were told that Mr. Finn was over six
+feet high. "In fact you consider him a tall man, my lord? There he
+is, you can look at him. Is he a tall man?" Lord Fawn did look, but
+wouldn't give an answer. "I'll undertake to say, my lord, that there
+isn't a person in the Court at this moment, except yourself, who
+wouldn't be ready to express an opinion on his oath that Mr. Finn is
+a tall man. Mr. Chief Constable, just let the prisoner step out from
+the dock for a moment. He won't run away. I must have his lordship's
+opinion as to Mr. Finn's height." Poor Phineas, when this was said,
+clutched hold of the front of the dock, as though determined that
+nothing but main force should make him exhibit himself to the Court
+in the manner proposed.</p>
+
+<p>But the need for exhibition passed away. "I know that he is a very
+tall man," said Lord Fawn.</p>
+
+<p>"You know that he is a very tall man. We all know it. There can be no
+doubt about it. He is, as you say, a very tall man,&mdash;with whose
+personal appearance you have long been familiar? I ask again, my
+lord, whether you have not been long familiar with his personal
+appearance?" After some further agonising delay Lord Fawn at last
+acknowledged that it had been so. "Now we shall get on like a house
+on fire," said Mr. Chaffanbrass.</p>
+
+<p>But still the house did not burn very quickly. A string of questions
+was then asked as to the attitude of the man who had been seen coming
+out of the mews wearing a grey great coat,&mdash;as to his attitude, and
+as to his general likeness to Phineas Finn. In answer to these Lord
+Fawn would only say that he had not observed the man's attitude, and
+had certainly not thought of the prisoner when he saw the man. "My
+lord," said Mr. Chaffanbrass, very solemnly, "look at your late
+friend and colleague, and remember that his life depends probably on
+the accuracy of your memory. The man you saw&mdash;murdered Mr. Bonteen.
+With all my experience in such matters,&mdash;which is great; and with all
+my skill,&mdash;which is something, I cannot stand against that fact. It
+is for me to show that that man and my client were not one and the
+same person, and I must do so by means of your evidence,&mdash;by sifting
+what you say to-day, and by comparing it with what you have already
+said on other occasions. I understand you now to say that there is
+nothing in your remembrance of the man you saw, independently of the
+colour of the coat, to guide you to an opinion whether that man was
+or was not one and the same with the prisoner?"</p>
+
+<p>In all the crowd then assembled there was no man more thoroughly
+under the influence of conscience as to his conduct than was Lord
+Fawn in reference to the evidence which he was called upon to give.
+Not only would the idea of endangering the life of a human being have
+been horrible to him, but the sanctity of an oath was imperative to
+him. He was essentially a truth-speaking man, if only he knew how to
+speak the truth. He would have sacrificed much to establish the
+innocence of Phineas Finn,&mdash;not for the love of Phineas, but for the
+love of innocence;&mdash;but not even to do that would he have lied. But
+he was a bad witness, and by his slowness, and by a certain
+unsustained pomposity which was natural to him, had already taught
+the jury to think that he was anxious to convict the prisoner. Two
+men in the Court, and two only, thoroughly understood his condition.
+Mr. Chaffanbrass saw it all, and intended without the slightest
+scruple to take advantage of it. And the Chief Justice saw it all,
+and was already resolving how he could set the witness right with the
+jury.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't think of Mr. Finn at the time," said Lord Fawn in answer to
+the last question.</p>
+
+<p>"So I understand. The man didn't strike you as being tall."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think that he did."</p>
+
+<p>"But yet in the evidence you gave before the magistrate in Bow Street
+I think you expressed a very strong opinion that the man you saw
+running out of the mews was Mr. Finn?" Lord Fawn was again silent. "I
+am asking your lordship a question to which I must request an answer.
+Here is the Times report of the examination, with which you can
+refresh your memory, and you are of course aware that it was mainly
+on your evidence as here reported that my client stands there in
+jeopardy of his life."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not aware of anything of the kind," said the witness.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well. We will drop that then. But such was your evidence,
+whether important or not important. Of course your lordship can take
+what time you please for recollection."</p>
+
+<p>Lord Fawn tried very hard to recollect, but would not look at the
+newspaper which had been handed to him. "I cannot remember what words
+I used. It seems to me that I thought it must have been Mr. Finn
+because I had been told that Mr. Finn could have been there by
+running round."</p>
+
+<p>"Surely, my lord, that would not have sufficed to induce you to give
+such evidence as is there reported?"</p>
+
+<p>"And the colour of the coat," said Lord Fawn.</p>
+
+<p>"In fact you went by the colour of the coat, and that only?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then there had been the quarrel."</p>
+
+<p>"My lord, is not that begging the question? Mr. Bonteen quarrelled
+with Mr. Finn. Mr. Bonteen was murdered by a man,&mdash;as we all
+believe,&mdash;whom you saw at a certain spot. Therefore you identified
+the man whom you saw as Mr. Finn. Was that so?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't identify him."</p>
+
+<p>"At any rate you do not do so now? Putting aside the grey coat there
+is nothing to make you now think that that man and Mr. Finn were one
+and the same? Come, my lord, on behalf of that man's life, which is
+in great jeopardy,&mdash;is in great jeopardy because of the evidence
+given by you before the magistrate,&mdash;do not be ashamed to speak the
+truth openly, though it be at variance with what you may have said
+before with ill-advised haste."</p>
+
+<p>"My lord, is it proper that I should be treated in this way?" said
+the witness, appealing to the Bench.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Chaffanbrass," said the judge, again looking at the barrister
+over his spectacles, "I think you are stretching the privilege of
+your position too far."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall have to stretch it further yet, my lord. His lordship in his
+evidence before the magistrate gave on his oath a decided opinion
+that the man he saw was Mr. Finn;&mdash;and on that evidence Mr. Finn was
+committed for murder. Let him say openly, now, to the jury,&mdash;when Mr.
+Finn is on his trial for his life before the Court, and for all his
+hopes in life before the country,&mdash;whether he thinks as then he
+thought, and on what grounds he thinks so."</p>
+
+<p>"I think so because of the quarrel, and because of the grey coat."</p>
+
+<p>"For no other reasons?"</p>
+
+<p>"No;&mdash;for no other reasons."</p>
+
+<p>"Your only ground for suggesting identity is the grey coat?"</p>
+
+<p>"And the quarrel," said Lord Fawn.</p>
+
+<p>"My lord, in giving evidence as to identity, I fear that you do not
+understand the meaning of the word." Lord Fawn looked up at the
+judge, but the judge on this occasion said nothing. "At any rate we
+have it from you at present that there was nothing in the appearance
+of the man you saw like to that of Mr. Finn except the colour of the
+coat."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think there was," said Lord Fawn, slowly.</p>
+
+<p>Then there occurred a scene in the Court which no doubt was
+gratifying to the spectators, and may in part have repaid them for
+the weariness of the whole proceeding. Mr. Chaffanbrass, while Lord
+Fawn was still in the witness-box, requested permission for a certain
+man to stand forward, and put on the coat which was lying on the
+table before him,&mdash;this coat being in truth the identical garment
+which Mr. Meager had brought home with him on the morning of the
+murder. This man was Mr. Wickerby's clerk, Mr. Scruby, and he put on
+the coat,&mdash;which seemed to fit him well. Mr. Chaffanbrass then asked
+permission to examine Mr. Scruby, explaining that much time might be
+saved, and declaring that he had but one question to ask him. After
+some difficulty this permission was given him, and Mr. Scruby was
+asked his height. Mr. Scruby was five feet eight inches, and had been
+accurately measured on the previous day with reference to the
+question. Then the examination of Lord Fawn was resumed, and Mr.
+Chaffanbrass referred to that very irregular interview to which he
+had so improperly enticed the witness in Mr. Wickerby's chambers. For
+a long time Sir Gregory Grogram declared that he would not permit any
+allusion to what had taken place at a most improper conference,&mdash;a
+conference which he could not stigmatize in sufficiently strong
+language. But Mr. Chaffanbrass, smiling blandly,&mdash;smiling very
+blandly for him,&mdash;suggested that the impropriety of the conference,
+let it have been ever so abominable, did not prevent the fact of the
+conference, and that he was manifestly within his right in alluding
+to it. "Suppose, my lord, that Lord Fawn had confessed in Mr.
+Wickerby's chambers that he had murdered Mr. Bonteen himself, and had
+since repented of that confession, would Mr. Camperdown and Mr.
+Wickerby, who were present, and would I, be now debarred from stating
+that confession in evidence, because, in deference to some fanciful
+rules of etiquette, Lord Fawn should not have been there?" Mr.
+Chaffanbrass at last prevailed, and the evidence was resumed.</p>
+
+<p>"You saw Mr. Scruby wear that coat in Mr. Wickerby's chambers." Lord
+Fawn said that he could not identify the coat. "We'll take
+care to have it identified. We shall get a great deal out
+of that coat yet. You saw that man wear a coat like that."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I did."</p>
+
+<p>"And you see him now."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I do."</p>
+
+<p>"Does he remind you of the figure of the man you saw come out of the
+mews?" Lord Fawn paused. "We can't make him move about here as we did
+in Mr. Wickerby's room; but remembering that as you must do, does he
+look like the man?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't remember what the man looked like."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you not tell us in Mr. Wickerby's room that Mr. Scruby with the
+grey coat on was like the figure of the man?"</p>
+
+<p>Questions of this nature were prolonged for near half an hour, during
+which Sir Gregory made more than one attempt to defend his witness
+from the weapons of their joint enemies; but Lord Fawn at last
+admitted that he had acknowledged the resemblance, and did, in some
+faint ambiguous fashion, acknowledge it in his present evidence.</p>
+
+<p>"My lord," said Mr. Chaffanbrass as he allowed Lord Fawn to go down,
+"you have no doubt taken a note of Mr. Scruby's height." Whereupon
+the judge nodded his head.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c63"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER LXIII.</h3>
+<h4>MR. CHAFFANBRASS FOR THE DEFENCE.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>The case for the prosecution was completed on the Saturday evening,
+Mrs. Bunce having been examined as the last witness on that side. She
+was only called upon to say that her lodger had been in the habit of
+letting himself in and out of her house at all hours with a
+latch-key;&mdash;but she insisted on saying more, and told the judge and
+the jury and the barristers that if they thought that Mr. Finn had
+murdered anybody they didn't know anything about the world in
+general. Whereupon Mr. Chaffanbrass said that he would like to ask
+her a question or two, and with consummate flattery extracted from
+her her opinion of her lodger. She had known him for years, and
+thought that, of all the gentlemen that ever were born, he was the
+least likely to do such a bloody-minded action. Mr. Chaffanbrass was,
+perhaps, right in thinking that her evidence might be as serviceable
+as that of the lords and countesses.</p>
+
+<p>During the Sunday the trial was, as a matter of course, the talk of
+the town. Poor Lord Fawn shut himself up, and was seen by no
+one;&mdash;but his conduct and evidence were discussed everywhere. At the
+clubs it was thought that he had escaped as well as could be
+expected; but he himself felt that he had been disgraced for ever.
+There was a very common opinion that Mr. Chaffanbrass had admitted
+too much when he had declared that the man whom Lord Fawn had seen
+was doubtless the murderer. To the minds of men generally it seemed
+to be less evident that the man so seen should have done the deed,
+than that Phineas Finn should have been that man. Was it probable
+that there should be two men going about in grey coats, in exactly
+the same vicinity, and at exactly the same hour of the night? And
+then the evidence which Lord Fawn had given before the magistrates
+was to the world at large at any rate as convincing as that given in
+the Court. The jury would, of course, be instructed to regard only
+the latter; whereas the general public would naturally be guided by
+the two combined. At the club it was certainly believed that the case
+was going against the prisoner.</p>
+
+<p>"You have read it all, of course," said the Duchess of Omnium to her
+husband, as she sat with the Observer in her hand on that Sunday
+morning. The Sunday papers were full of the report, and were enjoying
+a very extended circulation.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you would not think so much about it," said the Duke.</p>
+
+<p>"That's very easily said, but how is one to help thinking about it?
+Of course I am thinking about it. You know all about the coat. It
+belonged to the man where Mealyus was lodging."</p>
+
+<p>"I will not talk about the coat, Glencora. If Mr. Finn did commit the
+murder it is right that he should be convicted."</p>
+
+<p>"But if he didn't?"</p>
+
+<p>"It would be doubly right that he should be acquitted. But the jury
+will have means of arriving at a conclusion without prejudice, which
+you and I cannot have; and therefore we should be prepared to take
+their verdict as correct."</p>
+
+<p>"If they find him guilty, their verdict will be damnable and false,"
+said the Duchess. Whereupon the Duke turned away in anger, and
+resolved that he would say nothing more about the trial,&mdash;which
+resolution, however, he was compelled to break before the trial was
+over.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think about it, Mr. Erle?" asked the other Duke.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what to think;&mdash;I only hope."</p>
+
+<p>"That he may be acquitted?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course."</p>
+
+<p>"Whether guilty or innocent?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well;&mdash;yes. But if he is acquitted I shall believe him to have been
+innocent. Your Grace <span class="nowrap">thinks&mdash;?"</span></p>
+
+<p>"I am as unwilling to think as you are, Mr. Erle." It was thus that
+people spoke of it. With the exception of some very few, all those
+who had known Phineas were anxious for an acquittal, though they
+could not bring themselves to believe that an innocent man had been
+put in peril of his life.</p>
+
+<p>On the Monday morning the trial was recommenced, and the whole day
+was taken up by the address which Mr. Chaffanbrass made to the jury.
+He began by telling them the history of the coat which lay before
+them, promising to prove by evidence all the details which he stated.
+It was not his intention, he said, to accuse any one of the murder.
+It was his business to defend the prisoner, not to accuse others.
+But, as he should prove to them, two persons had been arrested as
+soon as the murder had been discovered,&mdash;two persons totally unknown
+to each other, and who were never for a moment supposed to have acted
+together,&mdash;and the suspicion of the police had in the first instance
+pointed, not to his client, but to the other man. That other man had
+also quarrelled with Mr. Bonteen, and that other man was now in
+custody on a charge of bigamy chiefly through the instrumentality of
+Mr. Bonteen, who had been the friend of the victim of the supposed
+bigamist. With the accusation of bigamy they would have nothing to
+do, but he must ask them to take cognisance of that quarrel as well
+as of the quarrel at the club. He then named that formerly popular
+preacher, the Rev. Mr. Emilius, and explained that he would prove
+that this man, who had incurred the suspicion of the police in the
+first instance, had during the night of the murder been so
+circumstanced as to have been able to use the coat produced. He would
+prove also that Mr. Emilius was of precisely the same height as the
+man whom they had seen wearing the coat. God forbid that he should
+bring an accusation of murder against a man on such slight testimony.
+But if the evidence, as grounded on the coat, was slight against
+Emilius, how could it prevail at all against his client? The two
+coats were as different as chalk from cheese, the one being what
+would be called a gentleman's fashionable walking coat, and the other
+the wrap-rascal of such a fellow as was Mr. Meager. And yet Lord
+Fawn, who attempted to identify the prisoner only by his coat, could
+give them no opinion as to which was the coat he had seen! But Lord
+Fawn, who had found himself to be debarred by his conscience from
+repeating the opinion he had given before the magistrate as to the
+identity of Phineas Finn with the man he had seen, did tell them that
+the figure of that man was similar to the figure of him who had worn
+the coat on Saturday in presence of them all. This man in the street
+had therefore been like Mr. Emilius, and could not in the least have
+resembled the prisoner. Mr. Chaffanbrass would not tell the jury that
+this point bore strongly against Mr. Emilius, but he took upon
+himself to assert that it was quite sufficient to snap asunder the
+thin thread of circumstantial evidence by which his client was
+connected with the murder. A great deal more was said about Lord
+Fawn, which was not complimentary to that nobleman. "His lordship is
+an honest, slow man, who has doubtless meant to tell you the truth,
+but who does not understand the meaning of what he himself says. When
+he swore before the magistrate that he thought he could identify my
+client with the man in the street, he really meant that he thought
+that there must be identity, because he believed from other reasons
+that Mr. Finn was the man in the street. Mr. Bonteen had been
+murdered;&mdash;according to Lord Fawn's thinking had probably been
+murdered by Mr. Finn. And it was also probable to him that Mr.
+Bonteen had been murdered by the man in the street. He came thus to
+the conclusion that the prisoner was the man in the street. In fact,
+as far as the process of identifying is concerned, his lordship's
+evidence is altogether in favour of the prisoner. The figure seen by
+him we must suppose was the figure of a short man, and not of one
+tall and commanding in his presence, as is that of the prisoner."</p>
+
+<p>There were many other points on which Mr. Chaffanbrass insisted at
+great length;&mdash;but, chiefly, perhaps, on the improbability, he might
+say impossibility, that the plot for a murder so contrived should
+have entered into a man's head, have been completed and executed, all
+within a few minutes. "But under no hypothesis compatible with the
+allegations of the prosecution can it be conceived that the murder
+should have been contemplated by my client before the quarrel at the
+club. No, gentlemen;&mdash;the murderer had been at his work for days. He
+had examined the spot and measured the distances. He had dogged the
+steps of his victim on previous nights. In the shade of some dark
+doorway he had watched him from his club, and had hurried by his
+secret path to the spot which he had appointed for the deed. Can any
+man doubt that the murder has thus been committed, let who will have
+been the murderer? But, if so, then my client could not have done the
+deed." Much had been made of the words spoken at the club door. Was
+it probable,&mdash;was it possible,&mdash;that a man intending to commit a
+murder should declare how easily he could do it, and display the
+weapon he intended to use? The evidence given as to that part of the
+night's work was, he contended, altogether in the prisoner's favour.
+Then he spoke of the life-preserver, and gave a rather long account
+of the manner in which Phineas Finn had once taken two garotters
+prisoner in the street. All this lasted till the great men on the
+bench trooped out to lunch. And then Mr. Chaffanbrass, who had been
+speaking for nearly four hours, retired to a small room and there
+drank a pint of port wine. While he was doing so, Mr. Serjeant
+Birdbolt spoke a word to him, but he only shook his head and snarled.
+He was telling himself at the moment how quick may be the resolves of
+the eager mind,&mdash;for he was convinced that the idea of attacking Mr.
+Bonteen had occurred to Phineas Finn after he had displayed the
+life-preserver at the club door; and he was telling himself also how
+impossible it is for a dull conscientious man to give accurate
+evidence as to what he had himself seen,&mdash;for he was convinced that
+Lord Fawn had seen Phineas Finn in the street. But to no human being
+had he expressed this opinion; nor would he express it,&mdash;unless his
+client should be hung.</p>
+
+<p>After lunch he occupied nearly three hours in giving to the jury, and
+of course to the whole assembled Court, the details of about two
+dozen cases, in which apparently strong circumstantial evidence had
+been wrong in its tendency. In some of the cases quoted, the persons
+tried had been acquitted; in some, convicted and afterwards pardoned;
+in one pardoned after many years of punishment;&mdash;and in one the poor
+victim had been hung. On this he insisted with a pathetic eloquence
+which certainly would not have been expected from his appearance, and
+spoke with tears in his eyes,&mdash;real unaffected tears,&mdash;of the misery
+of those wretched jurymen who, in the performance of their duty, had
+been led into so frightful an error. Through the whole of this long
+recital he seemed to feel no fatigue, and when he had done with his
+list of judicial mistakes about five o'clock in the afternoon, went
+on to make what he called the very few remarks necessary as to the
+evidence which on the next day he proposed to produce as to the
+prisoner's character. He ventured to think that evidence as to the
+character of such a nature,&mdash;so strong, so convincing, so complete,
+and so free from all objection, had never yet been given in a
+criminal court. At six o'clock he completed his speech, and it was
+computed that the old man had been on his legs very nearly seven
+hours. It was said of him afterwards that he was taken home
+speechless by one of his daughters and immediately put to bed, that
+he roused himself about eight and ate his dinner and drank a bottle
+of port in his bedroom, that he then slept,&mdash;refusing to stir even
+when he was waked, till half-past nine in the morning, and that then
+he scrambled into his clothes, breakfasted, and got down to the Court
+in half an hour. At ten o'clock he was in his place, and nobody knew
+that he was any the worse for the previous day's exertion.</p>
+
+<p>This was on a Tuesday, the fifth day of the trial, and upon the whole
+perhaps the most interesting. A long array of distinguished
+persons,&mdash;of women as well as men,&mdash;was brought up to give to the
+jury their opinion as to the character of Mr. Finn. Mr. Low was the
+first, who having been his tutor when he was studying at the bar,
+knew him longer than any other Londoner. Then came his countryman
+Laurence Fitzgibbon, and Barrington Erle, and others of his own party
+who had been intimate with him. And men, too, from the opposite side
+of the House were brought up, Sir Orlando Drought among the number,
+all of whom said that they had known the prisoner well, and from
+their knowledge would have considered it impossible that he should
+have become a murderer. The two last called were Lord Cantrip and Mr.
+Monk, one of whom was, and the other had been, a Cabinet Minister.
+But before them came Lady Cantrip,&mdash;and Lady Chiltern, whom we once
+knew as Violet Effingham, whom this very prisoner had in early days
+fondly hoped to make his wife, who was still young and beautiful, and
+who had never before entered a public Court.</p>
+
+<p>There had of course been much question as to the witnesses to be
+selected. The Duchess of Omnium had been anxious to be one, but the
+Duke had forbidden it, telling his wife that she really did not know
+the man, and that she was carried away by a foolish enthusiasm. Lady
+Cantrip when asked had at once consented. She had known Phineas Finn
+when he had served under her husband, and had liked him much. Then
+what other woman's tongue should be brought to speak of the man's
+softness and tender bearing! It was out of the question that Lady
+Laura Kennedy should appear. She did not even propose it when her
+brother with unnecessary sternness told her it could not be so. Then
+his wife looked at him. "You shall go," said Lord Chiltern, "if you
+feel equal to it. It seems to be nonsense, but they say that it is
+important."</p>
+
+<p>"I will go," said Violet, with her eyes full of tears. Afterwards
+when her sister-in-law besought her to be generous in her testimony,
+she only smiled as she assented. Could generosity go beyond hers?</p>
+
+<p>Lord Chiltern preceded his wife. "I have," he said, "known Mr. Finn
+well, and have loved him dearly. I have eaten with him and drank with
+him, have ridden with him, have lived with him, and have quarrelled
+with him; and I know him as I do my own right hand." Then he
+stretched forth his arm with the palm extended.</p>
+
+<p>"Irrespectively of the evidence in this case you would not have
+thought him to be a man likely to commit such a crime?" asked
+Serjeant Birdbolt.</p>
+
+<p>"I am quite sure from my knowledge of the man that he could not
+commit a murder," said Lord Chiltern; "and I don't care what the
+evidence is."</p>
+
+<p>Then came his wife, and it certainly was a pretty sight to see as her
+husband led her up to the box and stood close beside her as she gave
+her evidence. There were many there who knew much of the history of
+her life,&mdash;who knew that passage in it of her early love,&mdash;for the
+tale had of course been told when it was whispered about that Lady
+Chiltern was to be examined as a witness. Every ear was at first
+strained to hear her words;&mdash;but they were audible in every corner of
+the Court without any effort. It need hardly be said that she was
+treated with the greatest deference on every side. She answered the
+questions very quietly, but apparently without nervousness. "Yes; she
+had known Mr. Finn long, and intimately, and had very greatly valued
+his friendship. She did so still,&mdash;as much as ever. Yes; she had
+known him for some years, and in circumstances which she thought
+justified her in saying that she understood his character. She
+regarded him as a man who was brave and tender-hearted, soft in
+feeling and manly in disposition. To her it was quite incredible that
+he should have committed a crime such as this. She knew him to be a
+man prone to forgive offences, and of a sweet nature." And it was
+pretty too to watch the unwonted gentleness of old Chaffanbrass as he
+asked the questions, and carefully abstained from putting any one
+that could pain her. Sir Gregory said that he had heard her evidence
+with great pleasure, but that he had no question to ask her himself.
+Then she stepped down, again took her husband's arm, and left the
+Court amidst a hum of almost affectionate greeting.</p>
+
+<p>And what must he have thought as he stood there within the dock,
+looking at her and listening to her? There had been months in his
+life when he had almost trusted that he would succeed in winning that
+fair, highly-born, and wealthy woman for his wife; and though he had
+failed, and now knew that he had never really touched her heart, that
+she had always loved the man whom,&mdash;though she had rejected him time
+after time because of the dangers of his ways,&mdash;she had at last
+married, yet it must have been pleasant to him, even in his peril, to
+hear from her own lips how well she had esteemed him. She left the
+Court with her veil down, and he could not catch her eye; but Lord
+Chiltern nodded to him in his old pleasant familiar way, as though to
+bid him take courage, and to tell him that all things would even yet
+be well with him.</p>
+
+<p>The evidence given by Lady Cantrip and her husband and by Mr. Monk
+was equally favourable. She had always regarded him as a perfect
+gentleman. Lord Cantrip had found him to be devoted to the service of
+the country,&mdash;modest, intelligent, and high-spirited. Perhaps the few
+words which fell from Mr. Monk were as strong as any that were
+spoken. "He is a man whom I have delighted to call my friend, and I
+have been happy to think that his services have been at the disposal
+of his country."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Gregory Grogram replied. It seemed to him that the evidence was
+as he had left it. It would be for the jury to decide, under such
+directions as his lordship might be pleased to give them, how far
+that evidence brought the guilt home to the prisoner. He would use no
+rhetoric in pushing the case against the prisoner; but he must submit
+to them that his learned friend had not shown that acquaintance with
+human nature which the gentleman undoubtedly possessed in arguing
+that there had lacked time for the conception and execution of the
+crime. Then, at considerable length, he strove to show that Mr.
+Chaffanbrass had been unjustly severe upon Lord Fawn.</p>
+
+<p>It was late in the afternoon when Sir Gregory had finished his
+speech, and the judge's charge was reserved for a sixth day.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c64"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER LXIV.</h3>
+<h4>CONFUSION IN THE COURT.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>On the following morning it was observed that before the judges took
+their seats Mr. Chaffanbrass entered the Court with a manner much
+more brisk than was expected from him now that his own work was done.
+As a matter of course he would be there to hear the charge, but,
+almost equally as a matter of course, he would be languid, silent,
+cross, and unenergetic. They who knew him were sure, when they saw
+his bearing on this morning, that he intended to do something more
+before the charge was given. The judges entered the Court nearly half
+an hour later than usual, and it was observed with surprise that they
+were followed by the Duke of Omnium. Mr. Chaffanbrass was on his feet
+before the Chief Justice had taken his seat, but the judge was the
+first to speak. It was observed that he held a scrap of paper in his
+hand, and that the barrister held a similar scrap. Then every man in
+the Court knew that some message had come suddenly by the wires. "I
+am informed, Mr. Chaffanbrass, that you wish to address the Court
+before I begin my charge."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my lud; and I am afraid, my lud, that I shall have to ask your
+ludship to delay your charge for some days, and to subject the jury
+to the very great inconvenience of prolonged incarceration for
+another week;&mdash;either to do that or to call upon the jury to acquit
+the prisoner. I venture to assert, on my own peril, that no jury can
+convict the prisoner after hearing me read that which I hold in my
+hand." Then Mr. Chaffanbrass paused, as though expecting that the
+judge would speak;&mdash;but the judge said not a word, but sat looking at
+the old barrister over his spectacles.</p>
+
+<p>Every eye was turned upon Phineas Finn, who up to this moment had
+heard nothing of these new tidings,&mdash;who did not in the least know on
+what was grounded the singularly confident,&mdash;almost insolently
+confident assertion which Mr. Chaffanbrass had made in his favour. On
+him the effect was altogether distressing. He had borne the trying
+week with singular fortitude, having stood there in the place of
+shame hour after hour, and day after day, expecting his doom. It had
+been to him as a lifetime of torture. He had become almost numb from
+the weariness of his position and the agonising strain upon his mind.
+The gaoler had offered him a seat from day to day, but he had always
+refused it, preferring to lean upon the rail and gaze upon the Court.
+He had almost ceased to hope for anything except the end of it. He
+had lost count of the days, and had begun to feel that the trial was
+an eternity of torture in itself. At nights he could not sleep, but
+during the Sunday, after Mass, he had slept all day. Then it had
+begun again, and when the Tuesday came he hardly knew how long it had
+been since that vacant Sunday. And now he heard the advocate declare,
+without knowing on what ground the declaration was grounded, that the
+trial must be postponed, or that the jury must be instructed to
+acquit him.</p>
+
+<p>"This telegram has reached us only this morning," continued Mr.
+Chaffanbrass. "'Mealyus had a house door-key made in Prague. We have
+the mould in our possession, and will bring the man who made the key
+to England.' Now, my lud, the case in the hands of the police, as
+against this man Mealyus, or Emilius, as he has chosen to call
+himself, broke down altogether on the presumption that he could not
+have let himself in and out of the house in which he had put himself
+to bed on the night of the murder. We now propose to prove that he
+had prepared himself with the means of doing so, and had done so
+after a fashion which is conclusive as to his having required the key
+for some guilty purpose. We assert that your ludship cannot allow the
+case to go to the jury without taking cognisance of this telegram;
+and we go further, and say that those twelve men, as twelve human
+beings with hearts in their bosoms and ordinary intelligence at their
+command, cannot ignore the message, even should your ludship insist
+upon their doing so with all the energy at your disposal."</p>
+
+<p>Then there was a scene in Court, and it appeared that no less than
+four messages had been received from Prague, all to the same effect.
+One had been addressed by Madame Goesler to her friend the
+Duchess,&mdash;and that message had caused the Duke's appearance on the
+scene. He had brought his telegram direct to the Old Bailey, and the
+Chief Justice now held it in his hand. The lawyer's clerk who had
+accompanied Madame Goesler had telegraphed to the Governor of the
+gaol, to Mr. Wickerby, and to the Attorney-General. Sir Gregory,
+rising with the telegram in his hand, stated that he had received the
+same information. "I do not see," said he, "that it at all alters the
+evidence as against the prisoner."</p>
+
+<p>"Let your evidence go to the jury, then," said Mr. Chaffanbrass,
+"with such observations as his lordship may choose to make on the
+telegram. I shall be contented. You have already got your other man
+in prison on a charge of bigamy."</p>
+
+<p>"I could not take notice of the message in charging the jury, Mr.
+Chaffanbrass," said the judge. "It has come, as far as we know, from
+the energy of a warm friend,&mdash;from that hearty friendship with which
+it seemed yesterday that this gentleman, the prisoner at the bar, has
+inspired so many men and women of high character. But it proves
+nothing. It is an assertion. And where should we all be, Mr.
+Chaffanbrass, if it should appear hereafter that the assertion is
+fictitious,&mdash;prepared purposely to aid the escape of a criminal?"</p>
+
+<p>"I defy you to ignore it, my lord."</p>
+
+<p>"I can only suggest, Mr. Chaffanbrass," continued the judge, "that
+you should obtain the consent of the gentlemen on the other side to a
+postponement of my charge."</p>
+
+<p>Then spoke out the foreman of the jury. Was it proposed that they
+should be locked up till somebody should come from Prague, and that
+then the trial should be recommenced? The system, said the foreman,
+under which Middlesex juries were chosen for service in the City was
+known to be most horribly cruel;&mdash;but cruelty to jurymen such as this
+had never even been heard of. Then a most irregular word was spoken.
+One of the jurymen declared that he was quite willing to believe the
+telegram. "Every one believes it," said Mr. Chaffanbrass. Then the
+Chief Justice scolded the juryman, and Sir Gregory Grogram scolded
+Mr. Chaffanbrass. It seemed as though all the rules of the Court were
+to be set at defiance. "Will my learned friend say that he doesn't
+believe it?" asked Mr. Chaffanbrass. "I neither believe nor
+disbelieve it; but it cannot affect the evidence," said Sir Gregory.
+"Then send the case to the jury," said Mr. Chaffanbrass. It seemed
+that everybody was talking, and Mr. Wickerby, the attorney, tried to
+explain it all to the prisoner over the bar of the dock, not in the
+lowest possible voice. The Chief Justice became angry, and the
+guardian of the silence of the Court bestirred himself energetically.
+"My lud," said Mr. Chaffanbrass, "I maintain that it is proper that
+the prisoner should be informed of the purport of these telegrams.
+Mercy demands it, and justice as well." Phineas Finn, however, did
+not understand, as he had known nothing about the latch-key of the
+house in Northumberland Street.</p>
+
+<p>Something, however, must be done. The Chief Justice was of opinion
+that, although the preparation of a latch-key in Prague could not
+really affect the evidence against the prisoner,&mdash;although the facts
+against the prisoner would not be altered, let the manufacture of
+that special key be ever so clearly proved,&mdash;nevertheless the jury
+were entitled to have before them the facts now tendered in evidence
+before they could be called upon to give a verdict, and that
+therefore they should submit themselves, in the service of their
+country, to the very serious additional inconvenience which they
+would be called upon to endure. Sundry of the jury altogether
+disagreed with this, and became loud in their anger. They had already
+been locked up for a week. "And we are quite prepared to give a
+verdict," said one. The judge again scolded him very severely; and as
+the Attorney-General did at last assent, and as the unfortunate
+jurymen had no power in the matter, so it was at last arranged. The
+trial should be postponed till time should be given for Madame
+Goesler and the blacksmith to reach London from Prague.</p>
+
+<p>If the matter was interesting to the public before, it became doubly
+interesting now. It was of course known to everybody that Madame
+Goesler had undertaken a journey to Bohemia,&mdash;and, as many supposed,
+a roving tour through all the wilder parts of unknown Europe, Poland,
+Hungary, and the Principalities for instance,&mdash;with the object of
+looking for evidence to save the life of Phineas Finn; and grandly
+romantic tales were told of her wit, her wealth, and her beauty. The
+story was published of the Duke of Omnium's will, only not exactly
+the true story. The late Duke had left her everything at his
+disposal, and, it was hinted that they had been privately married
+just before the Duke's death. Of course Madame Goesler became very
+popular, and the blacksmith from Prague who had made the key was
+expected with an enthusiasm which almost led to preparation for a
+public reception.</p>
+
+<p>And yet, let the blacksmith from Prague be ever so minute in his
+evidence as to the key, let it be made as clear as running water that
+Mealyus had caused to be constructed for him in Prague a key that
+would open the door of the house in Northumberland Street, the facts
+as proved at the trial would not be at all changed. The lawyers were
+much at variance with their opinions on the matter, some thinking
+that the judge had been altogether wrong in delaying his charge.
+According to them he should not have allowed Mr. Chaffanbrass to have
+read the telegram in Court. The charge should have been given, and
+the sentence of the Court should have been pronounced if a verdict of
+guilty were given. The Home Secretary should then have granted a
+respite till the coming of the blacksmith, and have extended this
+respite to a pardon, if advised that the circumstances of the
+latch-key rendered doubtful the propriety of the verdict. Others,
+however, maintained that in this way a grievous penalty would be
+inflicted on a man who, by general consent, was now held to be
+innocent. Not only would he, by such an arrangement of circumstances,
+have been left for some prolonged period under the agony of a
+condemnation, but, by the necessity of the case, he would lose his
+seat for Tankerville. It would be imperative upon the House to
+declare vacant by its own action a seat held by a man condemned to
+death for murder, and no pardon from the Queen or from the Home
+Secretary would absolve the House from that duty. The House, as a
+House of Parliament, could only recognise the verdict of the jury as
+to the man's guilt. The Queen, of course, might pardon whom she
+pleased, but no pardon from the Queen would remove the guilt implied
+by the sentence. Many went much further than this, and were prepared
+to prove that were he once condemned he could not afterwards sit in
+the House, even if re-elected.</p>
+
+<p>Now there was unquestionably an intense desire,&mdash;since the arrival of
+these telegrams,&mdash;that Phineas Finn should retain his seat. It may be
+a question whether he would not have been the most popular man in the
+House could he have sat there on the day after the telegrams arrived.
+The Attorney-General had declared,&mdash;and many others had declared with
+him,&mdash;that this information about the latch-key did not in the least
+affect the evidence as given against Mr. Finn. Could it have been
+possible to convict the other man, merely because he had
+surreptitiously caused a door-key of the house in which he lived to
+be made for him? And how would this new information have been
+received had Lord Fawn sworn unreservedly that the man he had seen
+running out of the mews had been Phineas Finn? It was acknowledged
+that the latch-key could not be accepted as sufficient evidence
+against Mealyus. But nevertheless the information conveyed by the
+telegrams altogether changed the opinion of the public as to the
+guilt or innocence of Phineas Finn. His life now might have been
+insured, as against the gallows, at a very low rate. It was felt that
+no jury could convict him, and he was much more pitied in being
+subjected to a prolonged incarceration than even those twelve
+unfortunate men who had felt sure that the Wednesday would have been
+the last day of their unmerited martyrdom.</p>
+
+<p>Phineas in his prison was materially circumstanced precisely as he
+had been before the trial. He was supplied with a profusion of
+luxuries, could they have comforted him; and was allowed to receive
+visitors. But he would see no one but his sisters,&mdash;except that he
+had one interview with Mr. Low. Even Mr. Low found it difficult to
+make him comprehend the exact condition of the affair, and could not
+induce him to be comforted when he did understand it. What had he to
+do,&mdash;how could his innocence or his guilt be concerned,&mdash;with the
+manufacture of a paltry key by such a one as Mealyus? How would it
+have been with him and with his name for ever if this fact had not
+been discovered? "I was to be hung or saved from hanging according to
+the chances of such a thing as this! I do not care for my life in a
+country where such injustice can be done." His friend endeavoured to
+assure him that even had nothing been heard of the key the jury would
+have acquitted him. But Phineas would not believe him. It had seemed
+to him as he had listened to the whole proceeding that the Court had
+been against him. The Attorney and Solicitor-General had appeared to
+him resolved upon hanging him,&mdash;men who had been, at any rate, his
+intimate acquaintances, with whom he had sat on the same bench, who
+ought to have known him. And the judge had taken the part of Lord
+Fawn, who had seemed to Phineas to be bent on swearing away his life.
+He had borne himself very gallantly during that week, having in all
+his intercourse with his attorney, spoken without a quaver in his
+voice, and without a flaw in the perspicuity of his intelligence. But
+now, when Mr. Low came to him, explaining to him that it was
+impossible that a verdict should be found against him, he was quite
+broken down. "There is nothing left of me," he said at the end of the
+interview. "I feel that I had better take to my bed and die. Even
+when I think of all that friends have done for me, it fails to cheer
+me. In this matter I should not have had to depend on friends. Had
+not she gone for me to that place every one would have believed me to
+be a murderer."</p>
+
+<p>And yet in his solitude he thought very much of the marvellous love
+shown to him by his friends. Words had been spoken which had been
+very sweet to him in all his misery,&mdash;words such as neither men nor
+women can say to each other in the ordinary intercourse of life, much
+as they may wish that their purport should be understood. Lord
+Chiltern, Lord Cantrip, and Mr. Monk had alluded to him as a man
+specially singled out by them for their friendship. Lady Cantrip,
+than whom no woman in London was more discreet, had been equally
+enthusiastic. Then how gracious, how tender, how inexpressibly sweet
+had been the words of her who had been Violet Effingham! And now the
+news had reached him of Madame Goesler's journey to the continent.
+"It was a wonderful thing for her to do," Mr. Low had said. Yes,
+indeed! Remembering all that had passed between them he acknowledged
+to himself that it was very wonderful. Were it not that his back was
+now broken, that he was prostrate and must remain so, a man utterly
+crushed by what he had endured, it might have been possible that she
+should do more for him even than she yet had done.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c65"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER LXV.</h3>
+<h4>"I HATE HER!"<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>Lady Laura Kennedy had been allowed to take no active part in the
+manifestations of friendship which at this time were made on behalf
+of Phineas Finn. She had, indeed, gone to him in his prison, and made
+daily efforts to administer to his comfort; but she could not go up
+into the Court and speak for him. And now this other woman, whom she
+hated, would have the glory of his deliverance! She already began to
+see a fate before her, which would make even her past misery as
+nothing to that which was to come. She was a widow,&mdash;not yet two
+months a widow; and though she did not and could not mourn the death
+of a husband as do other widows,&mdash;though she could not sorrow in her
+heart for a man whom she had never loved, and from whom she had been
+separated during half her married life,&mdash;yet the fact of her
+widowhood and the circumstances of her weeds were heavy on her. That
+she loved this man, Phineas Finn, with a passionate devotion of which
+the other woman could know nothing she was quite sure. Love him! Had
+she not been true to him and to his interests from the very first day
+in which he had come among them in London, with almost more than a
+woman's truth? She knew and recalled to her memory over and over
+again her own one great sin,&mdash;the fault of her life. When she was, as
+regarded her own means, a poor woman, she had refused to be this poor
+man's wife, and had given her hand to a rich suitor. But she had done
+this with a conviction that she could so best serve the interests of
+the man in regard to whom she had promised herself that her feeling
+should henceforth be one of simple and purest friendship. She had
+made a great effort to carry out that intention, but the effort had
+been futile. She had striven to do her duty to a husband whom she
+disliked,&mdash;but even in that she had failed. At one time she had been
+persistent in her intercourse with Phineas Finn, and at another had
+resolved that she would not see him. She had been madly angry with
+him when he came to her with the story of his love for another woman,
+and had madly shown her anger; but yet she had striven to get for him
+the wife he wanted, though in doing so she would have abandoned one
+of the dearest purposes of her life. She had moved heaven and earth
+for him,&mdash;her heaven and earth,&mdash;when there was danger that he would
+lose his seat in Parliament. She had encountered the jealousy of her
+husband with scorn,&mdash;and had then deserted him because he was
+jealous. And all this she did with a consciousness of her own virtue
+which was almost as sublime as it was ill-founded. She had been
+wrong. She confessed so much to herself with bitter tears. She had
+marred the happiness of three persons by the mistake she had made in
+early life. But it had not yet occurred to her that she had sinned.
+To her thinking the jealousy of her husband had been preposterous and
+abominable, because she had known,&mdash;and had therefore felt that he
+should have known,&mdash;that she would never disgrace him by that which
+the world calls falsehood in a wife. She had married him without
+loving him, but it seemed to her that he was in fault for that. They
+had become wretched, but she had never pitied his wretchedness. She
+had left him, and thought herself to be ill-used because he had
+ventured to reclaim his wife. Through it all she had been true in her
+regard to the one man she had ever loved, and,&mdash;though she admitted
+her own folly and knew her own shipwreck,&mdash;yet she had always drawn
+some woman's consolation from the conviction of her own constancy. He
+had vanished from her sight for a while with a young wife,&mdash;never
+from her mind,&mdash;and then he had returned a widower. Through silence,
+absence, and distance she had been true to him. On his return to his
+old ways she had at once welcomed him and strove to aid him.
+Everything that was hers should be his,&mdash;if only he would open his
+hands to take it. And she would tell it him all,&mdash;let him know every
+corner of her heart. She was a married woman, and could not be his
+wife. She was a woman of virtue, and would not be his mistress. But
+she would be to him a friend so tender that no wife, no mistress
+should ever have been fonder! She did tell him everything as they
+stood together on the ramparts of the old Saxon castle. Then he had
+kissed her, and pressed her to his heart,&mdash;not because he loved her,
+but because he was generous. She had partly understood it all,&mdash;but
+yet had not understood it thoroughly. He did not assure her of his
+love,&mdash;but then she was a wife, and would have admitted no love that
+was sinful. When she returned to Dresden that night she stood gazing
+at herself in the glass and saw that there was nothing there to
+attract the love of such a man as Phineas Finn,&mdash;of one who was
+himself glorious with manly beauty; but yet for her sadness there was
+some cure, some possibility of consolation in the fact that she was a
+wife. Why speak of love at all when marriage was so far out of the
+question? But now she was a widow and as free as he was,&mdash;a widow
+endowed with ample wealth; and she was the woman to whom he had sworn
+his love when they had stood together, both young, by the falls of
+the Linter! How often might they stand there again if only his
+constancy would equal hers?</p>
+
+<p>She had seen him once since Fate had made her a widow; but then she
+had been but a few days a widow, and his life had at that moment been
+in strange jeopardy. There had certainly been no time then for other
+love than that which the circumstances and the sorrow of the hour
+demanded from their mutual friendship. From that day, from the first
+moment in which she had heard of his arrest, every thought, every
+effort of her mind had been devoted to his affairs. So great was his
+peril and so strange, that it almost wiped out from her mind the
+remembrance of her own condition. Should they hang him,&mdash;undoubtedly
+she would die. Such a termination to all her aspirations for him whom
+she had selected as her god upon earth would utterly crush her. She
+had borne much, but she could never bear that. Should he escape, but
+escape ingloriously;&mdash;ah, then he should know what the devotion of a
+woman could do for a man! But if he should leave his prison with
+flying colours, and come forth a hero to the world, how would it be
+with her then? She could foresee and understand of what nature would
+be the ovation with which he would be greeted. She had already heard
+what the Duchess was doing and saying. She knew how eager on his
+behalf were Lord and Lady Cantrip. She discussed the matter daily
+with her sister-in-law, and knew what her brother thought. If the
+acquittal were perfect, there would certainly be an ovation,&mdash;in
+which, was it not certain to her, that she would be forgotten? And
+she heard much, too, of Madame Goesler. And now there came the news.
+Madame Goesler had gone to Prague, to Cracow,&mdash;and where
+not?&mdash;spending her wealth, employing her wits, bearing fatigue,
+openly before the world on this man's behalf; and had done so
+successfully. She had found this evidence of the key, and now because
+the tracings of a key had been discovered by a woman, people were
+ready to believe that he was innocent, as to whose innocence she,
+Laura Kennedy, would have been willing to stake her own life from the
+beginning of the affair!</p>
+
+<p>Why had it not been her lot to go to Prague? Would not she have drunk
+up Esil, or swallowed a crocodile against any she-Laertes that would
+have thought to rival and to parallel her great love? Would not she
+have piled up new Ossas, had the opportunity been given her?
+Womanlike she had gone to him in her trouble,&mdash;had burst through his
+prison doors, had thrown herself on his breast, and had wept at his
+feet. But of what avail had been that? This strange female, this
+Moabitish woman, had gone to Prague, and had found a key,&mdash;and
+everybody said that the thing was done! How she hated the strange
+woman, and remembered all the evil things that had been said of the
+intruder! She told herself over and over again that had it been any
+one else than this half-foreigner, this German Jewess, this
+intriguing unfeminine upstart, she could have borne it. Did not all
+the world know that the woman for the last two years had been the
+mistress of that old doting Duke who was now dead? Had one ever heard
+who was her father or who was her mother? Had it not always been
+declared of her that she was a pushing, dangerous, scheming creature?
+And then she was old enough to be his mother, though by some Medean
+tricks known to such women, she was able to postpone,&mdash;not the
+ravages of age,&mdash;but the manifestation of them to the eyes of the
+world. In all of which charges poor Lady Laura wronged her rival
+foully;&mdash;in that matter of age especially, for, as it happened,
+Madame Goesler was by some months the younger of the two. But Lady
+Laura was a blonde, and trouble had told upon her outwardly, as it is
+wont to do upon those who are fair-skinned, and, at the same time,
+high-hearted. But Madame Goesler was a brunette,&mdash;swarthy, Lady Laura
+would have called her,&mdash;with bright eyes and glossy hair and thin
+cheeks, and now being somewhat over thirty she was at her best. Lady
+Laura hated her as a fair woman who has lost her beauty can hate the
+dark woman who keeps it.</p>
+
+<p>"What made her think of the key?" said Lady Chiltern.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe she did think of it. It was an accident."</p>
+
+<p>"Then why did she go?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Violet, do not talk to me about that woman any more, or I shall
+be mad."</p>
+
+<p>"She has done him good service."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well;&mdash;so be it. Let him have the service. I know they would
+have acquitted him if she had never stirred from London. Oswald says
+so. But no matter. Let her have her triumph. Only do not talk to me
+about her. You know what I have thought about her ever since she
+first came up in London. Nothing ever surprised me so much as that
+you should take her by the hand."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know that I took her specially by the hand."</p>
+
+<p>"You had her down at Harrington."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I did. And I do like her. And I know nothing against her. I
+think you are prejudiced against her, Laura."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well. Of course you think and can say what you please. I hate
+her, and that is sufficient." Then, after a pause, she added, "Of
+course he will marry her. I know that well enough. It is nothing to
+me whom he marries&mdash;only,&mdash;only,&mdash;only, after all that has passed it
+seems hard upon me that his wife should be the only woman in London
+that I could not visit."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Laura, you should control your thoughts about this young man."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I should;&mdash;but I don't. You mean that I am disgracing
+myself."</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you do. Oswald is more candid, and tells me so openly. And yet
+what have I done? The world has been hard upon me, and I have
+suffered. Do I desire anything except that he shall be happy and
+respectable? Do I hope for anything? I will go back and linger out my
+life at Dresden, where my disgrace can hurt no one." Her
+sister-in-law with all imaginable tenderness said what she could to
+console the miserable woman;&mdash;but there was no consolation possible.
+They both knew that Phineas Finn would never renew the offer which he
+had once made.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c66"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER LXVI.</h3>
+<h4>THE FOREIGN BLUDGEON.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>In the meantime Madame Goesler, having accomplished the journey from
+Prague in considerably less than a week, reached London with the
+blacksmith, the attorney's clerk, and the model of the key. The trial
+had been adjourned on Wednesday, the 24th of June, and it had been
+suggested that the jury should be again put into their box on that
+day week. All manner of inconvenience was to be endured by various
+members of the legal profession, and sundry irregularities were of
+necessity sanctioned on this great occasion. The sitting of the Court
+should have been concluded, and everybody concerned should have been
+somewhere else, but the matter was sufficient to justify almost any
+departure from routine. A member of the House of Commons was in
+custody, and it had already been suggested that some action should be
+taken by the House as to his speedy deliverance. Unless a jury could
+find him guilty, let him be at once restored to his duties and his
+privileges. The case was involved in difficulties, but in the
+meantime the jury, who had been taken down by train every day to have
+a walk in the country in the company of two sheriff's officers, and
+who had been allowed to dine at Greenwich one day and at Richmond on
+another in the hope that whitebait with lamb and salad might in some
+degree console them for their loss of liberty, were informed that
+they would be once again put into their box on Wednesday. But Madame
+Goesler reached London on the Sunday morning, and on the Monday the
+whole affair respecting the key was unravelled in the presence of the
+Attorney-General, and with the personal assistance of our old friend,
+Major Mackintosh. Without a doubt the man Mealyus had caused to be
+made for him in Prague a key which would open the door of the house
+in Northumberland Street. A key was made in London from the model now
+brought which did open the door. The Attorney-General seemed to think
+that it would be his duty to ask the judge to call upon the jury to
+acquit Phineas Finn, and that then the matter must rest for ever,
+unless further evidence could be obtained against Yosef Mealyus. It
+would not be possible to hang a man for a murder simply because he
+had fabricated a key,&mdash;even though he might possibly have obtained
+the use of a grey coat for a few hours. There was no tittle of
+evidence to show that he had ever had the great coat on his
+shoulders, or that he had been out of the house on that night. Lord
+Fawn, to his infinite disgust, was taken to the prison in which
+Mealyus was detained, and was confronted with the man, but he could
+say nothing. Mealyus, at his own suggestion, put on the coat, and
+stalked about the room in it. But Lord Fawn would not say a word. The
+person whom he now saw might have been the man in the street, or Mr.
+Finn might have been the man, or any other man might have been the
+man. Lord Fawn was very dignified, very reserved, and very unhappy.
+To his thinking he was the great martyr of this trial. Phineas Finn
+was becoming a hero. Against the twelve jurymen the finger of scorn
+would never be pointed. But his sufferings must endure for his
+life&mdash;might probably embitter his life to the very end. Looking into
+his own future from his present point of view he did not see how he
+could ever again appear before the eye of the public. And yet with
+what persistency of conscience had he struggled to be true and
+honest! On the present occasion he would say nothing. He had seen a
+man in a grey coat, and for the future would confine himself to that.
+"You did not see me, my lord," said Mr. Emilius with touching
+simplicity.</p>
+
+<p>So the matter stood on the Monday afternoon, and the jury had already
+been told that they might be released on the following
+Tuesday,&mdash;might at any rate hear the judge's charge on that
+day,&mdash;when another discovery was made more wonderful than that of the
+key. And this was made without any journey to Prague, and might, no
+doubt, have been made on any day since the murder had been committed.
+And it was a discovery for not having made which the police force
+generally was subjected to heavy censure. A beautiful little boy was
+seen playing in one of those gardens through which the passage runs
+with a short loaded bludgeon in his hand. He came into the house with
+the weapon, the maid who was with him having asked the little lord no
+question on the subject. But luckily it attracted attention, and his
+little lordship took two gardeners and a coachman and all the nurses
+to the very spot at which he found it. Before an hour was over he was
+standing at his father's knee, detailing the fact with great open
+eyes to two policemen, having by this time become immensely proud of
+his adventure. This occurred late on the Monday afternoon, when the
+noble family were at dinner, and the noble family was considerably
+disturbed, and at the same time very much interested, by the
+occurrence. But on the Tuesday morning there was the additional fact
+established that a bludgeon loaded with lead had been found among the
+thick grass and undergrowth of shrubs in a spot to which it might
+easily have been thrown by any one attempting to pitch it over the
+wall. The news flew about the town like wildfire, and it was now
+considered certain that the real murderer would be discovered.</p>
+
+
+<div class="center"><a id="ill66"></a>
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4px">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/ill66.jpg">
+      <img src="images/ill66-t.jpg" width="550"
+      alt="THE BOY WHO FOUND THE BLUDGEON." /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption"><span class="smallcaps">The
+      boy who found the bludgeon.</span><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/ill66.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>But the renewal of the trial was again postponed till the Wednesday,
+as it was necessary that an entire day should be devoted to the
+bludgeon. The instrument was submitted to the eyes and hands of
+persons experienced in such matters, and it was declared on all sides
+that the thing was not of English manufacture. It was about a foot
+long, with a leathern thong to the handle, with something of a spring
+in the shaft, and with the oval loaded knot at the end cased with
+leathern thongs very minutely and skilfully cut. They who understood
+modern work in leather gave it as their opinion that the weapon had
+been made in Paris. It was considered that Mealyus had brought it
+with him, and concealed it in preparation for this occasion. If the
+police could succeed in tracing the bludgeon into his hands, or in
+proving that he had purchased any such instrument, then,&mdash;so it was
+thought,&mdash;there would be evidence to justify a police magistrate in
+sending Mr. Emilius to occupy the place so lately and so long held by
+poor Phineas Finn. But till that had been done, there could be
+nothing to connect the preacher with the murder. All who had heard
+the circumstances of the case were convinced that Mr. Bonteen had
+been murdered by the weapon lately discovered, and not by that which
+Phineas had carried in his pocket,&mdash;but no one could adduce proof
+that it was so. This second bludgeon would no doubt help to remove
+the difficulty in regard to Phineas, but would not give atonement to
+the shade of Mr. Bonteen.</p>
+
+<p>Mealyus was confronted with the weapon in the presence of Major
+Mackintosh, and was told its story;&mdash;how it was found in the
+nobleman's garden by the little boy. At the first moment, with
+instant readiness, he took the thing in his hand, and looked at it
+with feigned curiosity. He must have studied his conduct so as to
+have it ready for such an occasion, thinking that it might some day
+occur. But with all his presence of mind he could not keep the
+tell-tale blood from mounting.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't know anything about it, Mr. Mealyus?" said one of the
+policemen present, looking closely into his face. "Of course you need
+not criminate yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"What should I know about it? No;&mdash;I know nothing about the stick. I
+never had such a stick, or, as I believe, saw one before." He did it
+very well, but he could not keep the blood from rising to his cheeks.
+The policemen were sure that he was the murderer,&mdash;but what could
+they do?</p>
+
+<p>"You saved his life, certainly," said the Duchess to her friend on
+the Sunday afternoon. That had been before the bludgeon was found.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not believe that they could have touched a hair of his head,"
+said Madame Goesler.</p>
+
+<p>"Would they not? Everybody felt sure that he would be hung. Would it
+not have been awful? I do not see how you are to help becoming man
+and wife now, for all the world are talking about you." Madame
+Goesler smiled, and said that she was quite indifferent to the
+world's talk. On the Tuesday after the bludgeon was found, the two
+ladies met again. "Now it was known that it was the clergyman," said
+the Duchess.</p>
+
+<p>"I never doubted it."</p>
+
+<p>"He must have been a brave man for a foreigner,&mdash;to have attacked Mr.
+Bonteen all alone in the street, when any one might have seen him. I
+don't feel to hate him so very much after all. As for that little
+wife of his, she has got no more than she deserved."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Finn will surely be acquitted now."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course he'll be acquitted. Nobody doubts about it. That is all
+settled, and it is a shame that he should be kept in prison even over
+to-day. I should think they'll make him a peer, and give him a
+pension,&mdash;or at the very least appoint him secretary to something. I
+do wish Plantagenet hadn't been in such a hurry about that nasty
+Board of Trade, and then he might have gone there. He couldn't very
+well be Privy Seal, unless they do make him a peer. You wouldn't
+mind,&mdash;would you, my dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think you'll find that they will console Mr. Finn with something
+less gorgeous than that. You have succeeded in seeing him, of
+course?"</p>
+
+<p>"Plantagenet wouldn't let me, but I know who did."</p>
+
+<p>"Some lady?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes,&mdash;a lady. Half the men about the clubs went to him, I
+believe."</p>
+
+<p>"Who was she?"</p>
+
+<p>"You won't be ill-natured?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll endeavour at any rate to keep my temper, Duchess."</p>
+
+<p>"It was Lady Laura."</p>
+
+<p>"I supposed so."</p>
+
+<p>"They say she is frantic about him, my dear."</p>
+
+<p>"I never believe those things. Women do not get frantic about men in
+these days. They have been very old friends, and have known each
+other for many years. Her brother, Lord Chiltern, was his particular
+friend. I do not wonder that she should have seen him."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you know that she is a widow."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes;&mdash;Mr. Kennedy had died long before I left England."</p>
+
+<p>"And she is very rich. She has got all Loughlinter for her life, and
+her own fortune back again. I will bet you anything you like that she
+offers to share it with him."</p>
+
+<p>"It may be so," said Madame Goesler, while the slightest blush in the
+world suffused her cheek.</p>
+
+<p>"And I'll make you another bet, and give you any odds."</p>
+
+<p>"What is that?"</p>
+
+<p>"That he refuses her. It is quite a common thing nowadays for ladies
+to make the offer, and for gentlemen to refuse. Indeed, it was felt
+to be so inconvenient while it was thought that gentlemen had not the
+alternative, that some men became afraid of going into society. It is
+better understood now."</p>
+
+<p>"Such things have been done, I do not doubt," said Madame Goesler,
+who had contrived to avert her face without making the motion
+apparent to her friend.</p>
+
+<p>"When this is all over we'll get him down to Matching, and manage
+better than that. I should think they'll hardly go on with the
+Session, as nobody has done anything since the arrest. While Mr. Finn
+has been in prison legislation has come to a standstill altogether.
+Even Plantagenet doesn't work above twelve hours a day, and I'm told
+that poor Lord Fawn hasn't been near his office for the last
+fortnight. When the excitement is over they'll never be able to get
+back to their business before the grouse. There'll be a few dinners
+of course, just as a compliment to the great man,&mdash;but London will
+break up after that, I should think. You won't come in for so much of
+the glory as you would have done if they hadn't found the stick.
+Little Lord Frederick must have his share, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"It's the most singular case I ever knew," said Sir Simon Slope that
+night to one of his friends. "We certainly should have hanged him but
+for the two accidents, and yet neither of them brings us a bit nearer
+to hanging any one else."</p>
+
+<p>"What a pity!"</p>
+
+<p>"It shows the danger of circumstantial evidence,&mdash;and yet without it
+one never could get at any murder. I'm very glad, you know, that the
+key and the stick did turn up. I never thought much about the coat."</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c67"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER LXVII.</h3>
+<h4>THE VERDICT.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>On the Wednesday morning Phineas Finn was again brought into the
+Court, and again placed in the dock. There was a general feeling that
+he should not again have been so disgraced; but he was still a
+prisoner under a charge of murder, and it was explained to him that
+the circumstances of the case and the stringency of the law did not
+admit of his being seated elsewhere during his trial. He treated the
+apology with courteous scorn. He should not have chosen, he said, to
+have made any change till after the trial was over, even had any
+change been permitted. When he was brought up the steps into the dock
+after the judges had taken their seats there was almost a shout of
+applause. The crier was very angry, and gave it to be understood that
+everybody would be arrested unless everybody was silent; but the
+Chief Justice said not a word, nor did those great men the Attorney
+and Solicitor-General express any displeasure. The bench was again
+crowded with Members of Parliament from both Houses, and on this
+occasion Mr. Gresham himself had accompanied Lord Cantrip. The two
+Dukes were there, and men no bigger than Laurence Fitzgibbon were
+forced to subject themselves to the benevolence of the Under-Sheriff.</p>
+
+<p>Phineas himself was pale and haggard. It was observed that he leaned
+forward on the rail of the dock all the day, not standing upright as
+he had done before; and they who watched him closely said that he
+never once raised his eyes on this day to meet those of the men
+opposite to him on the bench, although heretofore throughout the
+trial he had stood with his face raised so as to look directly at
+those who were there seated. On this occasion he kept his eyes fixed
+upon the speaker. But the whole bearing of the man, his gestures, his
+gait, and his countenance were changed. During the first long week of
+his trial, his uprightness, the manly beauty of his countenance, and
+the general courage and tranquillity of his deportment had been
+conspicuous. Whatever had been his fatigue, he had managed not to
+show the outward signs of weariness. Whatever had been his fears, no
+mark of fear had disfigured his countenance. He had never once
+condescended to the exhibition of any outward show of effrontery.
+Through six weary days he had stood there, supported by a manhood
+sufficient for the terrible emergency. But now it seemed that at any
+rate the outward grace of his demeanour had deserted him. But it was
+known that he had been ill during the last few days, and it had been
+whispered through the Court that he had not slept at nights. Since
+the adjournment of the Court there had been bulletins as to his
+health, and everybody knew that the confinement was beginning to tell
+upon him.</p>
+
+<p>On the present occasion the proceedings of the day were opened by the
+Attorney-General, who began by apologising to the jury. Apologies to
+the jury had been very frequent during the trial, and each apology
+had called forth fresh grumbling. On this occasion the foreman
+expressed a hope that the Legislature would consider the condition of
+things which made it possible that twelve gentlemen all concerned
+extensively in business should be confined for fourteen days because
+a mistake had been made in the evidence as to a murder. Then the
+Chief Justice, bowing down his head and looking at them over the rim
+of his spectacles with an expression of wisdom that almost convinced
+them, told them that he was aware of no mistake in the evidence. It
+might become their duty, on the evidence which they had heard and the
+further evidence which they would hear, to acquit the prisoner at the
+bar; but not on that account would there have been any mistake or
+erroneous procedure in the Court, other than such error on the part
+of the prosecution in regard to the alleged guilt of the prisoner as
+it was the general and special duty of jurors to remedy. Then he
+endeavoured to reconcile them to their sacrifice by describing the
+importance and glorious British nature of their position. "My lord,"
+said one of the jurors, "if you was a salesman, and hadn't got no
+partner, only a very young 'un, you'd know what it was to be kept out
+of your business for a fortnight." Then that salesman wagged his
+head, and put his handkerchief up to his eyes, and there was pity
+also for him in the Court.</p>
+
+<p>After that the Attorney-General went on. His learned friend on the
+other side,&mdash;and he nodded to Mr. Chaffanbrass,&mdash;had got some further
+evidence to submit to them on behalf of the prisoner who was still on
+his trial before them. He now addressed them with the view of
+explaining to them that if that evidence should be such as he
+believed, it would become his duty on behalf of the Crown to join
+with his learned friend in requesting the Court to direct the jury to
+acquit the prisoner. Not the less on that account would it be the
+duty of the jury to form their own opinion as to the credibility of
+the fresh evidence which would be brought before them.</p>
+
+<p>"There won't be much doubt about the credibility," said Mr.
+Chaffanbrass, rising in his place. "I am not a bit afraid about the
+credibility, gentlemen; and I don't think that you need be afraid
+either. You must understand, gentlemen, that I am now going on
+calling evidence for the defence. My last witness was the Right
+Honourable Mr. Monk, who spoke as to character. My next will be a
+Bohemian blacksmith named Praska,&mdash;Peter Praska,&mdash;who naturally can't
+speak a word of English, and unfortunately can't speak a word of
+German either. But we have got an interpreter, and I daresay we shall
+find out without much delay what Peter Praska has to tell us." Then
+Peter Praska was handed up to the rostrum for the witnesses, and the
+man learned in Czech and also in English was placed close to him, and
+sworn to give a true interpretation.</p>
+
+<p>Mealyus the unfortunate one was also in Court, brought in between two
+policemen, and the Bohemian blacksmith swore that he had made a
+certain key on the instructions of the man he now saw. The reader
+need not be further troubled with all the details of the evidence
+about the key. It was clearly proved that in a village near to Prague
+a key had been made such as would open Mr. Meager's door in
+Northumberland Street, and it was also proved that it was made from a
+mould supplied by Mealyus. This was done by the joint evidence of Mr.
+Meager and of the blacksmith. "And if I lose my key," said the
+reverend gentleman, "why should I not have another made? Did I ever
+deny it? This, I think, is very strange." But Mr. Emilius was very
+quickly walked back out of the Court between the two policemen, as
+his presence would not be required in regard to the further evidence
+regarding the bludgeon.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Chaffanbrass, having finished his business with the key, at once
+began with the bludgeon. The bludgeon was produced, and was handed up
+to the bench, and inspected by the Chief Justice. The instrument
+excited great interest. Men rose on tiptoe to look at it even from a
+distance, and the Prime Minister was envied because for a moment it
+was placed in his hands. As the large-eyed little boy who had found
+it was not yet six years old, there was a difficulty in perfecting
+the thread of the evidence. It was not held to be proper to
+administer an oath to an infant. But in a roundabout way it was
+proved that the identical bludgeon had been picked up in the garden.
+There was an elaborate surveyor's plan produced of the passage, the
+garden, and the wall,&mdash;with the steps on which it was supposed that
+the blow had been struck; and the spot was indicated on which the
+child had said that he had found the weapon. Then certain workers in
+leather were questioned, who agreed in asserting that no such
+instrument as that handed to them had ever been made in England.
+After that, two scientific chemists told the jury that they had
+minutely examined the knob of the instrument with reference to the
+discovery of human blood,&mdash;but in vain. They were, however, of
+opinion that the man might very readily have been killed by the
+instrument without any effusion of blood at the moment of the blows.
+This seemed to the jury to be the less necessary, as three or four
+surgeons who had examined the murdered man's head had already told
+them that in all probability there had been no such effusion. When
+the judges went out to lunch at two o'clock the jury were trembling
+as to their fate for another night.</p>
+
+<p>The fresh evidence, however, had been completed, and on the return of
+the Court Mr. Chaffanbrass said that he should only speak a very few
+words. For a few words he must ask indulgence, though he knew them to
+be irregular. But it was the speciality of this trial that everything
+in it was irregular, and he did not think that his learned friend the
+Attorney-General would dispute the privilege. The Attorney-General
+said nothing, and Mr. Chaffanbrass went on with his little
+speech,&mdash;with which he took up the greatest part of an hour. It was
+thought to have been unnecessary, as nearly all that he said was said
+again&mdash;and was sure to have been so said,&mdash;by the judge. It was not
+his business,&mdash;the business of him, Mr. Chaffanbrass,&mdash;to accuse
+another man of the murder of Mr. Bonteen. It was not for him to tell
+the jury whether there was or was not evidence on which any other man
+should be sent to trial. But it was his bounden duty in defence of
+his client to explain to them that a collection of facts tending to
+criminate another man,&mdash;which when taken together made a fair
+probability that another man had committed the crime,&mdash;rendered it
+quite out of the question that they should declare his client to be
+guilty. He did not believe that there was a single person in the
+Court who was not now convinced of the innocence of his client;&mdash;but
+it was not permitted to him to trust himself solely to that belief.
+It was his duty to show them that, of necessity, they must acquit his
+client. When Mr. Chaffanbrass sat down, the Attorney-General waived
+any right he might have of further reply.</p>
+
+<p>It was half-past three when the judge began his charge. He would, he
+said, do his best to enable the jury to complete their tedious duty,
+so as to return to their families on that night. Indeed he would
+certainly finish his charge before he rose from the seat, let the
+hour be what it might; and though time must be occupied by him in
+going through the evidence and explaining the circumstances of this
+very singular trial, it might not be improbable that the jury would
+be able to find their verdict without any great delay among
+themselves. "There won't be any delay at all, my lord," said the
+suffering and very irrational salesman. The poor man was again
+rebuked, mildly, and the Chief Justice continued his charge.</p>
+
+<p>As it occupied four hours in the delivery, of which by far the
+greater part was taken up in recapitulating and sifting evidence with
+which the careful reader, if such there be, has already been made too
+intimately acquainted, the account of it here shall be very short.
+The nature of circumstantial evidence was explained, and the truth of
+much that had been said in regard to such evidence by Mr.
+Chaffanbrass admitted;&mdash;but, nevertheless, it would be
+impossible,&mdash;so said his lordship,&mdash;to administer justice if guilt
+could never be held to have been proved by circumstantial evidence
+alone. In this case it might not improbably seem to them that the
+gentleman who had so long stood before them as a prisoner at the bar
+had been the victim of a most singularly untoward chain of
+circumstances, from which he would have to be liberated, should he be
+at last liberated, by another chain of circumstances as singular; but
+it was his duty to inform them now, after they had heard what he
+might call the double evidence, that he could not have given it to
+them as his opinion that the charge had been brought home against the
+prisoner, even had those circumstances of the Bohemian key and of the
+foreign bludgeon never been brought to light. He did not mean to say
+that the evidence had not justified the trial. He thought that the
+trial had been fully justified. Nevertheless, had nothing arisen to
+point to the possibility of guilt in another man, he should not the
+less have found himself bound in duty to explain to them that the
+thread of the evidence against Mr. Finn had been incomplete,&mdash;or, he
+would rather say, the weight of it had been, to his judgment,
+insufficient. He was the more intent on saying so much, as he was
+desirous of making it understood that, even had the bludgeon still
+remained buried beneath the leaves, had the manufacturer of that key
+never been discovered, the great evil would not, he thought, have
+fallen upon them of punishing the innocent instead of the
+guilty,&mdash;that most awful evil of taking innocent blood in their just
+attempt to punish murder by death. As far as he knew, to the best of
+his belief, that calamity had never fallen upon the country in his
+time. The administration of the law was so careful of life that the
+opposite evil was fortunately more common. He said so much because he
+would not wish that this case should be quoted hereafter as showing
+the possible danger of circumstantial evidence. It had been a case in
+which the evidence given as to character alone had been sufficient to
+make him feel that the circumstances which seemed to affect the
+prisoner injuriously could not be taken as establishing his guilt.
+But now other and imposing circumstances had been brought to light,
+and he was sure that the jury would have no difficulty with their
+verdict. A most frightful murder had no doubt been committed in the
+dead of the night. A gentleman coming home from his club had been
+killed,&mdash;probably by the hand of one who had himself moved in the
+company of gentlemen. A plot had been made,&mdash;had probably been
+thought of for days and weeks before,&mdash;and had been executed with
+extreme audacity, in order that an enemy might be removed. There
+could, he thought, be but little doubt that Mr. Bonteen had been
+killed by the instrument found in the garden, and if so, he certainly
+had not been killed by the prisoner, who could not be supposed to
+have carried two bludgeons in his pocket, and whose quarrel with the
+murdered man had been so recent as to have admitted of no
+preparation. They had heard the story of Mr. Meager's grey coat, and
+of the construction of the duplicate key for Mr. Meager's house-door.
+It was not for him to tell them on the present occasion whether these
+stories, and the evidence by which they had been supported, tended to
+affix guilt elsewhere. It was beyond his province to advert to such
+probability or possibility; but undoubtedly the circumstances might
+be taken by them as an assistance, if assistance were needed, in
+coming to a conclusion on the charge against the prisoner.
+"Gentlemen," he said at last, "I think you will find no difficulty in
+acquitting the prisoner of the murder laid to his charge," whereupon
+the jurymen put their heads together; and the foreman, without half a
+minute's delay, declared that they were unanimous, and that they
+found the prisoner Not Guilty. "And we are of opinion," said the
+foreman, "that Mr. Finn should not have been put upon his trial on
+such evidence as has been brought before us."</p>
+
+<p>The necessity of liberating poor Phineas from the horrors of his
+position was too urgent to allow of much attention being given at the
+moment to this protest. "Mr. Finn," said the judge, addressing the
+poor broken wretch, "you have been acquitted of the odious and
+abominable charge brought against you, with the concurrence, I am
+sure, not only of those who have heard this trial, but of all your
+countrymen and countrywomen. I need not say that you will leave that
+dock with no stain on your character. It has, I hope, been some
+consolation to you in your misfortune to hear the terms in which you
+have been spoken of by such friends as they who came here to give
+their testimony on your behalf. It is, and it has been, a great
+sorrow to me to see such a one as you subjected to so unmerited an
+ignominy; but a man educated in the laws of his country, as you have
+been, and understanding its constitution fundamentally, as you do,
+will probably have acknowledged that, great as has been the
+misfortune to you personally, nothing more than a proper attempt has
+been made to execute justice. I trust that you may speedily find
+yourself able to resume your place among the legislators of the
+country." Thus Phineas Finn was acquitted, and the judges, collecting
+up their robes, trooped off from the bench, following the long line
+of their assessors who had remained even to that hour to hear the
+last word of the trial. Mr. Chaffanbrass collected his papers, with
+the assistance of Mr. Wickerby,&mdash;totally disregardful of his junior
+counsel, and the Attorney and Solicitor-General congratulated each
+other on the successful termination of a very disagreeable piece of
+business.</p>
+
+<p>And Phineas was discharged. According to the ordinary meaning of the
+words he was now to go about his business as he pleased, the law
+having no further need of his person. We can understand how in common
+cases the prisoner discharged on his acquittal,&mdash;who probably in nine
+cases out of ten is conscious of his own guilt,&mdash;may feel the
+sweetness of his freedom and enjoy his immunity from danger with a
+light heart. He is received probably by his wife or young woman,&mdash;or
+perhaps, having no wife or young woman to receive him, betakes
+himself to his usual haunts. The interest which has been felt in his
+career is over, and he is no longer the hero of an hour;&mdash;but he is a
+free man, and may drink his gin-and-water where he pleases. Perhaps a
+small admiring crowd may welcome him as he passes out into the
+street, but he has become nobody before he reaches the corner. But it
+could not be so with this discharged prisoner,&mdash;either as regarded
+himself and his own feelings, or as regarded his friends. When the
+moment came he had hardly as yet thought about the immediate
+future,&mdash;had not considered how he would live, or where, during the
+next few months. The sensations of the moment had been so full,
+sometimes of agony and at others of anticipated triumph, that he had
+not attempted as yet to make for himself any schemes. The Duchess of
+Omnium had suggested that he would be received back into society with
+an elaborate course of fashionable dinners; but that view of his
+return to the world had certainly not occurred to him. When he was
+led down from the dock he hardly knew whither he was being taken, and
+when he found himself in a small room attached to the Court, clasped
+on one arm by Mr. Low and on the other by Lord Chiltern, he did not
+know what they would propose to him,&mdash;nor had he considered what
+answer he would make to any proposition. "At last you are safe," said
+Mr. Low.</p>
+
+<p>"But think what he has suffered," said Lord Chiltern.</p>
+
+<p>Phineas looked round to see if there was any other friend present.
+Certainly among all his friends he had thought most of her who had
+travelled half across Europe for evidence to save him. He had seen
+Madame Goesler last on the evening preceding the night of the murder,
+and had not even heard from her since. But he had been told what she
+had done for him, and now he had almost fancied that he would have
+found her waiting for him. He smiled first at the one man and then at
+the other, and made an effort to carry himself with his ordinary
+tranquillity. "It will be all right now, I dare say," he said. "I
+wonder whether I could have a glass of water."</p>
+
+<p>He sat down while the water was brought to him, and his two friends
+stood over him, hardly knowing how to do more than support him by
+their presence.</p>
+
+<p>Then Lord Cantrip made his way into the room. He had sat on the bench
+to the last, whereas the other two had gone down to receive the
+prisoner when acquitted;&mdash;and with him came Sir Harry Coldfoot, the
+Home Secretary. "My friend," said the former, "the bitter day has
+passed over you, and I hope that the bitterness will soon pass away
+also." Phineas again attempted to smile as he held the hand of the
+man with whom he had formerly been associated in office.</p>
+
+<p>"I should not intrude, Mr. Finn," said Sir Harry, "did I not feel
+myself bound in a special manner to express my regret at the great
+trouble to which you have been subjected." Phineas rose, and bowed
+stiffly. He had conceived that every one connected with the
+administration of the law had believed him to be guilty, and none in
+his present mood could be dear to him but they who from the beginning
+trusted in his innocence. "I am requested by Mr. Gresham," continued
+Sir Harry, "to express to you his entire sympathy, and his joy that
+all this is at last over." Phineas tried to make some little speech,
+but utterly failed. Then Sir Harry left them, and he burst out into
+tears.</p>
+
+<p>"Who can be surprised?" said Lord Cantrip. "The marvel is that he
+should have been able to bear it so long."</p>
+
+<p>"It would have crushed me utterly, long since," said the other lord.
+Then there was a question asked as to what he would do, and Mr. Low
+proposed that he should be allowed to take Phineas to his own house
+for a few days. His wife, he said, had known their friend so long and
+so intimately that she might perhaps be able to make herself more
+serviceable than any other lady, and at their house Phineas could
+receive his sisters just as he would at his own. His sisters had been
+lodging near the prison almost ever since the committal, and it had
+been thought well to remove them to Mr. Low's house in order that
+they might meet their brother there.</p>
+
+<p>"I think I'll go to my&mdash;own room&mdash;in Marlborough Street." These were
+the first intelligible words he had uttered since he had been led out
+of the dock, and to that resolution he adhered. Lord Cantrip offered
+the retirements of a country house belonging to himself within an
+hour's journey of London, and Lord Chiltern declared that Harrington
+Hall, which Phineas knew, was altogether at his service,&mdash;but Phineas
+decided in favour of Mrs. Bunce, and to Great Marlborough Street he
+was taken by Mr. Low.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll come to you to-morrow,&mdash;with my wife,"&mdash;said Lord Chiltern, as
+he was going.</p>
+
+<p>"Not to-morrow, Chiltern. But tell your wife how deeply I value her
+friendship." Lord Cantrip also offered to come, but was asked to wait
+awhile. "I am afraid I am hardly fit for visitors yet. All the
+strength seems to have been knocked out of me this last week."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Low accompanied him to his lodgings, and then handed him over to
+Mrs. Bunce, promising that his two sisters should come to him early
+on the following morning. On that evening he would prefer to be quite
+alone. He would not allow the barrister even to go upstairs with him;
+and when he had entered his room, almost rudely begged his weeping
+landlady to leave him.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mr. Phineas, let me do something for you," said the poor woman.
+"You have not had a bit of anything all day. Let me get you just a
+cup of tea and a chop."</p>
+
+<p>In truth he had dined when the judges went out to their lunch,&mdash;dined
+as he had been wont to dine since the trial had been commenced,&mdash;and
+wanted nothing. She might bring him tea, he said, if she would leave
+him for an hour. And then at last he was alone. He stood up in the
+middle of the room, stretching forth his hands, and putting one first
+to his breast and then to his brow, feeling himself as though
+doubting his own identity. Could it be that the last week had been
+real,&mdash;that everything had not been a dream? Had he in truth been
+suspected of a murder and tried for his life? And then he thought of
+him who had been murdered, of Mr. Bonteen, his enemy. Was he really
+gone,&mdash;the man who the other day was to have been Chancellor of the
+Exchequer,&mdash;the scornful, arrogant, loud, boastful man? He had hardly
+thought of Mr. Bonteen before, during these weeks of his own
+incarceration. He had heard all the details of the murder with a
+fulness that had been at last complete. The man who had oppressed
+him, and whom he had at times almost envied, was indeed gone, and the
+world for awhile had believed that he, Phineas Finn, had been the
+man's murderer!</p>
+
+<p>And now what should be his own future life? One thing seemed certain
+to him. He could never again go into the House of Commons, and sit
+there, an ordinary man of business, with other ordinary men. He had
+been so hacked and hewed about, so exposed to the gaze of the vulgar,
+so mauled by the public, that he could never more be anything but the
+wretched being who had been tried for the murder of his enemy. The
+pith had been taken out of him, and he was no longer a man fit for
+use. He could never more enjoy that freedom from self-consciousness,
+that inner tranquillity of spirit, which are essential to public
+utility. Then he remembered certain lines which had long been
+familiar to him, and he repeated them aloud, with some conceit that
+they were apposite to <span class="nowrap">him:&mdash;</span></p>
+
+
+<div class="center">
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0"><tr><td>
+<span class="nowrap">The true gods sigh for the cost and pain,&mdash;</span><br />
+For the reed that grows never more again<br />
+<span class="ind2">As a reed with the reeds in the river.</span>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>He sat drinking his tea, still thinking of himself,&mdash;knowing how
+infinitely better it would be for him that he should indulge in no
+such thought, till an idea struck him, and he got up, and, drawing
+back the blinds from the open window, looked out into the night. It
+was the last day of June, and the weather was very sultry; but the
+night was dark, and it was now near midnight. On a sudden he took his
+hat, and feeling with a smile for the latch-key which he always
+carried in his pocket,&mdash;thinking of the latch-key which had been made
+at Prague for the lock of a house in Northumberland Street, New Road,
+he went down to the front door. "You'll be back soon, Mr. Finn, won't
+you now?" said Mrs. Bunce, who had heard his step, and had remained
+up, thinking it better this, the first night of his return, not to
+rest till he had gone to his bed.</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I be back soon?" he said, turning upon her. But then he
+remembered that she had been one of those who were true to him, and
+he took her hand and was gracious to her. "I will be back soon, Mrs.
+Bunce, and you need fear nothing. But recollect how little I have had
+of liberty lately. I have not even had a walk for six weeks. You
+cannot wonder that I should wish to roam about a little."
+Nevertheless she would have preferred that he should not have gone
+out all alone on that night.</p>
+
+<p>He had taken off the black morning coat which he had worn during the
+trial, and had put on that very grey garment by which it had been
+sought to identify him with the murderer. So clad he crossed Regent
+Street into Hanover Square, and from thence went a short way down
+Bond Street, and by Bruton Street into Berkeley Square. He took
+exactly the reverse of the route by which he had returned home from
+the club on the night of the murder. Every now and then he trembled
+as he passed some figure which might be that of a man who would
+recognise him. But he walked fast, and went on till he came to the
+spot at which the steps descend from the street into the
+passage,&mdash;the very spot at which the murder had been committed. He
+looked down it with an awful dread, and stood there as though he were
+fascinated, thinking of all the details which he had heard throughout
+the trial. Then he looked around him, and listened whether there were
+any step approaching through the passage. Hearing none and seeing no
+one he at last descended, and for the first time in his life passed
+through that way into Bolton Row. Here it was that the wretch of whom
+he had now heard so much had waited for his enemy,&mdash;the wretch for
+whom during the last six weeks he had been mistaken. Heavens!&mdash;that
+men who had known him should have believed him to have done such a
+deed as that! He remembered well having shown the life-preserver to
+Erle and Fitzgibbon at the door of the club; and it had been thought
+that after having so shown it he had used it for the purpose to which
+in his joke he had alluded! Were men so blind, so ignorant of nature,
+so little capable of discerning the truth as this? Then he went on
+till he came to the end of Clarges Street, and looked up the mews
+opposite to it,&mdash;the mews from which the man had been seen to hurry.
+The place was altogether unknown to him. He had never thought whither
+it had led when passing it on his way up from Piccadilly to the club.
+But now he entered the mews so as to test the evidence that had been
+given, and found that it brought him by a turn close up to the spot
+at which he had been described as having been last seen by Erle and
+Fitzgibbon. When there he went on, and crossed the street, and
+looking back saw the club was lighted up. Then it struck him for the
+first time that it was the night of the week on which the members
+were wont to assemble. Should he pluck up courage, and walk in among
+them? He had not lost his right of entry there because he had been
+accused of murder. He was the same now as heretofore,&mdash;if he could
+only fancy himself to be the same. Why not go in, and have done with
+all this? He would be the wonder of the club for twenty minutes, and
+then it would all be over. He stood close under the shade of a heavy
+building as he thought of this, but he found that he could not do it.
+He had known from the beginning that he could not do it. How callous,
+how hard, how heartless, must he have been, had such a course been
+possible to him! He again repeated the lines to
+<span class="nowrap">himself&mdash;</span></p>
+
+
+<div class="center">
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0"><tr><td>
+The reed that grows never more again<br />
+<span class="ind2"><span class="nowrap">As a reed
+with the reeds in the river.</span></span>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="noindent">He felt sure
+that never again would he enter that room, in which no
+doubt all those assembled were now talking about him.</p>
+
+<p>As he returned home he tried to make out for himself some plan for
+his future life,&mdash;but, interspersed with any idea that he could weave
+were the figures of two women, Lady Laura Kennedy and Madame Max
+Goesler. The former could be nothing to him but a friend; and though
+no other friend would love him as she loved him, yet she could not
+influence his life. She was very wealthy, but her wealth could be
+nothing to him. She would heap it all upon him if he would take it.
+He understood and knew that. Taking no pride to himself that it was
+so, feeling no conceit in her love, he was conscious of her devotion
+to him. He was poor, broken in spirit, and almost without a
+future;&mdash;and yet could her devotion avail him nothing!</p>
+
+<p>But how might it be with that other woman? Were she, after all that
+had passed between them, to consent to be his wife,&mdash;and it might be
+that she would consent,&mdash;how would the world be with him then? He
+would be known as Madame Goesler's husband, and have to sit at the
+bottom of her table,&mdash;and be talked of as the man who had been tried
+for the murder of Mr. Bonteen. Look at it in which way he might, he
+thought that no life could any longer be possible to him in London.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c68"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER LXVIII.</h3>
+<h4>PHINEAS AFTER THE TRIAL.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>Ten days passed by, and Phineas Finn had not been out of his lodgings
+till after daylight, and then he only prowled about in the manner
+described in the last chapter. His sisters had returned to Ireland,
+and he saw no one, even in his own room, but two or three of his most
+intimate friends. Among those Mr. Low and Lord Chiltern were the most
+frequently with him, but Fitzgibbon, Barrington Erle, and Mr. Monk
+had also been admitted. People had called by the hundred, till Mrs.
+Bunce was becoming almost tired of her lodger's popularity; but they
+came only to inquire,&mdash;because it had been reported that Mr. Finn was
+not well after his imprisonment. The Duchess of Omnium had written to
+him various notes, asking when he would come to her, and what she
+could do for him. Would he dine, would he spend a quiet evening,
+would he go to Matching? Finally, would he become her guest and the
+Duke's next September for the partridge shooting? They would have a
+few friends with them, and Madame Goesler would be one of the number.
+Having had this by him for a week, he had not as yet answered the
+invitation. He had received two or three notes from Lady Laura, who
+had frankly explained to him that if he were really ill she would of
+course go to him, but that as matters stood she could not do so
+without displeasing her brother. He had answered each note by an
+assurance that his first visit should be made in Portman Square. To
+Madame Goesler he had written a letter of thanks,&mdash;a letter which had
+in truth cost him some pains. "I know," he said, "for how much I have
+to thank you, but I do not know in what words to do it. I ought to be
+with you telling you in person of my gratitude; but I must own to you
+that for the present what has occurred has so unmanned me that I am
+unfit for the interview. I should only weep in your presence like a
+school-girl, and you would despise me." It was a long letter,
+containing many references to the circumstances of the trial, and to
+his own condition of mind throughout its period. Her answer to him,
+which was very short, was as follows:&mdash;<br />&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="jright">Park Lane, Sunday&mdash;.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smallcaps">My dear Mr. Finn</span>,</p>
+
+<p>I can well understand that for a while you should be too agitated by
+what has passed to see your friends. Remember, however, that you owe
+it to them as well as to yourself not to sink into seclusion. Send me
+a line when you think that you can come to me that I may be at home.
+My journey to Prague was nothing. You forget that I am constantly
+going to Vienna on business connected with my own property there.
+Prague lies but a few hours out of the route.</p>
+
+<p class="ind10">Most sincerely yours,</p>
+
+<p class="ind15">M. M. G.<br />&nbsp;</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+<p>His friends who did see him urged him constantly to bestir himself,
+and Mr. Monk pressed him very much to come down to the House. "Walk
+in with me to-night, and take your seat as though nothing had
+happened," said Mr. Monk.</p>
+
+<p>"But so much has happened."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing has happened to alter your outward position as a man. No
+doubt many will flock round you to congratulate you, and your first
+half-hour will be disagreeable; but then the thing will have been
+done. You owe it to your constituents to do so." Then Phineas for the
+first time expressed an opinion that he would resign his seat,&mdash;that
+he would take the Chiltern Hundreds, and retire altogether from
+public life.</p>
+
+<p>"Pray do nothing of the kind," said Mr. Monk.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not think you quite understand," said Phineas, "how such an
+ordeal as this works upon a man, how it may change a man, and knock
+out of him what little strength there ever was there. I feel that I
+am broken, past any patching up or mending. Of course it ought not to
+be so. A man should be made of better stuff;&mdash;but one is only what
+one is."</p>
+
+<p>"We'll put off the discussion for another week," said Mr. Monk.</p>
+
+<p>"There came a letter to me when I was in prison from one of the
+leading men in Tankerville, saying that I ought to resign. I know
+they all thought that I was guilty. I do not care to sit for a place
+where I was so judged,&mdash;even if I was fit any longer for a seat in
+Parliament." He had never felt convinced that Mr. Monk had himself
+believed with confidence his innocence, and he spoke with soreness,
+and almost with anger.</p>
+
+<p>"A letter from one individual should never be allowed to create
+interference between a member and his constituents. It should simply
+be answered to that effect, and then ignored. As to the belief of the
+townspeople in your innocence,&mdash;what is to guide you? I believed you
+innocent with all my heart."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you?"</p>
+
+<p>"But there was always sufficient possibility of your guilt to prevent
+a rational man from committing himself to the expression of an
+absolute conviction." The young member's brow became black as he
+heard this. "I can see that I offend you by saying so,&mdash;but if you
+will think of it, I must be right. You were on your trial; and I as
+your friend was bound to await the result,&mdash;with much confidence,
+because I knew you; but with no conviction, because both you and I
+are human and fallible. If the electors at Tankerville, or any great
+proportion of them, express a belief that you are unfit to represent
+them because of what has occurred, I shall be the last to recommend
+you to keep your seat;&mdash;but I shall be surprised indeed if they
+should do so. If there were a general election to-morrow, I should
+regard your seat as one of the safest in England."</p>
+
+<p>Both Mr. Low and Lord Chiltern were equally urgent with him to return
+to his usual mode of life,&mdash;using different arguments for their
+purpose. Lord Chiltern told him plainly that he was weak and
+womanly,&mdash;or rather that he would be were he to continue to dread the
+faces of his fellow-creatures. The Master of the Brake hounds himself
+was a man less gifted than Phineas Finn, and therefore hardly capable
+of understanding the exaggerated feelings of the man who had recently
+been tried for his life. Lord Chiltern was affectionate,
+tender-hearted, and true;&mdash;but there were no vacillating fibres in
+his composition. The balance which regulated his conduct was firmly
+set, and went well. The clock never stopped, and wanted but little
+looking after. But the works were somewhat rough, and the seconds
+were not scored. He had, however, been quite true to Phineas during
+the dark time, and might now say what he pleased. "I am womanly,"
+said Phineas. "I begin to feel it. But I can't alter my nature."</p>
+
+<p>"I never was so much surprised in my life," said Lord Chiltern. "When
+I used to look at you in the dock, by heaven I envied you your pluck
+and strength."</p>
+
+<p>"I was burning up the stock of coals, Chiltern."</p>
+
+<p>"You'll come all right after a few weeks. You've been knocked out of
+time;&mdash;that's the truth of it."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Low treated his patient with more indulgence; but he also was
+surprised, and hardly understood the nature of the derangement of the
+mechanism in the instrument which he was desirous of repairing. "I
+should go abroad for a few months if I were you," said Mr. Low.</p>
+
+<p>"I should stick at the first inn I got to," said Phineas. "I think I
+am better here. By and bye I shall travel, I dare say,&mdash;all over the
+world, as far as my money will last. But for the present I am only
+fit to sit still."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Low had seen him more than once, and had been very kind to him;
+but she also failed to understand. "I always thought that he was such
+a manly fellow," she said to her husband.</p>
+
+<p>"If you mean personal courage, there is no doubt that he possesses
+it,&mdash;as completely now, probably, as ever."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes;&mdash;he could go over to Flanders and let that lord shoot at
+him; and he could ride brutes of horses, and not care about breaking
+his neck. That's not what I mean. I thought that he could face the
+world with dignity;&mdash;but now it seems that he breaks down."</p>
+
+<p>"He has been very roughly used, my dear."</p>
+
+<p>"So he has,&mdash;and tenderly used too. Nobody has had better friends. I
+thought he would have been more manly."</p>
+
+<p>The property of manliness in a man is a great possession, but perhaps
+there is none that is less understood,&mdash;which is more generally
+accorded where it does not exist, or more frequently disallowed where
+it prevails. There are not many who ever make up their minds as to
+what constitutes manliness, or even inquire within themselves upon
+the subject. The woman's error, occasioned by her natural desire for
+a master, leads her to look for a certain outward magnificence of
+demeanour, a pretended indifference to stings and little torments, a
+would-be superiority to the bread-and-butter side of life, an unreal
+assumption of personal grandeur. But a robe of State such as
+this,&mdash;however well the garment may be worn with practice,&mdash;can never
+be the raiment natural to a man; and men, dressing themselves in
+women's eyes, have consented to walk about in buckram. A composure of
+the eye, which has been studied, a reticence as to the little things
+of life, a certain slowness of speech unless the occasion call for
+passion, an indifference to small surroundings, these,&mdash;joined, of
+course, with personal bravery,&mdash;are supposed to constitute manliness.
+That personal bravery is required in the composition of manliness
+must be conceded, though, of all the ingredients needed, it is the
+lowest in value. But the first requirement of all must be described
+by a negative. Manliness is not compatible with affectation. Women's
+virtues, all feminine attributes, may be marred by affectation, but
+the virtues and the vice may co-exist. An affected man, too, may be
+honest, may be generous, may be pious;&mdash;but surely he cannot be
+manly. The self-conscious assumption of any outward manner, the
+striving to add,&mdash;even though it be but a tenth of a cubit to the
+height,&mdash;is fatal, and will at once banish the all but divine
+attribute. Before the man can be manly, the gifts which make him so
+must be there, collected by him slowly, unconsciously, as are his
+bones, his flesh, and his blood. They cannot be put on like a garment
+for the nonce,&mdash;as may a little learning. A man cannot become
+faithful to his friends, unsuspicious before the world, gentle with
+women, loving with children, considerate to his inferiors, kindly
+with servants, tender-hearted with all,&mdash;and at the same time be
+frank, of open speech, with springing eager energies,&mdash;simply because
+he desires it. These things, which are the attributes of manliness,
+must come of training on a nature not ignoble. But they are the very
+opposites, the antipodes, the direct antagonism, of that staring,
+posed, bewhiskered and bewigged deportment, that <i>nil admirari</i>,
+self-remembering assumption of manliness, that endeavour of twopence
+halfpenny to look as high as threepence, which, when you prod it
+through, has in it nothing deeper than deportment. We see the two
+things daily, side by side, close to each other. Let a man put his
+hat down, and you shall say whether he has deposited it with
+affectation or true nature. The natural man will probably be manly.
+The affected man cannot be so.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Low was wrong when she accused our hero of being unmanly. Had
+his imagination been less alert in looking into the minds of men, and
+in picturing to himself the thoughts of others in reference to the
+crime with which he had been charged, he would not now have shrunk
+from contact with his fellow-creatures as he did. But he could not
+pretend to be other than he was. During the period of his danger,
+when men had thought that he would be hung,&mdash;and when he himself had
+believed that it would be so,&mdash;he had borne himself bravely without
+any conscious effort. When he had confronted the whole Court with
+that steady courage which had excited Lord Chiltern's admiration, and
+had looked the Bench in the face as though he at least had no cause
+to quail, he had known nothing of what he was doing. His features had
+answered the helm from his heart, but had not been played upon by his
+intellect. And it was so with him now. The reaction had overcome him,
+and he could not bring himself to pretend that it was not so. The
+tears would come to his eyes, and he would shiver and shake like one
+struck by palsy.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Monk came to him often, and was all but forgiven for the apparent
+defection in his faith. "I have made up my mind to one thing,"
+Phineas said to him at the end of the ten days.</p>
+
+<p>"And what is the one thing?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will give up my seat."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not see a shadow of a reason for it."</p>
+
+<p>"Nevertheless I will do it. Indeed, I have already written to Mr.
+Ratler for the Hundreds. There may be and probably are men down at
+Tankerville who still think that I am guilty. There is an
+offensiveness in murder which degrades a man even by the accusation.
+I suppose it wouldn't do for you to move for the new writ."</p>
+
+<p>"Ratler will do it, as a matter of course. No doubt there will be
+expressions of great regret, and my belief is that they will return
+you again."</p>
+
+<p>"If so, they'll have to do it without my presence."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ratler did move for a new writ for the borough of Tankerville,
+and within a fortnight of his restoration to liberty Phineas Finn was
+no longer a Member of Parliament. It cannot be alleged that there was
+any reason for what he did, and yet the doing of it for the time
+rather increased than diminished his popularity. Both Mr. Gresham and
+Mr. Daubeny expressed their regret in the House, and Mr. Monk said a
+few words respecting his friend, which were very touching. He ended
+by expressing a hope that they soon might see him there again, and an
+opinion that he was a man peculiarly fitted by the tone of his mind,
+and the nature of his intellect, for the duties of Parliament.</p>
+
+<p>Then at last, when all this had been settled, he went to Lord
+Brentford's house in Portman Square. He had promised that that should
+be the first house he would visit, and he was as good as his word.
+One evening he crept out, and walked slowly along Oxford Street, and
+knocked timidly at the door. As he did so he longed to be told that
+Lady Laura was not at home. But Lady Laura was at home,&mdash;as a matter
+of course. In those days she never went into society, and had not
+passed an evening away from her father's house since Mr. Kennedy's
+death. He was shown up into the drawing-room in which she sat, and
+there he found her&mdash;alone. "Oh, Phineas, I am so glad you have come."</p>
+
+<p>"I have done as I said, you see."</p>
+
+<p>"I could not go to you when they told me that you were ill. You will
+have understood all that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I understand."</p>
+
+<p>"People are so hard, and cold, and stiff, and cruel, that one can
+never do what one feels, oneself, to be right. So you have given up
+your seat."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes,&mdash;I am no longer a Member of Parliament."</p>
+
+<p>"Barrington says that they will certainly re-elect you."</p>
+
+<p>"We shall see. You may be sure at any rate of this,&mdash;that I shall
+never ask them to do so. Things seem to be so different now from what
+they did. I don't care for the seat. It all seems to be a bore and a
+trouble. What does it matter who sits in Parliament? The fight goes
+on just the same. The same falsehoods are acted. The same mock truths
+are spoken. The same wrong reasons are given. The same personal
+motives are at work."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet, of all believers in Parliament, you used to be the most
+faithful."</p>
+
+<p>"One has time to think of things, Lady Laura, when one lies in
+Newgate. It seems to me to be an eternity of time since they locked
+me up. And as for that trial, which they tell me lasted a week, I
+look back at it till the beginning is so distant that I can hardly
+remember it. But I have resolved that I will never talk of it again.
+Lady Chiltern is out probably."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes;&mdash;she and Oswald are dining with the Baldocks."</p>
+
+<p>"She is well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes;&mdash;and most anxious to see you. Will you go to their place in
+September?"</p>
+
+<p>He had almost made up his mind that if he went anywhere in September
+he would go to Matching Priory, accepting the offer of the Duchess of
+Omnium; but he did not dare to say so to Lady Laura, because she
+would have known that Madame Goesler also would be there. And he had
+not as yet accepted the invitation, and was still in doubt whether he
+would not escape by himself instead of attempting to return into the
+grooves of society. "I think not;&mdash;I am hardly as yet sufficiently
+master of myself to know what I shall do."</p>
+
+<p>"They will be much disappointed."</p>
+
+<p>"And you?&mdash;what will you do?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not go there. I am told that I ought to visit Loughlinter,
+and I suppose I shall. Oswald has promised to go down with me before
+the end of the month, but he will not remain above a day or two."</p>
+
+<p>"And your father?"</p>
+
+<p>"We shall leave him at Saulsby. I cannot look it all in the face yet.
+It is not possible that I should remain all alone in that great
+house. The people all around would hate and despise me. I think
+Violet will come down with me, but of course she cannot remain there.
+Oswald must go to Harrington because of the hunting. It has become
+the business of his life. And she must go with him."</p>
+
+<p>"You will return to Saulsby."</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot say. They seem to think that I should live at
+Loughlinter;&mdash;but I cannot live there alone."</p>
+
+<p>He soon took leave of her, and did so with no warmer expressions of
+regard on either side than have here been given. Then he crept back
+to his lodgings, and she sat weeping alone in her father's house.
+When he had come to her during her husband's lifetime at Dresden, or
+even when she had visited him at his prison, it had been better than
+this.</p>
+
+
+<div class="center"><a id="ill68"></a>
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4px">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/ill68.jpg">
+      <img src="images/ill68-t.jpg" width="550"
+      alt="AND SHE SAT WEEPING ALONE IN HER FATHER'S HOUSE." /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption"><span class="smallcaps">And
+      she sat weeping alone in her father's house.</span><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/ill68.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+<p><a id="c69"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER LXIX.</h3>
+<h4>THE DUKE'S FIRST COUSIN.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>Our pages have lately been taken up almost exclusively with the
+troubles of Phineas Finn, and indeed have so far not unfairly
+represented the feelings and interest of people generally at the
+time. Not to have talked of Phineas Finn from the middle of May to
+the middle of July in that year would have exhibited great ignorance
+or a cynical disposition. But other things went on also. Moons waxed
+and waned; children were born; marriages were contracted; and the
+hopes and fears of the little world around did not come to an end
+because Phineas Finn was not to be hung. Among others who had
+interests of their own there was poor Adelaide Palliser, whom we last
+saw under the affliction of Mr. Spooner's love,&mdash;but who before that
+had encountered the much deeper affliction of a quarrel with her own
+lover. She had desired him to free her,&mdash;and he had gone. Indeed, as
+to his going at that moment there had been no alternative, as he
+considered himself to have been turned out of Lord Chiltern's house.
+The red-headed lord, in the fierceness of his defence of Miss
+Palliser, had told the lover that under such and such circumstances
+he could not be allowed to remain at Harrington Hall. Lord Chiltern
+had said something about "his roof." Now, when a host questions the
+propriety of a guest remaining under his roof, the guest is obliged
+to go. Gerard Maule had gone; and, having offended his sweetheart by
+a most impolite allusion to Boulogne, had been forced to go as a
+rejected lover. From that day to this he had done nothing,&mdash;not
+because he was contented with the lot assigned to him, for every
+morning, as he lay on his bed, which he usually did till twelve, he
+swore to himself that nothing should separate him from Adelaide
+Palliser,&mdash;but simply because to do nothing was customary with him.
+"What is a man to do?" he not unnaturally asked his friend Captain
+Boodle at the club. "Let her out on the grass for a couple of
+months," said Captain Boodle, "and she'll come up as clean as a
+whistle. When they get these humours there's nothing like giving them
+a run." Captain Boodle undoubtedly had the reputation of being very
+great in council on such matters; but it must not be supposed that
+Gerard Maule was contented to take his advice implicitly. He was
+unhappy, ill at ease, half conscious that he ought to do something,
+full of regrets,&mdash;but very idle.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime Miss Palliser, who had the finer nature of the two,
+suffered grievously. The Spooner affair was but a small addition to
+her misfortune. She could get rid of Mr. Spooner,&mdash;of any number of
+Mr. Spooners; but how should she get back to her the man she loved?
+When young ladies quarrel with their lovers it is always presumed,
+especially in books, that they do not wish to get them back. It is to
+be understood that the loss to them is as nothing. Miss Smith begs
+that Mr. Jones may be assured that he is not to consider her at all.
+If he is pleased to separate, she will be at any rate quite as well
+pleased,&mdash;probably a great deal better. No doubt she had loved him
+with all her heart, but that will make no difference to her, if he
+wishes,&mdash;to be off. Upon the whole Miss Smith thinks that she would
+prefer such an arrangement, in spite of her heart. Adelaide Palliser
+had said something of the kind. As Gerard Maule had regarded her as a
+"trouble," and had lamented that prospect of "Boulogne" which
+marriage had presented to his eyes, she had dismissed him with a few
+easily spoken words. She had assured him that no such troubles need
+weigh upon him. No doubt they had been engaged;&mdash;but, as far as she
+was concerned, the remembrance of that need not embarrass him. And so
+she and Lord Chiltern between them had sent him away. But how was she
+to get him back again?</p>
+
+<p>When she came to think it over, she acknowledged to herself that it
+would be all the world to her to have him back. To have him at all
+had been all the world to her. There had been nothing peculiarly
+heroic about him, nor had she ever regarded him as a hero. She had
+known his faults and weaknesses, and was probably aware that he was
+inferior to herself in character and intellect. But, nevertheless,
+she had loved him. To her he had been, though not heroic,
+sufficiently a man to win her heart. He was a gentleman,
+pleasant-mannered, pleasant to look at, pleasant to talk to, not
+educated in the high sense of the word, but never making himself
+ridiculous by ignorance. He was the very antipodes of a Spooner, and
+he was,&mdash;or rather had been,&mdash;her lover. She did not wish to change.
+She did not recognise the possibility of changing. Though she had
+told him that he might go if he pleased, to her his going would be
+the loss of everything. What would life be without a lover,&mdash;without
+the prospect of marriage? And there could be no other lover. There
+could be no further prospect should he take her at her word.</p>
+
+<p>Of all this Lord Chiltern understood nothing, but Lady Chiltern
+understood it all. To his thinking the young man had behaved so badly
+that it was incumbent on them all to send him away and so have done
+with him. If the young man wanted to quarrel with any one, there was
+he to be quarrelled with. The thing was a trouble, and the sooner
+they got to the end of it the better. But Lady Chiltern understood
+more than that. She could not prevent the quarrel as it came,&mdash;or was
+coming; but she knew that "the quarrel of lovers is the renewal of
+love." At any rate, the woman always desires that it may be so, and
+endeavours to reconcile the parted ones. "You'll see him in London,"
+Lady Chiltern had said to her friend.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not want to see him," said Adelaide proudly.</p>
+
+<p>"But he'll want to see you, and then,&mdash;after a time,&mdash;you'll want to
+see him. I don't believe in quarrels, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"It is better that we should part, Lady Chiltern, if marrying will
+cause him&mdash;dismay. I begin to feel that we are too poor to be
+married."</p>
+
+<p>"A great deal poorer people than you are married every day. Of course
+people can't be equally rich. You'll do very well if you'll only be
+patient, and not refuse to speak to him when he comes to you." This
+was said at Harrington after Lady Chiltern had returned from her
+first journey up to London. That visit had been very short, and Miss
+Palliser had been left alone at the hall. We already know how Mr.
+Spooner took advantage of her solitude. After that, Miss Palliser was
+to accompany the Chilterns to London, and she was there with them
+when Phineas Finn was acquitted. By that time she had brought herself
+to acknowledge to her friend Lady Chiltern that it would perhaps be
+desirable that Mr. Maule should return. If he did not do so, and that
+at once, there must come an end to her life in England. She must go
+away to Italy,&mdash;altogether beyond the reach of Gerard Maule. In such
+case all the world would have collapsed for her, and she would become
+the martyr of a shipwreck. And yet the more that she confessed to
+herself that she loved the man so well that she could not part with
+him, the more angry she was with him for having told her that, when
+married, they must live at Boulogne.</p>
+
+<p>The house in Portman Square had been practically given up by Lord
+Brentford to his son; but nevertheless the old Earl and Lady Laura
+had returned to it when they reached England from Dresden. It was,
+however, large, and now the two families,&mdash;if the Earl and his
+daughter can be called a family,&mdash;were lodging there together. The
+Earl troubled them but little, living mostly in his own rooms, and
+Lady Laura never went out with them. But there was something in the
+presence of the old man and the widow which prevented the house from
+being gay as it might have been. There were no parties in Portman
+Square. Now and then a few old friends dined there; but at the
+present moment Gerard Maule could not be admitted as an old friend.
+When Adelaide had been a fortnight in London she had not as yet seen
+Gerard Maule or heard a word from him. She had been to balls and
+concerts, to dinner parties and the play; but no one had as yet
+brought them together. She did know that he was in town. She was able
+to obtain so much information of him as that. But he never came to
+Portman Square, and had evidently concluded that the quarrel&mdash;was to
+be a quarrel.</p>
+
+<p>Among other balls in London that July there had been one at the
+Duchess of Omnium's. This had been given after the acquittal of
+Phineas Finn, though fixed before that great era. "Nothing on earth
+should have made me have it while he was in prison," the Duchess had
+said. But Phineas was acquitted, and cakes and ale again became
+permissible. The ball had been given, and had been very grand.
+Phineas had been asked, but of course had not gone. Madame Goesler,
+who was a great heroine since her successful return from Prague, had
+shown herself there for a few minutes. Lady Chiltern had gone, and of
+course taken Adelaide. "We are first cousins," the Duke said to Miss
+Palliser,&mdash;for the Duke did steal a moment from his work in which to
+walk through his wife's drawing-room. Adelaide smiled and nodded, and
+looked pleased as she gave her hand to her great relative. "I hope we
+shall see more of each other than we have done," said the Duke. "We
+have all been sadly divided, haven't we?" Then he said a word to his
+wife, expressing his opinion that Adelaide Palliser was a nice girl,
+and asking her to be civil to so near a relative.</p>
+
+<p>The Duchess had heard all about Gerard Maule and the engagement. She
+always did hear all about everything. And on this evening she asked a
+question or two from Lady Chiltern. "Do you know," she said, "I have
+an appointment to-morrow with your husband?"</p>
+
+<p>"I did not know;&mdash;but I won't interfere to prevent it, now you are
+generous enough to tell me."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you would, because I don't know what to say to him. He is to
+come about that horrid wood, where the foxes won't get themselves
+born and bred as foxes ought to do. How can I help it? I'd send down
+a whole Lying-in Hospital for the foxes if I thought that that would
+do any good."</p>
+
+<p>"Lord Chiltern thinks it's the shooting."</p>
+
+<p>"But where is a person to shoot if he mayn't shoot in his own woods?
+Not that the Duke cares about the shooting for himself. He could not
+hit a pheasant sitting on a haystack, and wouldn't know one if he saw
+it. And he'd rather that there wasn't such a thing as a pheasant in
+the world. He cares for nothing but farthings. But what is a man to
+do? Or, rather, what is a woman to do?&mdash;for he tells me that I must
+settle it."</p>
+
+<p>"Lord Chiltern says that Mr. Fothergill has the foxes destroyed. I
+suppose Mr. Fothergill may do as he pleases if the Duke gives him
+permission."</p>
+
+<p>"I hate Mr. Fothergill, if that'll do any good," said the Duchess;
+"and we wish we could get rid of him altogether. But that, you know,
+is impossible. When one has an old man on one's shoulders one never
+can get rid of him. He is my incubus; and then you see Trumpeton Wood
+is such a long way from us at Matching that I can't say I want the
+shooting for myself. And I never go to Gatherum if I can help it.
+Suppose we made out that the Duke wanted to let the shooting?"</p>
+
+<p>"Lord Chiltern would take it at once."</p>
+
+<p>"But the Duke wouldn't really let it, you know. I'll lay awake at
+night and think about it. And now tell me about Adelaide Palliser. Is
+she to be married?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hope so,&mdash;sooner or later."</p>
+
+<p>"There's a quarrel or something;&mdash;isn't there? She's the Duke's first
+cousin, and we should be so sorry that things shouldn't go pleasantly
+with her. And she's a very good-looking girl, too. Would she like to
+come down to Matching?"</p>
+
+<p>"She has some idea of going back to Italy."</p>
+
+<p>"And leaving her lover behind her! Oh, dear, that will be very bad.
+She'd much better come to Matching, and then I'd ask the man to come
+too. Mr. Maud, isn't he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Gerard Maule."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, yes; Maule. If it's the kind of thing that ought to be, I'd
+manage it in a week. If you get a young man down into a country
+house, and there has been anything at all between them, I don't see
+how he is to escape. Isn't there some trouble about money?"</p>
+
+<p>"They wouldn't be very rich, Duchess."</p>
+
+<p>"What a blessing for them! But then, perhaps, they'd be very poor."</p>
+
+<p>"They would be rather poor."</p>
+
+<p>"Which is not a blessing. Isn't there some proverb about going safely
+in the middle? I'm sure it's true about money,&mdash;only perhaps you
+ought to be put a little beyond the middle. I don't know why
+Plantagenet shouldn't do something for her."</p>
+
+<p>As to this conversation Lady Chiltern said very little to Adelaide,
+but she did mention the proposed visit to Matching.</p>
+
+<p>"The Duchess said nothing to me," replied Adelaide, proudly.</p>
+
+<p>"No; I don't suppose she had time. And then she is so very odd;
+sometimes taking no notice of one, and at others so very loving."</p>
+
+<p>"I hate that."</p>
+
+<p>"But with her it is neither impudence nor affectation. She says
+exactly what she thinks at the time, and she is always as good as her
+word. There are worse women than the Duchess."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure I wouldn't like going to Matching," said Adelaide.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Chiltern was right in saying that the Duchess of Omnium was
+always as good as her word. On the next day, after that interview
+with Lord Chiltern about Mr. Fothergill and the foxes,&mdash;as to which
+no present further allusion need be made here,&mdash;she went to work and
+did learn a good deal about Gerard Maule and Miss Palliser. Something
+she learned from Lord Chiltern,&mdash;without any consciousness on his
+lordship's part, something from Madame Goesler, and something from
+the Baldock people. Before she went to bed on the second night she
+knew all about the quarrel, and all about the money. "Plantagenet,"
+she said the next morning, "what are you going to do about the Duke's
+legacy to Marie Goesler?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can do nothing. She must take the things, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"She won't."</p>
+
+<p>"Then the jewels must remain packed up. I suppose they'll be sold at
+last for the legacy duty, and, when that's paid, the balance will
+belong to her."</p>
+
+<p>"But what about the money?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course it belongs to her."</p>
+
+<p>"Couldn't you give it to that girl who was here last night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Give it to a girl!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes;&mdash;to your cousin. She's as poor as Job, and can't get married
+because she hasn't got any money. It's quite true; and I must say
+that if the Duke had looked after his own relations instead of
+leaving money to people who don't want it and won't have it, it would
+have been much better. Why shouldn't Adelaide Palliser have it?"</p>
+
+<p>"How on earth should I give Adelaide Palliser what doesn't belong to
+me? If you choose to make her a present, you can, but such a sum as
+that would, I should say, be out of the question."</p>
+
+<p>The Duchess had achieved quite as much as she had anticipated. She
+knew her husband well, and was aware that she couldn't carry her
+point at once. To her mind it was "all nonsense" his saying that the
+money was not his. If Madame Goesler wouldn't take it, it must be
+his; and nobody could make a woman take money if she did not choose.
+Adelaide Palliser was the Duke's first cousin, and it was intolerable
+that the Duke's first cousin should be unable to marry because she
+would have nothing to live upon. It became, at least, intolerable as
+soon as the Duchess had taken it into her head to like the first
+cousin. No doubt there were other first cousins as badly off, or
+perhaps worse, as to whom the Duchess would care nothing whether they
+were rich or poor,&mdash;married or single; but then they were first
+cousins who had not had the advantage of interesting the Duchess.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear," said the Duchess to her friend, Madame Goesler, "you know
+all about those Maules?"</p>
+
+<p>"What makes you ask?"</p>
+
+<p>"But you do?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know something about one of them," said Madame Goesler. Now, as it
+happened, Mr. Maule, senior, had on that very day asked Madame
+Goesler to share her lot with his, and the request had been&mdash;almost
+indignantly, refused. The general theory that the wooing of widows
+should be quick had, perhaps, misled Mr. Maule. Perhaps he did not
+think that the wooing had been quick. He had visited Park Lane with
+the object of making his little proposition once before, and had then
+been stopped in his course by the consternation occasioned by the
+arrest of Phineas Finn. He had waited till Phineas had been
+acquitted, and had then resolved to try his luck. He had heard of the
+lady's journey to Prague, and was acquainted of course with those
+rumours which too freely connected the name of our hero with that of
+the lady. But rumours are often false, and a lady may go to Prague on
+a gentleman's behalf without intending to marry him. All the women in
+London were at present more or less in love with the man who had been
+accused of murder, and the fantasy of Madame Goesler might be only as
+the fantasy of others. And then, rumour also said that Phineas Finn
+intended to marry Lady Laura Kennedy. At any rate a man cannot have
+his head broken for asking a lady to marry him,&mdash;unless he is very
+awkward in the doing of it. So Mr. Maule made his little proposition.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Maule," said Madame, smiling, "is not this rather sudden?" Mr.
+Maule admitted that it was sudden, but still persisted. "I think, if
+you please, Mr. Maule, we will say no more about it," said the lady,
+with that wicked smile still on her face. Mr. Maule declared that
+silence on the subject had become impossible to him. "Then, Mr.
+Maule, I shall have to leave you to speak to the chairs and tables,"
+said Madame Goesler. No doubt she was used to the thing, and knew how
+to conduct herself well. He also had been refused before by ladies of
+wealth, but had never been treated with so little consideration. She
+had risen from her chair as though about to leave the room, but was
+slow in her movement, showing him that she thought it was well for
+him to leave it instead of her. Muttering some words, half of apology
+and half of self-assertion, he did leave the room; and now she told
+the Duchess that she knew something of one of the Maules.</p>
+
+<p>"That is, the father?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes,&mdash;the father."</p>
+
+<p>"He is one of your tribe, I know. We met him at your house just
+before the murder. I don't much admire your taste, my dear, because
+he's a hundred and fifty years old;&mdash;and what there is of him comes
+chiefly from the tailor."</p>
+
+<p>"He's as good as any other old man."</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say,&mdash;and I hope Mr. Finn will like his society. But he has
+got a son."</p>
+
+<p>"So he tells me."</p>
+
+<p>"Who is a charming young man."</p>
+
+<p>"He never told me that, Duchess."</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say not. Men of that sort are always jealous of their sons.
+But he has. Now I am going to tell you something and ask you to do
+something."</p>
+
+<p>"What was it the French Minister said. If it is simply difficult it
+is done. If it is impossible, it shall be done."</p>
+
+<p>"The easiest thing in the world. You saw Plantagenet's first cousin
+the other night,&mdash;Adelaide Palliser. She is engaged to marry young
+Mr. Maule, and they neither of them have a shilling in the world. I
+want you to give them five-and-twenty thousand pounds."</p>
+
+<p>"Wouldn't that be peculiar?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not in the least."</p>
+
+<p>"At any rate it would be inconvenient."</p>
+
+<p>"No it wouldn't, my dear. It would be the most convenient thing in
+the world. Of course I don't mean out of your pocket. There's the
+Duke's legacy."</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't mine, and never will be."</p>
+
+<p>"But Plantagenet says it never can be anybody else's. If I can get
+him to agree, will you? Of course there will be ever so many papers
+to be signed; and the biggest of all robbers, the Chancellor of the
+Exchequer, will put his fingers into the pudding and pull out a plum,
+and the lawyers will take more plums. But that will be nothing to us.
+The pudding will be very nice for them let ever so many plums be
+taken. The lawyers and people will do it all, and then it will be her
+fortune,&mdash;just as though her uncle had left it to her. As it is now,
+the money will never be of any use to anybody." Madame Goesler said
+that if the Duke consented she also would consent. It was immaterial
+to her who had the money. If by signing any receipt she could
+facilitate the return of the money to any one of the Duke's family,
+she would willingly sign it. But Miss Palliser must be made to
+understand that the money did not come to her as a present from
+Madame Goesler.</p>
+
+<p>"But it will be a present from Madame Goesler," said the Duke.</p>
+
+<p>"Plantagenet, if you go and upset everything by saying that, I shall
+think it most ill-natured. Bother about true! Somebody must have the
+money. There's nothing illegal about it." And the Duchess had her own
+way. Lawyers were consulted, and documents were prepared, and the
+whole thing was arranged. Only Adelaide Palliser knew nothing about
+it, nor did Gerard Maule; and the quarrels of lovers had not yet
+become the renewal of love. Then the Duchess wrote the two following
+notes:&mdash;<br />&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smallcaps">My dear Adelaide</span>,</p>
+
+<p>We shall hope to see you at Matching on the 15th of August. The Duke,
+as head of the family, expects implicit obedience. You'll meet
+fifteen young gentlemen from the Treasury and the Board of Trade, but
+they won't incommode you, as they are kept at work all day. We hope
+Mr. Finn will be with us, and there isn't a lady in England who
+wouldn't give her eyes to meet him. We shall stay ever so many weeks
+at Matching, so that you can do as you please as to the time of
+leaving us.</p>
+
+<p class="ind10">Yours affectionately,</p>
+
+<p class="ind15">G. O.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">Tell Lord Chiltern
+that I have my hopes of making Trumpeton Wood too
+hot for Mr. Fothergill,&mdash;but I have to act with the greatest caution.
+In the meantime I am sending down dozens of young foxes, all labelled
+Trumpeton Wood, so that he shall know them.<br />&nbsp;</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+<p>The other was a card rather than a note. The Duke and Duchess of
+Omnium presented their compliments to Mr. Gerard Maule, and requested
+the honour of his company to dinner on,&mdash;a certain day named. When
+Gerard Maule received this card at his club he was rather surprised,
+as he had never made the acquaintance either of the Duke or the
+Duchess. But the Duke was the first cousin of Adelaide Palliser, and
+of course he accepted the invitation.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c70"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER LXX.</h3>
+<h4>"I WILL NOT GO TO LOUGHLINTER."<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>The end of July came, and it was settled that Lady Laura Kennedy
+should go to Loughlinter. She had been a widow now for nearly three
+months, and it was thought right that she should go down and see the
+house, and the lands, and the dependents whom her husband had left in
+her charge. It was now three years since she had seen Loughlinter,
+and when last she had left it, she had made up her mind that she
+would never place her foot upon the place again. Her wretchedness had
+all come upon her there. It was there that she had first been
+subjected to the unendurable tedium of Sabbath Day observances. It
+was there she had been instructed in the unpalatable duties that had
+been expected from her. It was there that she had been punished with
+the doctor from Callender whenever she attempted escape under the
+plea of a headache. And it was there, standing by the waterfall, the
+noise of which could be heard from the front-door, that Phineas Finn
+had told her of his love. When she accepted the hand of Robert
+Kennedy she had known that she had not loved him; but from the moment
+in which Phineas had spoken to her, she knew well that her heart had
+gone one way, whereas her hand was to go another. From that moment
+her whole life had quickly become a blank. She had had no period of
+married happiness,&mdash;not a month, not an hour. From the moment in
+which the thing had been done she had found that the man to whom she
+had bound herself was odious to her, and that the life before her was
+distasteful to her. Things which before had seemed worthy to her, and
+full at any rate of interest, became at once dull and vapid. Her
+husband was in Parliament, as also had been her father, and many of
+her friends,&mdash;and, by weight of his own character and her influence,
+was himself placed high in office; but in his house politics lost all
+the flavour which they had possessed for her in Portman Square. She
+had thought that she could at any rate do her duty as the mistress of
+a great household, and as the benevolent lady of a great estate; but
+household duties under the tutelage of Mr. Kennedy had been
+impossible to her, and that part of a Scotch Lady Bountiful which she
+had intended to play seemed to be denied to her. The whole structure
+had fallen to the ground, and nothing had been left to her.</p>
+
+<p>But she would not sin. Though she could not bring herself to love her
+husband, she would at any rate be strong enough to get rid of that
+other love. Having so resolved, she became as weak as water. She at
+one time determined to be the guiding genius of the man she loved,&mdash;a
+sort of devoted elder sister, intending him to be the intimate friend
+of her husband; then she had told him not to come to her house, and
+had been weak enough to let him know why it was that she could not
+bear his presence. She had failed altogether to keep her secret, and
+her life during the struggle had become so intolerable to her that
+she had found herself compelled to desert her husband. He had shown
+her that he, too, had discovered the truth, and then she had become
+indignant, and had left him. Every place that she had inhabited with
+him had become disagreeable to her. The house in London had been so
+odious, that she had asked her intimate friends to come to her in
+that occupied by her father. But, of all spots upon earth,
+Loughlinter had been the most distasteful to her. It was there that
+the sermons had been the longest, the lessons in accounts the most
+obstinate, the lectures the most persevering, the dullness the most
+heavy. It was there that her ears had learned the sound of the wheels
+of Dr. Macnuthrie's gig. It was there that her spirit had been nearly
+broken. It was there that, with spirit not broken, she had determined
+to face all that the world might say of her, and fly from a tyranny
+which was insupportable. And now the place was her own, and she was
+told that she must go there as its owner;&mdash;go there and be potential,
+and beneficent, and grandly bland with persons, all of whom knew what
+had been the relations between her and her husband.</p>
+
+<p>And though she had been indignant with her husband when at last she
+had left him,&mdash;throwing it in his teeth as an unmanly offence that he
+had accused her of the truth; though she had felt him to be a tyrant
+and herself to be a thrall; though the sermons, and the lessons, and
+the doctor had each, severally, seemed to her to be horrible
+cruelties; yet she had known through it all that the fault had been
+hers, and not his. He only did that which she should have expected
+when she married him;&mdash;but she had done none of that which he was
+entitled to expect from her. The real fault, the deceit, the
+fraud,&mdash;the sin had been with her,&mdash;and she knew it. Her life had
+been destroyed,&mdash;but not by him. His life had also been destroyed,
+and she had done it. Now he was gone, and she knew that his
+people,&mdash;the old mother who was still left alone, his cousins, and
+the tenants who were now to be her tenants, all said that had she
+done her duty by him he would still have been alive. And they must
+hate her the worse, because she had never sinned after such a fashion
+as to liberate him from his bond to her. With a husband's perfect
+faith in his wife, he had, immediately after his marriage, given to
+her for her life the lordship over his people, should he be without a
+child and should she survive him. In his hottest anger he had not
+altered that. His constant demand had been that she should come back
+to him, and be his real wife. And while making that demand,&mdash;with a
+persistency which had driven him mad,&mdash;he had died; and now the place
+was hers, and they told her that she must go and live there!</p>
+
+<p>It is a very sad thing for any human being to have to say to
+himself,&mdash;with an earnest belief in his own assertion,&mdash;that all the
+joy of this world is over for him; and is the sadder because such
+conviction is apt to exclude the hope of other joy. This woman had
+said so to herself very often during the last two years, and had
+certainly been sincere. What was there in store for her? She was
+banished from the society of all those she liked. She bore a name
+that was hateful to her. She loved a man whom she could never see.
+She was troubled about money. Nothing in life had any taste for her.
+All the joys of the world were over,&mdash;and had been lost by her own
+fault. Then Phineas Finn had come to her at Dresden, and now her
+husband was dead!</p>
+
+<p>Could it be that she was entitled to hope that the sun might rise
+again for her once more and another day be reopened for her with a
+gorgeous morning? She was now rich and still young,&mdash;or young enough.
+She was two and thirty, and had known many women,&mdash;women still
+honoured with the name of girls,&mdash;who had commenced the world
+successfully at that age. And this man had loved her once. He had
+told her so, and had afterwards kissed her when informed of her own
+engagement. How well she remembered it all. He, too, had gone through
+vicissitudes in life, had married and retired out of the world, had
+returned to it, and had gone through fire and water. But now
+everybody was saying good things of him, and all he wanted was the
+splendour which wealth would give him. Why should he not take it at
+her hands, and why should not the world begin again for both of them?</p>
+
+<p>But though she would dream that it might be so, she was quite sure
+that there was no such life in store for her. The nature of the man
+was too well known to her. Fickle he might be;&mdash;or rather capable of
+change than fickle; but he was incapable of pretending to love when
+he did not love. She felt that in all the moments in which he had
+been most tender with her. When she had endeavoured to explain to him
+the state of her feelings at K&ouml;nigstein,&mdash;meaning to be true in what
+she said, but not having been even then true throughout,&mdash;she had
+acknowledged to herself that at every word he spoke she was wounded
+by his coldness. Had he then professed a passion for her she would
+have rebuked him, and told him that he must go from her,&mdash;but it
+would have warmed the blood in all her veins, and brought back to her
+a sense of youthful life. It had been the same when she visited him
+in the prison;&mdash;the same again when he came to her after his
+acquittal. She had been frank enough to him, but he would not even
+pretend that he loved her. His gratitude, his friendship, his
+services, were all hers. In every respect he had behaved well to her.
+All his troubles had come upon him because he would not desert her
+cause,&mdash;but he would never again say he loved her.</p>
+
+<p>She gazed at herself in the glass, putting aside for the moment the
+hideous widow's cap which she now wore, and told herself that it was
+natural that it should be so. Though she was young in years her
+features were hard and worn with care. She had never thought herself
+to be a beauty, though she had been conscious of a certain
+aristocratic grace of manner which might stand in the place of
+beauty. As she examined herself she found that that was not all
+gone;&mdash;but she now lacked that roundness of youth which had been hers
+when first she knew Phineas Finn. She sat opposite the mirror, and
+pored over her own features with an almost skilful scrutiny, and told
+herself at last aloud that she had become an old woman. He was in the
+prime of life; but for her was left nothing but its dregs.</p>
+
+
+<div class="center"><a id="ill70"></a>
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4px">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/ill70.jpg">
+      <img src="images/ill70-t.jpg" height="600"
+      alt="LADY LAURA AT THE GLASS." /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption"><span class="smallcaps">Lady
+      Laura at the glass.</span><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/ill70.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>She was to go to Loughlinter with her brother and her brother's wife,
+leaving her father at Saulsby on the way. The Chilterns were to
+remain with her for one week, and no more. His presence was demanded
+in the Brake country, and it was with difficulty that he had been
+induced to give her so much of his time. But what was she to do when
+they should leave her? How could she live alone in that great house,
+thinking, as she ever must think, of all that had happened to her
+there? It seemed to her that everybody near to her was cruel in
+demanding from her such a sacrifice of her comfort. Her father had
+shuddered when she had proposed to him to accompany her to
+Loughlinter; but her father was one of those who insisted on the
+propriety of her going there. Then, in spite of that lesson which she
+had taught herself while sitting opposite to the glass, she allowed
+her fancy to revel in the idea of having him with her as she wandered
+over the braes. She saw him a day or two before her journey, when she
+told him her plans as she might tell them to any friend. Lady
+Chiltern and her father had been present, and there had been no
+special sign in her outward manner of the mingled tenderness and
+soreness of her heart within. No allusion had been made to any visit
+from him to the North. She would not have dared to suggest it in the
+presence of her brother, and was almost as much cowed by her
+brother's wife. But when she was alone, on the eve of her departure,
+she wrote to him as follows:&mdash;<br />&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="jright">Sunday, 1st August, &mdash;&mdash;.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smallcaps">Dear Friend</span>,</p>
+
+<p>I thought that perhaps you might have come in this afternoon, and I
+have not left the house all day. I was so wretched that I could not
+go to church in the morning;&mdash;and when the afternoon came, I
+preferred the chance of seeing you to going out with Violet. We two
+were alone all the evening, and I did not give you up till nearly
+ten. I dare say you were right not to come. I should only have bored
+you with my complaints, and have grumbled to you of evils which you
+cannot cure.</p>
+
+<p>We start at nine to-morrow, and get to Saulsby in the afternoon. Such
+a family party as we shall be! I did fancy that Oswald would escape
+it; but, like everybody else, he has changed,&mdash;and has become
+domestic and dutiful. Not but that he is as tyrannous as ever; but
+his tyranny is now that of the responsible father of a family. Papa
+cannot understand him at all, and is dreadfully afraid of him. We
+stay two nights at Saulsby, and then go on to Scotland, leaving papa
+at home.</p>
+
+<p>Of course it is very good in Violet and Oswald to come with me,&mdash;if,
+as they say, it be necessary for me to go at all. As to living there
+by myself, it seems to me to be impossible. You know the place well,
+and can you imagine me there all alone, surrounded by Scotch men and
+women, who, of course, must hate and despise me, afraid of every face
+that I see, and reminded even by the chairs and tables of all that is
+past? I have told papa that I know I shall be back at Saulsby before
+the middle of the month. He frets, and says nothing; but he tells
+Violet, and then she lectures me in that wise way of hers which
+enables her to say such hard things with so much seeming tenderness.
+She asks me why I do not take a companion with me, as I am so much
+afraid of solitude. Where on earth should I find a companion who
+would not be worse than solitude? I do feel now that I have mistaken
+life in having so little used myself to the small resources of
+feminine companionship. I love Violet dearly, and I used to be always
+happy in her society. But even with her now I feel but a half
+sympathy. That girl that she has with her is more to her than I am,
+because after the first half-hour I grow tired about her babies. I
+have never known any other woman with whom I cared to be alone. How
+then shall I content myself with a companion, hired by the quarter,
+perhaps from some advertisement in a newspaper?</p>
+
+<p>No companionship of any kind seems possible to me,&mdash;and yet never was
+a human being more weary of herself. I sometimes wonder whether I
+could go again and sit in that cage in the House of Commons to hear
+you and other men speak,&mdash;as I used to do. I do not believe that any
+eloquence in the world would make it endurable to me. I hardly care
+who is in or out, and do not understand the things which my cousin
+Barrington tells me,&mdash;so long does it seem since I was in the midst
+of them all. Not but that I am intensely anxious that you should be
+back. They tell me that you will certainly be re-elected this week,
+and that all the House will receive you with open arms. I should have
+liked, had it been possible, to be once more in the cage to see that.
+But I am such a coward that I did not even dare to propose to stay
+for it. Violet would have told me that such manifestation of interest
+was unfit for my condition as a widow. But in truth, Phineas, there
+is nothing else now that does interest me. If, looking on from a
+distance, I can see you succeed, I shall try once more to care for
+the questions of the day. When you have succeeded, as I know you
+will, it will be some consolation to me to think that I also helped a
+little.</p>
+
+<p>I suppose I must not ask you to come to Loughlinter? But you will
+know best. If you will do so I shall care nothing for what any one
+may say. Oswald hardly mentions your name in my hearing, and of
+course I know of what he is thinking. When I am with him I am afraid
+of him, because it would add infinitely to my grief were I driven to
+quarrel with him; but I am my own mistress as much as he is his own
+master, and I will not regulate my conduct by his wishes. If you
+please to come you will be welcome as the flowers in May. Ah, how
+weak are such words in giving any idea of the joy with which I should
+see you!</p>
+
+<p class="ind4">God bless you, Phineas.</p>
+
+<p class="ind8">Your most affectionate friend,</p>
+
+<p class="ind12">LAURA KENNEDY.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">Write to me at
+Loughlinter. I shall long to hear that you have taken
+your seat immediately on your re-election. Pray do not lose a day. I
+am sure that all your friends will advise you as I do.<br />&nbsp;</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+<p>Throughout her whole letter she was struggling to tell him once again
+of her love, and yet to do it in some way of which she need not be
+ashamed. It was not till she had come to the last words that she
+could force her pen to speak of her affection, and then the words did
+not come freely as she would have had them. She knew that he would
+not come to Loughlinter. She felt that were he to do so he could come
+only as a suitor for her hand, and that such a suit, in these early
+days of her widowhood, carried on in her late husband's house, would
+be held to be disgraceful. As regarded herself, she would have faced
+all that for the sake of the thing to be attained. But she knew that
+he would not come. He had become wise by experience, and would
+perceive the result of such coming,&mdash;and would avoid it. His answer
+to her letter reached Loughlinter before she did:&mdash;<br />&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="jright">Great Marlborough Street,<br />
+Monday night.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smallcaps">Dear Lady
+Laura</span>,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>I should have called in the Square last night, only that I feel that
+Lady Chiltern must be weary of the woes of so doleful a person as
+myself. I dined and spent the evening with the Lows, and was quite
+aware that I disgraced myself with them by being perpetually
+lachrymose. As a rule I do not think that I am more given than other
+people to talk of myself, but I am conscious of a certain
+incapability of getting rid of myself what has grown upon me since
+those weary weeks in Newgate and those frightful days in the dock;
+and this makes me unfit for society. Should I again have a seat in
+the House I shall be afraid to get up upon my legs, lest I should
+find myself talking of the time in which I stood before the judge
+with a halter round my neck.</p>
+
+<p>I sympathise with you perfectly in what you say about Loughlinter. It
+may be right that you should go there and show yourself,&mdash;so that
+those who knew the Kennedys in Scotland should not say that you had
+not dared to visit the place, but I do not think it possible that you
+should live there as yet. And why should you do so? I cannot conceive
+that your presence there should do good, unless you took delight in
+the place.</p>
+
+<p>I will not go to Loughlinter myself, although I know how warm would
+be my welcome.<br />&nbsp;</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+<p class="noindent">When he had got so far with his letter he
+found the difficulty of
+going on with it to be almost insuperable. How could he give her any
+reasons for his not making the journey to Scotland? "People would say
+that you and I should not be alone together after all the evil that
+has been spoken of us;&mdash;and would be specially eager in saying so
+were I now to visit you, so lately made a widow, and to sojourn with
+you in the house that did belong to your husband. Only think how
+eloquent would be the indignation of The People's Banner were it
+known that I was at Loughlinter." Could he have spoken the truth
+openly, such were the reasons that he would have given; but it was
+impossible that such truths should be written by him in a letter to
+herself. And then it was almost equally difficult for him to tell her
+of a visit which he had resolved to make. But the letter must be
+completed, and at last the words were written.<br />&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="noindent">I could be of no real service
+to you there, as will be your brother
+and your brother's wife, even though their stay with you is to be so
+short. Were I you I would go out among the people as much as
+possible, even though they should not receive you cordially at first.
+Though we hear so much of clanship in the Highlands, I think the
+Highlanders are prone to cling to any one who has territorial
+authority among them. They thought a great deal of Mr. Kennedy, but
+they had never heard his name fifty years ago. I suppose you will
+return to Saulsby soon, and then, perhaps, I may be able to see you.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime I am going to Matching. [This difficulty
+was worse even than the other.]
+Both the Duke and Duchess have asked me, and I know that I am bound
+to make an effort to face my fellow-creatures again. The horror I
+feel at being stared at, as the man that was not&mdash;hung as a murderer,
+is stronger than I can describe; and I am well aware that I shall be
+talked to and made a wonder of on that ground. I am told that I am to
+be re-elected triumphantly at Tankerville without a penny of cost or
+the trouble of asking for a vote, simply because I didn't knock poor
+Mr. Bonteen on the head. This to me is abominable, but I cannot help
+myself, unless I resolve to go away and hide myself. That I know
+cannot be right, and therefore I had better go through it and have
+done with it. Though I am to be stared at, I shall not be stared at
+very long. Some other monster will come up and take my place, and I
+shall be the only person who will not forget it all. Therefore I have
+accepted the Duke's invitation, and shall go to Matching some time in
+the end of August. All the world is to be there.</p>
+
+<p>This re-election,&mdash;and I believe I shall be re-elected
+to-morrow,&mdash;would be altogether distasteful to me were it not that I
+feel that I should not allow myself to be cut to pieces by what has
+occurred. I shall hate to go back to the House, and have somehow
+learned to dislike and distrust all those things that used to be so
+fine and lively to me. I don't think that I believe any more in the
+party;&mdash;or rather in the men who lead it. I used to have a faith that
+now seems to me to be marvellous. Even twelve months ago, when I was
+beginning to think of standing for Tankerville, I believed that on
+our side the men were patriotic angels, and that Daubeny and his
+friends were all fiends or idiots,&mdash;mostly idiots, but with a strong
+dash of fiendism to control them. It has all come now to one common
+level of poor human interests. I doubt whether patriotism can stand
+the wear and tear and temptation of the front benches in the House of
+Commons. Men are flying at each other's throats, thrusting and
+parrying, making false accusations and defences equally false, lying
+and slandering,&mdash;sometimes picking and stealing,&mdash;till they
+themselves become unaware of the magnificence of their own position,
+and forget that they are expected to be great. Little tricks of
+sword-play engage all their skill. And the consequence is that there
+is no reverence now for any man in the House,&mdash;none of that feeling
+which we used to entertain for Mr. Mildmay.</p>
+
+<p>Of course I write&mdash;and feel&mdash;as a discontented man; and what I say to
+you I would not say to any other human being. I did long most
+anxiously for office, having made up my mind a second time to look to
+it as a profession. But I meant to earn my bread honestly, and give
+it up,&mdash;as I did before, when I could not keep it with a clear
+conscience. I knew that I was hustled out of the object of my poor
+ambition by that unfortunate man who has been hurried to his fate. In
+such a position I ought to distrust, and do, partly, distrust my own
+feelings. And I am aware that I have been soured by prison
+indignities. But still the conviction remains with me that
+parliamentary interests are not those battles of gods and giants
+which I used to regard them. Our Gyas with the hundred hands is but a
+Three-fingered Jack, and I sometimes think that we share our great
+Jove with the Strand Theatre. Nevertheless I shall go back,&mdash;and if
+they will make me a joint lord to-morrow I shall be in heaven!</p>
+
+<p>I do not know why I should write all this to you except that there is
+no one else to whom I can say it. There is no one else who would give
+a moment of time to such lamentations. My friends will expect me to
+talk to them of my experiences in the dock rather than politics, and
+will want to know what rations I had in Newgate. I went to call on
+the Governor only yesterday, and visited the old room. "I never could
+really bring myself to think that you did it, Mr. Finn," he said. I
+looked at him and smiled, but I should have liked to fly at his
+throat. Why did he not know that the charge was a monstrous
+absurdity? Talking of that, not even you were truer to me than your
+brother. One expects it from a woman;&mdash;both the truth and the
+discernment.</p>
+
+<p>I have written to you a cruelly long letter; but when one's mind is
+full such relief is sometimes better than talking. Pray answer it
+before long, and let me know what you intend to do.</p>
+
+<p class="ind8">Yours most affectionately,</p>
+
+<p class="ind12"><span class="smallcaps">Phineas
+Finn</span>.<br />&nbsp;</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+<p>She did read the letter through,&mdash;read it probably more than once;
+but there was only one sentence in it that had for her any enduring
+interest. "I will not go to Loughlinter myself." Though she had known
+that he would not come her heart sank within her, as though now, at
+this moment, the really fatal wound had at last been inflicted. But,
+in truth, there was another sentence as a complement to the first,
+which rivetted the dagger in her bosom. "In the meantime I am going
+to Matching." Throughout his letter the name of that woman was not
+mentioned, but of course she would be there. The thing had all been
+arranged in order that they two might be brought together. She told
+herself that she had always hated that intriguing woman, Lady
+Glencora. She read the remainder of the letter and understood it; but
+she read it all in connection with the beauty, and the wealth, and
+the art,&mdash;and the cunning of Madame Max Goesler.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c71"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER LXXI.</h3>
+<h4>PHINEAS FINN IS RE-ELECTED.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>The manner in which Phineas Finn was returned a second time for the
+borough of Tankerville was memorable among the annals of English
+elections. When the news reached the town that their member was to be
+tried for murder no doubt every elector believed that he was guilty.
+It is the natural assumption when the police and magistrates and
+lawyers, who have been at work upon the matter carefully, have come
+to that conclusion, and nothing but private knowledge or personal
+affection will stand against such evidence. At Tankerville there was
+nothing of either, and our hero's guilt was taken as a certainty.
+There was an interest felt in the whole matter which was full of
+excitement, and not altogether without delight to the Tankervillians.
+Of course the borough, as a borough, would never again hold up its
+head. There had never been known such an occurrence in the whole
+history of this country as the hanging of a member of the House of
+Commons. And this Member of Parliament was to be hung for murdering
+another member, which, no doubt, added much to the importance of the
+transaction. A large party in the borough declared that it was a
+judgment. Tankerville had degraded itself among boroughs by sending a
+Roman Catholic to Parliament, and had done so at the very moment in
+which the Church of England was being brought into danger. This was
+what had come upon the borough by not sticking to honest Mr.
+Browborough! There was a moment,&mdash;just before the trial was
+begun,&mdash;in which a large proportion of the electors was desirous of
+proceeding to work at once, and of sending Mr. Browborough back to
+his own place. It was thought that Phineas Finn should be made to
+resign. And very wise men in Tankerville were much surprised when
+they were told that a member of Parliament cannot resign his
+seat,&mdash;that when once returned he is supposed to be, as long as that
+Parliament shall endure, the absolute slave of his constituency and
+his country, and that he can escape from his servitude only by
+accepting some office under the Crown. Now it was held to be
+impossible that a man charged with murder should be appointed even to
+the stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds. The House, no doubt, could
+expel a member, and would, as a matter of course, expel the member
+for Tankerville,&mdash;but the House could hardly proceed to expulsion
+before the member's guilt could have been absolutely established. So
+it came to pass that there was no escape for the borough from any
+part of the disgrace to which it had subjected itself by its unworthy
+choice, and some Tankervillians of sensitive minds were of opinion
+that no Tankervillian ever again ought to take part in politics.</p>
+
+<p>Then, quite suddenly, there came into the borough the tidings that
+Phineas Finn was an innocent man. This happened on the morning on
+which the three telegrams from Prague reached London. The news
+conveyed by the telegrams was at Tankerville almost as soon as in the
+Court at the Old Bailey, and was believed as readily. The name of the
+lady who had travelled all the way to Bohemia on behalf of their
+handsome young member was on the tongue of every woman in
+Tankerville, and a most delightful romance was composed. Some few
+Protestant spirits regretted the now assured escape of their Roman
+Catholic enemy, and would not even yet allow themselves to doubt that
+the whole murder had been arranged by Divine Providence to bring down
+the scarlet woman. It seemed to them to be so fitting a thing that
+Providence should interfere directly to punish a town in which the
+sins of the scarlet woman were not held to be abominable! But the
+multitude were soon convinced that their member was innocent; and as
+it was certain that he had been in great peril,&mdash;as it was known that
+he was still in durance, and as it was necessary that the trial
+should proceed, and that he should still stand at least for another
+day in the dock,&mdash;he became more than ever a hero. Then came the
+further delay, and at last the triumphant conclusion of the trial.
+When acquitted, Phineas Finn was still member for Tankerville and
+might have walked into the House on that very night. Instead of doing
+so he had at once asked for the accustomed means of escape from his
+servitude, and the seat for Tankerville was vacant. The most loving
+friends of Mr. Browborough perceived at once that there was not a
+chance for him. The borough was all but unanimous in resolving that
+it would return no one as its member but the man who had been
+unjustly accused of murder.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ruddles was at once despatched to London with two other political
+spirits,&mdash;so that there might be a real deputation,&mdash;and waited upon
+Phineas two days after his release from prison. Ruddles was very
+anxious to carry his member back with him, assuring Phineas of an
+entry into the borough so triumphant that nothing like to it had ever
+been known at Tankerville. But to all this Phineas was quite deaf. At
+first he declined even to be put in nomination. "You can't escape
+from it, Mr. Finn, you can't indeed," said Ruddles. "You don't at all
+understand the enthusiasm of the borough; does he, Mr. Gadmire?"</p>
+
+<p>"I never knew anything like it in my life before," said Gadmire.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe Mr. Finn would poll two-thirds of the Church party
+to-morrow," said Mr. Troddles, a leading dissenter in Tankerville,
+who on this occasion was the third member of the deputation.</p>
+
+<p>"I needn't sit for the borough unless I please, I suppose," pleaded
+Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, no;&mdash;at least I don't know," said Ruddles. "It would be
+throwing us over a good deal, and I'm sure you are not the gentleman
+to do that. And then, Mr. Finn, don't you see that though you have
+been knocked about a little <span class="nowrap">lately&mdash;"</span></p>
+
+<p>"By George, he has,&mdash;most cruel," said Troddles.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll miss the House if you give it up; you will, after a bit, Mr.
+Finn. You've got to come round again, Mr. Finn,&mdash;if I may be so bold
+as to say so, and you shouldn't put yourself out of the way of coming
+round comfortably."</p>
+
+<p>Phineas knew that there was wisdom in the words of Mr. Ruddles, and
+consented. Though at this moment he was low in heart, disgusted with
+the world, and sick of humanity,&mdash;though every joint in his body was
+still sore from the rack on which he had been stretched, yet he knew
+that it would not be so with him always. As others recovered so would
+he, and it might be that he would live to "miss the House," should he
+now refuse the offer made to him. He accepted the offer, but he did
+so with a positive assurance that no consideration should at present
+take him to Tankerville.</p>
+
+<p>"We ain't going to charge you, not one penny," said Mr. Gadmire, with
+enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>"I feel all that I owe to the borough," said Phineas, "and to the
+warm friends there who have espoused my cause; but I am not in a
+condition at present, either of mind or body, to put myself forward
+anywhere in public. I have suffered a great deal."</p>
+
+<p>"Most cruel!" said Troddles.</p>
+
+<p>"And am quite willing to confess that I am therefore unfit in my
+present position to serve the borough."</p>
+
+<p>"We can't admit that," said Gadmire, raising his left hand.</p>
+
+<p>"We mean to have you," said Troddles.</p>
+
+<p>"There isn't a doubt about your re-election, Mr. Finn," said Ruddles.</p>
+
+<p>"I am very grateful, but I cannot be there. I must trust to one of
+you gentlemen to explain to the electors that in my present condition
+I am unable to visit the borough."</p>
+
+<p>Messrs. Ruddles, Gadmire, and Troddles returned to
+Tankerville,&mdash;disappointed no doubt at not bringing with them him
+whose company would have made their feet glorious on the pavement of
+their native town,&mdash;but still with a comparative sense of their own
+importance in having seen the great sufferer whose woes forbade that
+he should be beheld by common eyes. They never even expressed an idea
+that he ought to have come, alluding even to their past convictions
+as to the futility of hoping for such a blessing; but spoke of him as
+a personage made almost sacred by the sufferings which he had been
+made to endure. As to the election, that would be a matter of course.
+He was proposed by Mr. Ruddles himself, and was absolutely seconded
+by the rector of Tankerville,&mdash;the staunchest Tory in the place, who
+on this occasion made a speech in which he declared that as an
+Englishman, loving justice, he could not allow any political or even
+any religious consideration to bias his conduct on this occasion. Mr.
+Finn had thrown up his seat under the pressure of a false accusation,
+and it was, the rector thought, for the honour of the borough that
+the seat should be restored to him. So Phineas Finn was re-elected
+for Tankerville without opposition and without expense; and for six
+weeks after the ceremony parcels were showered upon him by the ladies
+of the borough who sent him worked slippers, scarlet hunting
+waistcoats, pocket handkerchiefs, with "P.F." beautifully
+embroidered, and chains made of their own hair.</p>
+
+<p>In this conjunction of affairs the editor of The People's Banner
+found it somewhat difficult to trim his sails. It was a rule of life
+with Mr. Quintus Slide to persecute an enemy. An enemy might at any
+time become a friend, but while an enemy was an enemy he should be
+trodden on and persecuted. Mr. Slide had striven more than once to
+make a friend of Phineas Finn; but Phineas Finn had been conceited
+and stiff-necked. Phineas had been to Mr. Slide an enemy of enemies,
+and by all his ideas of manliness, by all the rules of his life, by
+every principle which guided him, he was bound to persecute Phineas
+to the last. During the trial and the few weeks before the trial he
+had written various short articles with the view of declaring how
+improper it would be should a newspaper express any opinion of the
+guilt or innocence of a suspected person while under trial; and he
+gave two or three severe blows to contemporaries for having sinned in
+the matter; but in all these articles he had contrived to insinuate
+that the member for Tankerville would, as a matter of course, be
+dealt with by the hands of justice. He had been very careful to
+recapitulate all circumstances which had induced Finn to hate the
+murdered man, and had more than once related the story of the firing
+of the pistol at Macpherson's Hotel. Then came the telegram from
+Prague, and for a day or two Mr. Slide was stricken dumb. The
+acquittal followed, and Quintus Slide had found himself compelled to
+join in the general satisfaction evinced at the escape of an innocent
+man. Then came the re-election for Tankerville, and Mr. Slide felt
+that there was opportunity for another reaction. More than enough had
+been done for Phineas Finn in allowing him to elude the gallows.
+There could certainly be no need for crowning him with a political
+chaplet because he had not murdered Mr. Bonteen. Among a few other
+remarks which Mr. Slide threw together, the following appeared in the
+columns of The People's Banner:&mdash;<br />&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>We must confess that we hardly understand the principle on which Mr.
+Finn has been re-elected for Tankerville with so much
+enthusiasm,&mdash;free of expense,&mdash;and without that usual compliment to
+the constituency which is implied by the personal appearance of the
+candidate. We have more than once expressed our belief that he was
+wrongly accused in the matter of Mr. Bonteen's murder. Indeed our
+readers will do us the justice to remember that, during the trial and
+before the trial, we were always anxious to allay the very strong
+feeling against Mr. Finn with which the public mind was then imbued,
+not only by the facts of the murder, but also by the previous conduct
+of that gentleman. But we cannot understand why the late member
+should be thought by the electors of Tankerville to be especially
+worthy of their confidence because he did not murder Mr. Bonteen. He
+himself, instigated, we hope, by a proper feeling, retired from
+Parliament as soon as he was acquitted. His career during the last
+twelve months has not enhanced his credit, and cannot, we should
+think, have increased his comfort. We ventured to suggest after that
+affair in Judd Street, as to which the police were so benignly
+inefficient, that it would not be for the welfare of the nation that
+a gentleman should be employed in the public service whose public
+life had been marked by the misfortune which had attended Mr. Finn.
+Great efforts were made by various ladies of the old Whig party to
+obtain official employment for him, but they were made in vain. Mr.
+Gresham was too wise, and our advice,&mdash;we will not say was
+followed,&mdash;but was found to agree with the decision of the Prime
+Minister. Mr. Finn was left out in the cold in spite of his great
+friends,&mdash;and then came the murder of Mr. Bonteen.</p>
+
+<p>Can it be that Mr. Finn's fitness for Parliamentary duties has been
+increased by Mr. Bonteen's unfortunate death, or by the fact that Mr.
+Bonteen was murdered by other hands than his own? We think not. The
+wretched husband, who, in the madness of jealousy, fired a pistol at
+this young man's head, has since died in his madness. Does that
+incident in the drama give Mr. Finn any special claim to
+consideration? We think not;&mdash;and we think also that the electors of
+Tankerville would have done better had they allowed Mr. Finn to
+return to that obscurity which he seems to have desired. The electors
+of Tankerville, however, are responsible only to their borough, and
+may do as they please with the seat in Parliament which is at their
+disposal. We may, however, protest against the employment of an unfit
+person in the service of his country,&mdash;simply because he has not
+committed a murder. We say so much now because rumours of an
+arrangement have reached our ears, which, should it come to
+pass,&mdash;would force upon us the extremely disagreeable duty of
+referring very forcibly to past circumstances, which may otherwise,
+perhaps, be allowed to be forgotten.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+<p><a id="c72"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER LXXII.</h3>
+<h4>THE END OF THE STORY OF<br />MR. EMILIUS AND LADY EUSTACE.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>The interest in the murder by no means came to an end when Phineas
+Finn was acquitted. The new facts which served so thoroughly to prove
+him innocent tended with almost equal weight to prove another man
+guilty. And the other man was already in custody on a charge which
+had subjected him to the peculiar ill-will of the British public. He,
+a foreigner and a Jew, by name Yosef Mealyus,&mdash;as every one was now
+very careful to call him,&mdash;had come to England, had got himself to be
+ordained as a clergyman, had called himself Emilius, and had married
+a rich wife with a title, although he had a former wife still living
+in his own country. Had he called himself Jones it would have been
+better for him, but there was something in the name of Emilius which
+added a peculiar sting to his iniquities. It was now known that the
+bigamy could be certainly proved, and that his last victim,&mdash;our old
+friend, poor little Lizzie Eustace,&mdash;would be rescued from his
+clutches. She would once more be a free woman, and as she had been
+strong enough to defend her future income from his grasp, she was
+perhaps as fortunate as she deserved to be. She was still young and
+pretty, and there might come another lover more desirable than Yosef
+Mealyus. That the man would have to undergo the punishment of bigamy
+in its severest form, there was no doubt;&mdash;but would law, and
+justice, and the prevailing desire for revenge, be able to get at him
+in such a way that he might be hung? There certainly did exist a
+strong desire to prove Mr. Emilius to have been a murderer, so that
+there might come a fitting termination to his career in Great
+Britain.</p>
+
+<p>The police seemed to think that they could make but little either of
+the coat or of the key, unless other evidence, that would be almost
+sufficient in itself, should be found. Lord Fawn was informed that
+his testimony would probably be required at another trial,&mdash;which
+intimation affected him so grievously that his friends for a week or
+two thought that he would altogether sink under his miseries. But he
+would say nothing which would seem to criminate Mealyus. A man
+hurrying along with a grey coat was all that he could swear to
+now,&mdash;professing himself to be altogether ignorant whether the man,
+as seen by him, had been tall or short. And then the manufacture of
+the key,&mdash;though it was that which made every one feel sure that
+Mealyus was the murderer,&mdash;did not, in truth, afford the slightest
+evidence against him. Even had it been proved that he had certainly
+used the false key and left Mrs. Meager's house on the night in
+question, that would not have sufficed at all to prove that therefore
+he had committed a murder in Berkeley Street. No doubt Mr. Bonteen
+had been his enemy,&mdash;and Mr. Bonteen had been murdered by an enemy.
+But so great had been the man's luck that no real evidence seemed to
+touch him. Nobody doubted;&mdash;but then but few had doubted before as to
+the guilt of Phineas Finn.</p>
+
+<p>There was one other fact by which the truth might, it was hoped,
+still be reached. Mr. Bonteen had, of course, been killed by the
+weapon which had been found in the garden. As to that a general
+certainty prevailed. Mrs. Meager and Miss Meager, and the
+maid-of-all-work belonging to the Meagers, and even Lady Eustace,
+were examined as to this bludgeon. Had anything of the kind ever been
+seen in the possession of the clergyman? The clergyman had been so
+sly that nothing of the kind had been seen. Of the drawers and
+cupboards which he used, Mrs. Meager had always possessed duplicate
+keys, and Miss Meager frankly acknowledged that she had a general and
+fairly accurate acquaintance with the contents of these receptacles;
+but there had always been a big trunk with an impenetrable lock,&mdash;a
+lock which required that even if you had the key you should be
+acquainted with a certain combination of letters before you could
+open it,&mdash;and of that trunk no one had seen the inside. As a matter
+of course, the weapon, when brought to London, had been kept
+altogether hidden in the trunk. Nothing could be easier. But a man
+cannot be hung because he has had a secret hiding place in which a
+murderous weapon may have been stowed away.</p>
+
+<p>But might it not be possible to trace the weapon? Mealyus, on his
+return from Prague, had certainly come through Paris. So much was
+learned,&mdash;and it was also learned as a certainty that the article was
+of French,&mdash;and probably of Parisian manufacture. If it could be
+proved that the man had bought this weapon, or even such a weapon, in
+Paris then,&mdash;so said all the police authorities,&mdash;it might be worth
+while to make an attempt to hang him. Men very skilful in unravelling
+such mysteries were sent to Paris, and the police of that capital
+entered upon the search with most praiseworthy zeal. But the number
+of life-preservers which had been sold altogether baffled them. It
+seemed that nothing was so common as that gentlemen should walk about
+with bludgeons in their pockets covered with leathern thongs. A young
+woman and an old man who thought that they could recollect something
+of a special sale were brought over,&mdash;and saw the splendour of London
+under very favourable circumstances;&mdash;but when confronted with Mr.
+Emilius, neither could venture to identify him. A large sum of money
+was expended,&mdash;no doubt justified by the high position which poor Mr.
+Bonteen had filled in the counsels of the nation; but it was expended
+in vain. Mr. Bonteen had been murdered in the streets at the West End
+of London. The murderer was known to everybody. He had been seen a
+minute or two before the murder. The motive which had induced the
+crime was apparent. The weapon with which it had been perpetrated had
+been found. The murderer's disguise had been discovered. The cunning
+with which he had endeavoured to prove that he was in bed at home had
+been unravelled, and the criminal purpose of his cunning made
+altogether manifest. Every man's eye could see the whole thing from
+the moment in which the murderer crept out of Mrs. Meager's house
+with Mr. Meager's coat upon his shoulders and the life-preserver in
+his pocket, till he was seen by Lord Fawn hurrying out of the mews to
+his prey. The blows from the bludgeon could be counted. The very
+moment in which they had been struck had been ascertained. His very
+act in hurling the weapon over the wall was all but seen. And yet
+nothing could be done. "It is a very dangerous thing hanging a man on
+circumstantial evidence," said Sir Gregory Grogram, who, a couple of
+months since, had felt almost sure that his honourable friend Phineas
+Finn would have to be hung on circumstantial evidence. The police and
+magistrates and lawyers all agreed that it would be useless, and
+indeed wrong, to send the case before a jury. But there had been
+quite sufficient evidence against Phineas Finn!</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime the trial for bigamy proceeded in order that poor
+little Lizzie Eustace might be freed from the incubus which afflicted
+her. Before the end of July she was made once more a free woman, and
+the Rev. Joseph Emilius,&mdash;under which name it was thought proper that
+he should be tried,&mdash;was convicted and sentenced to penal servitude
+for five years. A very touching appeal was made for him to the jury
+by a learned serjeant, who declared that his client was to lose his
+wife and to be punished with extreme severity as a bigamist, because
+it was found to be impossible to bring home against him a charge of
+murder. There was, perhaps, some truth in what the learned serjeant
+said, but the truth had no effect upon the jury. Mr. Emilius was
+found guilty as quickly as Phineas Finn had been acquitted, and was,
+perhaps, treated with a severity which the single crime would hardly
+have elicited. But all this happened in the middle of the efforts
+which were being made to trace the purchase of the bludgeon, and when
+men hoped two or five or twenty-five years of threatened
+incarceration might be all the same to Mr. Emilius. Could they have
+succeeded in discovering where he had bought the weapon, his years of
+penal servitude would have afflicted him but little. They did not
+succeed; and though it cannot be said that any mystery was attached
+to the Bonteen murder, it has remained one of those crimes which are
+unavenged by the flagging law. And so the Rev. Mr. Emilius will pass
+away from our story.</p>
+
+<p>There must be one or two words further respecting poor little Lizzie
+Eustace. She still had her income almost untouched, having been
+herself unable to squander it during her late married life, and
+having succeeded in saving it from the clutches of her pseudo
+husband. And she had her title, of which no one could rob her, and
+her castle down in Ayrshire,&mdash;which, however, as a place of residence
+she had learned to hate most thoroughly. Nor had she done anything
+which of itself must necessarily have put her out of the pale of
+society. As a married woman she had had no lovers; and, when a widow,
+very little fault in that line had been brought home against her. But
+the world at large seemed to be sick of her. Mrs. Bonteen had been
+her best friend, and, while it was still thought that Phineas Finn
+had committed the murder, with Mrs. Bonteen she had remained. But it
+was impossible that the arrangement should be continued when it
+became known,&mdash;for it was known,&mdash;that Mr. Bonteen had been murdered
+by the man who was still Lizzie's reputed husband. Not that Lizzie
+perceived this,&mdash;though she was averse to the idea of her husband
+having been a murderer. But Mrs. Bonteen perceived it, and told her
+friend that she must&mdash;go. It was most unwillingly that the wretched
+widow changed her faith as to the murderer; but at last she found
+herself bound to believe as the world believed; and then she hinted
+to the wife of Mr. Emilius that she had better find another home.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe it a bit," said Lizzie.</p>
+
+<p>"It is not a subject I can discuss," said the widow.</p>
+
+<p>"And I don't see that it makes any difference. He isn't my husband.
+You have said that yourself very often, Mrs. Bonteen."</p>
+
+<p>"It is better that we shouldn't be together, Lady Eustace."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I can go, of course, Mrs. Bonteen. There needn't be the
+slightest trouble about that. I had thought perhaps it might be
+convenient; but of course you know best."</p>
+
+<p>She went forth into lodgings in Half Moon Street, close to the scene
+of the murder, and was once more alone in the world. She had a child
+indeed, the son of her first husband, as to whom it behoved many to
+be anxious, who stood high in rank and high in repute; but such had
+been Lizzie's manner of life that neither her own relations nor those
+of her husband could put up with her, or endure her contact. And yet
+she was conscious of no special sins, and regarded herself as one who
+with a tender heart of her own, and a too-confiding spirit, had been
+much injured by the cruelty of those with whom she had been thrown.
+Now she was alone, weeping in solitude, pitying herself with deepest
+compassion; but it never occurred to her that there was anything in
+her conduct that she need alter. She would still continue to play her
+game as before, would still scheme, would still lie; and might still,
+at last, land herself in that Elysium of life of which she had been
+always dreaming. Poor Lizzie Eustace! Was it nature or education
+which had made it impossible to her to tell the truth, when a lie
+came to her hand? Lizzie, the liar! Poor Lizzie!</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c73"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER LXXIII.</h3>
+<h4>PHINEAS FINN RETURNS TO HIS DUTIES.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>The election at Tankerville took place during the last week in July;
+and as Parliament was doomed to sit that year as late as the 10th of
+August, there was ample time for Phineas to present himself and take
+the oaths before the Session was finished. He had calculated that
+this could hardly be so when the matter of re-election was first
+proposed to him, and had hoped that his reappearance might be
+deferred till the following year. But there he was, once more member
+for Tankerville, while yet there was nearly a fortnight's work to be
+done, pressed by his friends, and told by one or two of those whom he
+most trusted, that he would neglect his duty and show himself to be a
+coward, if he abstained from taking his place. "Coward is a hard
+word," he said to Mr. Low, who had used it.</p>
+
+<p>"So men think when this or that other man is accused of running away
+in battle or the like. Nobody will charge you with cowardice of that
+kind. But there is moral cowardice as well as physical."</p>
+
+<p>"As when a man lies. I am telling no lie."</p>
+
+<p>"But you are afraid to meet the eyes of your fellow-creatures."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I am. You may call me a coward if you like. What matters the
+name, if the charge be true? I have been so treated that I am afraid
+to meet the eyes of my fellow-creatures. I am like a man who has had
+his knees broken, or his arms cut off. Of course I cannot be the same
+afterwards as I was before." Mr. Low said a great deal more to him on
+the subject, and all that Mr. Low said was true; but he was somewhat
+rough, and did not succeed. Barrington Erle and Lord Cantrip also
+tried their eloquence upon him; but it was Mr. Monk who at last drew
+from him a promise that he would go down to the House and be sworn in
+early on a certain Tuesday afternoon. "I am quite sure of this," Mr.
+Monk had said, "that the sooner you do it the less will be the
+annoyance. Indeed there will be no trouble in the doing of it. The
+trouble is all in the anticipation, and is therefore only increased
+and prolonged by delay." "Of course it is your duty to go at once,"
+Mr. Monk had said again, when his friend argued that he had never
+undertaken to sit before the expiration of Parliament. "You did
+consent to be put in nomination, and you owe your immediate services
+just as does any other member."</p>
+
+<p>"If a man's grandmother dies he is held to be exempted."</p>
+
+<p>"But your grandmother has not died, and your sorrow is not of the
+kind that requires or is supposed to require retirement." He gave way
+at last, and on the Tuesday afternoon Mr. Monk called for him at Mrs.
+Bunce's house, and went down with him to Westminster. They reached
+their destination somewhat too soon, and walked the length of
+Westminster Hall two or three times while Phineas tried to justify
+himself. "I don't think," said he, "that Low quite understands my
+position when he calls me a coward."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure, Phineas, he did not mean to do that."</p>
+
+<p>"Do not suppose that I am angry with him. I owe him a great deal too
+much for that. He is one of the few friends I have who are entitled
+to say to me just what they please. But I think he mistakes the
+matter. When a man becomes crooked from age it is no good telling him
+to be straight. He'd be straight if he could. A man can't eat his
+dinner with a diseased liver as he could when he was well."</p>
+
+<p>"But he may follow advice as to getting his liver in order again."</p>
+
+<p>"And so am I following advice. But Low seems to think the disease
+shouldn't be there. The disease is there, and I can't banish it by
+simply saying that it is not there. If they had hung me outright it
+would be almost as reasonable to come and tell me afterwards to shake
+myself and be again alive. I don't think that Low realises what it is
+to stand in the dock for a week together, with the eyes of all men
+fixed on you, and a conviction at your heart that every one there
+believes you to have been guilty of an abominable crime of which you
+know yourself to have been innocent. For weeks I lived under the
+belief that I was to be made away by the hangman, and to leave behind
+me a name that would make every one who has known me shudder."</p>
+
+<p>"God in His mercy has delivered you from that."</p>
+
+<p>"He has;&mdash;and I am thankful. But my back is not strong enough to bear
+the weight without bending under it. Did you see Ratler going in?
+There is a man I dread. He is intimate enough with me to congratulate
+me, but not friend enough to abstain, and he will be sure to say
+something about his murdered colleague. Very well;&mdash;I'll follow you.
+Go up rather quick, and I'll come close after you." Whereupon Mr.
+Monk entered between the two lamp-posts in the hall, and, hurrying
+along the passages, soon found himself at the door of the House.
+Phineas, with an effort at composure, and a smile that was almost
+ghastly at the door-keeper, who greeted him with some muttered word
+of recognition, held on his way close behind his friend, and walked
+up the House hardly conscious that the benches on each side were
+empty. There were not a dozen members present, and the Speaker had
+not as yet taken the chair. Mr. Monk stood by him while he took the
+oath, and in two minutes he was on a back seat below the gangway,
+with his friend by him, while the members, in slowly increasing
+numbers, took their seats. Then there were prayers, and as yet not a
+single man had spoken to him. As soon as the doors were again open
+gentlemen streamed in, and some few whom Phineas knew well came and
+sat near him. One or two shook hands with him, but no one said a word
+to him of the trial. No one at least did so in this early stage of
+the day's proceedings; and after half an hour he almost ceased to be
+afraid.</p>
+
+<p>Then came up an irregular debate on the great Church question of the
+day, as to which there had been no cessation of the badgering with
+which Mr. Gresham had been attacked since he came into office. He had
+thrown out Mr. Daubeny by opposing that gentleman's stupendous
+measure for disestablishing the Church of England altogether,
+although,&mdash;as was almost daily asserted by Mr. Daubeny and his
+friends,&mdash;he was himself in favour of such total disestablishment.
+Over and over again Mr. Gresham had acknowledged that he was in
+favour of disestablishment, protesting that he had opposed Mr.
+Daubeny's Bill without any reference to its merits,&mdash;solely on the
+ground that such a measure should not be accepted from such a
+quarter. He had been stout enough, and, as his enemies had said,
+insolent enough, in making these assurances. But still he was accused
+of keeping his own hand dark, and of omitting to say what bill he
+would himself propose to bring in respecting the Church in the next
+Session. It was essentially necessary,&mdash;so said Mr. Daubeny and his
+friends,&mdash;that the country should know and discuss the proposed
+measure during the vacation. There was, of course, a good deal of
+retaliation. Mr. Daubeny had not given the country, or even his own
+party, much time to discuss his Church Bill. Mr. Gresham assured Mr.
+Daubeny that he would not feel himself equal to producing a measure
+that should change the religious position of every individual in the
+country, and annihilate the traditions and systems of centuries,
+altogether complete out of his own unaided brain; and he went on to
+say that were he to do so, he did not think that he should find
+himself supported in such an effort by the friends with whom he
+usually worked. On this occasion he declared that the magnitude of
+the subject and the immense importance of the interests concerned
+forbade him to anticipate the passing of any measure of general
+Church reform in the next Session. He was undoubtedly in favour of
+Church reform, but was by no means sure that the question was one
+which required immediate settlement. Of this he was sure,&mdash;that
+nothing in the way of legislative indiscretion could be so injurious
+to the country, as any attempt at a hasty and ill-considered measure
+on this most momentous of all questions.</p>
+
+<p>The debate was irregular, as it originated with a question asked by
+one of Mr. Daubeny's supporters,&mdash;but it was allowed to proceed for a
+while. In answer to Mr. Gresham, Mr. Daubeny himself spoke, accusing
+Mr. Gresham of almost every known Parliamentary vice in having talked
+of a measure coming, like Minerva, from his, Mr. Daubeny's, own
+brain. The plain and simple words by which such an accusation might
+naturally be refuted would be unparliamentary; but it would not be
+unparliamentary to say that it was reckless, unfounded, absurd,
+monstrous, and incredible. Then there were various very spirited
+references to Church matters, which concern us chiefly because Mr.
+Daubeny congratulated the House upon seeing a Roman Catholic
+gentleman with whom they were all well acquainted, and whose presence
+in the House was desired by each side alike, again take his seat for
+an English borough. And he hoped that he might at the same time take
+the liberty of congratulating that gentleman on the courage and manly
+dignity with which he had endured the unexampled hardships of the
+cruel position in which he had been placed by an untoward combination
+of circumstances. It was thought that Mr. Daubeny did the thing very
+well, and that he was right in doing it;&mdash;but during the doing of it
+poor Phineas winced in agony. Of course every member was looking at
+him, and every stranger in the galleries. He did not know at the
+moment whether it behoved him to rise and make some gesture to the
+House, or to say a word, or to keep his seat and make no sign. There
+was a general hum of approval, and the Prime Minister turned round
+and bowed graciously to the newly-sworn member. As he said
+afterwards, it was just this which he had feared. But there must
+surely have been something of consolation in the general respect with
+which he was treated. At the moment he behaved with natural
+instinctive dignity, though himself doubting the propriety of his own
+conduct. He said not a word, and made no sign, but sat with his eyes
+fixed upon the member from whom the compliment had come. Mr. Daubeny
+went on with his tirade, and was called violently to order. The
+Speaker declared that the whole debate had been irregular, but had
+been allowed by him in deference to what seemed to be the general
+will of the House. Then the two leaders of the two parties composed
+themselves, throwing off their indignation while they covered
+themselves well up with their hats,&mdash;and, in accordance with the
+order of the day, an honourable member rose to propose a pet measure
+of his own for preventing the adulteration of beer by the publicans.
+He had made a calculation that the annual average mortality of
+England would be reduced one and a half per cent., or in other words
+that every English subject born would live seven months longer if the
+action of the Legislature could provide that the publicans should
+sell the beer as it came from the brewers. Immediately there was such
+a rush of members to the door that not a word said by the
+philanthropic would-be purifier of the national beverage could be
+heard. The quarrels of rival Ministers were dear to the House, and as
+long as they could be continued the benches were crowded by gentlemen
+enthralled by the interest of the occasion. But to sink from that to
+private legislation about beer was to fall into a bathos which
+gentlemen could not endure; and so the House was emptied, and at
+about half-past seven there was a count-out. That gentleman whose
+statistics had been procured with so much care, and who had been at
+work for the last twelve months on his effort to prolong the lives of
+his fellow-countrymen, was almost broken-hearted. But he knew the
+world too well to complain. He would try again next year, if by dint
+of energetic perseverance he could procure a day.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Monk and Phineas Finn, behaving no better than the others,
+slipped out in the crowd. It had indeed been arranged that they
+should leave the House early, so that they might dine together at Mr.
+Monk's house. Though Phineas had been released from his prison now
+for nearly a month, he had not as yet once dined out of his own
+rooms. He had not been inside a club, and hardly ventured during the
+day into the streets about Pall Mall and Piccadilly. He had been
+frequently to Portman Square, but had not even seen Madame Goesler.
+Now he was to dine out for the first time; but there was to be no
+guest but himself.</p>
+
+<p>"It wasn't so bad after all," said Mr. Monk, when they were seated
+together.</p>
+
+<p>"At any rate it has been done."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes;&mdash;and there will be no doing of it over again. I don't like Mr.
+Daubeny, as you know; but he is happy at that kind of thing."</p>
+
+<p>"I hate men who are what you call happy, but who are never in
+earnest," said Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>"He was earnest enough, I thought."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't mean about myself, Mr. Monk. I suppose he thought that it
+was suitable to the occasion that he should say something, and he
+said it neatly. But I hate men who can make capital out of occasions,
+who can be neat and appropriate at the spur of the moment,&mdash;having,
+however, probably had the benefit of some forethought,&mdash;but whose
+words never savour of truth. If I had happened to have been hung at
+this time,&mdash;as was so probable,&mdash;Mr. Daubeny would have devoted one
+of his half hours to the composition of a dozen tragic words which
+also would have been neat and appropriate. I can hear him say them
+now, warning young members around him to abstain from embittered
+words against each other, and I feel sure that the funereal grace of
+such an occasion would have become him even better than the
+generosity of his congratulations."</p>
+
+<p>"It is rather grim matter for joking, Phineas."</p>
+
+<p>"Grim enough; but the grimness and the jokes are always running
+through my mind together. I used to spend hours in thinking what my
+dear friends would say about it when they found that I had been hung
+in mistake;&mdash;how Sir Gregory Grogram would like it, and whether men
+would think about it as they went home from The Universe at night. I
+had various questions to ask and answer for myself,&mdash;whether they
+would pull up my poor body, for instance, from what unhallowed ground
+is used for gallows corpses, and give it decent burial, placing 'M.P.
+for Tankerville' after my name on some more or less explicit tablet."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Daubeny's speech was, perhaps, preferable on the whole."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps it was;&mdash;though I used to feel assured that the explicit
+tablet would be as clear to my eyes in purgatory as Mr. Daubeny's
+words have been to my ears this afternoon. I never for a moment
+doubted that the truth would be known before long,&mdash;but did doubt so
+very much whether it would be known in time. I'll go home now, Mr.
+Monk, and endeavour to get the matter off my mind. I will resolve, at
+any rate, that nothing shall make me talk about it any more."</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c74"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER LXXIV.</h3>
+<h4>AT MATCHING.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>For about a week in the August heat of a hot summer, Phineas attended
+Parliament with fair average punctuality, and then prepared for his
+journey down to Matching Priory. During that week he spoke no word to
+any one as to his past tribulation, and answered all allusions to it
+simply by a smile. He had determined to live exactly as though there
+had been no such episode in his life as that trial at the Old Bailey,
+and in most respects he did so. During this week he dined at the
+club, and called at Madame Goesler's house in Park Lane,&mdash;not,
+however, finding the lady at home. Once, and once only, did he break
+down. On the Wednesday evening he met Barrington Erle, and was asked
+by him to go to The Universe. At the moment he became very pale, but
+he at once said that he would go. Had Erle carried him off in a cab
+the adventure might have been successful; but as they walked, and as
+they went together through Clarges Street and Bolton Row and Curzon
+Street, and as the scenes which had been so frequently and so
+graphically described in Court appeared before him one after another,
+his heart gave way, and he couldn't do it. "I know I'm a fool,
+Barrington; but if you don't mind I'll go home. Don't mind me, but
+just go on." Then he turned and walked home, passing through the
+passage in which the murder had been committed.</p>
+
+<p>"I brought him as far as the next street," Barrington Erle said to
+one of their friends at the club, "but I couldn't get him in. I doubt
+if he'll ever be here again."</p>
+
+<p>It was past six o'clock in the evening when he reached Matching
+Priory. The Duchess had especially assured him that a brougham should
+be waiting for him at the nearest station, and on arriving there he
+found that he had the brougham to himself. He had thought a great
+deal about it, and had endeavoured to make his calculations. He knew
+that Madame Goesler would be at Matching, and it would be necessary
+that he should say something of his thankfulness at their first
+meeting. But how should he meet her,&mdash;and in what way should he greet
+her when they met? Would any arrangement be made, or would all be
+left to chance? Should he go at once to his own chamber,&mdash;so as to
+show himself first when dressed for dinner, or should he allow
+himself to be taken into any of the morning rooms in which the other
+guests would be congregated? He had certainly not sufficiently
+considered the character of the Duchess when he imagined that she
+would allow these things to arrange themselves. She was one of those
+women whose minds were always engaged on such matters, and who are
+able to see how things will go. It must not be asserted of her that
+her delicacy was untainted, or her taste perfect; but she was
+clever,&mdash;discreet in the midst of indiscretions,&mdash;thoughtful, and
+good-natured. She had considered it all, arranged it all, and given
+her orders with accuracy. When Phineas entered the hall,&mdash;the
+brougham with the luggage having been taken round to some back
+door,&mdash;he was at once ushered by a silent man in black into the
+little sitting-room on the ground floor in which the old Duke used to
+take delight. Here he found two ladies,&mdash;but only two
+ladies,&mdash;waiting to receive him. The Duchess came forward to welcome
+him, while Madame Goesler remained in the background, with composed
+face,&mdash;as though she by no means expected his arrival and he had
+chanced to come upon them as she was standing by the window. He was
+thinking of her much more than of her companion, though he knew also
+how much he owed to the kindness of the Duchess. But what she had
+done for him had come from caprice, whereas the other had been
+instigated and guided by affection. He understood all that, and must
+have shown his feeling on his countenance. "Yes, there she is," said
+the Duchess, laughing. She had already told him that he was welcome
+to Matching, and had spoken some short word of congratulation at his
+safe deliverance from his troubles. "If ever one friend was grateful
+to another, you should be grateful to her, Mr. Finn." He did not
+speak, but walking across the room to the window by which Marie
+Goesler stood, took her right hand in his, and passing his left arm
+round her waist, kissed her first on one cheek and then on the other.
+The blood flew to her face and suffused her forehead, but she did not
+speak, or resist him or make any effort to escape from his embrace.
+As for him, he had no thought of it at all. He had made no plan. No
+idea of kissing her when they should meet had occurred to him till
+the moment came. "Excellently well done," said the Duchess, still
+laughing with silent pleasant laughter. "And now tell us how you are,
+after all your troubles."</p>
+
+
+<div class="center"><a id="ill74"></a>
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4px">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/ill74.jpg">
+      <img src="images/ill74-t.jpg" height="600"
+      alt='"YES, THERE SHE IS."' /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption"><span class="smallcaps">"Yes,
+      there she is."</span><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/ill74.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>He remained with them for half an hour, till the ladies went to
+dress, when he was handed over to some groom of the chambers to show
+him his room. "The Duke ought to be here to welcome you, of course,"
+said the Duchess; "but you know official matters too well to expect a
+President of the Board of Trade to do his domestic duties. We dine at
+eight; five minutes before that time he will begin adding up his last
+row of figures for the day. You never added up rows of figures, I
+think. You only managed colonies." So they parted till dinner, and
+Phineas remembered how very little had been spoken by Madame Goesler,
+and how few of the words which he had spoken had been addressed to
+her. She had sat silent, smiling, radiant, very beautiful as he had
+thought, but contented to listen to her friend the Duchess. She, the
+Duchess, had asked questions of all sorts, and made many statements;
+and he had found that with those two women he could speak without
+discomfort, almost with pleasure, on subjects which he could not bear
+to have touched by men. "Of course you knew all along who killed the
+poor man," the Duchess had said. "We did;&mdash;did we not, Marie?&mdash;just
+as well as if we had seen it. She was quite sure that he had got out
+of the house and back into it, and that he must have had a key. So
+she started off to Prague to find the key; and she found it. And we
+were quite sure too about the coat;&mdash;weren't we. That poor blundering
+Lord Fawn couldn't explain himself, but we knew that the coat he saw
+was quite different from any coat you would wear in such weather. We
+discussed it all over so often;&mdash;every point of it. Poor Lord Fawn!
+They say it has made quite an old man of him. And as for those
+policemen who didn't find the life-preserver; I only think that
+something ought to be done to them."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope that nothing will ever be done to anybody, Duchess."</p>
+
+<p>"Not to the Reverend Mr. Emilius;&mdash;poor dear Lady Eustace's Mr.
+Emilius? I do think that you ought to desire that an end should be
+put to his enterprising career! I'm sure I do." This was said while
+the attempt was still being made to trace the purchase of the
+bludgeon in Paris. "We've got Sir Gregory Grogram here on purpose to
+meet you, and you must fraternise with him immediately, to show that
+you bear no grudge."</p>
+
+<p>"He only did his duty."</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly;&mdash;though I think he was an addle-pated old ass not to see
+the thing more clearly. As you'll be coming into the Government
+before long, we thought that things had better be made straight
+between you and Sir Gregory. I wonder how it was that nobody but
+women did see it clearly? Look at that delightful woman, Mrs. Bunce.
+You must bring Mrs. Bunce to me some day,&mdash;or take me to her."</p>
+
+<p>"Lord Chiltern saw it clearly enough," said Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Mr. Finn, Lord Chiltern is the best fellow in the world, but
+he has only one idea. He was quite sure of your innocence because you
+ride to hounds. If it had been found possible to accuse poor Mr.
+Fothergill, he would have been as certain that Mr. Fothergill
+committed the murder, because Mr. Fothergill thinks more of his
+shooting. However, Lord Chiltern is to be here in a day or two, and I
+mean to go absolutely down on my knees to him,&mdash;and all for your
+sake. If foxes can be had, he shall have foxes. We must go and dress
+now, Mr. Finn, and I'll ring for somebody to show you your room."</p>
+
+<p>Phineas, as soon as he was alone, thought, not of what the Duchess
+had said, but of the manner in which he had greeted his friend,
+Madame Goesler. As he remembered what he had done, he also blushed.
+Had she been angry with him, and intended to show her anger by her
+silence? And why had he done it? What had he meant? He was quite sure
+that he would not have given those kisses had he and Madame Goesler
+been alone in the room together. The Duchess had applauded him,&mdash;but
+yet he thought that he regretted it. There had been matters between
+him and Marie Goesler of which he was quite sure that the Duchess
+knew nothing.</p>
+
+<p>When he went downstairs he found a crowd in the drawing-room, from
+among whom the Duke came forward to welcome him. "I am particularly
+happy to see you at Matching," said the Duke. "I wish we had shooting
+to offer you, but we are too far south for the grouse. That was a
+bitter passage of arms the other day, wasn't it? I am fond of
+bitterness in debate myself, but I do regret the roughness of the
+House of Commons. I must confess that I do." The Duke did not say a
+word about the trial, and the Duke's guests followed their host's
+example.</p>
+
+<p>The house was full of people, most of whom had before been known to
+Phineas, and many of whom had been asked specially to meet him. Lord
+and Lady Cantrip were there, and Mr. Monk, and Sir Gregory his
+accuser, and the Home Secretary, Sir Harry Coldfoot, with his wife.
+Sir Harry had at one time been very keen about hanging our hero, and
+was now of course hot with reactionary zeal. To all those who had
+been in any way concerned in the prosecution, the accidents by which
+Phineas had been enabled to escape had been almost as fortunate as to
+Phineas himself. Sir Gregory himself quite felt that had he
+prosecuted an innocent and very popular young Member of Parliament to
+the death, he could never afterwards have hoped to wear his ermine in
+comfort. Barrington Erle was there, of course, intending, however, to
+return to the duties of his office on the following day,&mdash;and our old
+friend Laurence Fitzgibbon with a newly-married wife, a lady
+possessing a reputed fifty thousand pounds, by which it was hoped
+that the member for Mayo might be placed steadily upon his legs for
+ever. And Adelaide Palliser was there also,&mdash;the Duke's first
+cousin,&mdash;on whose behalf the Duchess was anxious to be more than
+ordinarily good-natured. Mr. Maule, Adelaide's rejected lover, had
+dined on one occasion with the Duke and Duchess in London. There had
+been nothing remarkable at the dinner, and he had not at all
+understood why he had been asked. But when he took his leave the
+Duchess had told him that she would hope to see him at Matching. "We
+expect a friend of yours to be with us," the Duchess had said. He had
+afterwards received a written invitation and had accepted it; but he
+was not to reach Matching till the day after that on which Phineas
+arrived. Adelaide had been told of his coming only on this morning,
+and had been much flurried by the news.</p>
+
+<p>"But we have quarrelled," she said. "Then the best thing you can do
+is to make it up again, my dear," said the Duchess. Miss Palliser was
+undoubtedly of that opinion herself, but she hardly believed that so
+terrible an evil as a quarrel with her lover could be composed by so
+rough a remedy as this. The Duchess, who had become used to all the
+disturbing excitements of life, and who didn't pay so much respect as
+some do to the niceties of a young lady's feelings, thought that it
+would be only necessary to bring the young people together again. If
+she could do that, and provide them with an income, of course they
+would marry. On the present occasion Phineas was told off to take
+Miss Palliser down to dinner. "You saw the Chilterns before they left
+town, I know," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes. I am constantly in Portman Square."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course. Lady Laura has gone down to Scotland;&mdash;has she not;&mdash;and
+all alone?"</p>
+
+<p>"She is alone now, I believe."</p>
+
+<p>"How dreadful! I do not know any one that I pity so much as I do her.
+I was in the house with her some time, and she gave me the idea of
+being the most unhappy woman I had ever met with. Don't you think
+that she is very unhappy?"</p>
+
+<p>"She has had very much to make her so," said Phineas. "She was
+obliged to leave her husband because of the gloom of his
+insanity;&mdash;and now she is a widow."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't suppose she ever really&mdash;cared for him; did she?" The
+question was no sooner asked than the poor girl remembered the whole
+story which she had heard some time back,&mdash;the rumour of the
+husband's jealousy and of the wife's love, and she became as red as
+fire, and unable to help herself. She could think of no word to say,
+and confessed her confusion by her sudden silence.</p>
+
+<p>Phineas saw it all, and did his best for her. "I am sure she cared
+for him," he said, "though I do not think it was a well-assorted
+marriage. They had different ideas about religion, I fancy. So you
+saw the hunting in the Brake country to the end? How is our old
+friend, Mr. Spooner?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't talk of him, Mr. Finn."</p>
+
+<p>"I rather like Mr. Spooner;&mdash;and as for hunting the country, I don't
+think Chiltern could get on without him. What a capital fellow your
+cousin the Duke is."</p>
+
+<p>"I hardly know him."</p>
+
+<p>"He is such a gentleman;&mdash;and, at the same time, the most abstract
+and the most concrete man that I know."</p>
+
+<p>"Abstract and concrete!"</p>
+
+<p>"You are bound to use adjectives of that sort now, Miss Palliser, if
+you mean to be anybody in conversation."</p>
+
+<p>"But how is my cousin concrete? He is always abstracted when I speak
+to him, I know."</p>
+
+<p>"No Englishman whom I have met is so broadly and intuitively and
+unceremoniously imbued with the simplicity of the character of a
+gentleman. He could no more lie than he could eat grass."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that abstract or concrete?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's abstract. And I know no one who is so capable of throwing
+himself into one matter for the sake of accomplishing that one thing
+at a time. That's concrete." And so the red colour faded away from
+poor Adelaide's face, and the unpleasantness was removed.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think of Laurence's wife?" Erle said to him late in the
+evening.</p>
+
+<p>"I have only just seen her. The money is there, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"The money is there, I believe; but then it will have to remain
+there. He can't touch it. There's about &pound;2,000 a-year, which will
+have to go back to her family unless they have children."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose she's&mdash;forty?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well; yes, or perhaps forty-five. You were locked up at the time,
+poor fellow,&mdash;and had other things to think of; but all the interest
+we had for anything beyond you through May and June was devoted to
+Laurence and his prospects. It was off and on, and on and off, and he
+was in a most wretched condition. At last she wouldn't consent unless
+she was to be asked here."</p>
+
+<p>"And who managed it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Laurence came and told it all to the Duchess, and she gave him the
+invitation at once."</p>
+
+<p>"Who told you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not the Duchess,&mdash;nor yet Laurence. So it may be untrue, you
+know;&mdash;but I believe it. He did ask me whether he'd have to stand
+another election at his marriage. He has been going in and out of
+office so often, and always going back to the Co. Mayo at the expense
+of half a year's salary, that his mind had got confused, and he
+didn't quite know what did and what did not vacate his seat. We must
+all come to it sooner or later, I suppose, but the question is
+whether we could do better than an annuity of &pound;2,000 a year on the
+life of the lady. Office isn't very permanent, but one has not to
+attend the House above six months a year, while you can't get away
+from a wife much above a week at a time. It has crippled him in
+appearance very much, I think."</p>
+
+<p>"A man always looks changed when he's married."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope, Mr. Finn, that you owe me no grudge," said Sir Gregory, the
+Attorney-General.</p>
+
+<p>"Not in the least; why should I?"</p>
+
+<p>"It was a very painful duty that I had to perform,&mdash;the most painful
+that ever befel me. I had no alternative but to do it, of course, and
+to do it in the hope of reaching the truth. But a counsel for the
+prosecution must always appear to the accused and his friends like a
+hound running down his game, and anxious for blood. The habitual and
+almost necessary acrimony of the defence creates acrimony in the
+attack. If you were accustomed as I am to criminal courts you would
+observe this constantly. A gentleman gets up and declares in perfect
+faith that he is simply anxious to lay before the jury such evidence
+as has been placed in his hands. And he opens his case in that
+spirit. Then his witnesses are cross-examined with the affected
+incredulity and assumed indignation which the defending counsel is
+almost bound to use on behalf of his client, and he finds himself
+gradually imbued with pugnacity. He becomes strenuous, energetic, and
+perhaps eager for what must after all be regarded as success, and at
+last he fights for a verdict rather than for the truth."</p>
+
+<p>"The judge, I suppose, ought to put all that right?"</p>
+
+<p>"So he does;&mdash;and it comes right. Our criminal practice does not sin
+on the side of severity. But a barrister employed on the prosecution
+should keep himself free from that personal desire for a verdict
+which must animate those engaged on the defence."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I suppose you wanted to&mdash;hang me, Sir Gregory."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not. I wanted the truth. But you in your position must
+have regarded me as a bloodhound."</p>
+
+<p>"I did not. As far as I can analyse my own feelings, I entertained
+anger only against those who, though they knew me well, thought that
+I was guilty."</p>
+
+<p>"You will allow me, at any rate, to shake hands with you," said Sir
+Gregory, "and to assure you that I should have lived a broken-hearted
+man if the truth had been known too late. As it is I tremble and
+shake in my shoes as I walk about and think of what might have been
+done." Then Phineas gave his hand to Sir Gregory, and from that time
+forth was inclined to think well of Sir Gregory.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout the whole evening he was unable to speak to Madame
+Goesler, but to the other people around him he found himself talking
+quite at his ease, as though nothing peculiar had happened to him.
+Almost everybody, except the Duke, made some slight allusion to his
+adventure, and he, in spite of his resolution to the contrary, found
+himself driven to talk of it. It had seemed quite natural that Sir
+Gregory,&mdash;who had in truth been eager for his condemnation, thinking
+him to have been guilty,&mdash;should come to him and make peace with him
+by telling him of the nature of the work that had been imposed upon
+him;&mdash;and when Sir Harry Coldfoot assured him that never in his life
+had his mind been relieved of so heavy a weight as when he received
+the information about the key,&mdash;that also was natural. A few days ago
+he had thought that these allusions would kill him. The prospect of
+them had kept him a prisoner in his lodgings; but now he smiled and
+chatted, and was quiet and at ease.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night, Mr. Finn," the Duchess said to him, "I know the people
+have been boring you."</p>
+
+<p>"Not in the least."</p>
+
+<p>"I saw Sir Gregory at it, and I can guess what Sir Gregory was
+talking about."</p>
+
+<p>"I like Sir Gregory, Duchess."</p>
+
+<p>"That shows a very Christian disposition on your part. And then there
+was Sir Harry. I understood it all, but I could not hinder it. But it
+had to be done, hadn't it?&mdash;And now there will be an end of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Everybody has treated me very well," said Phineas, almost in tears.
+"Some people have been so kind to me that I cannot understand why it
+should have been so."</p>
+
+<p>"Because some people are your very excellent good friends. We,&mdash;that
+is, Marie and I, you know,&mdash;thought it would be the best thing for
+you to come down and get through it all here. We could see that you
+weren't driven too hard. By the bye, you have hardly seen her,&mdash;have
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hardly, since I was upstairs with your Grace."</p>
+
+<p>"My Grace will manage better for you to-morrow. I didn't like to tell
+you to take her out to dinner, because it would have looked a little
+particular after her very remarkable journey to Prague. If you ain't
+grateful you must be a wretch."</p>
+
+<p>"But I am grateful."</p>
+
+<p>"Well; we shall see. Good-night. You'll find a lot of men going to
+smoke somewhere, I don't doubt."</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c75"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER LXXV.</h3>
+<h4>THE TRUMPETON FEUD IS SETTLED.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>In these fine early autumn days spent at Matching, the great
+Trumpeton Wood question was at last settled. During the summer
+considerable acerbity had been added to the matter by certain
+articles which had appeared in certain sporting papers, in which the
+new Duke of Omnium was accused of neglecting his duty to the county
+in which a portion of his property lay. The question was argued at
+considerable length. Is a landed proprietor bound, or is he not, to
+keep foxes for the amusement of his neighbours? To ordinary thinkers,
+to unprejudiced outsiders,&mdash;to Americans, let us say, or
+Frenchmen,&mdash;there does not seem to be room even for an argument. By
+what law of God or man can a man be bound to maintain a parcel of
+injurious vermin on his property, in the pursuit of which he finds no
+sport himself, and which are highly detrimental to another sport in
+which he takes, perhaps, the keenest interest? Trumpeton Wood was the
+Duke's own,&mdash;to do just as he pleased with it. Why should foxes be
+demanded from him then any more than a bear to be baited, or a badger
+to be drawn, in, let us say, his London dining-room? But a good deal
+had been said which, though not perhaps capable of convincing the
+unprejudiced American or Frenchman, had been regarded as cogent
+arguments to country-bred Englishmen. The Brake Hunt had been
+established for a great many years, and was the central attraction of
+a district well known for its hunting propensities. The preservation
+of foxes might be an open question in such counties as Norfolk and
+Suffolk, but could not be so in the Brake country. Many things are,
+no doubt, permissible under the law, which, if done, would show the
+doer of them to be the enemy of his species,&mdash;and this destruction of
+foxes in a hunting country may be named as one of them. The Duke
+might have his foxes destroyed if he pleased, but he could hardly do
+so and remain a popular magnate in England. If he chose to put
+himself in opposition to the desires and very instincts of the people
+among whom his property was situated, he must live as a "man forbid."
+That was the general argument, and then there was the argument
+special to this particular case. As it happened, Trumpeton Wood was,
+and always had been, the great nursery of foxes for that side of the
+Brake country. Gorse coverts make, no doubt, the charm of hunting,
+but gorse coverts will not hold foxes unless the woodlands be
+preserved. The fox is a travelling animal. Knowing well that
+"home-staying youths have ever homely wits," he goes out and sees the
+world. He is either born in the woodlands, or wanders thither in his
+early youth. If all foxes so wandering be doomed to death, if poison,
+and wires, and traps, and hostile keepers await them there instead of
+the tender welcome of the loving fox-preserver, the gorse coverts
+will soon be empty, and the whole country will be afflicted with a
+wild dismay. All which Lord Chiltern understood well when he became
+so loud in his complaint against the Duke.</p>
+
+<p>But our dear old friend, only the other day a duke, Planty Pall as he
+was lately called, devoted to work and to Parliament, an unselfish,
+friendly, wise man, who by no means wanted other men to cut their
+coats according to his pattern, was the last man in England to put
+himself forward as the enemy of an established delight. He did not
+hunt himself,&mdash;but neither did he shoot, or fish, or play cards. He
+recreated himself with Blue Books, and speculations on Adam Smith had
+been his distraction;&mdash;but he knew that he was himself peculiar, and
+he respected the habits of others. It had fallen out in this wise. As
+the old Duke had become very old, the old Duke's agent had gradually
+acquired more than an agent's proper influence in the property; and
+as the Duke's heir would not shoot himself, or pay attention to the
+shooting, and as the Duke would not let the shooting of his wood, Mr.
+Fothergill, the steward, had gradually become omnipotent. Now Mr.
+Fothergill was not a hunting man,&mdash;but the mischief did not at all
+lie there. Lord Chiltern would not communicate with Mr. Fothergill.
+Lord Chiltern would write to the Duke, and Mr. Fothergill became an
+established enemy. Hinc ill&aelig; ir&aelig;. From this source sprung all those
+powerfully argued articles in <i>The Field</i>, <i>Bell's Life</i>, and <i>Land
+and Water</i>;&mdash;for on this matter all the sporting papers were of one
+mind.</p>
+
+<p>There is something doubtless absurd in the intensity of the worship
+paid to the fox by hunting communities. The animal becomes sacred,
+and his preservation is a religion. His irregular destruction is a
+profanity, and words spoken to his injury are blasphemous. Not long
+since a gentleman shot a fox running across a woodland ride in a
+hunting country. He had mistaken it for a hare, and had done the deed
+in the presence of keepers, owner, and friends. His feelings were so
+acute and his remorse so great that, in their pity, they had resolved
+to spare him; and then, on the spot, entered into a solemn compact
+that no one should be told. Encouraged by the forbearing tenderness,
+the unfortunate one ventured to return to the house of his friend,
+the owner of the wood, hoping that, in spite of the sacrilege
+committed, he might be able to face a world that would be ignorant of
+his crime. As the vulpicide, on the afternoon of the day of the deed,
+went along the corridor to his room, one maid-servant whispered to
+another, and the poor victim of an imperfect sight heard the
+words&mdash;"That's he as shot the fox!" The gentleman did not appear at
+dinner, nor was he ever again seen in those parts.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fothergill had become angry. Lord Chiltern, as we know, had been
+very angry. And even the Duke was angry. The Duke was angry because
+Lord Chiltern had been violent;&mdash;and Lord Chiltern had been violent
+because Mr. Fothergill's conduct had been, to his thinking, not only
+sacrilegious, but one continued course of wilful sacrilege. It may be
+said of Lord Chiltern that in his eagerness as a master of hounds he
+had almost abandoned his love of riding. To kill a certain number of
+foxes in the year, after the legitimate fashion, had become to him
+the one great study of life;&mdash;and he did it with an energy equal to
+that which the Duke devoted to decimal coinage. His huntsman was
+always well mounted, with two horses; but Lord Chiltern would give up
+his own to the man and take charge of a weary animal as a common
+groom when he found that he might thus further the object of the
+day's sport. He worked as men work only at pleasure. He never missed
+a day, even when cub-hunting required that he should leave his bed at
+3 <span class="smallcaps">a.m.</span>
+He was constant at his kennel. He was always thinking about
+it. He devoted his life to the Brake Hounds. And it was too much for
+him that such a one as Mr. Fothergill should be allowed to wire foxes
+in Trumpeton Wood! The Duke's property, indeed! Surely all that was
+understood in England by this time. Now he had consented to come to
+Matching, bringing his wife with him, in order that the matter might
+be settled. There had been a threat that he would give up the
+country, in which case it was declared that it would be impossible to
+carry on the Brake Hunt in a manner satisfactory to masters,
+subscribers, owners of coverts, or farmers, unless a different order
+of things should be made to prevail in regard to Trumpeton Wood.</p>
+
+<p>The Duke, however, had declined to interfere personally. He had told
+his wife that he should be delighted to welcome Lord and Lady
+Chiltern,&mdash;as he would any other friends of hers. The guests, indeed,
+at the Duke's house were never his guests, but always hers. But he
+could not allow himself to be brought into an argument with Lord
+Chiltern as to the management of his own property. The Duchess was
+made to understand that she must prevent any such awkwardness. And
+she did prevent it. "And now, Lord Chiltern," she said, "how about
+the foxes?" She had taken care there should be a council of war
+around her. Lady Chiltern and Madame Goesler were present, and also
+Phineas Finn.</p>
+
+<p>"Well;&mdash;how about them?" said the lord, showing by the fiery
+eagerness of his eye, and the increased redness of his face, that
+though the matter had been introduced somewhat jocosely, there could
+not really be any joke about it.</p>
+
+<p>"Why couldn't you keep it all out of the newspapers?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't write the newspapers, Duchess. I can't help the newspapers.
+When two hundred men ride through Trumpeton Wood, and see one fox
+found, and that fox with only three pads, of course the newspapers
+will say that the foxes are trapped."</p>
+
+<p>"We may have traps if we like it, Lord Chiltern."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly;&mdash;only say so, and we shall know where we are." He looked
+very angry, and poor Lady Chiltern was covered with dismay. "The Duke
+can destroy the hunt if he pleases, no doubt," said the lord.</p>
+
+<p>"But we don't like traps, Lord Chiltern;&mdash;nor yet poison, nor
+anything that is wicked. I'd go and nurse the foxes myself if I knew
+how, wouldn't I, Marie?"</p>
+
+<p>"They have robbed the Duchess of her sleep for the last six months,"
+said Madame Goesler.</p>
+
+<p>"And if they go on being not properly brought up and educated,
+they'll make an old woman of me. As for the Duke, he can't be
+comfortable in his arithmetic for thinking of them. But what can one
+do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Change your keepers," said Lord Chiltern energetically.</p>
+
+<p>"It is easy to say,&mdash;change your keepers. How am I to set about it?
+To whom can I apply to appoint others? Don't you know what vested
+interests mean, Lord Chiltern?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then nobody can manage his own property as he pleases?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody can,&mdash;unless he does the work himself. If I were to go and
+live in Trumpeton Wood I could do it; but you see I have to live
+here. I vote that we have an officer of State, to go in and out with
+the Government,&mdash;with a seat in the Cabinet or not according as
+things go, and that we call him Foxmaster-General. It would be just
+the thing for Mr. Finn."</p>
+
+<p>"There would be a salary, of course," said Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I suppose that nothing can be done," said Lord Chiltern.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Lord Chiltern, everything has been done. Vested interests
+have been attended to. Keepers shall prefer foxes to pheasants, wires
+shall be unheard of, and Trumpeton Wood shall once again be the glory
+of the Brake Hunt. It won't cost the Duke above a thousand or two a
+year."</p>
+
+<p>"I should be very sorry indeed to put the Duke to any unnecessary
+expense," said Lord Chiltern solemnly,&mdash;still fearing that the
+Duchess was only playing with him. It made him angry that he could
+not imbue other people with his idea of the seriousness of the
+amusement of a whole county.</p>
+
+<p>"Do not think of it. We have pensioned poor Mr. Fothergill, and he
+retires from the administration."</p>
+
+<p>"Then it'll be all right," said Lord Chiltern.</p>
+
+<p>"I am so glad," said his wife.</p>
+
+<p>"And so the great Mr. Fothergill falls from power, and goes down into
+obscurity," said Madame Goesler.</p>
+
+<p>"He was an impudent old man, and that's the truth," said the
+Duchess;&mdash;"and he has always been my thorough detestation. But if you
+only knew what I have gone through to get rid of him,&mdash;and all on
+account of Trumpeton Wood,&mdash;you'd send me every brush taken in the
+Brake country during the next season."</p>
+
+<p>"Your Grace shall at any rate have one of them," said Lord Chiltern.</p>
+
+<p>On the next day Lord and Lady Chiltern went back to Harrington Hall.
+When the end of August comes, a Master of Hounds,&mdash;who is really a
+master,&mdash;is wanted at home. Nothing short of an embassy on behalf of
+the great coverts of his country would have kept this master away at
+present; and now, his diplomacy having succeeded, he hurried back to
+make the most of its results. Lady Chiltern, before she went, made a
+little speech to Phineas Finn.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll come to us in the winter, Mr. Finn?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should like."</p>
+
+<p>"You must. No one was truer to you than we were, you know. Indeed,
+regarding you as we do, how should we not have been true? It was
+impossible to me that my old friend should have
+<span class="nowrap">been&mdash;"</span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Lady Chiltern!"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you'll come. You owe it to us to come. And may I say this?
+If there be anybody to come with you, that will make it only so much
+the better. If it should be so, of course there will be letters
+written?" To this question, however, Phineas Finn made no answer.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c76"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER LXXVI.</h3>
+<h4>MADAME GOESLER'S LEGACY.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>One morning, very shortly after her return to Harrington, Lady
+Chiltern was told that Mr. Spooner of Spoon Hall had called, and
+desired to see her. She suggested that the gentleman had probably
+asked for her husband,&mdash;who, at that moment, was enjoying his
+recovered supremacy in the centre of Trumpeton Wood; but she was
+assured that on this occasion Mr. Spooner's mission was to herself.
+She had no quarrel with Mr. Spooner, and she went to him at once.
+After the first greeting he rushed into the subject of the great
+triumph. "So we've got rid of Mr. Fothergill, Lady Chiltern."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; Mr. Fothergill will not, I believe, trouble us any more. He is
+an old man, it seems, and has retired from the Duke's service."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't tell you how glad I am, Lady Chiltern. We were afraid that
+Chiltern would have thrown it up, and then I don't know where we
+should have been. England would not have been England any longer, to
+my thinking, if we hadn't won the day. It'd have been just like a
+French revolution. Nobody would have known what was coming or where
+he was going."</p>
+
+<p>That Mr. Spooner should be enthusiastic on any hunting question was a
+matter of course; but still it seemed to be odd that he should have
+driven himself over from Spoon Hall to pour his feelings into Lady
+Chiltern's ear. "We shall go on very nicely now, I don't doubt," said
+she; "and I'm sure that Lord Chiltern will be glad to find that you
+are pleased."</p>
+
+<p>"I am very much pleased, I can tell you." Then he paused, and the
+tone of his voice was changed altogether when he spoke again. "But I
+didn't come over only about that, Lady Chiltern. Miss Palliser has
+not come back with you, Lady Chiltern?"</p>
+
+<p>"We left Miss Palliser at Matching. You know she is the Duke's
+cousin."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish she wasn't, with all my heart."</p>
+
+<p>"Why should you want to rob her of her relations, Mr. Spooner?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because&mdash; because&mdash;. I don't want to say a word against her, Lady
+Chiltern. To me she is perfect as a star;&mdash;beautiful as a rose." Mr.
+Spooner as he said this pointed first to the heavens and then to the
+earth. "But perhaps she wouldn't have been so proud of her
+grandfather hadn't he been a Duke."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think she is proud of that."</p>
+
+<p>"People do think of it, Lady Chiltern; and I don't say that they
+ought not. Of course it makes a difference, and when a man lives
+altogether in the country, as I do, it seems to signify so much more.
+But if you go back to old county families, Lady Chiltern, the
+Spooners have been here pretty nearly as long as the Pallisers,&mdash;if
+not longer. The Desponders, from whom we come, came over with William
+the Conqueror."</p>
+
+<p>"I have always heard that there isn't a more respectable family in
+the county."</p>
+
+<p>"That there isn't. There was a grant of land, which took their name,
+and became the Manor of Despond; there's where Spoon Hall is now. Sir
+Thomas Desponder was one of those who demanded the Charter, though
+his name wasn't always given because he wasn't a baron. Perhaps Miss
+Palliser does not know all that."</p>
+
+<p>"I doubt whether she cares about those things."</p>
+
+<p>"Women do care about them,&mdash;very much. Perhaps she has heard of the
+two spoons crossed, and doesn't know that that was a stupid vulgar
+practical joke. Our crest is a knight's head bowed, with the motto,
+'Desperandum.' Soon after the Conquest one of the Desponders fell in
+love with the Queen, and never would give it up, though it wasn't any
+good. Her name was Matilda, and so he went as a Crusader and got
+killed. But wherever he went he had the knight's head bowed, and the
+motto on the shield."</p>
+
+<p>"What a romantic story, Mr. Spooner!"</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it? And it's quite true. That's the way we became Spooners. I
+never told her of it, but, somehow I wish I had now. It always seemed
+that she didn't think that I was anybody."</p>
+
+<p>"The truth is, Mr. Spooner, that she was always thinking that
+somebody else was everything. When a gentleman is told that a lady's
+affections have been pre-engaged, however much he may regret the
+circumstances, he cannot, I think, feel any hurt to his pride. If I
+understand the matter, Miss Palliser explained to you that she was
+engaged when first you spoke to her."</p>
+
+<p>"You are speaking of young Gerard Maule."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I am speaking of Mr. Maule."</p>
+
+<p>"But she has quarrelled with him, Lady Chiltern."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you know what such quarrels come to?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, no. That is to say, everybody tells me that it is really
+broken off, and that he has gone nobody knows where. At any rate he
+never shows himself. He doesn't mean it, Lady Chiltern."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what he means."</p>
+
+<p>"And he can't afford it, Lady Chiltern. I mean it, and I can afford
+it. Surely that might go for something."</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot say what Mr. Maule may mean to do, Mr. Spooner, but I think
+it only fair to tell you that he is at present staying at Matching,
+under the same roof with Miss Palliser."</p>
+
+<p>"Maule staying at the Duke's!" When Mr. Spooner heard this there came
+a sudden change over his face. His jaw fell, and his mouth was
+opened, and the redness of his cheeks flew up to his forehead.</p>
+
+<p>"He was expected there yesterday, and I need hardly suggest to you
+what will be the end of the quarrel."</p>
+
+<p>"Going to the Duke's won't give him an income."</p>
+
+<p>"I know nothing about that, Mr. Spooner. But it really seems to me
+that you misinterpret the nature of the affections of such a girl as
+Miss Palliser. Do you think it likely that she should cease to love a
+man because he is not so rich as another?"</p>
+
+<p>"People, when they are married, want a house to live in, Lady
+Chiltern. Now at Spoon <span class="nowrap">Hall&mdash;"</span></p>
+
+<p>"Believe me, that is in vain, Mr. Spooner."</p>
+
+<p>"You are quite sure of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite sure."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd have done anything for her,&mdash;anything! She might have had what
+settlements she pleased. I told Ned that he must go, if she made a
+point of it. I'd have gone abroad, or lived just anywhere. I'd come
+to that, that I didn't mind the hunting a bit."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry for you,&mdash;I am indeed."</p>
+
+<p>"It cuts a fellow all to pieces so! And yet what is it all about? A
+slip of a girl that isn't anything so very much out of the way after
+all. Lady Chiltern, I shouldn't care if the horse kicked the trap all
+to pieces going back to Spoon Hall, and me with it."</p>
+
+<p>"You'll get over it, Mr. Spooner."</p>
+
+<p>"Get over it! I suppose I shall; but I shall never be as I was. I've
+been always thinking of the day when there must be a lady at Spoon
+Hall, and putting it off, you know. There'll never be a lady there
+now;&mdash;never. You don't think there's any chance at all?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure there is none."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd give half I've got in all the world," said the wretched man,
+"just to get it out of my head. I know what it will come to." Though
+he paused, Lady Chiltern could ask no question respecting Mr.
+Spooner's future prospects. "It'll be two bottles of champagne at
+dinner, and two bottles of claret afterwards, every day. I only hope
+she'll know that she did it. Good-bye, Lady Chiltern. I thought that
+perhaps you'd have helped me."</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot help you."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye." So he went down to his trap, and drove himself violently
+home,&mdash;without, however, achieving the ruin which he desired. Let us
+hope that as time cures his wound that threat as to increased
+consumption of wine may fall to the ground unfulfilled.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime Gerard Maule had arrived at Matching Priory.</p>
+
+<p>"We have quarrelled," Adelaide had said when the Duchess told her
+that her lover was to come. "Then you had better make it up again,"
+the Duchess had answered,&mdash;and there had been an end of it. Nothing
+more was done; no arrangement was made, and Adelaide was left to meet
+the man as best she might. The quarrel to her had been as the
+disruption of the heavens. She had declared to herself that she would
+bear it; but the misfortune to be borne was a broken world falling
+about her own ears. She had thought of a nunnery, of Ophelia among
+the water-lilies, and of an early death-bed. Then she had pictured to
+herself the somewhat ascetic and very laborious life of an old maiden
+lady whose only recreation fifty years hence should consist in
+looking at the portrait of him who had once been her lover. And now
+she was told that he was coming to Matching as though nothing had
+been the matter! She tried to think whether it was not her duty to
+have her things at once packed, and ask for a carriage to take her to
+the railway station. But she was in the house of her nearest
+relative,&mdash;of him and also of her who were bound to see that things
+were right; and then there might be a more pleasureable existence
+than that which would have to depend on a photograph for its keenest
+delight. But how should she meet him? In what way should she address
+him? Should she ignore the quarrel, or recognize it, or take some
+milder course? She was half afraid of the Duchess, and could not ask
+for assistance. And the Duchess, though good-natured, seemed to her
+to be rough. There was nobody at Matching to whom she could say a
+word;&mdash;so she lived on, and trembled, and doubted from hour to hour
+whether the world would not come to an end.</p>
+
+<p>The Duchess was rough, but she was very good-natured. She had
+contrived that the two lovers should be brought into the same house,
+and did not doubt at all but what they would be able to adjust their
+own little differences when they met. Her experiences of the world
+had certainly made her more alive to the material prospects than to
+the delicate aroma of a love adventure. She had been greatly knocked
+about herself, and the material prospects had come uppermost. But all
+that had happened to her had tended to open her hand to other people,
+and had enabled her to be good-natured with delight, even when she
+knew that her friends imposed upon her. She didn't care much for
+Laurence Fitzgibbon; but when she was told that the lady with money
+would not consent to marry the aristocratic pauper except on
+condition that she should be received at Matching, the Duchess at
+once gave the invitation. And now, though she couldn't go into the
+"fal-lallery,"&mdash;as she called it, to Madame Goesler,&mdash;of settling a
+meeting between two young people who had fallen out, she worked hard
+till she accomplished something perhaps more important to their
+future happiness. "Plantagenet," she said, "there can be no objection
+to your cousin having that money."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh come; you must remember about Adelaide, and that young man who is
+coming here to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"You told me that Adelaide is to be married. I don't know anything
+about the young man."</p>
+
+<p>"His name is Maule, and he is a gentleman, and all that. Some day
+when his father dies he'll have a small property somewhere."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope he has a profession."</p>
+
+<p>"No, he has not. I told you all that before."</p>
+
+<p>"If he has nothing at all, Glencora, why did he ask a young lady to
+marry him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear; what's the good of going into all that? He has got
+something. They'll do immensely well, if you'll only listen. She is
+your first cousin."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course she is," said Plantagenet, lifting up his hand to his
+hair.</p>
+
+<p>"And you are bound to do something for her."</p>
+
+<p>"No; I am not bound. But I'm very willing,&mdash;if you wish it. Put the
+thing on a right footing."</p>
+
+<p>"I hate footings,&mdash;that is, right footings. We can manage this
+without taking money out of your pocket."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Glencora, if I am to give my cousin money I shall do so by
+putting my hand into my own pocket in preference to that of any other
+person."</p>
+
+<p>"Madame Goesler says that she'll sign all the papers about the Duke's
+legacy,&mdash;the money, I mean,&mdash;if she may be allowed to make it over to
+the Duke's niece."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course Madame Goesler may do what she likes with her own. I
+cannot hinder her. But I would rather that you should not interfere.
+Twenty-five thousand pounds is a very serious sum of money."</p>
+
+<p>"You won't take it."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor will Madame Goesler; and therefore there can be no reason why
+these young people should not have it. Of course Adelaide being the
+Duke's niece does make a difference. Why else should I care about it?
+She is nothing to me,&mdash;and as for him, I shouldn't know him again if
+I were to meet him in the street."</p>
+
+<p>And so the thing was settled. The Duke was powerless against the
+energy of his wife, and the lawyer was instructed that Madame Goesler
+would take the proper steps for putting herself into possession of
+the Duke's legacy,&mdash;as far as the money was concerned,&mdash;with the view
+of transferring it to the Duke's niece, Miss Adelaide Palliser. As
+for the diamonds, the difficulty could not be solved. Madame Goesler
+still refused to take them, and desired her lawyer to instruct her as
+to the form by which she could most thoroughly and conclusively
+renounce that legacy.</p>
+
+<p>Gerard Maule had his ideas about the meeting which would of course
+take place at Matching. He would not, he thought, have been asked
+there had it not been intended that he should marry Adelaide. He did
+not care much for the grandeur of the Duke and Duchess, but he was
+conscious of certain profitable advantages which might accrue from
+such an acknowledgement of his position from the great relatives of
+his intended bride. It would be something to be married from the
+house of the Duchess, and to receive his wife from the Duke's hand.
+His father would probably be driven to acquiesce, and people who were
+almost omnipotent in the world would at any rate give him a start. He
+expected no money; nor did he possess that character, whether it be
+good or bad, which is given to such expectation. But there would be
+encouragement, and the thing would probably be done. As for the
+meeting,&mdash;he would take her in his arms if he found her alone, and
+beg her pardon for that cross word about Boulogne. He would assure
+her that Boulogne itself would be a heaven to him if she were with
+him,&mdash;and he thought that she would believe him. When he reached the
+house he was asked into a room in which a lot of people were playing
+billiards or crowded round a billiard-table. The Chilterns were gone,
+and he was at first ill at ease, finding no friend. Madame Goesler,
+who had met him at Harrington, came up to him, and told him that the
+Duchess would be there directly, and then Phineas, who had been
+playing at the moment of his entrance, shook hands with him, and said
+a word or two about the Chilterns. "I was so delighted to hear of
+your acquittal," said Maule.</p>
+
+<p>"We never talk about that now," said Phineas, going back to his
+stroke. Adelaide Palliser was not present, and the difficulty of the
+meeting had not yet been encountered. They all remained in the
+billiard-room till it was time for the ladies to dress, and Adelaide
+had not yet ventured to show herself. Somebody offered to take him to
+his room, and he was conducted upstairs, and told that they dined at
+eight,&mdash;but nothing had been arranged. Nobody had as yet mentioned
+her name to him. Surely it could not be that she had gone away when
+she heard that he was coming, and that she was really determined to
+make the quarrel perpetual? He had three quarters of an hour in which
+to get ready for dinner, and he felt himself to be uncomfortable and
+out of his element. He had been sent to his chamber prematurely,
+because nobody had known what to do with him; and he wished himself
+back in London. The Duchess, no doubt, had intended to be
+good-natured, but she had made a mistake. So he sat by his open
+window, and looked out on the ruins of the old Priory, which were
+close to the house, and wondered why he mightn't have been allowed to
+wander about the garden instead of being shut up there in a bedroom.
+But he felt that it would be unwise to attempt any escape now. He
+would meet the Duke or the Duchess, or perhaps Adelaide herself, in
+some of the passages,&mdash;and there would be an embarrassment. So he
+dawdled away the time, looking out of the window as he dressed, and
+descended to the drawing room at eight o'clock. He shook hands with
+the Duke, and was welcomed by the Duchess, and then glanced round the
+room. There she was, seated on a sofa between two other ladies,&mdash;of
+whom one was his friend, Madame Goesler. It was essentially necessary
+that he should notice her in some way, and he walked up to her, and
+offered her his hand. It was impossible that he should allude to what
+was past, and he merely muttered something as he stood over her. She
+had blushed up to her eyes, and was absolutely dumb. "Mr. Maule,
+perhaps you'll take our cousin Adelaide out to dinner," said the
+Duchess, a moment afterwards, whispering in his ear.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you forgiven me?" he said to her, as they passed from one room
+to the other.</p>
+
+<p>"I will,&mdash;if you care to be forgiven." The Duchess had been quite
+right, and the quarrel was all over without any arrangement.</p>
+
+<p>On the following morning he was allowed to walk about the grounds
+without any impediment, and to visit the ruins which had looked so
+charming to him from the window. Nor was he alone. Miss Palliser was
+now by no means anxious as she had been yesterday to keep out of the
+way, and was willingly persuaded to show him all the beauties of the
+place.</p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't have said what I did, I know," pleaded Maule.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind it now, Gerard."</p>
+
+<p>"I mean about going to Boulogne."</p>
+
+<p>"It did sound so melancholy."</p>
+
+<p>"But I only meant that we should have to be very careful how we
+lived. I don't know quite whether I am so good at being careful about
+money as a fellow ought to be."</p>
+
+<p>"You must take a lesson from me, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"I have sent the horses to Tattersall's," he said in a tone that was
+almost funereal.</p>
+
+<p>"What!&mdash;already?"</p>
+
+<p>"I gave the order yesterday. They are to be sold,&mdash;I don't know when.
+They won't fetch anything. They never do. One always buys bad horses
+there for a lot of money, and sells good ones for nothing. Where the
+difference goes to I never could make out."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose the man gets it who sells them."</p>
+
+<p>"No; he don't. The fellows get it who have their eyes open. My eyes
+never were open,&mdash;except as far as seeing you went."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps if you had opened them wider you wouldn't have to go
+<span class="nowrap">to&mdash;"</span></p>
+
+<p>"Don't, Adelaide. But, as I was saying about the horses, when they're
+sold of course the bills won't go on. And I suppose things will come
+right. I don't owe so very much."</p>
+
+<p>"I've got something to tell you," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"What about?"</p>
+
+<p>"You're to see my cousin to-day at two o'clock."</p>
+
+<p>"The Duke?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes,&mdash;the Duke; and he has got a proposition. I don't know that you
+need sell your horses, as it seems to make you so very unhappy. You
+remember Madame Goesler?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I do. She was at Harrington."</p>
+
+<p>"There's something about a legacy which I can't understand at all. It
+is ever so much money, and it did belong to the old Duke. They say it
+is to be mine,&mdash;or yours rather, if we should ever be married. And
+then you know, Gerard, perhaps, after all, you needn't go to
+Boulogne." So she took her revenge, and he had his as he pressed his
+arm round her waist and kissed her among the ruins of the old Priory.</p>
+
+<p>Precisely at two to the moment he had his interview with the Duke,
+and very disagreeable it was to both of them. The Duke was bound to
+explain that the magnificent present which was being made to his
+cousin was a gift, not from him, but from Madame Goesler; and, though
+he was intent on making this as plain as possible, he did not like
+the task. "The truth is, Mr. Maule, that Madame Goesler is unwilling,
+for reasons with which I need not trouble you, to take the legacy
+which was left to her by my uncle. I think her reasons to be
+insufficient, but it is a matter in which she must, of course, judge
+for herself. She has decided,&mdash;very much, I fear, at my wife's
+instigation, which I must own I regret,&mdash;to give the money to one of
+our family, and has been pleased to say that my cousin Adelaide shall
+be the recipient of her bounty. I have nothing to do with it. I
+cannot stop her generosity if I would, nor can I say that my cousin
+ought to refuse it. Adelaide will have the entire sum as her fortune,
+short of the legacy duty, which, as you are probably aware, will be
+ten per cent., as Madame Goesler was not related to my uncle. The
+money will, of course, be settled on my cousin and on her children. I
+believe that will be all I shall have to say, except that Lady
+Glencora,&mdash;the Duchess, I mean,&mdash;wishes that Adelaide should be
+married from our house. If this be so I shall, of course, hope to
+have the honour of giving my cousin away." The Duke was by no means a
+pompous man, and probably there was no man in England of so high rank
+who thought so little of his rank. But he was stiff and somewhat
+ungainly, and the task which he was called upon to execute had been
+very disagreeable to him. He bowed when he had finished his speech,
+and Gerard Maule felt himself bound to go, almost without expressing
+his thanks.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Mr. Maule," said Madame Goesler, "you literally must not say
+a word to me about it. The money was not mine, and under no
+circumstances would or could be mine. I have given nothing, and could
+not have presumed to make such a present. The money, I take it, does
+undoubtedly belong to the present Duke, and, as he does not want it,
+it is very natural that it should go to his cousin. I trust that you
+may both live to enjoy it long, but I cannot allow any thanks to be
+given to me by either of you."</p>
+
+<p>After that he tried the Duchess, who was somewhat more gracious. "The
+truth is, Mr. Maule, you are a very lucky man to find twenty thousand
+pounds and more going begging about the country in that way."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed I am, Duchess."</p>
+
+<p>"And Adelaide is lucky, too, for I doubt whether either of you are
+given to any very penetrating economies. I am told that you like
+hunting."</p>
+
+<p>"I have sent my horses to Tattersall's."</p>
+
+<p>"There is enough now for a little hunting, I suppose, unless you have
+a dozen children. And now you and Adelaide must settle when it's to
+be. I hate things to be delayed. People go on quarrelling and
+fancying this and that, and thinking that the world is full of
+romance and poetry. When they get married they know better."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope the romance and poetry do not all vanish."</p>
+
+<p>"Romance and poetry are for the most part lies, Mr. Maule, and are
+very apt to bring people into difficulty. I have seen something of
+them in my time, and I much prefer downright honest figures. Two and
+two make four; idleness is the root of all evil; love your neighbour
+like yourself, and the rest of it. Pray remember that Adelaide is to
+be married from here, and that we shall be very happy that you should
+make every use you like of our house until then."</p>
+
+<p>We may so far anticipate in our story as to say that Adelaide
+Palliser and Gerard Maule were married from Matching Priory at
+Matching Church early in that October, and that as far as the coming
+winter was concerned, there certainly was no hunting for the
+gentleman. They went to Naples instead of Boulogne, and there
+remained till the warm weather came in the following spring. Nor was
+that peremptory sale at Tattersall's countermanded as regarded any of
+the horses. What prices were realised the present writer has never
+been able to ascertain.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c77"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER LXXVII.</h3>
+<h4>PHINEAS FINN'S SUCCESS.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>When Phineas Finn had been about a week at Matching, he received a
+letter, or rather a very short note, from the Prime Minister, asking
+him to go up to London; and on the same day the Duke of Omnium spoke
+to him on the subject of the letter. "You are going up to see Mr.
+Gresham. Mr. Gresham has written to me, and I hope that we shall be
+able to congratulate ourselves in having your assistance next
+Session." Phineas declared that he had no idea whatever of Mr.
+Gresham's object in summoning him up to London. "I have his
+permission to inform you that he wishes you to accept office."
+Phineas felt that he was becoming very red in the face, but he did
+not attempt to make any reply on the spur of the moment. "Mr. Gresham
+thinks it well that so much should be said to you before you see him,
+in order that you may turn the matter over in your own mind. He would
+have written to you probably, making the offer at once, had it not
+been that there must be various changes, and that one man's place
+must depend on another. You will go, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I shall go, certainly. I shall be in London this evening."</p>
+
+<p>"I will take care that a carriage is ready for you. I do not presume
+to advise, Mr. Finn, but I hope that there need be no doubt as to
+your joining us." Phineas was somewhat confounded, and did not know
+the Duke well enough to give expression to his thoughts at the
+moment. "Of course you will return to us, Mr. Finn." Phineas said
+that he would return and trespass on the Duke's hospitality for yet a
+few days. He was quite resolved that something must be said to Madame
+Goesler before he left the roof under which she was living. In the
+course of the autumn she purposed, as she had told him, to go to
+Vienna, and to remain there almost up to Christmas. Whatever there
+might be to be said should be said at any rate before that.</p>
+
+<p>He did speak a few words to her before his journey to London, but in
+those words there was no allusion made to the great subject which
+must be discussed between them. "I am going up to London," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"So the Duchess tells me."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Gresham has sent for me,&mdash;meaning, I suppose, to offer me the
+place which he would not give me while that poor man was alive."</p>
+
+<p>"And you will accept it of course, Mr. Finn?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not at all so sure of that."</p>
+
+<p>"But you will. You must. You will hardly be so foolish as to let the
+peevish animosity of an ill-conditioned man prejudice your prospects
+even after his death."</p>
+
+<p>"It will not be any remembrance of Mr. Bonteen that will induce me to
+refuse."</p>
+
+<p>"It will be the same thing;&mdash;rancour against Mr. Gresham because he
+had allowed the other man's counsel to prevail with him. The action
+of no individual man should be to you of sufficient consequence to
+guide your conduct. If you accept office, you should not take it as a
+favour conferred by the Prime Minister; nor if you refuse it, should
+you do so from personal feelings in regard to him. If he selects you,
+he is presumed to do so because he finds that your services will be
+valuable to the country."</p>
+
+<p>"He does so because he thinks that I should be safe to vote for him."</p>
+
+<p>"That may be so, or not. You can't read his bosom quite
+distinctly;&mdash;but you may read your own. If you go into office you
+become the servant of the country,&mdash;not his servant, and should
+assume his motive in selecting you to be the same as your own in
+submitting to the selection. Your foot must be on the ladder before
+you can get to the top of it."</p>
+
+<p>"The ladder is so crooked."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it more crooked now than it was three years ago;&mdash;worse than it
+was six months ago, when you and all your friends looked upon it as
+certain that you would be employed? There is nothing, Mr. Finn, that
+a man should fear so much as some twist in his convictions arising
+from a personal accident to himself. When we heard that the Devil in
+his sickness wanted to be a monk, we never thought that he would
+become a saint in glory. When a man who has been rejected by a lady
+expresses a generally ill opinion of the sex, we are apt to ascribe
+his opinions to disappointment rather than to judgment. A man falls
+and breaks his leg at a fence, and cannot be induced to ride
+again,&mdash;not because he thinks the amusement to be dangerous, but
+because he cannot keep his mind from dwelling on the hardship that
+has befallen himself. In all such cases self-consciousness gets the
+better of the judgment."</p>
+
+<p>"You think it will be so with me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall think so if you now refuse&mdash;because of the misfortune which
+befell you&mdash;that which I know you were most desirous of possessing
+before that accident. To tell you the truth, Mr. Finn, I wish Mr.
+Gresham had delayed his offer till the winter."</p>
+
+<p>"And why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because by that time you will have recovered your health. Your mind
+now is morbid, and out of tune."</p>
+
+<p>"There was something to make it so, Madame Goesler."</p>
+
+<p>"God knows there was; and the necessity which lay upon you of bearing
+a bold front during those long and terrible weeks of course consumed
+your strength. The wonder is that the fibres of your mind should have
+retained any of their elasticity after such an ordeal. But as you are
+so strong, it would be a pity that you should not be strong
+altogether. This thing that is now to be offered to you is what you
+have always desired."</p>
+
+<p>"A man may have always desired that which is worthless."</p>
+
+<p>"You tried it once, and did not find it worthless. You found yourself
+able to do good work when you were in office. If I remember right,
+you did not give it up then because it was irksome to you, or
+contemptible, or, as you say, worthless; but from difference of
+opinion on some political question. You can always do that again."</p>
+
+<p>"A man is not fit for office who is prone to do so."</p>
+
+<p>"Then do not you be prone. It means success or failure in the
+profession which you have chosen, and I shall greatly regret to see
+you damage your chance of success by yielding to scruples which have
+come upon you when you are hardly as yet yourself."</p>
+
+<p>She had spoken to him very plainly, and he had found it to be
+impossible to answer her, and yet she had hardly touched the motives
+by which he believed himself to be actuated. As he made his journey
+up to London he thought very much of her words. There had been
+nothing said between them about money. No allusion had been made to
+the salary of the office which would be offered to him, or to the
+terrible shortness of his own means of living. He knew well enough
+himself that he must take some final step in life, or very shortly
+return into absolute obscurity. This woman who had been so strongly
+advising him to take a certain course as to his future life, was very
+rich;&mdash;and he had fully decided that he would sooner or later ask her
+to be his wife. He knew well that all her friends regarded their
+marriage as certain. The Duchess had almost told him so in as many
+words. Lady Chiltern, who was much more to him than the Duchess, had
+assured him that if he should have a wife to bring with him to
+Harrington, the wife would be welcome. Of what other wife could Lady
+Chiltern have thought? Laurence Fitzgibbon, when congratulated on his
+own marriage, had returned counter congratulations. Mr. Low had said
+that it would of course come to pass. Even Mrs. Bunce had hinted at
+it, suggesting that she would lose her lodger and be a wretched
+woman. All the world had heard of the journey to Prague, and all the
+world expected the marriage. And he had come to love the woman with
+excessive affection, day by day, ever since the renewal of their
+intimacy at Broughton Spinnies. His mind was quite made up;&mdash;but he
+was by no means so sure of her mind as the rest of the world might be.
+He knew of her, what nobody else in all the world knew,&mdash;except
+himself. In that former period of his life, on which he now sometimes
+looked back as though it had been passed in another world, this woman
+had offered her hand and fortune to him. She had done so in the
+enthusiasm of her love, knowing his ambition and knowing his poverty,
+and believing that her wealth was necessary to the success of his
+career in life. He had refused the offer,&mdash;and they had parted
+without a word. Now they had come together again, and she was
+certainly among the dearest of his friends. Had she not taken that
+wondrous journey to Prague in his behalf, and been the first among
+those who had striven,&mdash;and had striven at last successfully,&mdash;to
+save his neck from the halter? Dear to her! He knew well as he sat
+with his eyes closed in the railway carriage that he must be dear to
+her! But might it not well be that she had resolved that friendship
+should take the place of love? And was it not compatible with her
+nature,&mdash;with all human nature,&mdash;that in spite of her regard for him
+she should choose to be revenged for the evil which had befallen her,
+when she offered her hand in vain? She must know by this time that he
+intended to throw himself at her feet; and would hardly have advised
+him as she had done as to the necessity of following up that success
+which had hitherto been so essential to him, had she intended to give
+him all that she had once offered him before. It might well be that
+Lady Chiltern, and even the Duchess, should be mistaken. Marie
+Goesler was not a woman, he thought, to reveal the deeper purposes of
+her life to any such friend as the Duchess of Omnium.</p>
+
+<p>Of his own feelings in regard to the offer which was about to be made
+to him he had hardly succeeded in making her understand anything.
+That a change had come upon himself was certain, but he did not at
+all believe that it had sprung from any weakness caused by his
+sufferings in regard to the murder. He rather believed that he had
+become stronger than weaker from all that he had endured. He had
+learned when he was younger,&mdash;some years back,&mdash;to regard the
+political service of his country as a profession in which a man
+possessed of certain gifts might earn his bread with more
+gratification to himself than in any other. The work would be hard,
+and the emolument only intermittent; but the service would in itself
+be pleasant; and the rewards of that service,&mdash;should he be so
+successful as to obtain reward,&mdash;would be dearer to him than anything
+which could accrue to him from other labours. To sit in the Cabinet
+for one Session would, he then thought, be more to him than to
+preside over the Court of Queen's Bench as long as did Lord
+Mansfield. But during the last few months a change had crept across
+his dream,&mdash;which he recognized but could hardly analyse. He had seen
+a man whom he despised promoted, and the place to which the man had
+been exalted had at once become contemptible in his eyes. And there
+had been quarrels and jangling, and the speaking of evil words
+between men who should have been quiet and dignified. No doubt Madame
+Goesler was right in attributing the revulsion in his hopes to Mr.
+Bonteen and Mr. Bonteen's enmity; but Phineas Finn himself did not
+know that it was so.</p>
+
+<p>He arrived in town in the evening, and his appointment with Mr.
+Gresham was for the following morning. He breakfasted at his club,
+and there he received the following letter from Lady Laura
+Kennedy:&mdash;<br />&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="jright">Saulsby, 28th August, 18&mdash;.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smallcaps">My dear Phineas</span>,</p>
+
+<p>I have just received a letter from Barrington in which he tells me
+that Mr. Gresham is going to offer you your old place at the
+Colonies. He says that Lord Fawn has been so upset by this affair of
+Lady Eustace's husband, that he is obliged to resign and go abroad.
+[This was the first intimation that Phineas had heard of the nature of
+the office to be offered to him.&mdash;]
+But Barrington goes on to say that he thinks you won't accept Mr.
+Gresham's offer, and he asks me to write to you. Can this possibly be
+true? Barrington writes most kindly,&mdash;with true friendship,&mdash;and is
+most anxious for you to join. But he thinks that you are angry with
+Mr. Gresham because he passed you over before, and that you will not
+forgive him for having yielded to Mr. Bonteen. I can hardly believe
+this possible. Surely you will not allow the shade of that
+unfortunate man to blight your prospects? And, after all, of what
+matter to you is the friendship or enmity of Mr. Gresham? You have to
+assert yourself, to make your own way, to use your own opportunities,
+and to fight your own battle without reference to the feelings of
+individuals. Men act together in office constantly, and with
+constancy, who are known to hate each other. When there are so many
+to get what is going, and so little to be given, of course there will
+be struggling and trampling. I have no doubt that Lord Cantrip has
+made a point of this with Mr. Gresham;&mdash;has in point of fact insisted
+upon it. If so, you are lucky to have such an ally as Lord Cantrip.
+He and Mr. Gresham are, as you know, sworn friends, and if you get on
+well with the one you certainly may with the other also. Pray do not
+refuse without asking for time to think about it;&mdash;and if so, pray
+come here, that you may consult my father.</p>
+
+<p>I spent two weary weeks at Loughlinter, and then could stand it no
+longer. I have come here, and here I shall remain for the autumn and
+winter. If I can sell my interest in the Loughlinter property I shall
+do so, as I am sure that neither the place nor the occupation is fit
+for me. Indeed I know not what place or what occupation will suit me!
+The dreariness of the life before me is hardly preferable to the
+disappointments I have already endured. There seems to be nothing
+left for me but to watch my father to the end. The world would say
+that such a duty in life is fit for a widowed childless daughter; but
+to you I cannot pretend to say that my bereavements or misfortunes
+reconcile me to such a fate. I cannot cease to remember my age, my
+ambition, and I will say, my love. I suppose that everything is over
+for me,&mdash;as though I were an old woman, going down into the grave,
+but at my time of life I find it hard to believe that it must be so.
+And then the time of waiting may be so long! I suppose I could start
+a house in London, and get people around me by feeding and flattering
+them, and by little intrigues,&mdash;like that woman of whom you are so
+fond. It is money that is chiefly needed for that work, and of money
+I have enough now. And people would know at any rate who I am. But I
+could not flatter them, and I should wish the food to choke them if
+they did not please me. And you would not come, and if you did,&mdash;I
+may as well say it boldly,&mdash;others would not. An ill-natured sprite
+has been busy with me, which seems to deny me everything which is so
+freely granted to others.</p>
+
+<p>As for you, the world is at your feet. I dread two things for
+you,&mdash;that you should marry unworthily, and that you should injure
+your prospects in public life by an uncompromising stiffness. On the
+former subject I can say nothing to you. As to the latter, let me
+implore you to come down here before you decide upon anything. Of
+course you can at once accept Mr. Gresham's offer; and that is what
+you should do unless the office proposed to you be unworthy of you.
+No friend of yours will think that your old place at the Colonies
+should be rejected. But if your mind is still turned towards
+refusing, ask Mr. Gresham to give you three or four days for
+decision, and then come here. He cannot refuse you,&mdash;nor after all
+that is passed can you refuse me.</p>
+
+<p class="ind10">Yours affectionately,</p>
+
+<p class="ind15">L. K.<br />&nbsp;</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+<p>When he had read this letter he at once acknowledged to himself that
+he could not refuse her request. He must go to Saulsby, and he must
+do so at once. He was about to see Mr. Gresham immediately,&mdash;within
+half an hour; and as he could not expect at the most above
+twenty-four hours to be allowed to him for consideration, he must go
+down to Saulsby on the same evening. As he walked to the Prime
+Minister's house he called at a telegraph office and sent down his
+message. "I will be at Saulsby by the train arriving at 7
+<span class="smallcaps">p.m.</span> Send
+to meet me." Then he went on, and in a few minutes found himself in
+the presence of the great man.</p>
+
+<p>The great man received him with an excellent courtesy. It is the
+special business of Prime Ministers to be civil in detail, though
+roughness, and perhaps almost rudeness in the gross, becomes not
+unfrequently a necessity of their position. To a proposed incoming
+subordinate a Prime Minister is, of course, very civil, and to a
+retreating subordinate he is generally more so,&mdash;unless the retreat
+be made under unfavourable circumstances. And to give good things is
+always pleasant, unless there be a suspicion that the good thing will
+be thought to be not good enough. No such suspicion as that now
+crossed the mind of Mr. Gresham. He had been pressed very much by
+various colleagues to admit this young man into the Paradise of his
+government, and had been pressed very much also to exclude him; and
+this had been continued till he had come to dislike the name of the
+young man. He did believe that the young man had behaved badly to Mr.
+Robert Kennedy, and he knew that the young man on one occasion had
+taken to kicking in harness, and running a course of his own. He had
+decided against the young man,&mdash;very much no doubt at the instance of
+Mr. Bonteen,&mdash;and he believed that in so doing he closed the Gates of
+Paradise against a Peri most anxious to enter it. He now stood with
+the key in his hand and the gate open,&mdash;and the seat to be allotted
+to the re-accepted one was that which he believed the Peri would most
+gratefully fill. He began by making a little speech about Mr.
+Bonteen. That was almost unavoidable. And he praised in glowing words
+the attitude which Phineas had maintained during the trial. He had
+been delighted with the re-election at Tankerville, and thought that
+the borough had done itself much honour. Then came forth his
+proposition. Lord Fawn had retired, absolutely broken down by
+repeated examinations respecting the man in the grey coat, and the
+office which Phineas had before held with so much advantage to the
+public, and comfort to his immediate chief, Lord Cantrip, was there
+for his acceptance. Mr. Gresham went on to express an ardent hope
+that he might have the benefit of Mr. Finn's services. It was quite
+manifest from his manner that he did not in the least doubt the
+nature of the reply which he would receive.</p>
+
+<p>Phineas had come primed with his answer,&mdash;so ready with it that it
+did not even seem to be the result of any hesitation at the moment.
+"I hope, Mr. Gresham, that you will be able to give me a few hours to
+think of this." Mr. Gresham's face fell, for, in truth, he wanted an
+immediate answer; and though he knew from experience that Secretaries
+of State, and First Lords, and Chancellors, do demand time, and will
+often drive very hard bargains before they will consent to get into
+harness, he considered that Under-Secretaries, Junior Lords, and the
+like, should skip about as they were bidden, and take the crumbs
+offered them without delay. If every underling wanted a few hours to
+think about it, how could any Government ever be got together? "I am
+sorry to put you to inconvenience," continued Phineas, seeing that
+the great man was but ill-satisfied, "but I am so placed that I
+cannot avail myself of your flattering kindness without some little
+time for consideration."</p>
+
+<p>"I had hoped that the office was one which you would like."</p>
+
+<p>"So it is, Mr. Gresham."</p>
+
+<p>"And I was told that you are now free from any scruples,&mdash;political
+scruples, I mean,&mdash;which might make it difficult for you to support
+the Government."</p>
+
+<p>"Since the Government came to our way of thinking,&mdash;a year or two
+ago,&mdash;about Tenant Right, I mean,&mdash;I do not know that there is any
+subject on which I am likely to oppose it. Perhaps I had better tell
+you the truth, Mr. Gresham."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, certainly," said the Prime Minister, who knew very well that on
+such occasions nothing could be worse than the telling of
+disagreeable truths.</p>
+
+<p>"When you came into office, after beating Mr. Daubeny on the Church
+question, no man in Parliament was more desirous of place than I
+was,&mdash;and I am sure that none of the disappointed ones felt their
+disappointment so keenly. It was aggravated by various
+circumstances,&mdash;by calumnies in newspapers, and by personal
+bickerings. I need not go into that wretched story of Mr. Bonteen,
+and the absurd accusation which grew out of those calumnies. These
+things have changed me very much. I have a feeling that I have been
+ill-used,&mdash;not by you, Mr. Gresham, specially, but by the party; and
+I look upon the whole question of office with altered eyes."</p>
+
+<p>"In filling up the places at his disposal, a Prime Minister, Mr.
+Finn, has a most unenviable task."</p>
+
+<p>"I can well believe it."</p>
+
+<p>"When circumstances, rather than any selection of his own, indicate
+the future occupant of any office, this abrogation of his patronage
+is the greatest blessing in the world to him."</p>
+
+<p>"I can believe that also."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish it were so with every office under the Crown. A Minister is
+rarely thanked, and would as much look for the peace of heaven in his
+office as for gratitude."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry that I should have made no exception to such
+thanklessness."</p>
+
+<p>"We shall neither of us get on by complaining;&mdash;shall we, Mr. Finn?
+You can let me have an answer perhaps by this time to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"If an answer by telegraph will be sufficient."</p>
+
+<p>"Quite sufficient. Yes or No. Nothing more will be wanted. You
+understand your own reasons, no doubt, fully; but if they were stated
+at length they would perhaps hardly enlighten me. Good-morning." Then
+as Phineas was turning his back, the Prime Minister remembered that
+it behoved him as Prime Minister to repress his temper. "I shall
+still hope, Mr. Finn, for a favourable answer." Had it not been for
+that last word Phineas would have turned again, and at once rejected
+the proposition.</p>
+
+<p>From Mr. Gresham's house he went by appointment to Mr. Monk's, and
+told him of the interview. Mr. Monk's advice to him had been exactly
+the same as that given by Madame Goesler and Lady Laura. Phineas,
+indeed, understood perfectly that no friend could or would give him
+any other advice. "He has his troubles, too," said Mr. Monk, speaking
+of the Prime Minister.</p>
+
+<p>"A man can hardly expect to hold such an office without trouble."</p>
+
+<p>"Labour of course there must be,&mdash;though I doubt whether it is so
+great as that of some other persons;&mdash;and responsibility. The amount
+of trouble depends on the spirit and nature of the man. Do you
+remember old Lord Brock? He was never troubled. He had a triple
+shield,&mdash;a thick skin, an equable temper, and perfect
+self-confidence. Mr. Mildmay was of a softer temper, and would have
+suffered had he not been protected by the idolatry of a large class
+of his followers. Mr. Gresham has no such protection. With a finer
+intellect than either, and a sense of patriotism quite as keen, he
+has a self-consciousness which makes him sore at every point. He
+knows the frailty of his temper, and yet cannot control it. And he
+does not understand men as did these others. Every word from an enemy
+is a wound to him. Every slight from a friend is a dagger in his
+side. But I can fancy that self-accusations make the cross on which
+he is really crucified. He is a man to whom I would extend all my
+mercy, were it in my power to be merciful."</p>
+
+<p>"You will hardly tell me that I should accept office under him by way
+of obliging him."</p>
+
+<p>"Were I you I should do so,&mdash;not to oblige him, but because I know
+him to be an honest man."</p>
+
+<p>"I care but little for honesty," said Phineas, "which is at the
+disposal of those who are dishonest. What am I to think of a Minister
+who could allow himself to be led by Mr. Bonteen?"</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c78"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER LXXVIII.</h3>
+<h4>THE LAST VISIT TO SAULSBY.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>Phineas, as he journeyed down to Saulsby, knew that he had in truth
+made up his mind. He was going thither nominally that he might listen
+to the advice of almost his oldest political friend before he
+resolved on a matter of vital importance to himself; but in truth he
+was making the visit because he felt that he could not excuse himself
+from it without unkindness and ingratitude. She had implored him to
+come, and he was bound to go, and there were tidings to be told which
+he must tell. It was not only that he might give her his reasons for
+not becoming an Under-Secretary of State that he went to Saulsby. He
+felt himself bound to inform her that he intended to ask Marie
+Goesler to be his wife. He might omit to do so till he had asked the
+question,&mdash;and then say nothing of what he had done should his
+petition be refused; but it seemed to him that there would be
+cowardice in this. He was bound to treat Lady Laura as his friend in
+a special degree, as something more than his sister,&mdash;and he was
+bound above all things to make her understand in some plainest manner
+that she could be nothing more to him than such a friend. In his
+dealings with her he had endeavoured always to be honest,&mdash;gentle as
+well as honest; but now it was specially his duty to be honest to
+her. When he was young he had loved her, and had told her so,&mdash;and
+she had refused him. As a friend he had been true to her ever since,
+but that offer could never be repeated. And the other offer,&mdash;to the
+woman whom she was now accustomed to abuse,&mdash;must be made. Should
+Lady Laura choose to quarrel with him it must be so; but the quarrel
+should not be of his seeking.</p>
+
+<p>He was quite sure that he would refuse Mr. Gresham's offer, although
+by doing so he would himself throw away the very thing which he had
+devoted his life to acquire. In a foolish, soft moment,&mdash;as he now
+confessed to himself,&mdash;he had endeavoured to obtain for his own
+position the sympathy of the Minister. He had spoken of the calumnies
+which had hurt him, and of his sufferings when he found himself
+excluded from place in consequence of the evil stories which had been
+told of him. Mr. Gresham had, in fact, declined to listen to
+him;&mdash;had said Yes or No was all that he required, and had gone on to
+explain that he would be unable to understand the reasons proposed to
+be given even were he to hear them. Phineas had felt himself to be
+repulsed, and would at once have shown his anger, had not the Prime
+Minister silenced him for the moment by a civilly-worded repetition
+of the offer made.</p>
+
+<p>But the offer should certainly be declined. As he told himself that
+it must be so, he endeavoured to analyse the causes of this decision,
+but was hardly successful. He had thought that he could explain the
+reasons to the Minister, but found himself incapable of explaining
+them to himself. In regard to means of subsistence he was no better
+off now than when he began the world. He was, indeed, without
+incumbrance, but was also without any means of procuring an income.
+For the last twelve months he had been living on his little capital,
+and two years more of such life would bring him to the end of all
+that he had. There was, no doubt, one view of his prospects which was
+bright enough. If Marie Goesler accepted him, he need not, at any
+rate, look about for the means of earning a living. But he assured
+himself with perfect confidence that no hope in that direction would
+have any influence upon the answer he would give to Mr. Gresham. Had
+not Marie Goesler herself been most urgent with him in begging him to
+accept the offer; and was he not therefore justified in concluding
+that she at least had thought it necessary that he should earn his
+bread? Would her heart be softened towards him,&mdash;would any further
+softening be necessary,&mdash;by his obstinate refusal to comply with her
+advice? The two things had no reference to each other,&mdash;and should be
+regarded by him as perfectly distinct. He would refuse Mr. Gresham's
+offer,&mdash;not because he hoped that he might live in idleness on the
+wealth of the woman he loved,&mdash;but because the chicaneries and
+intrigues of office had become distasteful to him. "I don't know
+which are the falser," he said to himself, "the mock courtesies or
+the mock indignations of statesmen."</p>
+
+<p>He found the Earl's carriage waiting for him at the station, and
+thought of many former days, as he was carried through the little
+town for which he had sat in Parliament, up to the house which he had
+once visited in the hope of wooing Violet Effingham. The women whom
+he had loved had all, at any rate, become his friends, and his
+thorough friendships were almost all with women. He and Lord Chiltern
+regarded each other with warm affection; but there was hardly ground
+for real sympathy between them. It was the same with Mr. Low and
+Barrington Erle. Were he to die there would be no gap in their
+lives;&mdash;were they to die there would be none in his. But with Violet
+Effingham,&mdash;as he still loved to call her to himself,&mdash;he thought it
+would be different. When the carriage stopped at the hall door he was
+thinking of her rather than of Lady Laura Kennedy.</p>
+
+<p>He was shown at once to his bedroom,&mdash;the very room in which he had
+written the letter to Lord Chiltern which had brought about the duel
+at Blankenberg. He was told that he would find Lady Laura in the
+drawing-room waiting for dinner for him. The Earl had already dined.</p>
+
+<p>"I am so glad you are come," said Lady Laura, welcoming him. "Papa is
+not very well and dined early, but I have waited for you, of course.
+Of course I have. You did not suppose I would let you sit down alone?
+I would not see you before you dressed because I knew that you must
+be tired and hungry, and that the sooner you got down the better. Has
+it not been hot?"</p>
+
+<p>"And so dusty! I only left Matching yesterday, and seem to have been
+on the railway ever since."</p>
+
+<p>"Government officials have to take frequent journeys, Mr. Finn. How
+long will it be before you have to go down to Scotland twice in one
+week, and back as often to form a Ministry? Your next journey must be
+into the dining-room;&mdash;in making which will you give me your arm?"</p>
+
+<p>She was, he thought, lighter in heart and pleasanter in manner than
+she had been since her return from Dresden. When she had made her
+little joke about his future ministerial duties the servant had been
+in the room, and he had not, therefore, stopped her by a serious
+answer. And now she was solicitous about his dinner,&mdash;anxious that he
+should enjoy the good things set before him, as is the manner of
+loving women, pressing him to take wine, and playing the good hostess
+in all things. He smiled, and ate, and drank, and was gracious under
+her petting; but he had a weight on his bosom, knowing, as he did,
+that he must say that before long which would turn all her
+playfulness either to anger or to grief. "And who had you at
+Matching?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Just the usual set."</p>
+
+<p>"Minus the poor old Duke?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; minus the old Duke certainly. The greatest change is in the
+name. Lady Glencora was so specially Lady Glencora that she ought to
+have been Lady Glencora to the end. Everybody calls her Duchess, but
+it does not sound half so nice."</p>
+
+<p>"And is he altered?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not in the least. You can trace the lines of lingering regret upon
+his countenance when people be-Grace him; but that is all. There was
+always about him a simple dignity which made it impossible that any
+one should slap him on the back; and that of course remains. He is
+the same Planty Pall; but I doubt whether any man ever ventured to
+call him Planty Pall to his face since he left Eton."</p>
+
+<p>"The house was full, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"There were a great many there; among others Sir Gregory Grogram, who
+apologised to me for having tried to&mdash;put an end to my career."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Phineas!"</p>
+
+<p>"And Sir Harry Coldfoot, who seemed to take some credit to himself
+for having allowed the jury to acquit me. And Chiltern and his wife
+were there for a day or two."</p>
+
+<p>"What could take Oswald there?"</p>
+
+<p>"An embassy of State about the foxes. The Duke's property runs into
+his country. She is one of the best women that ever lived."</p>
+
+<p>"Violet?"</p>
+
+<p>"And one of the best wives."</p>
+
+<p>"She ought to be, for she is one of the happiest. What can she wish
+for that she has not got? Was your great friend there?"</p>
+
+<p>He knew well what great friend she meant. "Madame Max Goesler was
+there."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose so. I can never quite forgive Lady Glencora for her
+intimacy with that woman."</p>
+
+<p>"Do not abuse her, Lady Laura."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not intend,&mdash;not to you at any rate. But I can better
+understand that she should receive the admiration of a gentleman than
+the affectionate friendship of a lady. That the old Duke should have
+been infatuated was intelligible."</p>
+
+<p>"She was very good to the old Duke."</p>
+
+<p>"But it was a kind of goodness which was hardly likely to recommend
+itself to his nephew's wife. Never mind; we won't talk about her now.
+Barrington was there?"</p>
+
+<p>"For a day or two."</p>
+
+<p>"He seems to be wasting his life."</p>
+
+<p>"Subordinates in office generally do, I think."</p>
+
+<p>"Do not say that, Phineas."</p>
+
+<p>"Some few push through, and one can almost always foretell who the
+few will be. There are men who are destined always to occupy
+second-rate places, and who seem also to know their fate. I never
+heard Erle speak even of an ambition to sit in the Cabinet."</p>
+
+<p>"He likes to be useful."</p>
+
+<p>"All that part of the business which distresses me is pleasant to
+him. He is fond of arrangements, and delights in little party
+successes. Either to effect or to avoid a count-out is a job of work
+to his taste, and he loves to get the better of the Opposition by
+keeping it in the dark. A successful plot is as dear to him as to a
+writer of plays. And yet he is never bitter as is Ratler, or
+unscrupulous as was poor Mr. Bonteen, or full of wrath as is Lord
+Fawn. Nor is he idle like Fitzgibbon. Erle always earns his salary."</p>
+
+<p>"When I said he was wasting his life, I meant that he did not marry.
+But perhaps a man in his position had better remain unmarried."
+Phineas tried to laugh, but hardly succeeded well. "That, however, is
+a delicate subject, and we will not touch it now. If you won't drink
+any wine we might as well go into the other room."</p>
+
+<p>Nothing had as yet been said on either of the subjects which had
+brought him to Saulsby, but there had been words which made the
+introduction of them peculiarly unpleasant. His tidings, however,
+must be told. "I shall not see Lord Brentford to-night?" he asked,
+when they were together in the drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p>"If you wish it you can go up to him. He will not come down."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no. It is only because I must return to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow, Phineas!"</p>
+
+<p>"I must do so. I have pledged myself to see Mr. Monk,&mdash;and others
+also."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a short visit to make to us on my first return home! I hardly
+expected you at Loughlinter, but I thought that you might have
+remained a few nights under my father's roof." He could only reassert
+his assurance that he was bound to be back in London, and explain as
+best he might that he had come to Saulsby for a single night, only
+because he would not refuse her request to him. "I will not trouble
+you, Phineas, by complaints," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"I would give you no cause for complaint if I could avoid it."</p>
+
+<p>"And now tell me what has passed between you and Mr. Gresham," she
+said as soon as the servant had given them coffee. They were sitting
+by a window which opened down to the ground, and led on to the
+terrace and to the lawns below. The night was soft, and the air was
+heavy with the scent of many flowers. It was now past nine, and the
+sun had set; but there was a bright harvest moon, and the light,
+though pale, was clear as that of day. "Will you come and take a turn
+round the garden? We shall be better there than sitting here. I will
+get my hat; can I find yours for you?" So they both strolled out,
+down the terrace steps, and went forth, beyond the gardens, into the
+park, as though they had both intended from the first that it should
+be so. "I know you have not accepted Mr. Gresham's offer, or you
+would have told me so."</p>
+
+<p>"I have not accepted."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor have you refused?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; it is still open. I must send my answer by telegram
+to-morrow&mdash;Yes or No,&mdash;Mr. Gresham's time is too precious to admit of
+more."</p>
+
+<p>"Phineas, for Heaven's sake do not allow little feelings to injure
+you at such a time as this. It is of your own career, not of Mr.
+Gresham's manners, that you should think."</p>
+
+<p>"I have nothing to object to in Mr. Gresham. Yes or No will be quite
+sufficient."</p>
+
+<p>"It must be Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"It cannot be Yes, Lady Laura. That which I desired so ardently six
+months ago has now become so distasteful to me that I cannot accept
+it. There is an amount of hustling on the Treasury Bench which makes
+a seat there almost ignominious."</p>
+
+<p>"Do they hustle more than they did three years ago?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think they do, or if not it is more conspicuous to my eyes. I do
+not say that it need be ignominious. To such a one as was Mr.
+Palliser it certainly is not so. But it becomes so when a man goes
+there to get his bread, and has to fight his way as though for bare
+life. When office first comes, unasked for, almost unexpected, full
+of the charms which distance lends, it is pleasant enough. The
+new-comer begins to feel that he too is entitled to rub his shoulders
+among those who rule the world of Great Britain. But when it has been
+expected, longed for as I longed for it, asked for by my friends and
+refused, when all the world comes to know that you are a suitor for
+that which should come without any suit,&mdash;then the pleasantness
+vanishes."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought it was to be your career."</p>
+
+<p>"And I hoped so."</p>
+
+<p>"What will you do, Phineas? You cannot live without an income."</p>
+
+<p>"I must try," he said, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"You will not share with your friend, as a friend should?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Lady Laura. That cannot be done."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not see why it cannot. Then you might be independent."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I should indeed be dependent."</p>
+
+<p>"You are too proud to owe me anything."</p>
+
+<p>He wanted to tell her that he was too proud to owe such obligation as
+she had suggested to any man or any woman; but he hardly knew how to
+do so, intending as he did to inform her before they returned to the
+house of his intention to ask Madame Goesler to be his wife. He could
+discern the difference between enjoying his wife's fortune and taking
+gifts of money from one who was bound to him by no tie;&mdash;but to her
+in her present mood he could explain no such distinction. On a sudden
+he rushed at the matter in his mind. It had to be done, and must be
+done before he brought her back to the house. He was conscious that
+he had in no degree ill-used her. He had in nothing deceived her. He
+had kept back from her nothing which the truest friendship had called
+upon him to reveal to her. And yet he knew that her indignation would
+rise hot within her at his first word. "Laura," he said, forgetting
+in his confusion to remember her rank, "I had better tell you at once
+that I have determined to ask Madame Goesler to be my wife."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, then;&mdash;of course your income is certain."</p>
+
+<p>"If you choose to regard my conduct in that light I cannot help it. I
+do not think that I deserve such reproach."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not tell it all? You are engaged to her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not so. I have not asked her yet."</p>
+
+<p>"And why do you come to me with the story of your intentions,&mdash;to me
+of all persons in the world? I sometimes think that of all the hearts
+that ever dwelt within a man's bosom yours is the hardest."</p>
+
+<p>"For God's sake do not say that of me."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you remember when you came to me about Violet,&mdash;to me,&mdash;to me? I
+could bear it then because she was good and earnest, and a woman that
+I could love even though she robbed me. And I strove for you even
+against my own heart,&mdash;against my own brother. I did; I did. But how
+am I to bear it now? What shall I do now? She is a woman I loathe."</p>
+
+<p>"Because you do not know her."</p>
+
+<p>"Not know her! And are your eyes so clear at seeing that you must
+know her better than others? She was the Duke's mistress."</p>
+
+<p>"That is untrue, Lady Laura."</p>
+
+<p>"But what difference does it make to me? I shall be sure that you
+will have bread to eat, and horses to ride, and a seat in Parliament
+without being forced to earn it by your labour. We shall meet no
+more, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not think that you can mean that."</p>
+
+<p>"I will never receive that woman, nor will I cross the sill of her
+door. Why should I?"</p>
+
+<p>"Should she become my wife,&mdash;that I would have thought might have
+been the reason why."</p>
+
+<p>"Surely, Phineas, no man ever understood a woman so ill as you do."</p>
+
+<p>"Because I would fain hope that I need not quarrel with my oldest
+friend?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir; because you think you can do this without quarrelling. How
+should I speak to her of you; how listen to what she would tell me?
+Phineas, you have killed me at last." Why could he not tell her that
+it was she who had done the wrong when she gave her hand to Robert
+Kennedy? But he could not tell her, and he was dumb. "And so it's
+settled!"</p>
+
+<p>"No; not settled."</p>
+
+<p>"Psha! I hate your mock modesty! It is settled. You have become far
+too cautious to risk fortune in such an adventure. Practice has
+taught you to be perfect. It was to tell me this that you came down
+here."</p>
+
+<p>"Partly so."</p>
+
+<p>"It would have been more generous of you, sir, to have remained
+away."</p>
+
+<p>"I did not mean to be ungenerous."</p>
+
+<p>Then she suddenly turned upon him, throwing her arms round his neck,
+and burying her face upon his bosom. They were at the moment in the
+centre of the park, on the grass beneath the trees, and the moon was
+bright over their heads. He held her to his breast while she sobbed,
+and then relaxed his hold as she raised herself to look into his
+face. After a moment she took his hat from his head with one hand,
+and with the other swept the hair back from his brow. "Oh, Phineas,"
+she said, "Oh, my darling! My idol that I have worshipped when I
+should have worshipped my God!"</p>
+
+
+<div class="center"><a id="ill79"></a>
+<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4px">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="images/ill79.jpg">
+      <img src="images/ill79-t.jpg" height="600"
+      alt="THEN SHE SUDDENLY TURNED UPON HIM, THROWING
+      HER ARMS ROUND HIS NECK." /></a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <span class="caption"><span class="smallcaps">Then she
+      suddenly turned upon him, throwing her arms round his
+      neck.</span><br />
+      Click to <a href="images/ill79.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>After that they roamed for nearly an hour backwards and forwards
+beneath the trees, till at last she became calm and almost
+reasonable. She acknowledged that she had long expected such a
+marriage, looking forward to it as a great sorrow. She repeated over
+and over again her assertion that she could not "know" Madame Goesler
+as the wife of Phineas, but abstained from further evil words
+respecting the lady. "It is better that we should be apart," she said
+at last. "I feel that it is better. When we are both old, if I should
+live, we may meet again. I knew that it was coming, and we had better
+part." And yet they remained out there, wandering about the park for
+a long portion of the summer night. She did not reproach him again,
+nor did she speak much of the future; but she alluded to all the
+incidents of their past life, showing him that nothing which he had
+done, no words which he had spoken, had been forgotten by her. "Of
+course it has been my fault," she said, as at last she parted with
+him in the drawing-room. "When I was younger I did not understand how
+strong the heart can be. I should have known it, and I pay for my
+ignorance with the penalty of my whole life." Then he left her,
+kissing her on both cheeks and on her brow, and went to his bedroom
+with the understanding that he would start for London on the
+following morning before she was up.</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c79"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER LXXIX.</h3>
+<h4>AT LAST&mdash;AT LAST.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>As he took his ticket Phineas sent his message to the Prime Minister,
+taking that personage literally at his word. The message was, No.
+When writing it in the office it seemed to him to be uncourteous, but
+he found it difficult to add any other words that should make it less
+so. He supplemented it with a letter on his arrival in London, in
+which he expressed his regret that certain circumstances of his life
+which had occurred during the last month or two made him unfit to
+undertake the duties of the very pleasant office to which Mr. Gresham
+had kindly offered to appoint him. That done, he remained in town but
+one night, and then set his face again towards Matching. When he
+reached that place it was already known that he had refused to accept
+Mr. Gresham's offer, and he was met at once with regrets and
+condolements. "I am sorry that it must be so," said the Duke,&mdash;who
+was sorry, for he liked the man, but who said not a word more upon
+the subject. "You are still young, and will have further
+opportunities," said Lord Cantrip, "but I wish that you could have
+consented to come back to your old chair." "I hope that at any rate
+we shall not have you against us," said Sir Harry Coldfoot. Among
+themselves they declared one to another that he had been so
+completely upset by his imprisonment and subsequent trial as to be
+unable to undertake the work proposed to him. "It is not a very nice
+thing, you know, to be accused of murder," said Sir Gregory, "and to
+pass a month or two under the full conviction that you are going to
+be hung. He'll come right again some day. I only hope it may not be
+too late."</p>
+
+<p>"So you have decided for freedom?" said Madame Goesler to him that
+evening,&mdash;the evening of the day on which he had returned.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed."</p>
+
+<p>"I have nothing to say against your decision now. No doubt your
+feelings have prompted you right."</p>
+
+<p>"Now that it is done, of course I am full of regrets," said Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>"That is simple human nature, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"Simple enough; and the worst of it is that I cannot quite explain
+even to myself why I have done it. Every friend I had in the world
+told me that I was wrong, and yet I could not help myself. The thing
+was offered to me, not because I was thought to be fit for it, but
+because I had become wonderful by being brought near to a violent
+death! I remember once, when I was a child, having a rocking-horse
+given to me because I had fallen from the top of the house to the
+bottom without breaking my neck. The rocking-horse was very well
+then, but I don't care now to have one bestowed upon me for any such
+reason."</p>
+
+<p>"Still, if the rocking-horse is in itself a good
+rocking-<span class="nowrap">horse&mdash;"</span></p>
+
+<p>"But it isn't."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't mean to say a word against your decision."</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't good. It is one of those toys which look to be so very
+desirable in the shop-windows, but which give no satisfaction when
+they are brought home. I'll tell you what occurred the other day. The
+circumstances happen to be known to me, though I cannot tell you my
+authority. My dear old friend Laurence Fitzgibbon, in the performance
+of his official duties, had to give an opinion on a matter affecting
+an expenditure of some thirty or forty thousand pounds of public
+money. I don't think that Laurence has generally a very strong bias
+this way or that on such questions, but in the case in question he
+took upon himself to be very decided. He wrote, or got some one to
+write, a report proving that the service of the country imperatively
+demanded that the money should be spent, and in doing so was strictly
+within his duty."</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad to hear that he can be so energetic."</p>
+
+<p>"The Chancellor of the Exchequer got hold of the matter, and told
+Fitzgibbon that the thing couldn't be done."</p>
+
+<p>"That was all right and constitutional, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"Quite right and constitutional. But something had to be said about
+it in the House, and Laurence, with all his usual fluency and
+beautiful Irish brogue, got up and explained that the money would be
+absolutely thrown away if expended on a purpose so futile as that
+proposed. I am assured that the great capacity which he has thus
+shown for official work and official life will cover a multitude of
+sins."</p>
+
+<p>"You would hardly have taken Mr. Fitzgibbon as your model statesman."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not;&mdash;and if the story affected him only it would hardly
+be worth telling. But the point of it lies in this;&mdash;that he
+disgusted no one by what he did. The Chancellor of the Exchequer
+thinks him a very convenient man to have about him, and Mr. Gresham
+feels the comfort of possessing tools so pliable."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think that public life then is altogether a mistake, Mr.
+Finn?"</p>
+
+<p>"For a poor man I think that it is, in this country. A man of fortune
+may be independent; and because he has the power of independence
+those who are higher than he will not expect him to be subservient. A
+man who takes to parliamentary office for a living may live by it,
+but he will have but a dog's life of it."</p>
+
+<p>"If I were you, Mr. Finn, I certainly would not choose a dog's life."</p>
+
+<p>He said not a word to her on that occasion about herself, having made
+up his mind that a certain period of the following day should be
+chosen for the purpose, and he had hardly yet arranged in his mind
+what words he would use on that occasion. It seemed to him that there
+would be so much to be said that he must settle beforehand some order
+of saying it. It was not as though he had merely to tell her of his
+love. There had been talk of love between them before, on which
+occasion he had been compelled to tell her that he could not accept
+that which she offered to him. It would be impossible, he knew, not
+to refer to that former conversation. And then he had to tell her
+that he, now coming to her as a suitor and knowing her to be a very
+rich woman, was himself all but penniless. He was sure, or almost
+sure, that she was as well aware of this fact as he was himself; but,
+nevertheless, it was necessary that he should tell her of it,&mdash;and if
+possible so tell her as to force her to believe him when he assured
+her that he asked her to be his wife, not because she was rich, but
+because he loved her. It was impossible that all this should be said
+as they sat side by side in the drawing-room with a crowd of people
+almost within hearing, and Madame Goesler had just been called upon
+to play, which she always did directly she was asked. He was invited
+to make up a rubber, but he could not bring himself to care for cards
+at the present moment. So he sat apart and listened to the music.</p>
+
+<p>If all things went right with him to-morrow that music,&mdash;or the
+musician who made it,&mdash;would be his own for the rest of his life. Was
+he justified in expecting that she would give him so much? Of her
+great regard for him as a friend he had no doubt. She had shown it in
+various ways, and after a fashion that had made it known to all the
+world. But so had Lady Laura regarded him when he first told her of
+his love at Loughlinter. She had been his dearest friend, but she had
+declined to become his wife; and it had been partly so with Violet
+Effingham, whose friendship to him had been so sweet as to make him
+for a while almost think that there was more than friendship. Marie
+Goesler had certainly once loved him;&mdash;but so had he once loved Laura
+Standish. He had been wretched for a while because Lady Laura had
+refused him. His feelings now were altogether changed, and why should
+not the feelings of Madame Goesler have undergone a similar change?
+There was no doubt of her friendship; but then neither was there any
+doubt of his for Lady Laura. And in spite of her friendship, would
+not revenge be dear to her,&mdash;revenge of that nature which a slighted
+woman must always desire? He had rejected her, and would it not be
+fair also that he should be rejected? "I suppose you'll be in your
+own room before lunch to-morrow," he said to her as they separated
+for the night. It had come to pass from the constancy of her visits
+to Matching in the old Duke's time, that a certain small morning-room
+had been devoted to her, and this was still supposed to be her
+property,&mdash;so that she was not driven to herd with the public or to
+remain in her bedroom during all the hours of the morning. "Yes," she
+said; "I shall go out immediately after breakfast, but I shall soon
+be driven in by the heat, and then I shall be there till lunch. The
+Duchess always comes about half-past twelve, to complain generally of
+the guests." She answered him quite at her ease, making arrangement
+for privacy if he should desire it, but doing so as though she
+thought that he wanted to talk to her about his trial, or about
+politics, or the place he had just refused. Surely she would hardly
+have answered him after such a fashion had she suspected that he
+intended to ask her to be his wife.</p>
+
+<p>At a little before noon the next morning he knocked at her door, and
+was told to enter. "I didn't go out after all," she said. "I hadn't
+courage to face the sun."</p>
+
+<p>"I saw that you were not in the garden."</p>
+
+<p>"If I could have found you I would have told you that I should be
+here all the morning. I might have sent you a message, only&mdash;only I
+didn't."</p>
+
+<p>"I have come&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I know why you have come."</p>
+
+<p>"I doubt that. I have come to tell you that I love you."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh Phineas;&mdash;at last, at last!" And in a moment she was in his arms.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to him that from that moment all the explanations, and all
+the statements, and most of the assurances were made by her and not
+by him. After this first embrace he found himself seated beside her,
+holding her hand. "I do not know that I am right," said he.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not right?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because you are rich and I have nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"If you ever remind me of that again I will strike you," she said,
+raising up her little fist and bringing it down with gentle pressure
+on his shoulder. "Between you and me there must be nothing more about
+that. It must be an even partnership. There must be ever so much
+about money, and you'll have to go into dreadful details, and make
+journeys to Vienna to see that the houses don't tumble down;&mdash;but
+there must be no question between you and me of whence it came."</p>
+
+<p>"You will not think that I have to come to you for that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Have you ever known me to have a low opinion of myself? Is it
+probable that I shall account myself to be personally so mean and of
+so little value as to imagine that you cannot love me? I know you
+love me. But Phineas, I have not been sure till very lately that you
+would ever tell me so. As for
+<span class="nowrap">me&mdash;!</span> Oh, heavens! when I think of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me that you love me now."</p>
+
+<p>"I think I have said so plainly enough. I have never ceased to love
+you since I first knew you well enough for love. And I'll tell you
+more,&mdash;though perhaps I shall say what you will think condemns
+me;&mdash;you are the only man I ever loved. My husband was very good to
+me,&mdash;and I was, I think, good to him. But he was many years my
+senior, and I cannot say I loved him,&mdash;as I do you." Then she turned
+to him, and put her head on his shoulder. "And I loved the old Duke,
+too, after a fashion. But it was a different thing from this. I will
+tell you something about him some day that I have never yet told to a
+human being."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me now."</p>
+
+<p>"No; not till I am your wife. You must trust me. But I will tell
+you," she said, "lest you should be miserable. He asked me to be his
+wife."</p>
+
+<p>"The old Duke?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed, and I refused to be a&mdash;duchess. Lady Glencora knew it
+all, and, just at the time I was breaking my heart,&mdash;like a fool, for
+you! Yes, for you! But I got over it, and am not broken-hearted a
+bit. Oh, Phineas, I am so happy now."</p>
+
+<p>Exactly at the time she had mentioned on the previous evening, at
+half-past twelve, the door was opened, and the Duchess entered the
+room. "Oh dear," she exclaimed, "perhaps I am in the way; perhaps I
+am interrupting secrets."</p>
+
+<p>"No, Duchess."</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I retire? I will at once if there be anything confidential
+going on."</p>
+
+<p>"It has gone on already, and been completed," said Madame Goesler
+rising from her seat. "It is only a trifle. Mr. Finn has asked me to
+be his wife."</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't refuse Mr. Finn a little thing like that."</p>
+
+<p>"I should think not, after going all the way to Prague to find a
+latch-key! I congratulate you, Mr. Finn, with all my heart."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks, Duchess."</p>
+
+<p>"And when is it to be?"</p>
+
+<p>"We have not thought about that yet, Mr. Finn,&mdash;have we?" said Madame
+Goesler.</p>
+
+<p>"Adelaide Palliser is going to be married from here some time in the
+autumn," said the Duchess, "and you two had better take advantage of
+the occasion." This plan, however, was considered as being too rapid
+and rash. Marriage is a very serious affair, and many things would
+require arrangement. A lady with the wealth which belonged to Madame
+Goesler cannot bestow herself off-hand as may a curate's daughter,
+let her be ever so willing to give her money as well as herself. It
+was impossible that a day should be fixed quite at once; but the
+Duchess was allowed to understand that the affair might be mentioned.
+Before dinner on that day every one of the guests at Matching Priory
+knew that the man who had refused to be made Under-Secretary of State
+had been accepted by that possessor of fabulous wealth who was well
+known to the world as Madame Goesler of Park Lane. "I am very glad
+that you did not take office under Mr. Gresham," she said to him when
+they first met each other again in London. "Of course when I was
+advising you I could not be sure that this would happen. Now you can
+bide your time, and if the opportunity offers you can go to work
+under better auspices."</p>
+
+
+<p><a id="c80"></a>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CHAPTER LXXX.</h3>
+<h4>CONCLUSION.<br />&nbsp;</h4>
+
+
+<p>There remains to us the very easy task of collecting together the
+ends of the thread of our narrative, and tying them into a simple
+knot, so that there may be no unravelling. Of Mr. Emilius it has been
+already said that his good fortune clung to him so far that it was
+found impossible to connect him with the tragedy of Bolton Row. But
+he was made to vanish for a certain number of years from the world,
+and dear little Lizzie Eustace was left a free woman. When last we
+heard of her she was at Naples, and there was then a rumour that she
+was about to join her fate to that of Lord George de Bruce
+Carruthers, with whom pecuniary matters had lately not been going
+comfortably. Let us hope that the match, should it be a match, may
+lead to the happiness and respectability of both of them.</p>
+
+<p>As all the world knows, Lord and Lady Chiltern still live at
+Harrington Hall, and he has been considered to do very well with the
+Brake country. He still grumbles about Trumpeton Wood, and says that
+it will take a lifetime to repair the injuries done by Mr.
+Fothergill;&mdash;but then who ever knew a Master of Hounds who wasn't
+ill-treated by the owners of coverts?</p>
+
+<p>Of Mr. Tom Spooner it can only be said that he is still a bachelor,
+living with his cousin Ned, and that none of the neighbours expect to
+see a lady at Spoon Hall. In one winter, after the period of his
+misfortune, he became slack about his hunting, and there were rumours
+that he was carrying out that terrible threat of his as to the
+crusade which he would go to find a cure for his love. But his cousin
+took him in hand somewhat sharply, made him travel abroad during the
+summer, and brought him out the next season, "as fresh as paint," as
+the members of the Brake Hunt declared. It was known to every
+sportsman in the country that poor Mr. Spooner had been in love; but
+the affair was allowed to be a mystery, and no one ever spoke to
+Spooner himself upon the subject. It is probable that he now reaps no
+slight amount of gratification from his memory of the romance.</p>
+
+<p>The marriage between Gerard Maule and Adelaide Palliser was
+celebrated with great glory at Matching, and was mentioned in all the
+leading papers as an alliance in high life. When it became known to
+Mr. Maule, Senior, that this would be so, and that the lady would
+have a very considerable fortune from the old Duke, he reconciled
+himself to the marriage altogether, and at once gave way in that
+matter of Maule Abbey. Nothing he thought would be more suitable than
+that the young people should live at the old family place. So Maule
+Abbey was fitted up, and Mr. and Mrs. Maule have taken up their
+residence there. Under the influence of his wife he has promised to
+attend to his farming, and proposes to do no more than go out and see
+the hounds when they come into his neighbourhood. Let us hope that he
+may prosper. Should the farming come to a good end more will probably
+have been due to his wife's enterprise than to his own. The energetic
+father is, as all the world knows, now in pursuit of a widow with
+three thousand a year who has lately come out in Cavendish Square.</p>
+
+<p>Of poor Lord Fawn no good account can be given. To his thinking,
+official life had none of those drawbacks with which the fantastic
+feelings of Phineas Finn had invested it. He could have been happy
+for ever at the India Board or at the Colonial Office;&mdash;but his life
+was made a burden to him by the affair of the Bonteen murder. He was
+charged with having nearly led to the fatal catastrophe of Phineas
+Finn's condemnation by his erroneous evidence, and he could not bear
+the accusation. Then came the further affair of Mr. Emilius, and his
+mind gave way;&mdash;and he disappeared. Let us hope that he may return
+some day with renewed health, and again be of service to his country.</p>
+
+<p>Poetical justice reached Mr. Quintus Slide of The People's Banner.
+The acquittal and following glories of Phineas Finn were gall and
+wormwood to him; and he continued his attack upon the member for
+Tankerville even after it was known that he had refused office, and
+was about to be married to Madame Goesler. In these attacks he made
+allusions to Lady Laura which brought Lord Chiltern down upon him,
+and there was an action for libel. The paper had to pay damages and
+costs, and the proprietors resolved that Mr. Quintus Slide was too
+energetic for their purposes. He is now earning his bread in some
+humble capacity on the staff of The Ballot Box,&mdash;which is supposed
+to be the most democratic daily newspaper published in London. Mr.
+Slide has, however, expressed his intention of seeking his fortune in
+New York.</p>
+
+<p>Laurence Fitzgibbon certainly did himself a good turn by his obliging
+deference to the opinion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He has
+been in office ever since. It must be acknowledged of all our leading
+statesmen that gratitude for such services is their characteristic.
+It is said that he spends much of his eloquence in endeavouring to
+make his wife believe that the air of County Mayo is the sweetest in
+the world. Hitherto, since his marriage, this eloquence has been
+thrown away, for she has always been his companion through the
+Session in London.</p>
+
+<p>It is rumoured that Barrington Erle is to be made Secretary for
+Ireland, but his friends doubt whether the office will suit him.</p>
+
+<p>The marriage between Marie Goesler and our hero did not take place
+till October, and then they went abroad for the greater part of the
+winter, Phineas having received leave of absence officially from the
+Speaker and unofficially from his constituents. After all that he had
+gone through it was acknowledged that so much ease should be
+permitted to him. They went first to Vienna, and then back into
+Italy, and were unheard of by their English friends for nearly six
+months. In April they reappeared in London, and the house in Park
+Lane was opened with great <i>&eacute;clat</i>. Of Phineas every one says that of
+all living men he has been the most fortunate. The present writer
+will not think so unless he shall soon turn his hand to some useful
+task. Those who know him best say that he will of course go into
+office before long.</p>
+
+<p>Of poor Lady Laura hardly a word need be said. She lives at Saulsby
+the life of a recluse, and the old Earl her father is still alive.</p>
+
+<p>The Duke, as all the world knows, is on the very eve of success with
+the decimal coinage. But his hair is becoming grey, and his back is
+becoming bent; and men say that he will never live as long as his
+uncle. But then he will have done a great thing,&mdash;and his uncle did
+only little things. Of the Duchess no word need be said. Nothing will
+ever change the Duchess.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+
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@@ -0,0 +1,28549 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Phineas Redux, by Anthony Trollope
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Phineas Redux
+
+
+Author: Anthony Trollope
+
+
+
+Release Date: June 21, 2006  [eBook #18640]
+This revision posted April 6, 2014
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PHINEAS REDUX***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.
+The original illustrations were generously provided by
+Internet Archive (https://archive.org).
+
+
+
+Editorial Note:
+
+      _Phineas Redux_ was published first in serial form in the
+      _Graphic: An Illustrated Weekly Newspaper_ from July, 1873,
+      to January, 1874, and then in book form by Chapman and Hall
+      in 1874.
+
+      The _Graphic_ version contained 26 illustrations by Frank
+      (Francis Montague) Holl (1845-1888). Twenty-four of those
+      were published in the Chapman and Hall first edition and are
+      included in this e-book. They can be seen by viewing the
+      HTML version of this file. See 18640-h.htm or 18640-h.zip:
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18640/18640-h/18640-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18640/18640-h.zip)
+
+      Images of the original illustrations are available through
+      Internet Archive. See
+      https://archive.org/details/phineasredux00trolrich
+
+
+
+
+
+PHINEAS REDUX
+
+by
+
+ANTHONY TROLLOPE
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+   VOLUME I
+
+            I. TEMPTATION
+           II. HARRINGTON HALL
+          III. GERARD MAULE
+           IV. TANKERVILLE
+            V. MR. DAUBENY'S GREAT MOVE
+           VI. PHINEAS AND HIS OLD FRIENDS
+          VII. COMING HOME FROM HUNTING
+         VIII. THE ADDRESS
+           IX. THE DEBATE
+            X. THE DESERTED HUSBAND
+           XI. THE TRUANT WIFE
+          XII. KOENIGSTEIN
+         XIII. "I HAVE GOT THE SEAT"
+          XIV. TRUMPETON WOOD
+           XV. "HOW WELL YOU KNEW!"
+          XVI. COPPERHOUSE CROSS AND BROUGHTON SPINNIES
+         XVII. MADAME GOESLER'S STORY
+        XVIII. SPOONER OF SPOON HALL
+          XIX. SOMETHING OUT OF THE WAY
+           XX. PHINEAS AGAIN IN LONDON
+          XXI. MR. MAULE, SENIOR
+         XXII. "PURITY OF MORALS, FINN"
+        XXIII. MACPHERSON'S HOTEL
+         XXIV. MADAME GOESLER IS SENT FOR
+          XXV. "I WOULD DO IT NOW"
+         XXVI. THE DUKE'S WILL
+        XXVII. AN EDITOR'S WRATH
+       XXVIII. THE FIRST THUNDERBOLT
+         XXIX. THE SPOONER CORRESPONDENCE
+          XXX. REGRETS
+         XXXI. THE DUKE AND DUCHESS IN TOWN
+        XXXII. THE WORLD BECOMES COLD
+       XXXIII. THE TWO GLADIATORS
+        XXXIV. THE UNIVERSE
+         XXXV. POLITICAL VENOM
+        XXXVI. SEVENTY-TWO
+       XXXVII. THE CONSPIRACY
+      XXXVIII. ONCE AGAIN IN PORTMAN SQUARE
+        XXXIX. CAGLIOSTRO
+           XL. THE PRIME MINISTER IS HARD PRESSED
+
+   VOLUME II
+
+          XLI. "I HOPE I'M NOT DISTRUSTED"
+         XLII. BOULOGNE
+        XLIII. THE SECOND THUNDERBOLT
+         XLIV. THE BROWBOROUGH TRIAL
+          XLV. SOME PASSAGES IN THE LIFE OF MR. EMILIUS
+         XLVI. THE QUARREL
+        XLVII. WHAT CAME OF THE QUARREL
+       XLVIII. MR. MAULE'S ATTEMPT
+         XLIX. SHOWING WHAT MRS. BUNCE SAID TO THE POLICEMAN
+            L. WHAT THE LORDS AND COMMONS SAID ABOUT THE MURDER
+           LI. "YOU THINK IT SHAMEFUL"
+          LII. MR. KENNEDY'S WILL
+         LIII. NONE BUT THE BRAVE DESERVE THE FAIR
+          LIV. THE DUCHESS TAKES COUNSEL
+           LV. PHINEAS IN PRISON
+          LVI. THE MEAGER FAMILY
+         LVII. THE BEGINNING OF THE SEARCH FOR THE KEY AND THE COAT
+        LVIII. THE TWO DUKES
+          LIX. MRS. BONTEEN
+           LX. TWO DAYS BEFORE THE TRIAL
+          LXI. THE BEGINNING OF THE TRIAL
+         LXII. LORD FAWN'S EVIDENCE
+        LXIII. MR. CHAFFANBRASS FOR THE DEFENCE
+         LXIV. CONFUSION IN THE COURT
+          LXV. "I HATE HER!"
+         LXVI. THE FOREIGN BLUDGEON
+        LXVII. THE VERDICT
+       LXVIII. PHINEAS AFTER THE TRIAL
+         LXIX. THE DUKE'S FIRST COUSIN
+          LXX. "I WILL NOT GO TO LOUGHLINTER"
+         LXXI. PHINEAS FINN IS RE-ELECTED
+        LXXII. THE END OF THE STORY OF MR. EMILIUS AND LADY EUSTACE
+       LXXIII. PHINEAS FINN RETURNS TO HIS DUTIES
+        LXXIV. AT MATCHING
+         LXXV. THE TRUMPETON FEUD IS SETTLED
+        LXXVI. MADAME GOESLER'S LEGACY
+       LXXVII. PHINEAS FINN'S SUCCESS
+      LXXVIII. THE LAST VISIT TO SAULSBY
+        LXXIX. AT LAST--AT LAST
+         LXXX. CONCLUSION
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+   LADY CHILTERN AND HER BABY.                     CHAPTER II.
+   "WELL, THEN, I WON'T MENTION HER NAME AGAIN."   CHAPTER VI.
+   ADELAIDE PALLISER.                              CHAPTER VII.
+   THE LAIRD OF LOUGHLINTER.                       CHAPTER X.
+   "I SUPPOSE I SHALL SHAKE IT OFF."               CHAPTER XV.
+   "YOU KNOW IT'S THE KEEPERS DO IT ALL."          CHAPTER XVIII.
+   HE SAT DOWN FOR A MOMENT TO THINK OF IT ALL.    CHAPTER XIX.
+   "THEN, SIR, YOU SHALL ABIDE MY WRATH."          CHAPTER XXIII.
+   "I WOULD; I WOULD."                             CHAPTER XXV.
+   "LADY GLEN WILL TELL YOU THAT I CAN BE          CHAPTER XXX.
+      VERY OBSTINATE WHEN I PLEASE."
+   "I SHOULD HAVE HAD SOME ENJOYMENT,              CHAPTER XXXI.
+      I SUPPOSE."
+   "I MUST HAVE ONE WORD WITH YOU."                CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+   "THEY SEEM TO THINK THAT MR. BONTEEN MUST       CHAPTER XLV.
+      BE PRIME MINISTER."
+   "WHAT IS THE USE OF STICKING TO A MAN WHO       CHAPTER XLVIII.
+      DOES NOT WANT YOU?"
+   "HE HAS BEEN MURDERED," SAID MR. LOW.           CHAPTER XLIX.
+   "HE MAY SOFTEN HER HEART."                      CHAPTER LII.
+   OF COURSE IT WAS LADY LAURA.                    CHAPTER LV.
+   LIZZIE EUSTACE.                                 CHAPTER LIX.
+   "VIOLET, THEY WILL MURDER HIM."                 CHAPTER LXI.
+   THE BOY WHO FOUND THE BLUDGEON.                 CHAPTER LXVI.
+   AND SHE SAT WEEPING ALONE IN HER                CHAPTER LXVIII.
+      FATHER'S HOUSE.
+   LADY LAURA AT THE GLASS.                        CHAPTER LXX.
+   "YES, THERE SHE IS."                            CHAPTER LXXIV.
+   THEN SHE SUDDENLY TURNED UPON HIM,              CHAPTER LXXIX.
+      THROWING HER ARMS ROUND HIS NECK.
+
+
+
+
+VOLUME I.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+TEMPTATION.
+
+
+The circumstances of the general election of 18-- will be well
+remembered by all those who take an interest in the political
+matters of the country. There had been a coming in and a going out
+of Ministers previous to that,--somewhat rapid, very exciting, and,
+upon the whole, useful as showing the real feeling of the country
+upon sundry questions of public interest. Mr. Gresham had been Prime
+Minister of England, as representative of the Liberal party in
+politics. There had come to be a split among those who should have
+been his followers on the terribly vexed question of the Ballot. Then
+Mr. Daubeny for twelve months had sat upon the throne distributing
+the good things of the Crown amidst Conservative birdlings, with
+beaks wide open and craving maws, who certainly for some years
+previous had not received their share of State honours or State
+emoluments. And Mr. Daubeny was still so sitting, to the infinite
+dismay of the Liberals, every man of whom felt that his party
+was entitled by numerical strength to keep the management of the
+Government within its own hands.
+
+Let a man be of what side he may in politics,--unless he be
+much more of a partisan than a patriot,--he will think it well
+that there should be some equity of division in the bestowal
+of crumbs of comfort. Can even any old Whig wish that every Lord
+Lieutenant of a county should be an old Whig? Can it be good for the
+administration of the law that none but Liberal lawyers should become
+Attorney-Generals, and from thence Chief Justices or Lords of Appeal?
+Should no Conservative Peer ever represent the majesty of England
+in India, in Canada, or at St. Petersburgh? So arguing, moderate
+Liberals had been glad to give Mr. Daubeny and his merry men a
+chance. Mr. Daubeny and his merry men had not neglected the chance
+given them. Fortune favoured them, and they made their hay while the
+sun shone with an energy that had never been surpassed, improving
+upon Fortune, till their natural enemies waxed impatient. There had
+been as yet but one year of it, and the natural enemies, who had at
+first expressed themselves as glad that the turn had come, might
+have endured the period of spoliation with more equanimity. For to
+them, the Liberals, this cutting up of the Whitehall cake by the
+Conservatives was spoliation when the privilege of cutting was found
+to have so much exceeded what had been expected. Were not they, the
+Liberals, the real representatives of the people, and, therefore, did
+not the cake in truth appertain to them? Had not they given up the
+cake for a while, partly, indeed, through idleness and mismanagement,
+and quarrelling among themselves; but mainly with a feeling that
+a moderate slicing on the other side would, upon the whole, be
+advantageous? But when the cake came to be mauled like that--oh,
+heavens! So the men who had quarrelled agreed to quarrel no more,
+and it was decided that there should be an end of mismanagement and
+idleness, and that this horrid sight of the weak pretending to be
+strong, or the weak receiving the reward of strength, should be
+brought to an end. Then came a great fight, in the last agonies of
+which the cake was sliced manfully. All the world knew how the fight
+would go; but in the meantime lord-lieutenancies were arranged; very
+ancient judges retired upon pensions; vice-royal Governors were sent
+out in the last gasp of the failing battle; great places were filled
+by tens, and little places by twenties; private secretaries were
+established here and there; and the hay was still made even after the
+sun had gone down.
+
+In consequence of all this the circumstances of the election of 18--
+were peculiar. Mr. Daubeny had dissolved the House, not probably
+with any idea that he could thus retrieve his fortunes, but feeling
+that in doing so he was occupying the last normal position of a
+properly-fought Constitutional battle. His enemies were resolved,
+more firmly than they were resolved before, to knock him altogether
+on the head at the general election which he had himself called
+into existence. He had been disgracefully out-voted in the House of
+Commons on various subjects. On the last occasion he had gone into
+his lobby with a minority of 37, upon a motion brought forward by Mr.
+Palliser, the late Liberal Chancellor of the Exchequer, respecting
+decimal coinage. No politician, not even Mr. Palliser himself, had
+expected that he would carry his Bill in the present session. It
+was brought forward as a trial of strength; and for such a purpose
+decimal coinage was as good a subject as any other. It was Mr.
+Palliser's hobby, and he was gratified at having this further
+opportunity of ventilating it. When in power, he had not succeeded
+in carrying his measure, awed, and at last absolutely beaten, by the
+infinite difficulty encountered in arranging its details. But his
+mind was still set upon it, and it was allowed by the whole party
+to be as good as anything else for the purpose then required. The
+Conservative Government was beaten for the third or fourth time, and
+Mr. Daubeny dissolved the House.
+
+The whole world said that he might as well have resigned at once. It
+was already the end of July, and there must be an autumn Session with
+the new members. It was known to be impossible that he should find
+himself supported by a majority after a fresh election. He had been
+treated with manifest forbearance; the cake had been left in his
+hands for twelve months; the House was barely two years old; he
+had no "cry" with which to meet the country; the dissolution was
+factious, dishonest, and unconstitutional. So said all the Liberals,
+and it was deduced also that the Conservatives were in their hearts
+as angry as were their opponents. What was to be gained but the poor
+interval of three months? There were clever men who suggested that
+Mr. Daubeny had a scheme in his head--some sharp trick of political
+conjuring, some "hocus-pocus presto" sleight of hand, by which he
+might be able to retain power, let the elections go as they would.
+But, if so, he certainly did not make his scheme known to his own
+party.
+
+He had no cry with which to meet the country, nor, indeed, had
+the leaders of the Opposition. Retrenchment, army reform, navy
+excellence, Mr. Palliser's decimal coinage, and general good
+government gave to all the old-Whig moderate Liberals plenty of
+matter for speeches to their future constituents. Those who were more
+advanced could promise the Ballot, and suggest the disestablishment
+of the Church. But the Government of the day was to be turned out
+on the score of general incompetence. They were to be made to go,
+because they could not command majorities. But there ought to have
+been no dissolution, and Mr. Daubeny was regarded by his opponents,
+and indeed by very many of his followers also, with an enmity that
+was almost ferocious. A seat in Parliament, if it be for five or six
+years, is a blessing; but the blessing becomes very questionable if
+it have to be sought afresh every other Session.
+
+One thing was manifest to thoughtful, working, eager political
+Liberals. They must have not only a majority in the next Parliament,
+but a majority of good men--of men good and true. There must be no
+more mismanagement; no more quarrelling; no more idleness. Was it to
+be borne that an unprincipled so-called Conservative Prime Minister
+should go on slicing the cake after such a fashion as that lately
+adopted? Old bishops had even talked of resigning, and Knights of the
+Garter had seemed to die on purpose. So there was a great stir at the
+Liberal political clubs, and every good and true man was summoned to
+the battle.
+
+Now no Liberal soldier, as a young soldier, had been known to be more
+good and true than Mr. Finn, the Irishman, who had held office two
+years ago to the satisfaction of all his friends, and who had retired
+from office because he had found himself compelled to support a
+measure which had since been carried by those very men from whom he
+had been obliged on this account to divide himself. It had always
+been felt by his old friends that he had been, if not ill-used, at
+least very unfortunate. He had been twelve months in advance of his
+party, and had consequently been driven out into the cold. So when
+the names of good men and true were mustered, and weighed, and
+discussed, and scrutinised by some active members of the Liberal
+party in a certain very private room not far removed from our
+great seat of parliamentary warfare; and when the capabilities,
+and expediencies, and possibilities were tossed to and fro among
+these active members, it came to pass that the name of Mr. Finn
+was mentioned more than once. Mr. Phineas Finn was the gentleman's
+name--which statement may be necessary to explain the term of
+endearment which was occasionally used in speaking of him.
+
+"He has got some permanent place," said Mr. Ratler, who was living
+on the well-founded hope of being a Treasury Secretary under the new
+dispensation; "and of course he won't leave it."
+
+It must be acknowledged that Mr. Ratler, than whom no judge in such
+matters possessed more experience, had always been afraid of Phineas
+Finn.
+
+"He'll lave it fast enough, if you'll make it worth his while," said
+the Honourable Laurence Fitzgibbon, who also had his expectations.
+
+"But he married when he went away, and he can't afford it," said Mr.
+Bonteen, another keen expectant.
+
+"Devil a bit," said the Honourable Laurence; "or, anyways, the poor
+thing died of her first baby before it was born. Phinny hasn't an
+impidiment, no more than I have."
+
+"He's the best Irishman we ever got hold of," said Barrington
+Erle--"present company always excepted, Laurence."
+
+"Bedad, you needn't except me, Barrington. I know what a man's made
+of, and what a man can do. And I know what he can't do. I'm not bad
+at the outside skirmishing. I'm worth me salt. I say that with a just
+reliance on me own powers. But Phinny is a different sort of man.
+Phinny can stick to a desk from twelve to seven, and wish to come
+back again after dinner. He's had money left him, too, and 'd like to
+spend some of it on an English borough."
+
+"You never can quite trust him," said Bonteen. Now Mr. Bonteen had
+never loved Mr. Finn.
+
+"At any rate we'll try him again," said Barrington Erle, making a
+little note to that effect. And they did try him again.
+
+Phineas Finn, when last seen by the public, was departing from
+parliamentary life in London to the enjoyment of a modest place
+under Government in his own country, with something of a shattered
+ambition. After various turmoils he had achieved a competency, and
+had married the girl of his heart. But now his wife was dead, and he
+was again alone in the world. One of his friends had declared that
+money had been left to him. That was true, but the money had not been
+much. Phineas Finn had lost his father as well as his wife, and had
+inherited about four thousand pounds. He was not at this time much
+over thirty; and it must be acknowledged in regard to him that, since
+the day on which he had accepted place and retired from London, his
+very soul had sighed for the lost glories of Westminster and Downing
+Street.
+
+There are certain modes of life which, if once adopted, make
+contentment in any other circumstances almost an impossibility. In
+old age a man may retire without repining, though it is often beyond
+the power even of the old man to do so; but in youth, with all the
+faculties still perfect, with the body still strong, with the hopes
+still buoyant, such a change as that which had been made by Phineas
+Finn was more than he, or than most men, could bear with equanimity.
+He had revelled in the gas-light, and could not lie quiet on a sunny
+bank. To the palate accustomed to high cookery, bread and milk is
+almost painfully insipid. When Phineas Finn found himself discharging
+in Dublin the routine duties of his office,--as to which there was
+no public comment, no feeling that such duties were done in the face
+of the country,--he became sick at heart and discontented. Like
+the warhorse out at grass he remembered the sound of the battle
+and the noise of trumpets. After five years spent in the heat and
+full excitement of London society, life in Ireland was tame to
+him, and cold, and dull. He did not analyse the difference between
+metropolitan and quasi-metropolitan manners; but he found that men
+and women in Dublin were different from those to whom he had been
+accustomed in London. He had lived among lords, and the sons and
+daughters of lords; and though the official secretaries and assistant
+commissioners among whom his lot now threw him were for the most part
+clever fellows, fond of society, and perhaps more than his equals in
+the kind of conversation which he found to be prevalent, still they
+were not the same as the men he had left behind him,--men alive with
+the excitement of parliamentary life in London. When in London he had
+often told himself that he was sick of it, and that he would better
+love some country quiet life. Now Dublin was his Tibur, and the
+fickle one found that he could not be happy unless he were back again
+at Rome. When, therefore, he received the following letter from
+his friend, Barrington Erle, he neighed like the old warhorse, and
+already found himself shouting "Ha, ha," among the trumpets.
+
+
+   ---- Street, 9th July, 18--.
+
+   MY DEAR FINN,
+
+   Although you are not now immediately concerned in such
+   trifling matters you have no doubt heard that we are
+   all to be sent back at once to our constituents, and
+   that there will be a general election about the end of
+   September. We are sure that we shall have such a majority
+   as we never had before; but we are determined to make it
+   as strong as possible, and to get in all the good men that
+   are to be had. Have you a mind to try again? After all,
+   there is nothing like it.
+
+   Perhaps you may have some Irish seat in your eye for
+   which you would be safe. To tell the truth we know very
+   little of the Irish seats--not so much as, I think,
+   we ought to do. But if you are not so lucky I would
+   suggest Tankerville in Durham. Of course there would
+   be a contest, and a little money will be wanted; but the
+   money would not be much. Browborough has sat for the place
+   now for three Parliaments, and seems to think it all his
+   own. I am told that nothing could be easier than to turn
+   him out. You will remember the man--a great, hulking,
+   heavy, speechless fellow, who always used to sit just over
+   Lord Macaw's shoulder. I have made inquiry, and I am told
+   that he must walk if anybody would go down who could talk
+   to the colliers every night for a week or so. It would
+   just be the work for you. Of course, you should have all
+   the assistance we could give you, and Molescroft would put
+   you into the hands of an agent who wouldn't spend money
+   for you. L500 would do it all.
+
+   I am very sorry to hear of your great loss, as also was
+   Lady Laura, who, as you are aware, is still abroad with
+   her father. We have all thought that the loneliness of
+   your present life might perhaps make you willing to come
+   back among us. I write instead of Ratler, because I
+   am helping him in the Northern Counties. But you will
+   understand all about that.
+
+   Yours, ever faithfully,
+
+   BARRINGTON ERLE.
+
+   Of course Tankerville has been dirty. Browborough has
+   spent a fortune there. But I do not think that that need
+   dishearten you. You will go there with clean hands. It
+   must be understood that there shall not be as much as a
+   glass of beer. I am told that the fellows won't vote for
+   Browborough unless he spends money, and I fancy he will be
+   afraid to do it heavily after all that has come and gone.
+   If he does you'll have him out on a petition. Let us have
+   an answer as soon as possible.
+
+
+He at once resolved that he would go over and see; but, before he
+replied to Erle's letter, he walked half-a-dozen times the length
+of the pier at Kingston meditating on his answer. He had no one
+belonging to him. He had been deprived of his young bride, and left
+desolate. He could ruin no one but himself. Where could there be a
+man in all the world who had a more perfect right to play a trick
+with his own prospects? If he threw up his place and spent all his
+money, who could blame him? Nevertheless, he did tell himself that,
+when he should have thrown up his place and spent all his money,
+there would remain to him his own self to be disposed of in a manner
+that might be very awkward to him. A man owes it to his country, to
+his friends, even to his acquaintance, that he shall not be known to
+be going about wanting a dinner, with never a coin in his pocket. It
+is very well for a man to boast that he is lord of himself, and that
+having no ties he may do as he pleases with that possession. But it
+is a possession of which, unfortunately, he cannot rid himself when
+he finds that there is nothing advantageous to be done with it.
+Doubtless there is a way of riddance. There is the bare bodkin. Or a
+man may fall overboard between Holyhead and Kingston in the dark, and
+may do it in such a cunning fashion that his friends shall think that
+it was an accident. But against these modes of riddance there is a
+canon set, which some men still fear to disobey.
+
+The thing that he was asked to do was perilous. Standing in his
+present niche of vantage he was at least safe. And added to his
+safety there were material comforts. He had more than enough for his
+wants. His work was light; he lived among men and women with whom he
+was popular. The very fact of his past parliamentary life had caused
+him to be regarded as a man of some note among the notables of the
+Irish capital. Lord Lieutenants were gracious to him, and the wives
+of judges smiled upon him at their tables. He was encouraged to talk
+of those wars of the gods at which he had been present, and was so
+treated as to make him feel that he was somebody in the world of
+Dublin. Now he was invited to give all this up; and for what?
+
+He answered that question to himself with enthusiastic eloquence.
+The reward offered to him was the thing which in all the world he
+liked best. It was suggested to him that he should again have within
+his reach that parliamentary renown which had once been the very
+breath of his nostrils. We all know those arguments and quotations,
+antagonistic to prudence, with which a man fortifies himself in
+rashness. "None but the brave deserve the fair." "Where there's a
+will there's a way." "Nothing venture nothing have." "The sword is
+to him who can use it." "Fortune favours the bold." But on the other
+side there is just as much to be said. "A bird in the hand is worth
+two in the bush." "Look before you leap." "Thrust not out your hand
+further than you can draw it back again." All which maxims of life
+Phineas Finn revolved within his own heart, if not carefully, at
+least frequently, as he walked up and down the long pier of Kingston
+Harbour.
+
+But what matter such revolvings? A man placed as was our Phineas
+always does that which most pleases him at the moment, being but poor
+at argument if he cannot carry the weight to that side which best
+satisfies his own feelings. Had not his success been very great when
+he before made the attempt? Was he not well aware at every moment
+of his life that, after having so thoroughly learned his lesson in
+London, he was throwing away his hours amidst his present pursuits
+in Dublin? Did he not owe himself to his country? And then, again,
+what might not London do for him? Men who had begun as he begun had
+lived to rule over Cabinets, and to sway the Empire. He had been
+happy for a short twelvemonth with his young bride,--for a short
+twelvemonth,--and then she had been taken from him. Had she been
+spared to him he would never have longed for more than Fate had given
+him. He would never have sighed again for the glories of Westminster
+had his Mary not gone from him. Now he was alone in the world; and,
+though he could look forward to possible and not improbable events
+which would make that future disposition of himself a most difficult
+question for him, still he would dare to try.
+
+As the first result of Erle's letter Phineas was over in London early
+in August. If he went on with this matter, he must, of course, resign
+the office for holding which he was now paid a thousand a year. He
+could retain that as long as he chose to earn the money, but the
+earning of it would not be compatible with a seat in Parliament. He
+had a few thousand pounds with which he could pay for the contest at
+Tankerville, for the consequent petition which had been so generously
+suggested to him, and maintain himself in London for a session or two
+should he be so fortunate as to carry his election. Then he would be
+penniless, with the world before him as a closed oyster to be again
+opened, and he knew,--no one better,--that this oyster becomes harder
+and harder in the opening as the man who has to open it becomes
+older. It is an oyster that will close to again with a snap, after
+you have got your knife well into it, if you withdraw your point but
+for a moment. He had had a rough tussle with the oyster already, and
+had reached the fish within the shell. Nevertheless, the oyster which
+he had got was not the oyster which he wanted. So he told himself
+now, and here had come to him the chance of trying again.
+
+Early in August he went over to England, saw Mr. Molescroft, and
+made his first visit to Tankerville. He did not like the look of
+Tankerville; but nevertheless he resigned his place before the
+month was over. That was the one great step, or rather the leap in
+the dark,--and that he took. Things had been so arranged that the
+election at Tankerville was to take place on the 20th of October.
+When the dissolution had been notified to all the world by Mr.
+Daubeny an earlier day was suggested; but Mr. Daubeny saw reasons for
+postponing it for a fortnight. Mr. Daubeny's enemies were again very
+ferocious. It was all a trick. Mr. Daubeny had no right to continue
+Prime Minister a day after the decided expression of opinion as to
+unfitness which had been pronounced by the House of Commons. Men
+were waxing very wrath. Nevertheless, so much power remained in Mr.
+Daubeny's hand, and the election was delayed. That for Tankerville
+would not be held till the 20th of October. The whole House could not
+be chosen till the end of the month,--hardly by that time--and yet
+there was to be an autumn Session. The Ratlers and Bonteens were at
+any rate clear about the autumn Session. It was absolutely impossible
+that Mr. Daubeny should be allowed to remain in power over Christmas,
+and up to February.
+
+Mr. Molescroft, whom Phineas saw in London, was not a comfortable
+counsellor. "So you are going down to Tankerville?" he said.
+
+"They seem to think I might as well try."
+
+"Quite right;--quite right. Somebody ought to try it, no doubt. It
+would be a disgrace to the whole party if Browborough were allowed
+to walk over. There isn't a borough in England more sure to return a
+Liberal than Tankerville if left to itself. And yet that lump of a
+legislator has sat there as a Tory for the last dozen years by dint
+of money and brass."
+
+"You think we can unseat him?"
+
+"I don't say that. He hasn't come to the end of his money, and as to
+his brass that is positively without end."
+
+"But surely he'll have some fear of consequences after what has been
+done?"
+
+"None in the least. What has been done? Can you name a single
+Parliamentary aspirant who has been made to suffer?"
+
+"They have suffered in character," said Phineas. "I should not like
+to have the things said of me that have been said of them."
+
+"I don't know a man of them who stands in a worse position among his
+own friends than he occupied before. And men of that sort don't want
+a good position among their enemies. They know they're safe. When the
+seat is in dispute everybody is savage enough; but when it is merely
+a question of punishing a man, what is the use of being savage? Who
+knows whose turn it may be next?"
+
+"He'll play the old game, then?"
+
+"Of course he'll play the old game," said Mr. Molescroft. "He doesn't
+know any other game. All the purists in England wouldn't teach him to
+think that a poor man ought not to sell his vote, and that a rich man
+oughtn't to buy it. You mean to go in for purity?"
+
+"Certainly I do."
+
+"Browborough will think just as badly of you as you will of him.
+He'll hate you because he'll think you are trying to rob him of what
+he has honestly bought; but he'll hate you quite as much because
+you try to rob the borough. He'd tell you if you asked him that he
+doesn't want his seat for nothing, any more than he wants his house
+or his carriage-horses for nothing. To him you'll be a mean, low
+interloper. But you won't care about that."
+
+"Not in the least, if I can get the seat."
+
+"But I'm afraid you won't. He will be elected. You'll petition. He'll
+lose his seat. There will be a commission. And then the borough will
+be disfranchised. It's a fine career, but expensive; and then there
+is no reward beyond the self-satisfaction arising from a good action.
+However, Ruddles will do the best he can for you, and it certainly
+is possible that you may creep through." This was very disheartening,
+but Barrington Erle assured our hero that such was Mr. Molescroft's
+usual way with candidates, and that it really meant little or
+nothing. At any rate, Phineas Finn was pledged to stand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+HARRINGTON HALL.
+
+
+Phineas, on his first arrival in London, found a few of his old
+friends, men who were still delayed by business though the Session
+was over. He arrived on the 10th of August, which may be considered
+as the great day of the annual exodus, and he remembered how he,
+too, in former times had gone to Scotland to shoot grouse, and what
+he had done there besides shooting. He had been a welcome guest at
+Loughlinter, the magnificent seat of Mr. Kennedy, and indeed there
+had been that between him and Mr. Kennedy which ought to make him a
+welcome guest there still. But of Mr. Kennedy he had heard nothing
+directly since he had left London. From Mr. Kennedy's wife, Lady
+Laura, who had been his great friend, he had heard occasionally; but
+she was separated from her husband, and was living abroad with her
+father, the Earl of Brentford. Has it not been written in a former
+book how this Lady Laura had been unhappy in her marriage, having
+wedded herself to a man whom she had never loved, because he was rich
+and powerful, and how this very Phineas had asked her to be his bride
+after she had accepted the rich man's hand? Thence had come great
+trouble, but nevertheless there had been that between Mr. Kennedy and
+our hero which made Phineas feel that he ought still to be welcomed
+as a guest should he show himself at the door of Loughlinter Castle.
+The idea came upon him simply because he found that almost every man
+for whom he inquired had just started, or was just starting, for the
+North; and he would have liked to go where others went. He asked a
+few questions as to Mr. Kennedy from Barrington Erle and others, who
+had known him, and was told that the man now lived quite alone. He
+still kept his seat in Parliament, but had hardly appeared during
+the last Session, and it was thought that he would not come forward
+again. Of his life in the country nothing was known. "No one fishes
+his rivers, or shoots his moors, as far as I can learn," said
+Barrington Erle. "I suppose he looks after the sheep and says his
+prayers, and keeps his money together."
+
+"And there has been no attempt at a reconciliation?" Phineas asked.
+
+"She went abroad to escape his attempts, and remains there in order
+that she may be safe. Of all hatreds that the world produces, a
+wife's hatred for her husband, when she does hate him, is the
+strongest."
+
+In September Finn was back in Ireland, and about the end of that
+month he made his first visit to Tankerville. He remained there for
+three or four days, and was terribly disgusted while staying at the
+"Yellow" inn, to find that the people of the town would treat him as
+though he were rolling in wealth. He was soon tired of Tankerville,
+and as he could do nothing further, on the spot, till the time for
+canvassing should come on, about ten days previous to the election,
+he returned to London, somewhat at a loss to know how to bestir
+himself. But in London he received a letter from another old friend,
+which decided him:--
+
+"My dear Mr. Finn," said the letter,
+
+
+   of course you know that Oswald is now master of the Brake
+   hounds. Upon my word, I think it is the place in the world
+   for which he is most fit. He is a great martinet in the
+   field, and works at it as though it were for his bread. We
+   have been here looking after the kennels and getting up
+   the horses since the beginning of August, and have been
+   cub-hunting ever so long. Oswald wants to know whether you
+   won't come down to him till the election begins in earnest.
+
+   We were so glad to hear that you were going to appear
+   again. I have always known that it would be so. I have
+   told Oswald scores of times that I was sure you would
+   never be happy out of Parliament, and that your real
+   home must be somewhere near the Treasury Chambers. You
+   can't alter a man's nature. Oswald was born to be a master
+   of hounds, and you were born to be a Secretary of State.
+   He works the hardest and gets the least pay for it; but
+   then, as he says, he does not run so great a risk of being
+   turned out.
+
+   We haven't much of a house, but we have plenty of room for
+   you. As for the house, it was a matter of course, whether
+   good or bad. It goes with the kennels, and I should as
+   little think of having a choice as though I were one of
+   the horses. We have very good stables, and such a stud!
+   I can't tell you how many there are. In October it seems
+   as though their name were legion. In March there is
+   never anything for any body to ride on. I generally find
+   then that mine are taken for the whips. Do come and take
+   advantage of the flush. I can't tell you how glad we shall
+   be to see you. Oswald ought to have written himself, but
+   he says--; I won't tell you what he says. We shall take no
+   refusal. You can have nothing to do before you are wanted
+   at Tankerville.
+
+   I was so sorry to hear of your great loss. I hardly know
+   whether to mention it or to be silent in writing. If you
+   were here of course I should speak of her. And I would
+   rather renew your grief for a time than allow you to think
+   that I am indifferent. Pray come to us.
+
+   Yours ever most sincerely,
+
+   VIOLET CHILTERN.
+
+   Harrington Hall, Wednesday.
+
+
+Phineas Finn at once made up his mind that he would go to Harrington
+Hall. There was the prospect in this of an immediate return to some
+of the most charming pleasures of the old life, which was very
+grateful to him. It pleased him much that he should have been so
+thought of by this lady,--that she should have sought him out
+at once, at the moment of his reappearance. That she would have
+remembered him, he was quite sure, and that her husband, Lord
+Chiltern, should remember him also, was beyond a doubt. There had
+been passages in their joint lives which people cannot forget. But
+it might so well have been the case that they should not have cared
+to renew their acquaintance with him. As it was, they must have
+made close inquiry, and had sought him at the first day of his
+reappearance. The letter had reached him through the hands of
+Barrington Erle, who was a cousin of Lord Chiltern, and was at once
+answered as follows:--
+
+
+   Fowler's Hotel, Jermyn Street,
+   October 1st.
+
+   MY DEAR LADY CHILTERN,
+
+   I cannot tell you how much pleasure the very sight of
+   your handwriting gave me. Yes, here I am again, trying my
+   hand at the old game. They say that you can never cure a
+   gambler or a politician; and, though I had very much to
+   make me happy till that great blow came upon me, I believe
+   that it is so. I am uneasy till I can see once more the
+   Speaker's wig, and hear bitter things said of this "right
+   honourable gentleman," and of that noble friend. I want to
+   be once more in the midst of it; and as I have been left
+   singularly desolate in the world, without a tie by which
+   I am bound to aught but an honourable mode of living, I
+   have determined to run the risk, and have thrown up the
+   place which I held under Government. I am to stand for
+   Tankerville, as you have heard, and I am told by those to
+   whose tender mercies I have been confided by B. E. that I
+   have not a chance of success.
+
+   Your invitation is so tempting that I cannot refuse it.
+   As you say, I have nothing to do till the play begins.
+   I have issued my address, and must leave my name and my
+   fame to be discussed by the Tankervillians till I make
+   my appearance among them on the 10th of this month. Of
+   course, I had heard that Chiltern has the Brake, and I
+   have heard also that he is doing it uncommonly well. Tell
+   him that I have hardly seen a hound since the memorable
+   day on which I pulled him out from under his horse in the
+   brook at Wissindine. I don't know whether I can ride a
+   yard now. I will get to you on the 4th, and will remain if
+   you will keep me till the 9th. If Chiltern can put me up
+   on anything a little quieter than Bonebreaker, I'll go out
+   steadily, and see how he does his cubbing. I may, perhaps,
+   be justified in opining that Bonebreaker has before this
+   left the establishment. If so I may, perhaps, find myself
+   up to a little very light work.
+
+   Remember me very kindly to him. Does he make a good nurse
+   with the baby?
+
+   Yours, always faithfully,
+
+   PHINEAS FINN.
+
+   I cannot tell you with what pleasure I look forward to
+   seeing you both again.
+
+
+The next few days went very heavily with him. There had, indeed,
+been no real reason why he should not have gone to Harrington Hall
+at once, except that he did not wish to seem to be utterly homeless.
+And yet were he there, with his old friends, he would not scruple
+for a moment in owning that such was the case. He had fixed his day,
+however, and did remain in London till the 4th. Barrington Erle and
+Mr. Ratler he saw occasionally, for they were kept in town on the
+affairs of the election. The one was generally full of hope; but the
+other was no better than a Job's comforter. "I wouldn't advise you to
+expect too much at Tankerville, you know," said Mr. Ratler.
+
+"By no means," said Phineas, who had always disliked Ratler, and had
+known himself to be disliked in return. "I expect nothing."
+
+"Browborough understands such a place as Tankerville so well! He has
+been at it all his life. Money is no object to him, and he doesn't
+care a straw what anybody says of him. I don't think it's possible to
+unseat him."
+
+"We'll try at least," said Phineas, upon whom, however, such remarks
+as these cast a gloom which he could not succeed in shaking off,
+though he could summon vigour sufficient to save him from showing
+the gloom. He knew very well that comfortable words would be spoken
+to him at Harrington Hall, and that then the gloom would go. The
+comforting words of his friends would mean quite as little as the
+discourtesies of Mr. Ratler. He understood that thoroughly, and felt
+that he ought to hold a stronger control over his own impulses. He
+must take the thing as it would come, and neither the flatterings of
+friends nor the threatenings of enemies could alter it; but he knew
+his own weakness, and confessed to himself that another week of life
+by himself at Fowler's Hotel, refreshed by occasional interviews with
+Mr. Ratler, would make him altogether unfit for the coming contest at
+Tankerville.
+
+He reached Harrington Hall in the afternoon about four, and found
+Lady Chiltern alone. As soon as he saw her he told himself that she
+was not in the least altered since he had last been with her, and yet
+during the period she had undergone that great change which turns
+a girl into a mother. She had the baby with her when he came into
+the room, and at once greeted him as an old friend,--as a loved and
+loving friend who was to be made free at once to all the inmost
+privileges of real friendship, which are given to and are desired by
+so few. "Yes, here we are again," said Lady Chiltern, "settled, as
+far as I suppose we ever shall be settled, for ever so many years to
+come. The place belongs to old Lord Gunthorpe, I fancy, but really I
+hardly know. I do know that we should give it up at once if we gave
+up the hounds, and that we can't be turned out as long as we have
+them. Doesn't it seem odd to have to depend on a lot of yelping
+dogs?"
+
+
+[Illustration: Lady Chiltern and her baby.]
+
+
+"Only that the yelping dogs depend on you."
+
+"It's a kind of give and take, I suppose, like other things in the
+world. Of course, he's a beautiful baby. I had him in just that
+you might see him. I show Baby, and Oswald shows the hounds. We've
+nothing else to interest anybody. But nurse shall take him now.
+Come out and have a turn in the shrubbery before Oswald comes back.
+They're gone to-day as far as Trumpeton Wood, out of which no fox was
+ever known to break, and they won't be home till six."
+
+"Who are 'they'?" asked Phineas, as he took his hat.
+
+"The 'they' is only Adelaide Palliser. I don't think you ever knew
+her?"
+
+"Never. Is she anything to the other Pallisers?"
+
+"She is everything to them all; niece and grand-niece, and first
+cousin and grand-daughter. Her father was the fourth brother, and as
+she was one of six her share of the family wealth is small. Those
+Pallisers are very peculiar, and I doubt whether she ever saw the
+old duke. She has no father or mother, and lives when she is at home
+with a married sister, about seventy years older than herself, Mrs.
+Attenbury."
+
+"I remember Mrs. Attenbury."
+
+"Of course you do. Who does not? Adelaide was a child then, I
+suppose. Though I don't know why she should have been, as she calls
+herself one-and-twenty now. You'll think her pretty. I don't. But
+she is my great new friend, and I like her immensely. She rides to
+hounds, and talks Italian, and writes for the _Times_."
+
+"Writes for the _Times_!"
+
+"I won't swear that she does, but she could. There's only one other
+thing about her. She's engaged to be married."
+
+"To whom?"
+
+"I don't know that I shall answer that question, and indeed I'm not
+sure that she is engaged. But there's a man dying for her."
+
+"You must know, if she's your friend."
+
+"Of course I know; but there are ever so many ins and outs, and I
+ought not to have said a word about it. I shouldn't have done so to
+any one but you. And now we'll go in and have some tea, and go to
+bed."
+
+"Go to bed!"
+
+"We always go to bed here before dinner on hunting days. When the
+cubbing began Oswald used to be up at three."
+
+"He doesn't get up at three now."
+
+"Nevertheless we go to bed. You needn't if you don't like, and I'll
+stay with you if you choose till you dress for dinner. I did know
+so well that you'd come back to London, Mr. Finn. You are not a bit
+altered."
+
+"I feel to be changed in everything."
+
+"Why should you be altered? It's only two years. I am altered because
+of Baby. That does change a woman. Of course I'm thinking always of
+what he will do in the world; whether he'll be a master of hounds
+or a Cabinet Minister or a great farmer;--or perhaps a miserable
+spendthrift, who will let everything that his grandfathers and
+grandmothers have done for him go to the dogs."
+
+"Why do you think of anything so wretched, Lady Chiltern?"
+
+"Who can help thinking? Men do do so. It seems to me that that is the
+line of most young men who come to their property early. Why should I
+dare to think that my boy should be better than others? But I do; and
+I fancy that he will be a great statesman. After all, Mr. Finn, that
+is the best thing that a man can be, unless it is given him to be a
+saint and a martyr and all that kind of thing,--which is not just
+what a mother looks for."
+
+"That would only be better than the spendthrift and gambler."
+
+"Hardly better you'll say, perhaps. How odd that is! We all profess
+to believe when we're told that this world should be used merely as
+a preparation for the next; and yet there is something so cold and
+comfortless in the theory that we do not relish the prospect even for
+our children. I fancy your people have more real belief in it than
+ours."
+
+Now Phineas Finn was a Roman Catholic. But the discussion was stopped
+by the noise of an arrival in the hall.
+
+"There they are," said Lady Chiltern; "Oswald never comes in without
+a sound of trumpets to make him audible throughout the house." Then
+she went to meet her husband, and Phineas followed her out of the
+drawing-room.
+
+Lord Chiltern was as glad to see him as she had been, and in a very
+few minutes he found himself quite at home. In the hall he was
+introduced to Miss Palliser, but he was hardly able to see her as she
+stood there a moment in her hat and habit. There was ever so much
+said about the day's work. The earths had not been properly stopped,
+and Lord Chiltern had been very angry, and the owner of Trumpeton
+Wood, who was a great duke, had been much abused, and things had not
+gone altogether straight.
+
+"Lord Chiltern was furious," said Miss Palliser, laughing, "and
+therefore, of course, I became furious too, and swore that it was
+an awful shame. Then they all swore that it was an awful shame, and
+everybody was furious. And you might hear one man saying to another
+all day long, 'By George, this is too bad.' But I never could quite
+make out what was amiss, and I'm sure the men didn't know."
+
+"What was it, Oswald?"
+
+"Never mind now. One doesn't go to Trumpeton Wood expecting to be
+happy there. I've half a mind to swear I'll never draw it again."
+
+"I've been asking him what was the matter all the way home," said
+Miss Palliser, "but I don't think he knows himself."
+
+"Come upstairs, Phineas, and I'll show you your room," said Lord
+Chiltern. "It's not quite as comfortable as the old 'Bull,' but we
+make it do."
+
+Phineas, when he was alone, could not help standing for awhile with
+his back to the fire thinking of it all. He did already feel himself
+to be at home in that house, and his doing so was a contradiction to
+all the wisdom which he had been endeavouring to teach himself for
+the last two years. He had told himself over and over again that
+that life which he had lived in London had been, if not a dream, at
+any rate not more significant than a parenthesis in his days, which,
+as of course it had no bearing on those which had gone before, so
+neither would it influence those which were to follow. The dear
+friends of that period of feverish success would for the future
+be to him as--nothing. That was the lesson of wisdom which he had
+endeavoured to teach himself, and the facts of the last two years had
+seemed to show that the lesson was a true lesson. He had disappeared
+from among his former companions, and had heard almost nothing from
+them. From neither Lord Chiltern or his wife had he received any
+tidings. He had expected to receive none,--had known that in the
+common course of things none was to be expected. There were many
+others with whom he had been intimate--Barrington Erle, Laurence
+Fitzgibbon, Mr. Monk, a politician who had been in the Cabinet, and
+in consequence of whose political teaching he, Phineas Finn, had
+banished himself from the political world;--from none of these had he
+received a line till there came that letter summoning him back to the
+battle. There had never been a time during his late life in Dublin at
+which he had complained to himself that on this account his former
+friends had forgotten him. If they had not written to him, neither
+had he written to them. But on his first arrival in England he had,
+in the sadness of his solitude, told himself that he was forgotten.
+There would be no return, so he feared, of those pleasant intimacies
+which he now remembered so well, and which, as he remembered them,
+were so much more replete with unalloyed delights than they had ever
+been in their existing realities. And yet here he was, a welcome
+guest in Lord Chiltern's house, a welcome guest in Lady Chiltern's
+drawing-room, and quite as much at home with them as ever he had been
+in the old days.
+
+Who is there that can write letters to all his friends, or would not
+find it dreary work to do so even in regard to those whom he really
+loves? When there is something palpable to be said, what a blessing
+is the penny post! To one's wife, to one's child, one's mistress,
+one's steward if there be a steward; one's gamekeeper, if there be
+shooting forward; one's groom, if there be hunting; one's publisher,
+if there be a volume ready or money needed; or one's tailor
+occasionally, if a coat be required, a man is able to write. But
+what has a man to say to his friend,--or, for that matter, what has
+a woman? A Horace Walpole may write to a Mr. Mann about all things
+under the sun, London gossip or transcendental philosophy, and if
+the Horace Walpole of the occasion can write well and will labour
+diligently at that vocation, his letters may be worth reading by
+his Mr. Mann, and by others; but, for the maintenance of love and
+friendship, continued correspondence between distant friends is
+naught. Distance in time and place, but especially in time, will
+diminish friendship. It is a rule of nature that it should be so,
+and thus the friendships which a man most fosters are those which he
+can best enjoy. If your friend leave you, and seek a residence in
+Patagonia, make a niche for him in your memory, and keep him there
+as warm as you may. Perchance he may return from Patagonia and the
+old joys may be repeated. But never think that those joys can be
+maintained by the assistance of ocean postage, let it be at never
+so cheap a rate. Phineas Finn had not thought this matter out very
+carefully, and now, after two years of absence, he was surprised to
+find that he was still had in remembrance by those who had never
+troubled themselves to write to him a line during his absence.
+
+When he went down into the drawing-room he was surprised to find
+another old friend sitting there alone. "Mr. Finn," said the old
+lady, "I hope I see you quite well. I am glad to meet you again. You
+find my niece much changed, I dare say?"
+
+"Not in the least, Lady Baldock," said Phineas, seizing the proffered
+hand of the dowager. In that hour of conversation, which they had had
+together, Lady Chiltern had said not a word to Phineas of her aunt,
+and now he felt himself to be almost discomposed by the meeting. "Is
+your daughter here, Lady Baldock?"
+
+Lady Baldock shook her head solemnly and sadly. "Do not speak of her,
+Mr. Finn. It is too sad! We never mention her name now." Phineas
+looked as sad as he knew how to look, but he said nothing. The
+lamentation of the mother did not seem to imply that the daughter was
+dead; and, from his remembrance of Augusta Boreham, he would have
+thought her to be the last woman in the world to run away with the
+coachman. At the moment there did not seem to be any other sufficient
+cause for so melancholy a wagging of that venerable head. He had been
+told to say nothing, and he could ask no questions; but Lady Baldock
+did not choose that he should be left to imagine things more terrible
+than the truth. "She is lost to us for ever, Mr. Finn."
+
+"How very sad."
+
+"Sad, indeed! We don't know how she took it."
+
+"Took what, Lady Baldock?"
+
+"I am sure it was nothing that she ever saw at home. If there is
+a thing I'm true to, it is the Protestant Established Church of
+England. Some nasty, low, lying, wheedling priest got hold of her,
+and now she's a nun, and calls herself--Sister Veronica John!" Lady
+Baldock threw great strength and unction into her description of the
+priest; but as soon as she had told her story a sudden thought struck
+her. "Oh, laws! I quite forgot. I beg your pardon, Mr. Finn; but
+you're one of them!"
+
+"Not a nun, Lady Baldock." At that moment the door was opened, and
+Lord Chiltern came in, to the great relief of his wife's aunt.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+GERARD MAULE.
+
+
+"Why didn't you tell me?" said Phineas that night after Lady Baldock
+was gone to bed. The two men had taken off their dress coats, and had
+put on smoking caps,--Lord Chiltern, indeed, having clothed himself
+in a wonderful Chinese dressing-gown, and they were sitting round the
+fire in the smoking-room; but though they were thus employed and thus
+dressed the two younger ladies were still with them.
+
+"How could I tell you everything in two minutes?" said Lady Chiltern.
+
+"I'd have given a guinea to have heard her," said Lord Chiltern,
+getting up and rubbing his hands as he walked about the room. "Can't
+you fancy all that she'd say, and then her horror when she'd remember
+that Phineas was a Papist himself?"
+
+"But what made Miss Boreham turn nun?"
+
+"I fancy she found the penances lighter than they were at home," said
+the lord. "They couldn't well be heavier."
+
+"Dear old aunt!"
+
+"Does she never go to see Sister Veronica?" asked Miss Palliser.
+
+"She has been once," said Lady Chiltern.
+
+"And fumigated herself first so as to escape infection," said the
+husband. "You should hear Gerard Maule imitate her when she talks
+about the filthy priest."
+
+"And who is Gerard Maule?" Then Lady Chiltern looked at her friend,
+and Phineas was almost sure that Gerard Maule was the man who was
+dying for Adelaide Palliser.
+
+"He's a great ally of mine," said Lady Chiltern.
+
+"He's a young fellow who thinks he can ride to hounds," said Lord
+Chiltern, "and who very often does succeed in riding over them."
+
+"That's not fair, Lord Chiltern," said Miss Palliser.
+
+"Just my idea of it," replied the Master. "I don't think it's at all
+fair. Because a man has plenty of horses, and nothing else to do, and
+rides twelve stone, and doesn't care how he's sworn at, he's always
+to be over the scent, and spoil every one's sport. I don't call it at
+all fair."
+
+"He's a very nice fellow, and a great friend of Oswald's. He is to be
+here to-morrow, and you'll like him very much. Won't he, Adelaide?"
+
+"I don't know Mr. Finn's tastes quite so well as you do, Violet. But
+Mr. Maule is so harmless that no one can dislike him very much."
+
+"As for being harmless, I'm not so sure," said Lady Chiltern. After
+that they all went to bed.
+
+Phineas remained at Harrington Hall till the ninth, on which day he
+went to London so that he might be at Tankerville on the tenth. He
+rode Lord Chiltern's horses, and took an interest in the hounds, and
+nursed the baby. "Now tell me what you think of Gerard Maule," Lady
+Chiltern asked him, the day before he started.
+
+"I presume that he is the young man that is dying for Miss Palliser."
+
+"You may answer my question, Mr. Finn, without making any such
+suggestion."
+
+"Not discreetly. Of course if he is to be made happy, I am bound at
+the present moment to say all good things of him. At such a crisis it
+would be wicked to tinge Miss Palliser's hopes with any hue less warm
+than rose colour."
+
+"Do you suppose that I tell everything that is said to me?"
+
+"Not at all; but opinions do ooze out. I take him to be a good sort
+of a fellow; but why doesn't he talk a bit more?"
+
+"That's just it."
+
+"And why does he pretend to do nothing? When he's out he rides
+hard; but at other times there's a ha-ha, lack a-daisical air about
+him which I hate. Why men assume it I never could understand. It
+can recommend them to nobody. A man can't suppose that he'll gain
+anything by pretending that he never reads, and never thinks, and
+never does anything, and never speaks, and doesn't care what he has
+for dinner, and, upon the whole, would just as soon lie in bed all
+day as get up. It isn't that he is really idle. He rides and eats,
+and does get up, and I daresay talks and thinks. It's simply a poor
+affectation."
+
+"That's your rose colour, is it?"
+
+"You've promised secrecy, Lady Chiltern. I suppose he's well off?"
+
+"He is an eldest son. The property is not large, and I'm afraid
+there's something wrong about it."
+
+"He has no profession?"
+
+"None at all. He has an allowance of L800 a year, which in some sort
+of fashion is independent of his father. He has nothing on earth to
+do. Adelaide's whole fortune is four thousand pounds. If they were to
+marry what would become of them?"
+
+"That wouldn't be enough to live on?"
+
+"It ought to be enough,--as he must, I suppose, have the property
+some day,--if only he had something to do. What sort of a life would
+he lead?"
+
+"I suppose he couldn't become a Master of Hounds?"
+
+"That is ill-natured, Mr. Finn."
+
+"I did not mean it so. I did not indeed. You must know that I did
+not."
+
+"Of course Oswald had nothing to do, and, of course, there was a time
+when I wished that he should take to Parliament. No one knew all that
+better than you did. But he was very different from Mr. Maule."
+
+"Very different, indeed."
+
+"Oswald is a man full of energy, and with no touch of that
+affectation which you described. As it is, he does work hard. No
+man works harder. The learned people say that you should produce
+something, and I don't suppose that he produces much. But somebody
+must keep hounds, and nobody could do it better than he does."
+
+"You don't think that I meant to blame him?"
+
+"I hope not."
+
+"Are he and his father on good terms now?"
+
+"Oh, yes. His father wishes him to go to Saulsby, but he won't do
+that. He hates Saulsby."
+
+Saulsby was the country seat of the Earl of Brentford, the name of
+the property which must some day belong to this Lord Chiltern, and
+Phineas, as he heard this, remembered former days in which he had
+ridden about Saulsby Woods, and had thought them to be anything but
+hateful. "Is Saulsby shut up?" he asked.
+
+"Altogether, and so is the house in Portman Square. There never was
+anything more sad or desolate. You would find him altered, Mr. Finn.
+He is quite an old man now. He was here in the spring, for a week or
+two;--in England, that is; but he stayed at an hotel in London. He
+and Laura live at Dresden now, and a very sad time they must have."
+
+"Does she write?"
+
+"Yes; and keeps up all her interest about politics. I have already
+told her that you are to stand for Tankerville. No one,--no other
+human being in the world will be so interested for you as she is.
+If any friend ever felt an interest almost selfish for a friend's
+welfare, she will feel such an interest for you. If you were to
+succeed it would give her a hope in life." Phineas sat silent,
+drinking in the words that were said to him. Though they were true,
+or at least meant to be true, they were full of flattery. Why should
+this woman of whom they were speaking love him so dearly? She was
+nothing to him. She was highly born, greatly gifted, wealthy, and a
+married woman, whose character, as he well knew, was beyond the taint
+of suspicion, though she had been driven by the hard sullenness of
+her husband to refuse to live under his roof. Phineas Finn and Lady
+Laura Kennedy had not seen each other for two years, and when they
+had parted, though they had lived as friends, there had been no signs
+of still living friendship. True, indeed, she had written to him,
+but her letters had been short and cold, merely detailing certain
+circumstances of her outward life. Now he was told by this woman's
+dearest friend that his welfare was closer to her heart than any
+other interest!
+
+"I daresay you often think of her?" said Lady Chiltern.
+
+"Indeed, I do."
+
+"What virtues she used to ascribe to you! What sins she forgave you!
+How hard she fought for you! Now, though she can fight no more, she
+does not think of it all the less."
+
+"Poor Lady Laura!"
+
+"Poor Laura, indeed! When one sees such shipwreck it makes a woman
+doubt whether she ought to marry at all."
+
+"And yet he was a good man. She always said so."
+
+"Men are so seldom really good. They are so little sympathetic. What
+man thinks of changing himself so as to suit his wife? And yet men
+expect that women shall put on altogether new characters when they
+are married, and girls think that they can do so. Look at this
+Mr. Maule, who is really over head and ears in love with Adelaide
+Palliser. She is full of hope and energy. He has none. And yet he has
+the effrontery to suppose that she will adapt herself to his way of
+living if he marries her."
+
+"Then they are to be married?"
+
+"I suppose it will come to that. It always does if the man is
+in earnest. Girls will accept men simply because they think it
+ill-natured to return the compliment of an offer with a hearty 'No.'"
+
+"I suppose she likes him?"
+
+"Of course she does. A girl almost always likes a man who is in love
+with her,--unless indeed she positively dislikes him. But why should
+she like him? He is good-looking, is a gentleman, and not a fool.
+Is that enough to make such a girl as Adelaide Palliser think a man
+divine?"
+
+"Is nobody to be accepted who is not credited with divinity?"
+
+"The man should be a demigod, at least in respect to some part of his
+character. I can find nothing even demi-divine about Mr. Maule."
+
+"That's because you are not in love with him, Lady Chiltern."
+
+Six or seven very pleasant days Phineas Finn spent at Harrington
+Hall, and then he started alone, and very lonely, for Tankerville.
+But he admitted to himself that the pleasure which he had received
+during his visit was quite sufficient to qualify him in running
+any risk in an attempt to return to the kind of life which he had
+formerly led. But if he should fail at Tankerville what would become
+of him then?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+TANKERVILLE.
+
+
+The great Mr. Molescroft himself came over to Tankerville for the
+purpose of introducing our hero to the electors and to Mr. Ruddles,
+the local Liberal agent, who was to be employed. They met at the
+Lambton Arms, and there Phineas established himself, knowing well
+that he had before him ten days of unmitigated vexation and misery.
+Tankerville was a dirty, prosperous, ungainly town, which seemed to
+exude coal-dust or coal-mud at every pore. It was so well recognised
+as being dirty that people did not expect to meet each other with
+clean hands and faces. Linen was never white at Tankerville, and
+even ladies who sat in drawing-rooms were accustomed to the feel and
+taste and appearance of soot in all their daintiest recesses. We hear
+that at Oil City the flavour of petroleum is hardly considered to be
+disagreeable, and so it was with the flavour of coal at Tankerville.
+And we know that at Oil City the flavour of petroleum must not be
+openly declared to be objectionable, and so it was with coal at
+Tankerville. At Tankerville coal was much loved, and was not thought
+to be dirty. Mr. Ruddles was very much begrimed himself, and some
+of the leading Liberal electors, upon whom Phineas Finn had already
+called, seemed to be saturated with the product of the district. It
+would not, however, in any event be his duty to live at Tankerville,
+and he had believed from the first moment of his entrance into the
+town that he would soon depart from it, and know it no more. He felt
+that the chance of his being elected was quite a forlorn hope, and
+could hardly understand why he had allowed himself to be embarrassed
+by so very unprofitable a speculation.
+
+Phineas Finn had thrice before this been chosen to sit in
+Parliament--twice for the Irish borough of Loughshane, and once for
+the English borough of Loughton; but he had been so happy as hitherto
+to have known nothing of the miseries and occasional hopelessness of
+a contested election. At Loughton he had come forward as the nominee
+of the Earl of Brentford, and had been returned without any chance of
+failure by that nobleman's influence. At Loughshane things had nearly
+been as pleasant with him. He had almost been taught to think that
+nothing could be easier than getting into Parliament if only a man
+could live when he was there. But Loughton and Loughshane were gone,
+with so many other comfortable things of old days, and now he found
+himself relegated to a borough to which, as it seemed to him, he was
+sent to fight, not that he might win, but because it was necessary
+to his party that the seat should not be allowed to be lost without
+fighting. He had had the pleasant things of parliamentary adventure,
+and now must undergo those which were unpleasant. No doubt he could
+have refused, but he had listened to the tempter, and could not now
+go back, though Mr. Ruddles was hardly more encouraging than Mr.
+Molescroft.
+
+"Browborough has been at work for the last three days," said Mr.
+Ruddles, in a tone of reproach. Mr. Ruddles had always thought that
+no amount of work could be too heavy for his candidates.
+
+"Will that make much difference?" asked Mr. Molescroft.
+
+"Well, it does. Of course, he has been among the colliers,--when we
+ought to have been before him."
+
+"I came when I was told," said Phineas.
+
+"I'd have telegraphed to you if I'd known where you were. But there's
+no help for spilt milk. We must get to work now,--that's all. I
+suppose you're for disestablishing the Church?"
+
+"Not particularly," said Phineas, who felt that with him, as a Roman
+Catholic, this was a delicate subject.
+
+"We needn't go into that, need we?" said Mr. Molescroft, who, though
+a Liberal, was a good Churchman.
+
+Mr. Ruddles was a Dissenter, but the very strong opinion which Mr.
+Ruddles now expressed as to the necessity that the new candidate
+should take up the Church question did not spring at all from his own
+religious convictions. His present duty called upon him to have a
+Liberal candidate if possible returned for the borough with which he
+was connected, and not to disseminate the doctrines of his own sect.
+Nevertheless, his opinion was very strong. "I think we must, Mr.
+Molescroft," said he; "I'm sure we must. Browborough has taken up
+the other side. He went to church last Sunday with the Mayor and two
+of the Aldermen, and I'm told he said all the responses louder than
+anybody else. He dined with the Vicar of Trinity on Monday. He has
+been very loud in denouncing Mr. Finn as a Roman Catholic, and has
+declared that everything will be up with the State if Tankerville
+returns a friend and supporter of the Pope. You'll find that the
+Church will be the cry here this election. You can't get anything by
+supporting it, but you may make a strong party by pledging yourself
+to disendowment."
+
+"Wouldn't local taxation do?" asked Mr. Molescroft, who indeed
+preferred almost any other reform to disendowment.
+
+"I have made up my mind that we must have some check on municipal
+expenditure," said Phineas.
+
+"It won't do--not alone. If I understand the borough, the feeling at
+this election will altogether be about the Church. You see, Mr. Finn,
+your being a Roman Catholic gives them a handle, and they're already
+beginning to use it. They don't like Roman Catholics here; but if
+you can manage to give it a sort of Liberal turn,--as many of your
+constituents used to do, you know,--as though you disliked Church and
+State rather than cared for the Pope, may be it might act on our side
+rather than on theirs. Mr. Molescroft understands it all."
+
+"Oh, yes; I understand."
+
+Mr. Ruddles said a great deal more to the same effect, and though Mr.
+Molescroft did not express any acquiescence in these views, neither
+did he dissent. The candidate said but little at this interview, but
+turned the matter over in his mind. A seat in Parliament would be
+but a barren honour, and he could not afford to offer his services
+for barren honour. Honest political work he was anxious to do, but
+for what work he did he desired to be paid. The party to which he
+belonged had, as he knew, endeavoured to avoid the subject of the
+disendowment of the Church of England. It is the necessary nature
+of a political party in this country to avoid, as long as it can be
+avoided, the consideration of any question which involves a great
+change. There is a consciousness on the minds of leading politicians
+that the pressure from behind, forcing upon them great measures,
+drives them almost quicker than they can go, so that it becomes a
+necessity with them to resist rather than to aid the pressure which
+will certainly be at last effective by its own strength. The best
+carriage horses are those which can most steadily hold back against
+the coach as it trundles down the hill. All this Phineas knew, and
+was of opinion that the Barrington Erles and Ratlers of his party
+would not thank him for ventilating a measure which, however certain
+might be its coming, might well be postponed for a few years. Once
+already in his career he had chosen to be in advance of his party,
+and the consequences had been disastrous to him. On that occasion his
+feelings had been strong in regard to the measure upon which he broke
+away from his party; but, when he first thought of it, he did not
+care much about Church disendowment.
+
+But he found that he must needs go as he was driven or else depart
+out of the place. He wrote a line to his friend Erle, not to ask
+advice, but to explain the circumstances. "My only possible chance
+of success will lie in attacking the Church endowments. Of course I
+think they are bad, and of course I think that they must go. But I
+have never cared for the matter, and would have been very willing to
+leave it among those things which will arrange themselves. But I have
+no choice here." And so he prepared himself to run his race on the
+course arranged for him by Mr. Ruddles. Mr. Molescroft, whose hours
+were precious, soon took his leave, and Phineas Finn was placarded
+about the town as the sworn foe to all Church endowments.
+
+In the course of his canvass, and the commotions consequent upon
+it, he found that Mr. Ruddles was right. No other subject seemed at
+the moment to have any attraction in Tankerville. Mr. Browborough,
+whose life had not been passed in any strict obedience to the Ten
+Commandments, and whose religious observances had not hitherto
+interfered with either the pleasures or the duties of his life,
+repeated at every meeting which he attended, and almost to every
+elector whom he canvassed, the great Shibboleth which he had now
+adopted--"The prosperity of England depends on the Church of her
+people." He was not an orator. Indeed, it might be hard to find a
+man, who had for years been conversant with public life, less able
+to string a few words together for immediate use. Nor could he learn
+half-a-dozen sentences by rote. But he could stand up with unabashed
+brow and repeat with enduring audacity the same words a dozen times
+over--"The prosperity of England depends on the Church of her
+people." Had he been asked whether the prosperity which he promised
+was temporal or spiritual in its nature, not only could he not have
+answered, but he would not in the least have understood the question.
+But the words as they came from his mouth had a weight which seemed
+to ensure their truth, and many men in Tankerville thought that Mr.
+Browborough was eloquent.
+
+Phineas, on the other hand, made two or three great speeches every
+evening, and astonished even Mr. Ruddles by his oratory. He had
+accepted Mr. Ruddles's proposition with but lukewarm acquiescence,
+but in the handling of the matter he became zealous, fiery,
+and enthusiastic. He explained to his hearers with gracious
+acknowledgment that Church endowments had undoubtedly been most
+beneficent in past times. He spoke in the interests of no special
+creed. Whether in the so-called Popish days of Henry VIII and his
+ancestors, or in the so-called Protestant days that had followed,
+the state of society had required that spiritual teaching should be
+supplied from funds fixed and devoted to the purpose. The increasing
+intelligence and population of the country made this no longer
+desirable,--or, if desirable, no longer possible. Could these
+endowments be increased to meet the needs of the increasing millions?
+Was it not the fact that even among members of the Church of England
+they were altogether inefficient to supply the wants of our great
+towns? Did the people of Tankerville believe that the clergymen of
+London, of Liverpool, and of Manchester were paid by endowments? The
+arguments which had been efficacious in Ireland must be efficacious
+in England. He said this without reference to one creed or to
+another. He did believe in religious teaching. He had not a word to
+say against a Protestant Episcopal Church. But he thought, nay he
+was sure, that Church and State, as combined institutions, could no
+longer prevail in this country. If the people of Tankerville would
+return him to Parliament it should be his first object to put an end
+to this anomaly.
+
+The Browboroughites were considerably astonished by his success. The
+colliers on this occasion did not seem to regard the clamour that
+was raised against Irish Papists. Much dirt was thrown and some
+heads were broken; but Phineas persevered. Mr. Ruddles was lost in
+admiration. They had never before had at Tankerville a man who could
+talk so well. Mr. Browborough without ceasing repeated his well-worn
+assurance, and it was received with the loudest exclamations of
+delight by his own party. The clergymen of the town and neighbourhood
+crowded round him and pursued him, and almost seemed to believe in
+him. They were at any rate fighting their battle as best they knew
+how to fight it. But the great body of the colliers listened to
+Phineas, and every collier was now a voter. Then Mr. Ruddles, who
+had many eyes, began to perceive that the old game was to be played.
+"There'll be money going to-morrow after all," he whispered to Finn
+the evening before the election.
+
+"I suppose you expected that."
+
+"I wasn't sure. They began by thinking they could do without it. They
+don't want to sacrifice the borough."
+
+"Nor do I, Mr. Ruddles."
+
+"But they'll sooner do that than lose the seat. A couple of dozen of
+men out of the Fallgate would make us safe." Mr. Ruddles smiled as he
+said this.
+
+And Phineas smiled as he answered, "If any good can be done by
+talking to the men at the Fallgate, I'll talk to them by the hour
+together."
+
+"We've about done all that," said Mr. Ruddles.
+
+Then came the voting. Up to two o'clock the polling was so equal that
+the numbers at Mr. Browborough's committee room were always given in
+his favour, and those at the Liberal room in favour of Phineas Finn.
+At three o'clock Phineas was acknowledged to be ten ahead. He himself
+was surprised at his own success, and declared to himself that his
+old luck had not deserted him.
+
+"They're giving L2 10_s._ a vote at the Fallgate this minute," said
+Ruddles to him at a quarter-past three.
+
+"We shall have to prove it."
+
+"We can do that, I think," said Ruddles.
+
+At four o'clock, when the poll was over, Browborough was declared
+to have won on the post by seven votes. He was that same evening
+declared by the Mayor to have been elected sitting member for the
+borough, and he again assured the people in his speech that the
+prosperity of England depends on the Church of her people.
+
+"We shall carry the seat on a scrutiny as sure as eggs," said Mr.
+Ruddles, who had been quite won by the gallant way in which Phineas
+had fought his battle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+MR. DAUBENY'S GREAT MOVE.
+
+
+The whole Liberal party was taken very much by surprise at the course
+which the election ran. Or perhaps it might be more proper to say
+that the parliamentary leaders of the party were surprised. It had
+not been recognised by them as necessary that the great question of
+Church and State should be generally discussed on this occasion. It
+was a matter of course that it should be discussed at some places,
+and by some men. Eager Dissenters would, of course, take advantage
+of the opportunity to press their views, and no doubt the entire
+abolition of the Irish Church as a State establishment had taught
+Liberals to think and Conservatives to fear that the question would
+force itself forward at no very distant date. But it had not been
+expected to do so now. The general incompetence of a Ministry who
+could not command a majority on any measure was intended to be the
+strong point of the Liberal party, not only at the election, but at
+the meeting of Parliament. The Church question, which was necessarily
+felt by all statesmen to be of such magnitude as to dwarf every
+other, was not wanted as yet. It might remain in the background as
+the future standing-point for some great political struggle, in which
+it would be again necessary that every Liberal should fight, as
+though for life, with his teeth and nails. Men who ten years since
+regarded almost with abhorrence, and certainly with distrust, the
+idea of disruption between Church and State in England, were no
+doubt learning to perceive that such disruption must come, and were
+reconciling themselves to it after that slow, silent, inargumentative
+fashion in which convictions force themselves among us. And from
+reconciliation to the idea some were advancing to enthusiasm on its
+behalf. "It is only a question of time," was now said by many who
+hardly remembered how devoted they had been to the Established Church
+of England a dozen years ago. But the fruit was not yet ripe, and the
+leaders of the Liberal party by no means desired that it should be
+plucked. They were, therefore, surprised, and but little pleased,
+when they found that the question was more discussed than any other
+on the hustings of enthusiastically political boroughs.
+
+Barrington Erle was angry when he received the letter of Phineas
+Finn. He was at that moment staying with the Duke of St. Bungay,
+who was regarded by many as the only possible leader of the Liberal
+party, should Mr. Gresham for any reason fail them. Indeed the old
+Whigs, of whom Barrington Erle considered himself to be one, would
+have much preferred the Duke to Mr. Gresham, had it been possible
+to set Mr. Gresham aside. But Mr. Gresham was too strong to be set
+aside; and Erle and the Duke, with all their brethren, were minded to
+be thoroughly loyal to their leader. He was their leader, and not to
+be loyal was, in their minds, treachery. But occasionally they feared
+that the man would carry them whither they did not desire to go. In
+the meantime heavy things were spoken of our poor friend, Finn.
+
+"After all, that man is an ass," said Erle.
+
+"If so, I believe you are altogether responsible for him," said the
+Duke.
+
+"Well, yes, in a measure; but not altogether. That, however, is a
+long story. He has many good gifts. He is clever, good-tempered, and
+one of the pleasantest fellows that ever lived. The women all like
+him."
+
+"So the Duchess tells me."
+
+"But he is not what I call loyal. He cannot keep himself from running
+after strange gods. What need had he to take up the Church question
+at Tankerville? The truth is, Duke, the thing is going to pieces.
+We get men into the House now who are clever, and all that sort
+of thing, and who force their way up, but who can't be made to
+understand that everybody should not want to be Prime Minister." The
+Duke, who was now a Nestor among politicians, though very green in
+his age, smiled as he heard remarks which had been familiar to him
+for the last forty years. He, too, liked his party, and was fond of
+loyal men; but he had learned at last that all loyalty must be built
+on a basis of self-advantage. Patriotism may exist without it, but
+that which Erle called loyalty in politics was simply devotion to the
+side which a man conceives to be his side, and which he cannot leave
+without danger to himself.
+
+But if discontent was felt at the eagerness with which this subject
+was taken up at certain boroughs, and was adopted by men whose votes
+and general support would be essentially necessary to the would-be
+coming Liberal Government, absolute dismay was occasioned by a speech
+that was made at a certain county election. Mr. Daubeny had for many
+years been member for East Barsetshire, and was as sure of his seat
+as the Queen of her throne. No one would think of contesting Mr.
+Daubeny's right to sit for East Barsetshire, and no doubt he might
+have been returned without showing himself to the electors. But he
+did show himself to the electors; and, as a matter of course, made
+a speech on the occasion. It so happened that the day fixed for the
+election in this division of the county was quite at the close of
+this period of political excitement. When Mr. Daubeny addressed his
+friends in East Barsetshire the returns throughout the kingdom were
+nearly complete. No attention had been paid to this fact during the
+elections, but it was afterwards asserted that the arrangement had
+been made with a political purpose, and with a purpose which was
+politically dishonest. Mr. Daubeny, so said the angry Liberals,
+had not chosen to address his constituents till his speech at the
+hustings could have no effect on other counties. Otherwise,--so said
+the Liberals,--the whole Conservative party would have been called
+upon to disavow at the hustings the conclusion to which Mr. Daubeny
+hinted in East Barsetshire that he had arrived. The East Barsetshire
+men themselves,--so said the Liberals,--had been too crass to catch
+the meaning hidden under his ambiguous words; but those words, when
+read by the light of astute criticism, were found to contain an
+opinion that Church and State should be dissevered. "By G----! he's
+going to take the bread out of our mouths again," said Mr. Ratler.
+
+The speech was certainly very ambiguous, and I am not sure that the
+East Barsetshire folk were so crass as they were accused of being,
+in not understanding it at once. The dreadful hint was wrapped up in
+many words, and formed but a small part of a very long oration. The
+bucolic mind of East Barsetshire took warm delight in the eloquence
+of the eminent personage who represented them, but was wont to
+extract more actual enjoyment from the music of his periods than from
+the strength of his arguments. When he would explain to them that
+he had discovered a new, or rather hitherto unknown, Conservative
+element in the character of his countrymen, which he could best
+utilise by changing everything in the Constitution, he manipulated
+his words with such grace, was so profound, so broad, and so exalted,
+was so brilliant in mingling a deep philosophy with the ordinary
+politics of the day, that the bucolic mind could only admire. It
+was a great honour to the electors of that agricultural county that
+they should be made the first recipients of these pearls, which
+were not wasted by being thrown before them. They were picked up
+by the gentlemen of the Press, and became the pearls, not of East
+Barsetshire, but of all England. On this occasion it was found that
+one pearl was very big, very rare, and worthy of great attention;
+but it was a black pearl, and was regarded by many as an abominable
+prodigy. "The period of our history is one in which it becomes
+essential for us to renew those inquiries which have prevailed since
+man first woke to his destiny, as to the amount of connection which
+exists and which must exist between spiritual and simply human forms
+of government,--between our daily religion and our daily politics,
+between the Crown and the Mitre." The East Barsetshire clergymen and
+the East Barsetshire farmers like to hear something of the mitre in
+political speeches at the hustings. The word sounds pleasantly in
+their ears, as appertaining to good old gracious times and good old
+gracious things. As honey falls fast from the mouth of the practised
+speaker, the less practised hearer is apt to catch more of the words
+than of the sense. The speech of Mr. Daubeny was taken all in good
+part by his assembled friends. But when it was read by the quidnuncs
+on the following day it was found to contain so deep a meaning that
+it produced from Mr. Ratler's mouth those words of fear which have
+been already quoted.
+
+Could it really be the case that the man intended to perform so
+audacious a trick of legerdemain as this for the preservation of his
+power, and that if he intended it he should have the power to carry
+it through? The renewal of inquiry as to the connection which exists
+between the Crown and the Mitre, when the bran was bolted, could only
+mean the disestablishment of the Church. Mr. Ratler and his friends
+were not long in bolting the bran. Regarding the matter simply in its
+own light, without bringing to bear upon it the experience of the
+last half-century, Mr. Ratler would have thought his party strong
+enough to defy Mr. Daubeny utterly in such an attempt. The ordinary
+politician, looking at Mr. Daubeny's position as leader of the
+Conservative party, as a statesman depending on the support of the
+Church, as a Minister appointed to his present place for the express
+object of defending all that was left of old, and dear, and venerable
+in the Constitution, would have declared that Mr. Daubeny was
+committing political suicide, as to which future history would record
+a verdict of probably not temporary insanity. And when the speech was
+a week old this was said in many a respectable household through the
+country. Many a squire, many a parson, many a farmer was grieved for
+Mr. Daubeny when the words had been explained to him, who did not for
+a moment think that the words could be portentous as to the great
+Conservative party. But Mr. Ratler remembered Catholic emancipation,
+had himself been in the House when the Corn Laws were repealed, and
+had been nearly broken-hearted when household suffrage had become
+the law of the land while a Conservative Cabinet and a Conservative
+Government were in possession of dominion in Israel.
+
+Mr. Bonteen was disposed to think that the trick was beyond the
+conjuring power even of Mr. Daubeny. "After all, you know, there is
+the party," he said to Mr. Ratler. Mr. Ratler's face was as good
+as a play, and if seen by that party would have struck that party
+with dismay and shame. The meaning of Mr. Ratler's face was plain
+enough. He thought so little of that party, on the score either of
+intelligence, honesty, or fidelity, as to imagine that it would
+consent to be led whithersoever Mr. Daubeny might choose to lead
+it. "If they care about anything, it's about the Church," said Mr.
+Bonteen.
+
+"There's something they like a great deal better than the Church,"
+said Mr. Ratler. "Indeed, there's only one thing they care about at
+all now. They've given up all the old things. It's very likely that
+if Daubeny were to ask them to vote for pulling down the Throne and
+establishing a Republic they'd all follow him into the lobby like
+sheep. They've been so knocked about by one treachery after another
+that they don't care now for anything beyond their places."
+
+"It's only a few of them get anything, after all."
+
+"Yes, they do. It isn't just so much a year they want, though those
+who have that won't like to part with it. But they like getting
+the counties, and the Garters, and the promotion in the army. They
+like their brothers to be made bishops, and their sisters like the
+Wardrobe and the Bedchamber. There isn't one of them that doesn't
+hang on somewhere,--or at least not many. Do you remember Peel's bill
+for the Corn Laws?"
+
+"There were fifty went against him then," said Bonteen.
+
+"And what are fifty? A man doesn't like to be one of fifty. It's
+too many for glory, and not enough for strength. There has come up
+among them a general feeling that it's just as well to let things
+slide,--as the Yankees say. They're down-hearted about it enough
+within their own houses, no doubt. But what can they do, if they hold
+back? Some stout old cavalier here and there may shut himself up in
+his own castle, and tell himself that the world around him may go to
+wrack and ruin, but that he will not help the evil work. Some are
+shutting themselves up. Look at old Quin, when they carried their
+Reform Bill. But men, as a rule, don't like to be shut up. How they
+reconcile it to their conscience,--that's what I can't understand."
+Such was the wisdom, and such were the fears of Mr. Ratler. Mr.
+Bonteen, however, could not bring himself to believe that the
+Arch-enemy would on this occasion be successful. "It mayn't be too
+hot for him," said Mr. Bonteen, when he reviewed the whole matter,
+"but I think it'll be too heavy."
+
+They who had mounted higher than Mr. Ratler and Mr. Bonteen on the
+political ladder, but who had mounted on the same side, were no
+less astonished than their inferiors; and, perhaps, were equally
+disgusted, though they did not allow themselves to express their
+disgust as plainly. Mr. Gresham was staying in the country with his
+friend, Lord Cantrip, when the tidings reached them of Mr. Daubeny's
+speech to the electors of East Barsetshire. Mr. Gresham and Lord
+Cantrip had long sat in the same Cabinet, and were fast friends,
+understanding each other's views, and thoroughly trusting each
+other's loyalty. "He means it," said Lord Cantrip.
+
+"He means to see if it be possible," said the other. "It is thrown
+out as a feeler to his own party."
+
+"I'll do him the justice of saying that he's not afraid of his party.
+If he means it, he means it altogether, and will not retract it, even
+though the party should refuse as a body to support him. I give him
+no other credit, but I give him that."
+
+Mr. Gresham paused for a few moments before he answered. "I do not
+know," said he, "whether we are justified in thinking that one man
+will always be the same. Daubeny has once been very audacious, and he
+succeeded. But he had two things to help him,--a leader, who, though
+thoroughly trusted, was very idle, and an ill-defined question. When
+he had won his leader he had won his party. He has no such tower of
+strength now. And in the doing of this thing, if he means to do it,
+he must encounter the assured conviction of every man on his own
+side, both in the upper and lower House. When he told them that he
+would tap a Conservative element by reducing the suffrage they did
+not know whether to believe him or not. There might be something
+in it. It might be that they would thus resume a class of suffrage
+existing in former days, but which had fallen into abeyance, because
+not properly protected. They could teach themselves to believe that
+it might be so, and those among them who found it necessary to free
+their souls did so teach themselves. I don't see how they are to free
+their souls when they are invited to put down the State establishment
+of the Church."
+
+"He'll find a way for them."
+
+"It's possible. I'm the last man in the world to contest the
+possibility, or even the expediency, of changes in political opinion.
+But I do not know whether it follows that because he was brave and
+successful once he must necessarily be brave and successful again. A
+man rides at some outrageous fence, and by the wonderful activity and
+obedient zeal of his horse is carried over it in safety. It does not
+follow that his horse will carry him over a house, or that he should
+be fool enough to ask the beast to do so."
+
+"He intends to ride at the house," said Lord Cantrip; "and he means
+it because others have talked of it. You saw the line which my rash
+young friend Finn took at Tankerville."
+
+"And all for nothing."
+
+"I am not so sure of that. They say he is like the rest. If Daubeny
+does carry the party with him, I suppose the days of the Church are
+numbered."
+
+"And what if they be?" Mr. Gresham almost sighed as he said this,
+although he intended to express a certain amount of satisfaction.
+"What if they be? You know, and I know, that the thing has to be
+done. Whatever may be our own individual feelings, or even our
+present judgment on the subject,--as to which neither of us can
+perhaps say that his mind is not so made up that it may not soon
+be altered,--we know that the present union cannot remain. It is
+unfitted for that condition of humanity to which we are coming, and
+if so, the change must be for good. Why should not he do it as well
+as another? Or rather would not he do it better than another, if he
+can do it with less of animosity than we should rouse against us? If
+the blow would come softer from his hands than from ours, with less
+of a feeling of injury to those who dearly love the Church, should we
+not be glad that he should undertake the task?"
+
+"Then you will not oppose him?"
+
+"Ah;--there is much to be considered before we can say that. Though
+he may not be bound by his friends, we may be bound by ours. And
+then, though I can hint to you at a certain condition of mind,
+and can sympathise with you, feeling that such may become the
+condition of your mind, I cannot say that I should act upon it as an
+established conviction, or that I can expect that you will do so. If
+such be the political programme submitted to us when the House meets,
+then we must be prepared."
+
+Lord Cantrip also paused a moment before he answered, but he had his
+answer ready. "I can frankly say that I should follow your leading,
+but that I should give my voice for opposition."
+
+"Your voice is always persuasive," said Mr. Gresham.
+
+But the consternation felt among Mr. Daubeny's friends was infinitely
+greater than that which fell among his enemies, when those wonderful
+words were read, discussed, criticised, and explained. It seemed to
+every clergyman in England that nothing short of disestablishment
+could be intended by them. And this was the man to whom they had
+all looked for protection! This was the bulwark of the Church, to
+whom they had trusted! This was the hero who had been so sound and
+so firm respecting the Irish Establishment, when evil counsels
+had been allowed to prevail in regard to that ill-used but still
+sacred vineyard! All friends of the Church had then whispered
+among themselves fearfully, and had, with sad looks and grievous
+forebodings, acknowledged that the thin edge of the wedge had been
+driven into the very rock of the Establishment. The enemies of
+the Church were known to be powerful, numerous, and of course
+unscrupulous. But surely this Brutus would not raise a dagger against
+this Caesar! And yet, if not, what was the meaning of those words?
+And then men and women began to tell each other,--the men and women
+who are the very salt of the earth in this England of ours,--that
+their Brutus, in spite of his great qualities, had ever been
+mysterious, unintelligible, dangerous, and given to feats of
+conjuring. They had only been too submissive to their Brutus.
+Wonderful feats of conjuring they had endured, understanding nothing
+of the manner in which they were performed,--nothing of their
+probable results; but this feat of conjuring they would not endure.
+And so there were many meetings held about the country, though the
+time for combined action was very short.
+
+Nothing more audacious than the speaking of those few words to the
+bucolic electors of East Barsetshire had ever been done in the
+political history of England. Cromwell was bold when he closed the
+Long Parliament. Shaftesbury was bold when he formed the plot for
+which Lord Russell and others suffered. Walpole was bold when, in
+his lust for power, he discarded one political friend after another.
+And Peel was bold when he resolved to repeal the Corn Laws. But in
+none of these instances was the audacity displayed more wonderful
+than when Mr. Daubeny took upon himself to make known throughout
+the country his intention of abolishing the Church of England. For
+to such a declaration did those few words amount. He was now the
+recognised parliamentary leader of that party to which the Church
+of England was essentially dear. He had achieved his place by skill,
+rather than principle,--by the conviction on men's minds that he was
+necessary rather than that he was fit. But still, there he was; and,
+though he had alarmed many,--had, probably, alarmed all those who
+followed him by his eccentric and dangerous mode of carrying on the
+battle; though no Conservative regarded him as safe; yet on this
+question of the Church it had been believed that he was sound. What
+might be the special ideas of his own mind regarding ecclesiastical
+policy in general, it had not been thought necessary to consider.
+His utterances had been confusing, mysterious, and perhaps purposely
+unintelligible; but that was matter of little moment so long as he
+was prepared to defend the establishment of the Church of England
+as an institution adapted for English purposes. On that point it
+was believed that he was sound. To that mast it was supposed he had
+nailed his own colours and those of his party. In defending that
+fortress it was thought that he would be ready to fall, should the
+defence of it require a fall. It was because he was so far safe that
+he was there. And yet he spoke these words without consulting a
+single friend, or suggesting the propriety of his new scheme to a
+single supporter. And he knew what he was doing. This was the way in
+which he had thought it best to make known to his own followers, not
+only that he was about to abandon the old Institution, but that they
+must do so too!
+
+As regarded East Barsetshire itself, he was returned, and feted, and
+sent home with his ears stuffed with eulogy, before the bucolic mind
+had discovered his purpose. On so much he had probably calculated.
+But he had calculated also that after an interval of three or four
+days his secret would be known to all friends and enemies. On the day
+after his speech came the report of it in the newspapers; on the next
+day the leading articles, in which the world was told what it was
+that the Prime Minister had really said. Then, on the following day,
+the startled parsons, and the startled squires and farmers, and,
+above all, the startled peers and members of the Lower House, whose
+duty it was to vote as he should lead them, were all agog. Could it
+be that the newspapers were right in this meaning which they had
+attached to these words? On the day week after the election in East
+Barsetshire, a Cabinet Council was called in London, at which it
+would, of course, be Mr. Daubeny's duty to explain to his colleagues
+what it was that he did purpose to do.
+
+In the meantime he saw a colleague or two.
+
+"Let us look it straight in the face," he said to a noble colleague;
+"we must look it in the face before long."
+
+"But we need not hurry it forward."
+
+"There is a storm coming. We knew that before, and we heard the sound
+of it from every husting in the country. How shall we rule the storm
+so that it may pass over the land without devastating it? If we bring
+in a bill--"
+
+"A bill for disestablishing the Church!" said the horror-stricken
+lord.
+
+"If we bring in a bill, the purport of which shall be to moderate the
+ascendancy of the Church in accordance with the existing religious
+feelings of the population, we shall save much that otherwise must
+fall. If there must be a bill, would you rather that it should be
+modelled by us who love the Church, or by those who hate it?"
+
+That lord was very wrath, and told the right honourable gentleman
+to his face that his duty to his party should have constrained him
+to silence on that subject till he had consulted his colleagues. In
+answer to this Mr. Daubeny said with much dignity that, should such
+be the opinion of his colleagues in general, he would at once abandon
+the high place which he held in their councils. But he trusted that
+it might be otherwise. He had felt himself bound to communicate his
+ideas to his constituents, and had known that in doing so some minds
+must be shocked. He trusted that he might be able to allay this
+feeling of dismay. As regarded this noble lord, he did succeed in
+lessening the dismay before the meeting was over, though he did not
+altogether allay it.
+
+Another gentleman who was in the habit of sitting at Mr. Daubeny's
+elbow daily in the House of Commons was much gentler with him, both
+as to words and manner. "It's a bold throw, but I'm afraid it won't
+come up sixes," said the right honourable gentleman.
+
+"Let it come up fives, then. It's the only chance we have; and if
+you think, as I do, that it is essentially necessary for the welfare
+of the country that we should remain where we are, we must run the
+risk."
+
+With another colleague, whose mind was really set on that which
+the Church is presumed to represent, he used another argument.
+"I am convinced at any rate of this," said Mr. Daubeny; "that by
+sacrificing something of that ascendancy which the Establishment is
+supposed to give us, we can bring the Church, which we love, nearer
+to the wants of the people." And so it came about that before the
+Cabinet met, every member of it knew what it was that was expected
+of him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+PHINEAS AND HIS OLD FRIENDS.
+
+
+Phineas Finn returned from Tankerville to London in much better
+spirits than those which had accompanied him on his journey thither.
+He was not elected; but then, before the election, he had come to
+believe that it was quite out of the question that he should be
+elected. And now he did think it probable that he should get the seat
+on a petition. A scrutiny used to be a very expensive business, but
+under the existing law, made as the scrutiny would be in the borough
+itself, it would cost but little; and that little, should he be
+successful, would fall on the shoulders of Mr. Browborough. Should he
+knock off eight votes and lose none himself, he would be member for
+Tankerville. He knew that many votes had been given for Browborough
+which, if the truth were known of them, would be knocked off; and he
+did not know that the same could be said of any one of those by which
+he had been supported. But, unfortunately, the judge by whom all this
+would be decided might not reach Tankerville in his travels till
+after Christmas, perhaps not till after Easter; and in the meantime,
+what should he do with himself?
+
+As for going back to Dublin, that was now out of the question. He had
+entered upon a feverish state of existence in which it was impossible
+that he should live in Ireland. Should he ultimately fail in regard
+to his seat he must--vanish out of the world. While he remained in his
+present condition he would not even endeavour to think how he might
+in such case best bestow himself. For the present he would remain
+within the region of politics, and live as near as he could to the
+whirl of the wheel of which the sound was so dear to him. Of one club
+he had always remained a member, and he had already been re-elected
+a member of the Reform. So he took up his residence once more at the
+house of a certain Mr. and Mrs. Bunce, in Great Marlborough Street,
+with whom he had lodged when he first became a member of Parliament.
+
+"So you're at the old game, Mr. Finn?" said his landlord.
+
+"Yes; at the old game. I suppose it's the same with you?" Now Mr.
+Bunce had been a very violent politician, and used to rejoice in
+calling himself a Democrat.
+
+"Pretty much the same, Mr. Finn. I don't see that things are much
+better than they used to be. They tell me at the People's Banner
+office that the lords have had as much to do with this election as
+with any that ever went before it."
+
+"Perhaps they don't know much about it at the People's Banner office.
+I thought Mr. Slide and the People's Banner had gone over to the
+other side, Bunce?"
+
+"Mr. Slide is pretty wide-awake whatever side he's on. Not but what
+he's disgraced himself by what he's been and done now." Mr. Slide
+in former days had been the editor of the People's Banner, and
+circumstances had arisen in consequence of which there had been some
+acquaintance between him and our hero. "I see you was hammering away
+at the Church down at Tankerville."
+
+"I just said a word or two."
+
+"You was all right, there, Mr. Finn. I can't say as I ever saw very
+much in your religion; but what a man keeps in the way of religion
+for his own use is never nothing to me;--as what I keeps is nothing
+to him."
+
+"I'm afraid you don't keep much, Mr. Bunce."
+
+"And that's nothing to you, neither, is it, sir?"
+
+"No, indeed."
+
+"But when we read of Churches as is called State Churches,--Churches
+as have bishops you and I have to pay for, as never goes into them--"
+
+"But we don't pay the bishops, Mr. Bunce."
+
+"Oh yes, we do; because, if they wasn't paid, the money would come to
+us to do as we pleased with it. We proved all that when we pared them
+down a bit. What's an Ecclesiastical Commission? Only another name
+for a box to put the money into till you want to take it out again.
+When we hear of Churches such as these, as is not kept up by the
+people who uses them,--just as the theatres are, Mr. Finn, or the gin
+shops,--then I know there's a deal more to be done before honest men
+can come by their own. You're right enough, Mr. Finn, you are, as far
+as churches go, and you was right, too, when you cut and run off the
+Treasury Bench. I hope you ain't going to sit on that stool again."
+
+Mr. Bunce was a privileged person, and Mrs. Bunce made up for his
+apparent rudeness by her own affectionate cordiality. "Deary me,
+and isn't it a thing for sore eyes to have you back again! I never
+expected this. But I'll do for you, Mr. Finn, just as I ever did in
+the old days; and it was I that was sorry when I heard of the poor
+young lady's death; so I was, Mr. Finn; well, then, I won't mention
+her name never again. But after all there's been betwixt you and us
+it wouldn't be natural to pass it by without one word; would it, Mr.
+Finn? Well, yes; he's just the same man as ever, without a ha'porth
+of difference. He's gone on paying that shilling to the Union every
+week of his life, just as he used to do; and never got so much out
+of it, not as a junketing into the country. That he didn't. It makes
+me that sick sometimes when I think of where it's gone to, that I
+don't know how to bear it. Well, yes; that is true, Mr. Finn. There
+never was a man better at bringing home his money to his wife than
+Bunce, barring that shilling. If he'd drink it, which he never does,
+I think I'd bear it better than give it to that nasty Union. And
+young Jack writes as well as his father, pretty nigh, Mr. Finn,
+which is a comfort,"--Mr. Bunce was a journeyman scrivener at a law
+stationer's,--"and keeps his self; but he don't bring home his money,
+nor yet it can't be expected, Mr. Finn. I know what the young 'uns
+will do, and what they won't. And Mary Jane is quite handy about the
+house now,--only she do break things, which is an aggravation; and
+the hot water shall be always up at eight o'clock to a minute, if I
+bring it with my own hand, Mr. Finn."
+
+
+[Illustration: "Well, then, I won't mention her name again."]
+
+
+And so he was established once more in his old rooms in Great
+Marlborough Street; and as he sat back in the arm-chair, which he
+used to know so well, a hundred memories of former days crowded back
+upon him. Lord Chiltern for a few months had lived with him; and then
+there had arisen a quarrel, which he had for a time thought would
+dissolve his old life into ruin. Now Lord Chiltern was again his
+very intimate friend. And there had used to sit a needy money-lender
+whom he had been unable to banish. Alas! alas! how soon might he now
+require that money-lender's services! And then he recollected how he
+had left these rooms to go into others, grander and more appropriate
+to his life when he had filled high office under the State. Would
+there ever again come to him such cause for migration? And would he
+again be able to load the frame of the looking-glass over the fire
+with countless cards from Countesses and Ministers' wives? He had
+opened the oyster for himself once, though it had closed again with
+so sharp a snap when the point of his knife had been withdrawn. Would
+he be able to insert the point again between those two difficult
+shells? Would the Countesses once more be kind to him? Would
+drawing-rooms be opened to him, and sometimes opened to him and to
+no other? Then he thought of certain special drawing-rooms in which
+wonderful things had been said to him. Since that he had been a
+married man, and those special drawing-rooms and those wonderful
+words had in no degree actuated him in his choice of a wife. He had
+left all those things of his own free will, as though telling himself
+that there was a better life than they offered to him. But was he
+sure that he had found it to be better? He had certainly sighed for
+the gauds which he had left. While his young wife was living he had
+kept his sighs down, so that she should not hear them; but he had
+been forced to acknowledge that his new life had been vapid and
+flavourless. Now he had been tempted back again to the old haunts.
+Would the Countesses' cards be showered upon him again?
+
+One card, or rather note, had reached him while he was yet at
+Tankerville, reminding him of old days. It was from Mrs. Low, the
+wife of the barrister with whom he had worked when he had been a
+law student in London. She had asked him to come and dine with them
+after the old fashion in Baker Street, naming a day as to which she
+presumed that he would by that time have finished his affairs at
+Tankerville, intimating also that Mr. Low would then have finished
+his at North Broughton. Now Mr. Low had sat for North Broughton
+before Phineas left London, and his wife spoke of the seat as a
+certainty. Phineas could not keep himself from feeling that Mrs. Low
+intended to triumph over him; but, nevertheless, he accepted the
+invitation. They were very glad to see him, explaining that, as
+nobody was supposed to be in town, nobody had been asked to meet
+him. In former days he had been very intimate in that house, having
+received from both of them much kindness, mingled, perhaps, with some
+touch of severity on the part of the lady. But the ground for that
+was gone, and Mrs. Low was no longer painfully severe. A few words
+were said as to his great loss. Mrs. Low once raised her eyebrows in
+pretended surprise when Phineas explained that he had thrown up his
+place, and then they settled down on the question of the day. "And
+so," said Mrs. Low, "you've begun to attack the Church?" It must be
+remembered that at this moment Mr. Daubeny had not as yet electrified
+the minds of East Barsetshire, and that, therefore, Mrs. Low was not
+disturbed. To Mrs. Low, Church and State was the very breath of her
+nostrils; and if her husband could not be said to live by means of
+the same atmosphere it was because the breath of his nostrils had
+been drawn chiefly in the Vice-Chancellor's Court in Lincoln's Inn.
+But he, no doubt, would be very much disturbed indeed should he ever
+be told that he was required, as an expectant member of Mr. Daubeny's
+party, to vote for the Disestablishment of the Church of England.
+
+"You don't mean that I am guilty of throwing the first stone?" said
+Phineas.
+
+"They have been throwing stones at the Temple since first it was
+built," said Mrs. Low, with energy; "but they have fallen off its
+polished shafts in dust and fragments." I am afraid that Mrs. Low,
+when she allowed herself to speak thus energetically, entertained
+some confused idea that the Church of England and the Christian
+religion were one and the same thing, or, at least, that they had
+been brought into the world together.
+
+"You haven't thrown the first stone," said Mr. Low; "but you have
+taken up the throwing at the first moment in which stones may be
+dangerous."
+
+"No stones can be dangerous," said Mrs. Low.
+
+"The idea of a State Church," said Phineas, "is opposed to my theory
+of political progress. What I hope is that my friends will not
+suppose that I attack the Protestant Church because I am a Roman
+Catholic. If I were a priest it would be my business to do so; but
+I am not a priest."
+
+Mr. Low gave his old friend a bottle of his best wine, and in all
+friendly observances treated him with due affection. But neither did
+he nor did his wife for a moment abstain from attacking their guest
+in respect to his speeches at Tankerville. It seemed, indeed, to
+Phineas that as Mrs. Low was buckled up in such triple armour that
+she feared nothing, she might have been less loud in expressing her
+abhorrence of the enemies of the Church. If she feared nothing,
+why should she scream so loudly? Between the two he was a good
+deal crushed and confounded, and Mrs. Low was very triumphant when
+she allowed him to escape from her hands at ten o'clock. But, at
+that moment, nothing had as yet been heard in Baker Street of Mr.
+Daubeny's proposition to the electors of East Barsetshire! Poor Mrs.
+Low! We can foresee that there is much grief in store for her, and
+some rocks ahead, too, in the political career of her husband.
+
+Phineas was still in London, hanging about the clubs, doing nothing,
+discussing Mr. Daubeny's wonderful treachery with such men as came up
+to town, and waiting for the meeting of Parliament, when he received
+the following letter from Lady Laura Kennedy:--
+
+
+   Dresden, November 18, ----.
+
+   MY DEAR MR. FINN,
+
+   I have heard with great pleasure from my sister-in-law
+   that you have been staying with them at Harrington Hall.
+   It seems so like old days that you and Oswald and Violet
+   should be together,--so much more natural than that you
+   should be living in Dublin. I cannot conceive of you as
+   living any other life than that of the House of Commons,
+   Downing Street, and the clubs. Nor do I wish to do so. And
+   when I hear of you at Harrington Hall I know that you are
+   on your way to the other things.
+
+   Do tell me what life is like with Oswald and Violet. Of
+   course he never writes. He is one of those men who, on
+   marrying, assume that they have at last got a person to do
+   a duty which has always hitherto been neglected. Violet
+   does write, but tells me little or nothing of themselves.
+   Her letters are very nice, full of anecdote, well
+   written,--letters that are fit to be kept and printed;
+   but they are never family letters. She is inimitable in
+   discussing the miseries of her own position as the wife
+   of a Master of Hounds; but the miseries are as evidently
+   fictitious as the art is real. She told me how poor dear
+   Lady Baldock communicated to you her unhappiness about her
+   daughter in a manner that made even me laugh; and would
+   make thousands laugh in days to come were it ever to be
+   published. But of her inside life, of her baby, or of her
+   husband as a husband, she never says a word. You will have
+   seen it all, and have enough of the feminine side of a
+   man's character to be able to tell me how they are living.
+   I am sure they are happy together, because Violet has more
+   common sense than any woman I ever knew.
+
+   And pray tell me about the affair at Tankerville. My
+   cousin Barrington writes me word that you will certainly
+   get the seat. He declares that Mr. Browborough is almost
+   disposed not to fight the battle, though a man more
+   disposed to fight never bribed an elector. But Barrington
+   seems to think that you managed as well as you did by
+   getting outside the traces, as he calls it. We certainly
+   did not think that you would come out strong against the
+   Church. Don't suppose that I complain. For myself I hate
+   to think of the coming severance; but if it must come, why
+   not by your hands as well as by any other? It is hardly
+   possible that you in your heart should love a Protestant
+   ascendant Church. But, as Barrington says, a horse won't
+   get oats unless he works steady between the traces.
+
+   As to myself, what am I to say to you? I and my father
+   live here a sad, sombre, solitary life, together. We have
+   a large furnished house outside the town, with a pleasant
+   view and a pretty garden. He does--nothing. He reads the
+   English papers, and talks of English parties, is driven
+   out, and eats his dinner, and sleeps. At home, as you
+   know, not only did he take an active part in politics, but
+   he was active also in the management of his own property.
+   Now it seems to him to be almost too great a trouble to
+   write a letter to his steward; and all this has come upon
+   him because of me. He is here because he cannot bear that
+   I should live alone. I have offered to return with him to
+   Saulsby, thinking that Mr. Kennedy would trouble me no
+   further,--or to remain here by myself; but he will consent
+   to neither. In truth the burden of idleness has now fallen
+   upon him so heavily that he cannot shake it off. He dreads
+   that he may be called upon to do anything.
+
+   To me it is all one tragedy. I cannot but think of things
+   as they were two or three years since. My father and my
+   husband were both in the Cabinet, and you, young as you
+   were, stood but one step below it. Oswald was out in the
+   cold. He was very poor. Papa thought all evil of him.
+   Violet had refused him over and over again. He quarrelled
+   with you, and all the world seemed against him. Then of a
+   sudden you vanished, and we vanished. An ineffable misery
+   fell upon me and upon my wretched husband. All our good
+   things went from us at a blow. I and my poor father became
+   as it were outcasts. But Oswald suddenly retricked his
+   beams, and is flaming in the forehead of the morning sky.
+   He, I believe, has no more than he has deserved. He won
+   his wife honestly;--did he not? And he has ever been
+   honest. It is my pride to think I never gave him up. But
+   the bitter part of my cup consists in this,--that as he
+   has won what he has deserved, so have we. I complain of no
+   injustice. Our castle was built upon the sand. Why should
+   Mr. Kennedy have been a Cabinet Minister;--and why should
+   I have been his wife? There is no one else of whom I can
+   ask that question as I can of you, and no one else who can
+   answer it as you can do.
+
+   Of Mr. Kennedy it is singular how little I know, and how
+   little I ever hear. There is no one whom I can ask to tell
+   me of him. That he did not attend during the last Session
+   I do know, and we presume that he has now abandoned his
+   seat. I fear that his health is bad,--or perhaps, worse
+   still, that his mind is affected by the gloom of his life.
+   I suppose that he lives exclusively at Loughlinter. From
+   time to time I am implored by him to return to my duty
+   beneath his roof. He grounds his demand on no affection of
+   his own, on no presumption that any affection can remain
+   with me. He says no word of happiness. He offers no
+   comfort. He does not attempt to persuade with promises of
+   future care. He makes his claim simply on Holy Writ, and
+   on the feeling of duty which thence ought to weigh upon
+   me. He has never even told me that he loves me; but he is
+   persistent in declaring that those whom God has joined
+   together nothing human should separate. Since I have been
+   here I have written to him once,--one sad, long, weary
+   letter. Since that I am constrained to leave his letters
+   unanswered.
+
+   And now, my friend, could you not do for me a great
+   kindness? For a while, till the inquiry be made at
+   Tankerville, your time must be vacant. Cannot you come and
+   see us? I have told Papa that I should ask you, and he
+   would be delighted. I cannot explain to you what it would
+   be to me to be able to talk again to one who knows all
+   the errors and all the efforts of my past life as you do.
+   Dresden is very cold in the winter. I do not know whether
+   you would mind that. We are very particular about the
+   rooms, but my father bears the temperature wonderfully
+   well, though he complains. In March we move down south
+   for a couple of months. Do come if you can.
+
+   Most sincerely yours,
+
+   LAURA KENNEDY.
+
+   If you come, of course you will have yourself brought
+   direct to us. If you can learn anything of Mr. Kennedy's
+   life, and of his real condition, pray do. The faint
+   rumours which reach me are painfully distressing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+COMING HOME FROM HUNTING.
+
+
+Lady Chiltern was probably right when she declared that her husband
+must have been made to be a Master of Hounds,--presuming it to be
+granted that somebody must be Master of Hounds. Such necessity
+certainly does exist in this, the present condition of England.
+Hunting prevails; hunting men increase in numbers; foxes are
+preserved; farmers do not rebel; owners of coverts, even when they
+are not hunting men themselves, acknowledge the fact, and do not dare
+to maintain their pheasants at the expense of the much better-loved
+four-footed animal. Hounds are bred, and horses are trained specially
+to the work. A master of fox hounds is a necessity of the period.
+Allowing so much, we cannot but allow also that Lord Chiltern must
+have been made to fill the situation. He understood hunting, and,
+perhaps, there was nothing else requiring acute intelligence that he
+did understand. And he understood hunting, not only as a huntsman
+understands it,--in that branch of the science which refers simply to
+the judicious pursuit of the fox, being probably inferior to his own
+huntsman in that respect,--but he knew exactly what men should do,
+and what they should not. In regard to all those various interests
+with which he was brought in contact, he knew when to hold fast to
+his own claims, and when to make no claims at all. He was afraid of
+no one, but he was possessed of a sense of justice which induced him
+to acknowledge the rights of those around him. When he found that the
+earths were not stopped in Trumpeton Wood,--from which he judged that
+the keeper would complain that the hounds would not or could not kill
+any of the cubs found there,--he wrote in very round terms to the
+Duke who owned it. If His Grace did not want to have the wood drawn,
+let him say so. If he did, let him have the earths stopped. But when
+that great question came up as to the Gartlow coverts--when that
+uncommonly disagreeable gentleman, Mr. Smith, of Gartlow, gave notice
+that the hounds should not be admitted into his place at all,--Lord
+Chiltern soon put the whole matter straight by taking part with the
+disagreeable gentleman. The disagreeable gentleman had been ill
+used. Men had ridden among his young laurels. If gentlemen who did
+hunt,--so said Lord Chiltern to his own supporters,--did not know
+how to conduct themselves in a matter of hunting, how was it to be
+expected that a gentleman who did not hunt should do so? On this
+occasion Lord Chiltern rated his own hunt so roundly that Mr. Smith
+and he were quite in a bond together, and the Gartlow coverts were
+re-opened. Now all the world knows that the Gartlow coverts, though
+small, are material as being in the very centre of the Brake country.
+
+It is essential that a Master of Hounds should be somewhat feared by
+the men who ride with him. There should be much awe mixed with the
+love felt for him. He should be a man with whom other men will not
+care to argue; an irrational, cut and thrust, unscrupulous, but yet
+distinctly honest man; one who can be tyrannical, but will tyrannise
+only over the evil spirits; a man capable of intense cruelty to those
+alongside of him, but who will know whether his victim does in truth
+deserve scalping before he draws his knife. He should be savage and
+yet good-humoured; severe and yet forbearing; truculent and pleasant
+in the same moment. He should exercise unflinching authority, but
+should do so with the consciousness that he can support it only by
+his own popularity. His speech should be short, incisive, always
+to the point, but never founded on argument. His rules are based
+on no reason, and will never bear discussion. He must be the most
+candid of men, also the most close;--and yet never a hypocrite. He
+must condescend to no explanation, and yet must impress men with an
+assurance that his decisions will certainly be right. He must rule
+all as though no man's special welfare were of any account, and yet
+must administer all so as to offend none. Friends he must have, but
+not favourites. He must be self-sacrificing, diligent, eager, and
+watchful. He must be strong in health, strong in heart, strong in
+purpose, and strong in purse. He must be economical and yet lavish;
+generous as the wind and yet obdurate as the frost. He should be
+assured that of all human pursuits hunting is the best, and that of
+all living things a fox is the most valuable. He must so train his
+heart as to feel for the fox a mingled tenderness and cruelty which
+is inexplicable to ordinary men and women. His desire to preserve the
+brute and then to kill him should be equally intense and passionate.
+And he should do it all in accordance with a code of unwritten laws,
+which cannot be learnt without profound study. It may not perhaps be
+truly asserted that Lord Chiltern answered this description in every
+detail; but he combined so many of the qualities required that his
+wife showed her discernment when she declared that he seemed to have
+been made to be a Master of Hounds.
+
+Early in that November he was riding home with Miss Palliser by his
+side, while the huntsmen and whips were trotting on with the hounds
+before him. "You call that a good run, don't you?"
+
+
+[Illustration: Adelaide Palliser.]
+
+
+"No; I don't."
+
+"What was the matter with it? I declare it seems to me that something
+is always wrong. Men like hunting better than anything else, and yet
+I never find any man contented."
+
+"In the first place we didn't kill."
+
+"You know you're short of foxes at Gartlow," said Miss Palliser, who,
+as is the manner with all hunting ladies, liked to show that she
+understood the affairs of the hunt.
+
+"If I knew there were but one fox in a county, and I got upon that
+one fox, I would like to kill that one fox,--barring a vixen in
+March."
+
+"I thought it very nice. It was fast enough for anybody."
+
+"You might go as fast with a drag, if that's all. I'll tell you
+something else. We should have killed him if Maule hadn't once ridden
+over the hounds when we came out of the little wood. I spoke very
+sharply to him."
+
+"I heard you, Lord Chiltern."
+
+"And I suppose you thought I was a brute."
+
+"Who? I? No, I didn't;--not particularly, you know. Men do say such
+things to each other!"
+
+"He doesn't mind it, I fancy."
+
+"I suppose a man does not like to be told that directly he shows
+himself in a run the sport is all over and the hounds ought to be
+taken home."
+
+"Did I say that? I don't remember now what I said, but I know he made
+me angry. Come, let us trot on. They can take the hounds home without
+us."
+
+"Good night, Cox," said Miss Palliser, as they passed by the pack.
+"Poor Mr. Maule! I did pity him, and I do think he does care for
+it, though he is so impassive. He would be with us now, only he is
+chewing the cud of his unhappiness in solitude half a mile behind
+us."
+
+"That is hard upon you."
+
+"Hard upon me, Lord Chiltern! It is hard upon him, and, perhaps, upon
+you. Why should it be hard upon me?"
+
+"Hard upon him, I should have said. Though why it shouldn't be the
+other way I don't know. He's a friend of yours."
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"And an especial friend, I suppose. As a matter of course Violet
+talks to me about you both."
+
+"No doubt she does. When once a woman is married she should be
+regarded as having thrown off her allegiance to her own sex. She is
+sure to be treacherous at any rate in one direction. Not that Lady
+Chiltern can tell anything of me that might not be told to all the
+world as far as I am concerned."
+
+"There is nothing in it, then?"
+
+"Nothing at all."
+
+"Honour bright?"
+
+"Oh,--honour as bright as it ever is in such matters as these."
+
+"I am sorry for that,--very sorry."
+
+"Why so, Lord Chiltern?"
+
+"Because if you were engaged to him I thought that perhaps you might
+have induced him to ride a little less forward."
+
+"Lord Chiltern," said Miss Palliser, seriously; "I will never again
+speak to you a word on any subject except hunting."
+
+At this moment Gerard Maule came up behind them, with a cigar in his
+mouth, apparently quite unconscious of any of that displeasure as
+to which Miss Palliser had supposed that he was chewing the cud in
+solitude. "That was a goodish thing, Chiltern," he said.
+
+"Very good."
+
+"And the hounds hunted him well to the end."
+
+"Very well."
+
+"It's odd how the scent will die away at a moment. You see they
+couldn't carry on a field after we got out of the copse."
+
+"Not a field."
+
+"Considering all things I am glad we didn't kill him."
+
+"Uncommon glad," said Lord Chiltern. Then they trotted on in silence
+a little way, and Maule again dropped behind. "I'm blessed if he
+knows that I spoke to him, roughly," said Chiltern. "He's deaf, I
+think, when he chooses to be."
+
+"You're not sorry, Lord Chiltern."
+
+"Not in the least. Nothing will ever do any good. As for offending
+him, you might as well swear at a tree, and think to offend it.
+There's comfort in that, anyway. I wonder whether he'd talk to you if
+I went away?"
+
+"I hope that you won't try the experiment."
+
+"I don't believe he would, or I'd go at once. I wonder whether you
+really do care for him?"
+
+"Not in the least."
+
+"Or he for you."
+
+"Quite indifferent, I should say; but I can't answer for him, Lord
+Chiltern, quite as positively as I can for myself. You know, as
+things go, people have to play at caring for each other."
+
+"That's what we call flirting."
+
+"Just the reverse. Flirting I take to be the excitement of love,
+without its reality, and without its ordinary result in marriage.
+This playing at caring has none of the excitement, but it often
+leads to the result, and sometimes ends in downright affection."
+
+"If Maule perseveres then you'll take him, and by-and-bye you'll come
+to like him."
+
+"In twenty years it might come to that, if we were always to live in
+the same house; but as he leaves Harrington to-morrow, and we may
+probably not meet each other for the next four years, I think the
+chance is small."
+
+Then Maule trotted up again, and after riding in silence with the
+other two for half an hour, he pulled out his case and lit a fresh
+cigar from the end of the old one, which he threw away. "Have a
+baccy, Chiltern?" he said.
+
+"No, thank you, I never smoke going home; my mind is too full. I've
+all that family behind to think of, and I'm generally out of sorts
+with the miseries of the day. I must say another word to Cox, or I
+should have to go to the kennels on my way home." And so he dropped
+behind.
+
+Gerard Maule smoked half his cigar before he spoke a word, and Miss
+Palliser was quite resolved that she would not open her mouth till he
+had spoken. "I suppose he likes it?" he said at last.
+
+"Who likes what, Mr. Maule?"
+
+"Chiltern likes blowing fellows up."
+
+"It's a part of his business."
+
+"That's the way I look at it. But I should think it must be
+disagreeable. He takes such a deal of trouble about it. I heard him
+going on to-day to some one as though his whole soul depended on it."
+
+"He is very energetic."
+
+"Just so. I'm quite sure it's a mistake. What does a man ever get by
+it? Folks around you soon discount it till it goes for nothing."
+
+"I don't think energy goes for nothing, Mr. Maule."
+
+"A bull in a china shop is not a useful animal, nor is he ornamental,
+but there can be no doubt of his energy. The hare was full of energy,
+but he didn't win the race. The man who stands still is the man who
+keeps his ground."
+
+"You don't stand still when you're out hunting."
+
+"No;--I ride about, and Chiltern swears at me. Every man is a fool
+sometimes."
+
+"And your wisdom, perfect at all other times, breaks down in the
+hunting-field?"
+
+"I don't in the least mind your chaffing. I know what you think of me
+just as well as though you told me."
+
+"What do I think of you?"
+
+"That I'm a poor creature, generally half asleep, shallow-pated,
+slow-blooded, ignorant, useless, and unambitious."
+
+"Certainly unambitious, Mr. Maule."
+
+"And that word carries all the others. What's the good of ambition?
+There's the man they were talking about last night,--that Irishman."
+
+"Mr. Finn?"
+
+"Yes; Phineas Finn. He is an ambitious fellow. He'll have to starve,
+according to what Chiltern was saying. I've sense enough to know I
+can't do any good."
+
+"You are sensible, I admit."
+
+"Very well, Miss Palliser. You can say just what you like, of course.
+You have that privilege."
+
+"I did not mean to say anything severe. I do admit that you are
+master of a certain philosophy, for which much may be said. But you
+are not to expect that I shall express an approval which I do not
+feel."
+
+"But I want you to approve it."
+
+"Ah!--there, I fear, I cannot oblige you."
+
+"I want you to approve it, though no one else may."
+
+"Though all else should do so, I cannot."
+
+"Then take the task of curing the sick one, and of strengthening
+the weak one, into your own hands. If you will teach, perhaps I may
+learn."
+
+"I have no mission for teaching, Mr. Maule."
+
+"You once said that,--that--"
+
+"Do not be so ungenerous as to throw in my teeth what I once
+said,--if I ever said a word that I would not now repeat."
+
+"I do not think that I am ungenerous, Miss Palliser."
+
+"I am sure you are not."
+
+"Nor am I self-confident. I am obliged to seek comfort from such
+scraps of encouragement as may have fallen in my way here and there.
+I once did think that you intended to love me."
+
+"Does love go by intentions?"
+
+"I think so,--frequently with men, and much more so with girls."
+
+"It will never go so with me. I shall never intend to love any one.
+If I ever love any man it will be because I am made to do so, despite
+my intentions."
+
+"As a fortress is taken?"
+
+"Well,--if you like to put it so. Only I claim this advantage,--that
+I can always get rid of my enemy when he bores me."
+
+"Am I boring you now?"
+
+"I didn't say so. Here is Lord Chiltern again, and I know by the
+rattle of his horse's feet that something is the matter."
+
+Lord Chiltern came up full of wrath. One of the men's horses was
+thoroughly broken down, and, as the Master said, wasn't worth the
+saddle he carried. He didn't care a ---- for the horse, but the man
+hadn't told him. "At this rate there won't be anything to carry
+anybody by Christmas."
+
+"You'll have to buy some more," said Gerard Maule.
+
+"Buy some more!" said Lord Chiltern, turning round, and looking at
+the man. "He talks of buying horses as he would sugar plums!" Then
+they trotted in at the gate, and in two minutes were at the hall
+door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE ADDRESS.
+
+
+Before the 11th of November, the day on which Parliament was to meet,
+the whole country was in a hubbub. Consternation and triumph were
+perhaps equally predominant, and equally strong. There were those who
+declared that now at length was Great Britain to be ruined in actual
+present truth; and those who asserted that, of a sudden, after a
+fashion so wholly unexpected as to be divine,--as great fires, great
+famines, and great wars are called divine,--a mighty hand had been
+stretched out to take away the remaining incubus of superstition,
+priestcraft, and bigotry under which England had hitherto been
+labouring. The proposed disestablishment of the State Church of
+England was, of course, the subject of this diversity of opinion.
+
+And there was not only diversity, but with it great confusion. The
+political feelings of the country are, as a rule, so well marked that
+it is easy, as to almost every question, to separate the sheep from
+the goats. With but few exceptions one can tell where to look for the
+supporters and where for the opponents of one measure or of another.
+Meetings are called in this or in that public hall to assist or to
+combat the Minister of the day, and men know what they are about. But
+now it was not so. It was understood that Mr. Daubeny, the accredited
+leader of the Conservatives, was about to bring in the bill, but
+no one as yet knew who would support the bill. His own party, to a
+man,--without a single exception,--were certainly opposed to the
+measure in their minds. It must be so. It could not but be certain
+that they should hate it. Each individual sitting on the Conservative
+side in either House did most certainly within his own bosom cry
+Ichabod when the fatal news reached his ears. But such private
+opinions and inward wailings need not, and probably would not, guide
+the body. Ichabod had been cried before, though probably never with
+such intensity of feeling. Disestablishment might be worse than Free
+Trade or Household Suffrage, but was not more absolutely opposed to
+Conservative convictions than had been those great measures. And yet
+the party, as a party, had swallowed them both. To the first and
+lesser evil, a compact little body of staunch Commoners had stood
+forth in opposition,--but nothing had come of it to those true
+Britons beyond a feeling of living in the cold shade of exclusion.
+When the greater evil arrived, that of Household Suffrage,--a measure
+which twenty years since would hardly have been advocated by the
+advanced Liberals of the day,--the Conservatives had learned to
+acknowledge the folly of clinging to their own convictions, and had
+swallowed the dose without serious disruption of their ranks. Every
+man,--with but an exception or two,--took the measure up, some with
+faces so singularly distorted as to create true pity, some with an
+assumption of indifference, some with affected glee. But in the
+double process the party had become used to this mode of carrying on
+the public service. As poor old England must go to the dogs, as the
+doom had been pronounced against the country that it should be ruled
+by the folly of the many foolish, and not by the wisdom of the few
+wise, why should the few wise remain out in the cold,--seeing, as
+they did, that by so doing no good would be done to the country?
+Dissensions among their foes did, when properly used, give them
+power,--but such power they could only use by carrying measures which
+they themselves believed to be ruinous. But the ruin would be as
+certain should they abstain. Each individual might have gloried
+in standing aloof,--in hiding his face beneath his toga, and in
+remembering that Rome did once exist in her splendour. But a party
+cannot afford to hide its face in its toga. A party has to be
+practical. A party can only live by having its share of Garters,
+lord-lieutenants, bishops, and attorney-generals. Though the country
+were ruined, the party should be supported. Hitherto the party had
+been supported, and had latterly enjoyed almost its share of stars
+and Garters,--thanks to the individual skill and strategy of that
+great English political Von Moltke Mr. Daubeny.
+
+And now what would the party say about the disestablishment of the
+Church? Even a party must draw the line somewhere. It was bad to
+sacrifice things mundane; but this thing was the very Holy of Holies!
+Was nothing to be conserved by a Conservative party? What if Mr.
+Daubeny were to explain some day to the electors of East Barsetshire
+that an hereditary peerage was an absurdity? What if in some rural
+nook of his Boeotia he should suggest in ambiguous language to the
+farmers that a Republic was the only form of Government capable of
+a logical defence? Duke had already said to Duke, and Earl to Earl,
+and Baronet to Baronet that there must be a line somewhere. Bishops
+as a rule say but little to each other, and now were afraid to
+say anything. The Church, which had been, which was, so truly
+beloved;--surely that must be beyond the line! And yet there crept
+through the very marrow of the party an agonising belief that Mr.
+Daubeny would carry the bulk of his party with him into the lobby of
+the House of Commons.
+
+But if such was the dismay of the Conservatives, how shall any writer
+depict the consternation of the Liberals? If there be a feeling
+odious to the mind of a sober, hardworking man, it is the feeling
+that the bread he has earned is to be taken out of his mouth. The
+pay, the patronage, the powers, and the pleasure of Government were
+all due to the Liberals. "God bless my soul," said Mr. Ratler, who
+always saw things in a practical light, "we have a larger fighting
+majority than any party has had since Lord Liverpool's time. They
+have no right to attempt it. They are bound to go out." "There's
+nothing of honesty left in politics," said Mr. Bonteen, declaring
+that he was sick of the life. Barrington Erle thought that the whole
+Liberal party should oppose the measure. Though they were Liberals
+they were not democrats; nor yet infidels. But when Barrington Erle
+said this, the great leaders of the Liberal party had not as yet
+decided on their ground of action.
+
+There was much difficulty in reaching any decision. It had been
+asserted so often that the disestablishment of the Church was only a
+question of time, that the intelligence of the country had gradually
+so learned to regard it. Who had said so, men did not know and did
+not inquire;--but the words were spoken everywhere. Parsons with
+sad hearts,--men who in their own parishes were enthusiastic, pure,
+pious, and useful,--whispered them in the dead of the night to the
+wives of their bosoms. Bishops, who had become less pure by contact
+with the world at clubs, shrugged their shoulders and wagged their
+heads, and remembered comfortably the sanctity of vested interests.
+Statesmen listened to them with politeness, and did not deny that
+they were true. In the free intercourse of closest friendships the
+matter was discussed between ex-Secretaries of State. The Press
+teemed with the assertion that it was only a question of time. Some
+fervent, credulous friends predicted another century of life;--some
+hard-hearted logical opponents thought that twenty years would put an
+end to the anomaly:--a few stout enemies had sworn on the hustings
+with an anathema that the present Session should see the deposition
+from her high place of this eldest daughter of the woman of Babylon.
+But none had expected the blow so soon as this; and none certainly
+had expected it from this hand.
+
+But what should the Liberal party do? Ratler was for opposing Mr.
+Daubeny with all their force, without touching the merits of the
+case. It was no fitting work for Mr. Daubeny, and the suddenness of
+the proposition coming from such a quarter would justify them now and
+for ever, even though they themselves should disestablish everything
+before the Session were over. Barrington Erle, suffering under a real
+political conviction for once in his life, was desirous of a positive
+and chivalric defence of the Church. He believed in the twenty years.
+Mr. Bonteen shut himself up in disgust. Things were amiss; and, as he
+thought, the evil was due to want of party zeal on the part of his
+own leader, Mr. Gresham. He did not dare to say this, lest, when
+the house door should at last be opened, he might not be invited to
+enter with the others; but such was his conviction. "If we were all
+a little less in the abstract, and a little more in the concrete, it
+would be better for us." Laurence Fitzgibbon, when these words had
+been whispered to him by Mr. Bonteen, had hardly understood them;
+but it had been explained to him that his friend had meant "men,
+not measures." When Parliament met, Mr. Gresham, the leader of the
+Liberal party, had not as yet expressed any desire to his general
+followers.
+
+The Queen's Speech was read, and the one paragraph which seemed
+to possess any great public interest was almost a repetition of
+the words which Mr. Daubeny had spoken to the electors of East
+Barsetshire. "It will probably be necessary for you to review the
+connection which still exists between, and which binds together,
+the Church and the State." Mr. Daubeny's words had of course been
+more fluent, but the gist of the expression was the same. He had
+been quite in earnest when addressing his friends in the country.
+And though there had been but an interval of a few weeks, the
+Conservative party in the two Houses heard the paragraph read
+without surprise and without a murmur. Some said that the gentlemen
+on the Treasury Bench in the House of Commons did not look to be
+comfortable. Mr. Daubeny sat with his hat over his brow, mute,
+apparently impassive and unapproachable, during the reading of
+the Speech and the moving and seconding of the Address. The House
+was very full, and there was much murmuring on the side of the
+Opposition;--but from the Government benches hardly a sound was
+heard, as a young gentleman, from one of the Midland counties, in
+a deputy-lieutenant's uniform, who had hitherto been known for no
+particular ideas of his own, but had been believed to be at any rate
+true to the Church, explained, not in very clear language, that the
+time had at length come when the interests of religion demanded a
+wider support and a fuller sympathy than could be afforded under that
+system of Church endowment and State establishment for which the
+country had hitherto been so grateful, and for which the country
+had such boundless occasion for gratitude. Another gentleman, in
+the uniform of the Guards, seconded the Address, and declared that
+in nothing was the sagacity of a Legislature so necessary as in
+discerning the period in which that which had hitherto been good
+ceased to be serviceable. The status pupillaris was mentioned, and
+it was understood that he had implied that England was now old enough
+to go on in matters of religion without a tutor in the shape of a
+State Church.
+
+Who makes the speeches, absolutely puts together the words, which
+are uttered when the Address is moved and seconded? It can hardly be
+that lessons are prepared and sent to the noble lords and honourable
+gentlemen to be learned by heart like a school-boy's task. And
+yet, from their construction, style, and general tone,--from the
+platitudes which they contain as well as from the general safety
+and good sense of the remarks,--from the absence of any attempt to
+improve a great occasion by the fire of oratory, one cannot but be
+convinced that a very absolute control is exercised. The gorgeously
+apparelled speakers, who seem to have great latitude allowed them in
+the matter of clothing, have certainly very little in the matter of
+language. And then it always seems that either of the four might
+have made the speech of any of the others. It could not have been
+the case that the Hon. Colonel Mowbray Dick, the Member for West
+Bustard, had really elaborated out of his own head that theory of
+the status pupillaris. A better fellow, or a more popular officer,
+or a sweeter-tempered gentleman than Mowbray Dick does not exist;
+but he certainly never entertained advanced opinions respecting the
+religious education of his country. When he is at home with his
+family, he always goes to church, and there has been an end of it.
+
+And then the fight began. The thunderbolts of opposition were
+unloosed, and the fires of political rancour blazed high. Mr. Gresham
+rose to his legs, and declared to all the world that which he had
+hitherto kept secret from his own party. It was known afterwards that
+in discussion with his own dearly-beloved political friend, Lord
+Cantrip, he had expressed his unbounded anger at the duplicity, greed
+for power, and want of patriotism displayed by his opponent; but he
+had acknowledged that the blow had come so quick and so unexpectedly
+that he thought it better to leave the matter to the House without
+instruction from himself. He now revelled in sarcasm, and before
+his speech was over raged into wrath. He would move an amendment to
+the Address for two reasons,--first because this was no moment for
+bringing before Parliament the question of the Church establishment,
+when as yet no well-considered opportunity of expressing itself on
+the subject had been afforded to the country, and secondly because
+any measure of reform on that matter should certainly not come to
+them from the right honourable gentleman opposite. As to the first
+objection, he should withhold his arguments till the bill suggested
+had been presented to them. It was in handling the second that he
+displayed his great power of invective. All those men who then sat in
+the House, and who on that night crowded the galleries, remember his
+tones as, turning to the dissenters who usually supported him, and
+pointing over the table to his opponents, he uttered that well-worn
+quotation, _Quod minime reris_,--then he paused, and began again;
+_Quod minime reris,--Graia pandetur ab urbe_. The power and inflexion
+of his voice at the word _Graia_ were certainly very wonderful. He
+ended by moving an amendment to the Address, and asking for support
+equally from one side of the House as from the other.
+
+When at length Mr. Daubeny moved his hat from his brow and rose to
+his legs he began by expressing his thankfulness that he had not
+been made a victim to the personal violence of the right honourable
+gentleman. He continued the same strain of badinage throughout,--in
+which he was thought to have been wrong, as it was a method of
+defence, or attack, for which his peculiar powers hardly suited him.
+As to any bill that was to be laid upon the table, he had not as yet
+produced it. He did not doubt that the dissenting interests of the
+country would welcome relief from an anomaly, let it come whence
+it might, even _Graia ab urbe_, and he waved his hand back to
+the clustering Conservatives who sat behind him. That the right
+honourable gentleman should be angry he could understand, as the
+return to power of the right honourable gentleman and his party had
+been anticipated, and he might almost say discounted as a certainty.
+
+Then, when Mr. Daubeny sat down, the House was adjourned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE DEBATE.
+
+
+The beginning of the battle as recorded in the last chapter took
+place on a Friday,--Friday, 11th November,--and consequently two
+entire days intervened before the debate could be renewed. There
+seemed to prevail an opinion during this interval that Mr. Gresham
+had been imprudent. It was acknowledged by all men that no finer
+speech than that delivered by him had ever been heard within the
+walls of that House. It was acknowledged also that as regarded the
+question of oratory Mr. Daubeny had failed signally. But the strategy
+of the Minister was said to have been excellent, whereas that of
+the ex-Minister was very loudly condemned. There is nothing so
+prejudicial to a cause as temper. This man is declared to be unfit
+for any position of note, because he always shows temper. Anything
+can be done with another man,--he can be made to fit almost any
+hole,--because he has his temper under command. It may, indeed, be
+assumed that a man who loses his temper while he is speaking is
+endeavouring to speak the truth such as he believes it to be, and
+again it may be assumed that a man who speaks constantly without
+losing his temper is not always entitled to the same implicit faith.
+Whether or not this be a reason the more for preferring the calm
+and tranquil man may be doubted; but the calm and tranquil man is
+preferred for public services. We want practical results rather than
+truth. A clear head is worth more than an honest heart. In a matter
+of horseflesh of what use is it to have all manner of good gifts if
+your horse won't go whither you want him, and refuses to stop when
+you bid him? Mr. Gresham had been very indiscreet, and had especially
+sinned in opposing the Address without arrangements with his party.
+
+And he made the matter worse by retreating within his own shell
+during the whole of that Saturday, Sunday, and Monday morning.
+Lord Cantrip was with him three or four times, and he saw both Mr.
+Palliser, who had been Chancellor of the Exchequer under him, and Mr.
+Ratler. But he went amidst no congregation of Liberals, and asked
+for no support. He told Ratler that he wished gentlemen to vote
+altogether in accordance with their opinions; and it came to be
+whispered in certain circles that he had resigned, or was resigning,
+or would resign, the leadership of his party. Men said that his
+passions were too much for him, and that he was destroyed by feelings
+of regret, and almost of remorse.
+
+The Ministers held a Cabinet Council on the Monday morning, and it
+was supposed afterwards that that also had been stormy. Two gentlemen
+had certainly resigned their seats in the Government before the House
+met at four o'clock, and there were rumours abroad that others would
+do so if the suggested measure should be found really to amount to
+disestablishment. The rumours were, of course, worthy of no belief,
+as the transactions of the Cabinet are of necessity secret. Lord
+Drummond at the War Office, and Mr. Boffin from the Board of Trade,
+did, however, actually resign; and Mr. Boffin's explanations in
+the House were heard before the debate was resumed. Mr. Boffin had
+certainly not joined the present Ministry,--so he said,--with the
+view of destroying the Church. He had no other remark to make, and he
+was sure that the House would appreciate the course which had induced
+him to seat himself below the gangway. The House cheered very loudly,
+and Mr. Boffin was the hero of ten minutes. Mr. Daubeny detracted
+something from this triumph by the overstrained and perhaps ironic
+pathos with which he deplored the loss of his right honourable
+friend's services. Now this right honourable gentleman had never been
+specially serviceable.
+
+But the wonder of the world arose from the fact that only two
+gentlemen out of the twenty or thirty who composed the Government did
+give up their places on this occasion. And this was a Conservative
+Government! With what a force of agony did all the Ratlers of the
+day repeat that inappropriate name! Conservatives! And yet they
+were ready to abandon the Church at the bidding of such a man as Mr.
+Daubeny! Ratler himself almost felt that he loved the Church. Only
+two resignations;--whereas it had been expected that the whole House
+would fall to pieces! Was it possible that these earls, that marquis,
+and the two dukes, and those staunch old Tory squires, should remain
+in a Government pledged to disestablish the Church? Was all the
+honesty, all the truth of the great party confined to the bosoms of
+Mr. Boffin and Lord Drummond? Doubtless they were all Esaus; but
+would they sell their great birthright for so very small a mess of
+pottage? The parsons in the country, and the little squires who but
+rarely come up to London, spoke of it all exactly as did the Ratlers.
+There were parishes in the country in which Mr. Boffin was canonised,
+though up to that date no Cabinet Minister could well have been less
+known to fame than was Mr. Boffin.
+
+What would those Liberals do who would naturally rejoice in the
+disestablishment of the Church,--those members of the Lower House,
+who had always spoken of the ascendancy of Protestant episcopacy with
+the bitter acrimony of exclusion? After all, the success or failure
+of Mr. Daubeny must depend, not on his own party, but on them.
+It must always be so when measures of Reform are advocated by a
+Conservative Ministry. There will always be a number of untrained men
+ready to take the gift without looking at the giver. They have not
+expected relief from the hands of Greeks, but will take it when it
+comes from Greeks or Trojans. What would Mr. Turnbull say in this
+debate,--and what Mr. Monk? Mr. Turnbull was the people's tribune, of
+the day; Mr. Monk had also been a tribune, then a Minister, and now
+was again--something less than a tribune. But there were a few men in
+the House, and some out of it, who regarded Mr. Monk as the honestest
+and most patriotic politician of the day.
+
+The debate was long and stormy, but was peculiarly memorable for the
+skill with which Mr. Daubeny's higher colleagues defended the steps
+they were about to take. The thing was to be done in the cause of
+religion. The whole line of defence was indicated by the gentlemen
+who moved and seconded the Address. An active, well-supported Church
+was the chief need of a prosperous and intelligent people. As to the
+endowments, there was some confusion of ideas; but nothing was to be
+done with them inappropriate to religion. Education would receive
+the bulk of what was left after existing interests had been amply
+guaranteed. There would be no doubt,--so said these gentlemen,--that
+ample funds for the support of an Episcopal Church would come from
+those wealthy members of the body to whom such a Church was dear.
+There seemed to be a conviction that clergymen under the new order
+of things would be much better off than under the old. As to the
+connection with the State, the time for it had clearly gone by. The
+Church, as a Church, would own increased power when it could appoint
+its own bishops, and be wholly dissevered from State patronage. It
+seemed to be almost a matter of surprise that really good Churchmen
+should have endured so long to be shackled by subservience to the
+State. Some of these gentlemen pleaded their cause so well that they
+almost made it appear that episcopal ascendancy would be restored in
+England by the disseverance of the Church and State.
+
+Mr. Turnbull, who was himself a dissenter, was at last upon his legs,
+and then the Ratlers knew that the game was lost. It would be lost as
+far as it could be lost by a majority in that House on that motion;
+and it was by that majority or minority that Mr. Daubeny would be
+maintained in his high office or ejected from it. Mr. Turnbull began
+by declaring that he did not at all like Mr. Daubeny as a Minister
+of the Crown. He was not in the habit of attaching himself specially
+to any Minister of the Crown. Experience had taught him to doubt
+them all. Of all possible Ministers of the Crown at this period, Mr.
+Daubeny was he thought perhaps the worst, and the most dangerous. But
+the thing now offered was too good to be rejected, let it come from
+what quarter it would. Indeed, might it not be said of all the good
+things obtained for the people, of all really serviceable reforms,
+that they were gathered and garnered home in consequence of the
+squabbles of Ministers? When men wanted power, either to grasp at
+it or to retain it, then they offered bribes to the people. But in
+the taking of such bribes there was no dishonesty, and he should
+willingly take this bribe.
+
+Mr. Monk spoke also. He would not, he said, feel himself justified
+in refusing the Address to the Crown proposed by Ministers, simply
+because that Address was founded on the proposition of a future
+reform, as to the expediency of which he had not for many years
+entertained a doubt. He could not allow it to be said of him that he
+had voted for the permanence of the Church establishment, and he must
+therefore support the Government. Then Ratler whispered a few words
+to his neighbour: "I knew the way he'd run when Gresham insisted on
+poor old Mildmay's taking him into the Cabinet." "The whole thing has
+gone to the dogs," said Bonteen. On the fourth night the House was
+divided, and Mr. Daubeny was the owner of a majority of fifteen.
+
+Very many of the Liberal party expressed an opinion that the battle
+had been lost through the want of judgment evinced by Mr. Gresham.
+There was certainly no longer that sturdy adherence to their chief
+which is necessary for the solidarity of a party. Perhaps no leader
+of the House was ever more devoutly worshipped by a small number of
+adherents than was Mr. Gresham now; but such worship will not support
+power. Within the three days following the division the Ratlers had
+all put their heads together and had resolved that the Duke of St.
+Bungay was now the only man who could keep the party together. "But
+who should lead our House?" asked Bonteen. Ratler sighed instead of
+answering. Things had come to that pass that Mr. Gresham was the only
+possible leader. And the leader of the House of Commons, on behalf
+of the Government, must be the chief man in the Government, let the
+so-called Prime Minister be who he may.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE DESERTED HUSBAND.
+
+
+Phineas Finn had been in the gallery of the House throughout the
+debate, and was greatly grieved at Mr. Daubeny's success, though
+he himself had so strongly advocated the disestablishment of the
+Church in canvassing the electors of Tankerville. No doubt he had
+advocated the cause,--but he had done so as an advanced member of the
+Liberal party, and he regarded the proposition when coming from Mr.
+Daubeny as a horrible and abnormal birth. He, however, was only a
+looker-on,--could be no more than a looker-on for the existing short
+session. It had already been decided that the judge who was to try
+the case at Tankerville should visit that town early in January; and
+should it be decided on a scrutiny that the seat belonged to our
+hero, then he would enter upon his privilege in the following Session
+without any further trouble to himself at Tankerville. Should this
+not be the case,--then the abyss of absolute vacuity would be open
+before him. He would have to make some disposition of himself, but he
+would be absolutely without an idea as to the how or where. He was in
+possession of funds to support himself for a year or two; but after
+that, and even during that time, all would be dark. If he should get
+his seat, then again the power of making an effort would at last be
+within his hands.
+
+He had made up his mind to spend the Christmas with Lord Brentford
+and Lady Laura Kennedy at Dresden, and had already fixed the day of
+his arrival there. But this had been postponed by another invitation
+which had surprised him much, but which it had been impossible for
+him not to accept. It had come as follows:--
+
+
+   November 9th, Loughlinter.
+
+   DEAR SIR,
+
+   I am informed by letter from Dresden that you are in
+   London on your way to that city with the view of spending
+   some days with the Earl of Brentford. You will, of course,
+   be once more thrown into the society of my wife, Lady
+   Laura Kennedy.
+
+   I have never understood, and certainly have never
+   sanctioned, that breach of my wife's marriage vow which
+   has led to her withdrawal from my roof. I never bade her
+   go, and I have bidden her return. Whatever may be her
+   feelings, or mine, her duty demands her presence here,
+   and my duty calls upon me to receive her. This I am and
+   always have been ready to do. Were the laws of Europe
+   sufficiently explicit and intelligible I should force her
+   to return to my house,--because she sins while she remains
+   away, and I should sin were I to omit to use any means
+   which the law might place in my hands for the due control
+   of my own wife. I am very explicit to you although we
+   have of late been strangers, because in former days you
+   were closely acquainted with the condition of my family
+   affairs.
+
+   Since my wife left me I have had no means of communicating
+   with her by the assistance of any common friend. Having
+   heard that you are about to visit her at Dresden I feel a
+   great desire to see you that I may be enabled to send by
+   you a personal message. My health, which is now feeble,
+   and the altered habits of my life render it almost
+   impossible that I should proceed to London with this
+   object, and I therefore ask it of your Christian charity
+   that you should visit me here at Loughlinter. You, as a
+   Roman Catholic, cannot but hold the bond of matrimony
+   to be irrefragable. You cannot, at least, think that it
+   should be set aside at the caprice of an excitable woman
+   who is not able and never has been able to assign any
+   reason for leaving the protection of her husband.
+
+   I shall have much to say to you, and I trust you will
+   come. I will not ask you to prolong your visit, as I have
+   nothing to offer you in the way of amusement. My mother is
+   with me; but otherwise I am alone. Since my wife left me I
+   have not thought it even decent to entertain guests or to
+   enjoy society. I have lived a widowed life. I cannot even
+   offer you shooting, as I have no keepers on the mountains.
+   There are fish in the river doubtless, for the gifts of
+   God are given let men be ever so unworthy; but this, I
+   believe, is not the month for fishermen. I ask you to come
+   to me, not as a pleasure, but as a Christian duty.
+
+   Yours truly,
+
+   ROBERT KENNEDY.
+
+   Phineas Finn, Esq.
+
+
+As soon as he had read the letter Phineas felt that he had no
+alternative but to go. The visit would be very disagreeable, but it
+must be made. So he sent a line to Robert Kennedy naming a day; and
+wrote another to Lady Laura postponing his time at Dresden by a week,
+and explaining the cause of its postponement. As soon as the debate
+on the Address was over he started for Loughlinter.
+
+A thousand memories crowded on his brain as he made the journey.
+Various circumstances had in his early life,--in that period of his
+life which had lately seemed to be cut off from the remainder of his
+days by so clear a line,--thrown him into close connection with this
+man, and with the man's wife. He had first gone to Loughlinter, not
+as Lady Laura's guest,--for Lady Laura had not then been married, or
+even engaged to be married,--but on her persuasion rather than on
+that of Mr. Kennedy. When there he had asked Lady Laura to be his own
+wife, and she had then told him that she was to become the wife of
+the owner of that domain. He remembered the blow as though it had
+been struck but yesterday, and yet the pain of the blow had not been
+long enduring. But though then rejected he had always been the chosen
+friend of the woman,--a friend chosen after an especial fashion. When
+he had loved another woman this friend had resented his defection
+with all a woman's jealousy. He had saved the husband's life, and had
+then become also the husband's friend, after that cold fashion which
+an obligation will create. Then the husband had been jealous, and
+dissension had come, and the ill-matched pair had been divided, with
+absolute ruin to both of them, as far as the material comforts and
+well-being of life were concerned. Then he, too, had been ejected,
+as it were, out of the world, and it had seemed to him as though
+Laura Standish and Robert Kennedy had been the inhabitants of another
+hemisphere. Now he was about to see them both again, both separately;
+and to become the medium of some communication between them. He knew,
+or thought that he knew, that no communication could avail anything.
+
+It was dark night when he was driven up to the door of Loughlinter
+House in a fly from the town of Callender. When he first made the
+journey, now some six or seven years since, he had done so with Mr.
+Ratler, and he remembered well that circumstance. He remembered also
+that on his arrival Lady Laura had scolded him for having travelled
+in such company. She had desired him to seek other friends,--friends
+higher in general estimation, and nobler in purpose. He had done so,
+partly at her instance, and with success. But Mr. Ratler was now
+somebody in the world, and he was nobody. And he remembered also how
+on that occasion he had been troubled in his mind in regard to a
+servant, not as yet knowing whether the usages of the world did or
+did not require that he should go so accompanied. He had taken the
+man, and had been thoroughly ashamed of himself for doing so. He had
+no servant now, no grandly developed luggage, no gun, no elaborate
+dress for the mountains. On that former occasion his heart had been
+very full when he reached Loughlinter, and his heart was full now.
+Then he had resolved to say a few words to Lady Laura, and he had
+hardly known how best to say them. Now he would be called upon to
+say a few to Lady Laura's husband, and the task would be almost as
+difficult.
+
+The door was opened for him by an old servant in black, who proposed
+at once to show him to his room. He looked round the vast hall,
+which, when he had before known it, was ever filled with signs of
+life, and felt at once that it was empty and deserted. It struck him
+as intolerably cold, and he saw that the huge fireplace was without a
+spark of fire. Dinner, the servant said, was prepared for half-past
+seven. Would Mr. Finn wish to dress? Of course he wished to dress.
+And as it was already past seven he hurried up stairs to his room.
+Here again everything was cold and wretched. There was no fire, and
+the man had left him with a single candle. There were candlesticks on
+the dressing-table, but they were empty. The man had suggested hot
+water, but the hot water did not come. In his poorest days he had
+never known discomfort such as this, and yet Mr. Kennedy was one of
+the richest commoners of Great Britain.
+
+But he dressed, and made his way down stairs, not knowing where
+he should find his host or his host's mother. He recognised the
+different doors and knew the rooms within them, but they seemed
+inhospitably closed against him, and he went and stood in the cold
+hall. But the man was watching for him, and led him into a small
+parlour. Then it was explained to him that Mr. Kennedy's state of
+health did not admit of late dinners. He was to dine alone, and Mr.
+Kennedy would receive him after dinner. In a moment his cheeks became
+red, and a flash of wrath crossed his heart. Was he to be treated
+in this way by a man on whose behalf,--with no thought of his own
+comfort or pleasure,--he had made this long and abominable journey?
+Might it not be well for him to leave the house without seeing Mr.
+Kennedy at all? Then he remembered that he had heard it whispered
+that the man had become bewildered in his mind. He relented,
+therefore, and condescended to eat his dinner.
+
+A very poor dinner it was. There was a morsel of flabby white fish,
+as to the nature of which Phineas was altogether in doubt, a beef
+steak as to the nature of which he was not at all in doubt, and a
+little crumpled-up tart which he thought the driver of the fly must
+have brought with him from the pastry-cook's at Callender. There was
+some very hot sherry, but not much of it. And there was a bottle of
+claret, as to which Phineas, who was not usually particular in the
+matter of wine, persisted in declining to have anything to do with
+it after the first attempt. The gloomy old servant, who stuck to him
+during the repast, persisted in offering it, as though the credit
+of the hospitality of Loughlinter depended on it. There are so many
+men by whom the tenuis ratio saporum has not been achieved, that the
+Caleb Balderstones of those houses in which plenty does not flow
+are almost justified in hoping that goblets of Gladstone may pass
+current. Phineas Finn was not a martyr to eating or drinking. He
+played with his fish without thinking much about it. He worked
+manfully at the steak. He gave another crumple to the tart, and left
+it without a pang. But when the old man urged him, for the third
+time, to take that pernicious draught with his cheese, he angrily
+demanded a glass of beer. The old man toddled out of the room, and
+on his return he proffered to him a diminutive glass of white spirit,
+which he called usquebaugh. Phineas, happy to get a little whisky,
+said nothing more about the beer, and so the dinner was over.
+
+He rose so suddenly from his chair that the man did not dare to ask
+him whether he would not sit over his wine. A suggestion that way was
+indeed made, would he "visit the laird out o' hand, or would he bide
+awee?" Phineas decided on visiting the laird out of hand, and was
+at once led across the hall, down a back passage which he had never
+before traversed, and introduced to the chamber which had ever been
+known as the "laird's ain room." Here Robert Kennedy rose to receive
+him.
+
+Phineas knew the man's age well. He was still under fifty, but he
+looked as though he were seventy. He had always been thin, but he was
+thinner now than ever. He was very grey, and stooped so much, that
+though he came forward a step or two to greet his guest, it seemed
+as though he had not taken the trouble to raise himself to his
+proper height. "You find me a much altered man," he said. The change
+had been so great that it was impossible to deny it, and Phineas
+muttered something of regret that his host's health should be so
+bad. "It is trouble of the mind,--not of the body, Mr. Finn. It is
+her doing,--her doing. Life is not to me a light thing, nor are
+the obligations of life light. When I married a wife, she became
+bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh. Can I lose my bones and
+my flesh,--knowing that they are not with God but still subject
+elsewhere to the snares of the devil, and live as though I were a
+sound man? Had she died I could have borne it. I hope they have made
+you comfortable, Mr. Finn?"
+
+"Oh, yes," said Phineas.
+
+"Not that Loughlinter can be comfortable now to any one. How can a
+man, whose wife has deserted him, entertain his guests? I am ashamed
+even to look a friend in the face, Mr. Finn." As he said this he
+stretched forth his open hand as though to hide his countenance, and
+Phineas hardly knew whether the absurdity of the movement or the
+tragedy of the feeling struck him the more forcibly. "What did I do
+that she should leave me? Did I strike her? Was I faithless? Had she
+not the half of all that was mine? Did I frighten her by hard words,
+or exact hard tasks? Did I not commune with her, telling her all my
+most inward purposes? In things of this world, and of that better
+world that is coming, was she not all in all to me? Did I not make
+her my very wife? Mr. Finn, do you know what made her go away?" He
+had asked perhaps a dozen questions. As to the eleven which came
+first it was evident that no answer was required; and they had been
+put with that pathetic dignity with which it is so easy to invest
+the interrogatory form of address. But to the last question it was
+intended that Phineas should give an answer, as Phineas presumed
+at once; and then it was asked with a wink of the eye, a low eager
+voice, and a sly twist of the face that were frightfully ludicrous.
+"I suppose you do know," said Mr. Kennedy, again working his eye,
+and thrusting his chin forward.
+
+
+[Illustration: The Laird of Loughlinter.]
+
+
+"I imagine that she was not happy."
+
+"Happy? What right had she to expect to be happy? Are we to believe
+that we should be happy here? Are we not told that we are to look
+for happiness there, and to hope for none below?" As he said this he
+stretched his left hand to the ceiling. "But why shouldn't she have
+been happy? What did she want? Did she ever say anything against me,
+Mr. Finn?"
+
+"Nothing but this,--that your temper and hers were incompatible."
+
+"I thought at one time that you advised her to go away?"
+
+"Never!"
+
+"She told you about it?"
+
+"Not, if I remember, till she had made up her mind, and her father
+had consented to receive her. I had known, of course, that things
+were unpleasant."
+
+"How were they unpleasant? Why were they unpleasant? She wouldn't let
+you come and dine with me in London. I never knew why that was. When
+she did what was wrong, of course I had to tell her. Who else should
+tell her but her husband? If you had been her husband, and I only
+an acquaintance, then I might have said what I pleased. They rebel
+against the yoke because it is a yoke. And yet they accept the yoke,
+knowing it to be a yoke. It comes of the devil. You think a priest
+can put everything right."
+
+"No, I don't," said Phineas.
+
+"Nothing can put you right but the fear of God; and when a woman
+is too proud to ask for that, evils like these are sure to come.
+She would not go to church on Sunday afternoon, but had meetings of
+Belial at her father's house instead." Phineas well remembered those
+meetings of Belial, in which he with others had been wont to discuss
+the political prospects of the day. "When she persisted in breaking
+the Lord's commandment, and defiling the Lord's day, I knew well what
+would come of it."
+
+"I am not sure, Mr. Kennedy, that a husband is justified in demanding
+that a wife shall think just as he thinks on matters of religion. If
+he is particular about it, he should find all that out before."
+
+"Particular! God's word is to be obeyed, I suppose?"
+
+"But people doubt about God's word."
+
+"Then people will be damned," said Mr. Kennedy, rising from his
+chair. "And they will be damned."
+
+"A woman doesn't like to be told so."
+
+"I never told her so. I never said anything of the kind. I never
+spoke a hard word to her in my life. If her head did but ache, I hung
+over her with the tenderest solicitude. I refused her nothing. When
+I found that she was impatient I chose the shortest sermon for our
+Sunday evening's worship, to the great discomfort of my mother."
+Phineas wondered whether this assertion as to the discomfort of old
+Mrs. Kennedy could possibly be true. Could it be that any human being
+really preferred a long sermon to a short one,--except the being who
+preached it or read it aloud? "There was nothing that I did not do
+for her. I suppose you really do know why she went away, Mr. Finn?"
+
+"I know nothing more than I have said."
+
+"I did think once that she was--"
+
+"There was nothing more than I have said," asserted Phineas sternly,
+fearing that the poor insane man was about to make some suggestion
+that would be terribly painful. "She felt that she did not make you
+happy."
+
+"I did not want her to make me happy. I do not expect to be made
+happy. I wanted her to do her duty. You were in love with her once,
+Mr. Finn?"
+
+"Yes, I was. I was in love with Lady Laura Standish."
+
+"Ah! Yes. There was no harm in that, of course; only when any thing
+of that kind happens, people had better keep out of each other's way
+afterwards. Not that I was ever jealous, you know."
+
+"I should hope not."
+
+"But I don't see why you should go all the way to Dresden to pay her
+a visit. What good can that do? I think you had much better stay
+where you are, Mr. Finn; I do indeed. It isn't a decent thing for a
+young unmarried man to go half across Europe to see a lady who is
+separated from her husband, and who was once in love with him;--I
+mean he was once in love with her. It's a very wicked thing, Mr.
+Finn, and I have to beg that you will not do it."
+
+Phineas felt that he had been grossly taken in. He had been asked to
+come to Loughlinter in order that he might take a message from the
+husband to the wife, and now the husband made use of his compliance
+to forbid the visit on some grotesque score of jealousy. He knew that
+the man was mad, and that therefore he ought not to be angry; but the
+man was not too mad to require a rational answer, and had some method
+in his madness. "Lady Laura Kennedy is living with her father," said
+Phineas.
+
+"Pshaw;--dotard!"
+
+"Lady Laura Kennedy is living with her father," repeated Phineas;
+"and I am going to the house of the Earl of Brentford."
+
+"Who was it wrote and asked you?"
+
+"The letter was from Lady Laura."
+
+"Yes;--from my wife. What right had my wife to write to you when
+she will not even answer my appeals? She is my wife;--my wife! In
+the presence of God she and I have been made one, and even man's
+ordinances have not dared to separate us. Mr. Finn, as the husband
+of Lady Laura Kennedy, I desire that you abstain from seeking her
+presence." As he said this he rose from his chair, and took the poker
+in his hand. The chair in which he was sitting was placed upon the
+rug, and it might be that the fire required his attention. As he
+stood bending down, with the poker in his right hand, with his eye
+still fixed on his guest's face, his purpose was doubtful. The motion
+might be a threat, or simply have a useful domestic tendency. But
+Phineas, believing that the man was mad, rose from his seat and stood
+upon his guard. The point of the poker had undoubtedly been raised;
+but as Phineas stretched himself to his height, it fell gradually
+towards the fire, and at last was buried very gently among the coals.
+But he was never convinced that Mr. Kennedy had carried out the
+purpose with which he rose from his chair. "After what has passed,
+you will no doubt abandon your purpose," said Mr. Kennedy.
+
+"I shall certainly go to Dresden," said Phineas. "If you have a
+message to send, I will take it."
+
+"Then you will be accursed among adulterers," said the laird of
+Loughlinter. "By such a one I will send no message. From the first
+moment that I saw you I knew you for a child of Apollyon. But the sin
+was my own. Why did I ask to my house an idolater, one who pretends
+to believe that a crumb of bread is my God, a Papist, untrue alike
+to his country and to his Saviour? When she desired it of me I knew
+that I was wrong to yield. Yes;--it is you who have done it all, you,
+you, you;--and if she be a castaway, the weight of her soul will be
+doubly heavy on your own."
+
+To get out of the room, and then at the earliest possible hour of the
+morning out of the house, were now the objects to be attained. That
+his presence had had a peculiarly evil influence on Mr. Kennedy,
+Phineas could not doubt; as assuredly the unfortunate man would
+not have been left with mastery over his own actions had his usual
+condition been such as that which he now displayed. He had been told
+that "poor Kennedy" was mad,--as we are often told of the madness
+of our friends when they cease for awhile to run in the common
+grooves of life. But the madman had now gone a long way out of
+the grooves;--so far, that he seemed to Phineas to be decidedly
+dangerous. "I think I had better wish you good night," he said.
+
+"Look here, Mr. Finn."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I hope you won't go and make more mischief."
+
+"I shall not do that, certainly."
+
+"You won't tell her what I have said?"
+
+"I shall tell her nothing to make her think that your opinion of her
+is less high than it ought to be."
+
+"Good night."
+
+"Good night," said Phineas again; and then he left the room. It was
+as yet but nine o'clock, and he had no alternative but to go to bed.
+He found his way back into the hall, and from thence up to his own
+chamber. But there was no fire there, and the night was cold. He went
+to the window, and raised it for a moment, that he might hear the
+well-remembered sound of the Fall of Linter. Though the night was
+dark and wintry, a dismal damp November night, he would have crept
+out of the house and made his way up to the top of the brae, for
+the sake of auld lang syne, had he not feared that the inhospitable
+mansion would be permanently closed against him on his return. He
+rang the bell once or twice, and after a while the old serving man
+came to him. Could he have a cup of tea? The man shook his head, and
+feared that no boiling water could be procured at that late hour of
+the night. Could he have his breakfast the next morning at seven, and
+a conveyance to Callender at half-past seven? When the old man again
+shook his head, seeming to be dazed at the enormity of the demand,
+Phineas insisted that his request should be conveyed to the master of
+the house. As to the breakfast, he said he did not care about it, but
+the conveyance he must have. He did, in fact, obtain both, and left
+the house early on the following morning without again seeing Mr.
+Kennedy, and without having spoken a single word to Mr. Kennedy's
+mother. And so great was his hurry to get away from the place which
+had been so disagreeable to him, and which he thought might possibly
+become more so, that he did not even run across the sward that
+divided the gravel sweep from the foot of the waterfall.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE TRUANT WIFE.
+
+
+Phineas on his return to London wrote a line to Lady Chiltern in
+accordance with a promise which had been exacted from him. She was
+anxious to learn something as to the real condition of her husband's
+brother-in-law, and, when she heard that Phineas was going to
+Loughlinter, had begged that he would tell her the truth. "He has
+become eccentric, gloomy, and very strange," said Phineas. "I do not
+believe that he is really mad, but his condition is such that I think
+no friend should recommend Lady Laura to return to him. He seems to
+have devoted himself to a gloomy religion,--and to the saving of
+money. I had but one interview with him, and that was essentially
+disagreeable." Having remained two days in London, and having
+participated, as far as those two days would allow him, in the
+general horror occasioned by the wickedness and success of Mr.
+Daubeny, he started for Dresden.
+
+He found Lord Brentford living in a spacious house, with a huge
+garden round it, close upon the northern confines of the town.
+Dresden, taken altogether, is a clean cheerful city, and strikes
+the stranger on his first entrance as a place in which men are
+gregarious, busy, full of merriment, and pre-eminently social. Such
+is the happy appearance of but few towns either in the old or the
+new world, and is hardly more common in Germany than elsewhere.
+Leipsic is decidedly busy, but does not look to be social. Vienna is
+sufficiently gregarious, but its streets are melancholy. Munich is
+social, but lacks the hum of business. Frankfort is both practical
+and picturesque, but it is dirty, and apparently averse to mirth.
+Dresden has much to recommend it, and had Lord Brentford with his
+daughter come abroad in quest of comfortable easy social life, his
+choice would have been well made. But, as it was, any of the towns
+above named would have suited him as well as Dresden, for he saw no
+society, and cared nothing for the outward things of the world around
+him. He found Dresden to be very cold in the winter and very hot in
+the summer, and he liked neither heat nor cold; but he had made up
+his mind that all places, and indeed all things, are nearly equally
+disagreeable, and therefore he remained at Dresden, grumbling almost
+daily as to the climate and manners of the people.
+
+Phineas, when he arrived at the hall door, almost doubted whether
+he had not been as wrong in visiting Lord Brentford as he had in
+going to Loughlinter. His friendship with the old Earl had been
+very fitful, and there had been quarrels quite as pronounced as the
+friendship. He had often been happy in the Earl's house, but the
+happiness had not sprung from any love for the man himself. How would
+it be with him if he found the Earl hardly more civil to him than the
+Earl's son-in-law had been? In former days the Earl had been a man
+quite capable of making himself disagreeable, and probably had not
+yet lost the power of doing so. Of all our capabilities this is the
+one which clings longest to us. He was thinking of all this when he
+found himself at the door of the Earl's house. He had travelled all
+night, and was very cold. At Leipsic there had been a nominal twenty
+minutes for refreshment, which the circumstances of the station had
+reduced to five. This had occurred very early in the morning, and had
+sufficed only to give him a bowl of coffee. It was now nearly ten,
+and breakfast had become a serious consideration with him. He almost
+doubted whether it would not have been better for him to have gone to
+an hotel in the first instance.
+
+He soon found himself in the hall amidst a cluster of servants, among
+whom he recognised the face of a man from Saulsby. He had, however,
+little time allowed him for looking about. He was hardly in the house
+before Lady Laura Kennedy was in his arms. She had run forward, and
+before he could look into her face, she had put up her cheek to his
+lips and had taken both his hands. "Oh, my friend," she said; "oh,
+my friend! How good you are to come to me! How good you are to come!"
+And then she led him into a large room, in which a table had been
+prepared for breakfast, close to an English-looking open fire. "How
+cold you must be, and how hungry! Shall I have breakfast for you at
+once, or will you dress first? You are to be quite at home, you know;
+exactly as though we were brother and sister. You are not to stand on
+any ceremonies." And again she took him by the hand. He had hardly
+looked her yet in the face, and he could not do so now because he
+knew that she was crying. "Then I will show you to your room," she
+said, when he had decided for a tub of water before breakfast. "Yes,
+I will,--my own self. And I'd fetch the water for you, only I know it
+is there already. How long will you be? Half an hour? Very well. And
+you would like tea best, wouldn't you?"
+
+"Certainly, I should like tea best."
+
+"I will make it for you. Papa never comes down till near two, and we
+shall have all the morning for talking. Oh, Phineas, it is such a
+pleasure to hear your voice again. You have been at Loughlinter?"
+
+"Yes, I have been there."
+
+"How very good of you; but I won't ask a question now. You must put
+up with a stove here, as we have not open fires in the bed-rooms. I
+hope you will be comfortable. Don't be more than half an hour, as I
+shall be impatient."
+
+Though he was thus instigated to haste he stood a few minutes with
+his back to the warm stove that he might be enabled to think of it
+all. It was two years since he had seen this woman, and when they had
+parted there had been more between them of the remembrances of old
+friendship than of present affection. During the last few weeks of
+their intimacy she had made a point of telling him that she intended
+to separate herself from her husband; but she had done so as though
+it were a duty, and an arranged part of her own defence of her own
+conduct. And in the latter incidents of her London life,--that life
+with which he had been conversant,--she had generally been opposed
+to him, or, at any rate, had chosen to be divided from him. She had
+said severe things to him,--telling him that he was cold, heartless,
+and uninterested, never trying even to please him with that sort of
+praise which had once been so common with her in her intercourse with
+him, and which all men love to hear from the mouths of women. She
+had then been cold to him, though she would make wretched allusions
+to the time when he, at any rate, had not been cold to her. She had
+reproached him, and had at the same time turned away from him. She
+had repudiated him, first as a lover, then as a friend; and he had
+hitherto never been able to gauge the depth of the affection for him
+which had underlaid all her conduct. As he stood there thinking of it
+all, he began to understand it.
+
+How natural had been her conduct on his arrival, and how like that
+of a genuine, true-hearted, honest woman! All her first thoughts had
+been for his little personal wants,--that he should be warmed, and
+fed, and made outwardly comfortable. Let sorrow be ever so deep,
+and love ever so true, a man will be cold who travels by winter,
+and hungry who has travelled by night. And a woman, who is a true,
+genuine woman, always takes delight in ministering to the natural
+wants of her friend. To see a man eat and drink, and wear his
+slippers, and sit at ease in his chair, is delightful to the feminine
+heart that loves. When I heard the other day that a girl had herself
+visited the room prepared for a man in her mother's house, then
+I knew that she loved him, though I had never before believed it.
+Phineas, as he stood there, was aware that this woman loved him
+dearly. She had embraced him, and given her face to him to kiss. She
+had clasped his hands, and clung to him, and had shown him plainly
+that in the midst of all her sorrow she could be made happy by
+his coming. But he was a man far too generous to take all this as
+meaning aught that it did not mean,--too generous, and intrinsically
+too manly. In his character there was much of weakness, much of
+vacillation, perhaps some deficiency of strength and purpose; but
+there was no touch of vanity. Women had loved him, and had told him
+so; and he had been made happy, and also wretched, by their love. But
+he had never taken pride, personally, to himself because they had
+loved him. It had been the accident of his life. Now he remembered
+chiefly that this woman had called herself his sister, and he was
+grateful.
+
+Then he thought of her personal appearance. As yet he had hardly
+looked at her, but he felt that she had become old and worn, angular
+and hard-visaged. All this had no effect upon his feelings towards
+her, but filled him with ineffable regret. When he had first known
+her she had been a woman with a noble presence--not soft and feminine
+as had been Violet Effingham, but handsome and lustrous, with a
+healthy youth. In regard to age he and she were of the same standing.
+That he knew well. She had passed her thirty-second birthday, but
+that was all. He felt himself to be still a young man, but he could
+not think of her as of a young woman.
+
+When he went down she had been listening for his footsteps, and
+met him at the door of the room. "Now sit down," she said, "and be
+comfortable--if you can, with German surroundings. They are almost
+always late, and never give one any time. Everybody says so. The
+station at Leipsic is dreadful, I know. Good coffee is very well, but
+what is the use of good coffee if you have no time to drink it? You
+must eat our omelette. If there is one thing we can do better than
+you it is to make an omelette. Yes,--that is genuine German sausage.
+There is always some placed upon the table, but the Germans who come
+here never touch it themselves. You will have a cutlet, won't you?
+I breakfasted an hour ago, and more. I would not wait because then
+I thought I could talk to you better, and wait upon you. I did not
+think that anything would ever please me so much again as your coming
+has done. Oh, how much we shall have to say! Do you remember when we
+last parted;--when you were going back to Ireland?"
+
+"I remember it well."
+
+"Ah me; as I look back upon it all, how strange it seems. I dare say
+you don't remember the first day I met you, at Mr. Mildmay's,--when I
+asked you to come to Portman Square because Barrington had said that
+you were clever?"
+
+"I remember well going to Portman Square."
+
+"That was the beginning of it all. Oh dear, oh dear; when I think of
+it I find it so hard to see where I have been right, and where I have
+been wrong. If I had not been very wrong all this evil could not have
+come upon me."
+
+"Misfortune has not always been deserved."
+
+"I am sure it has been so with me. You can smoke here if you like."
+This Phineas persistently refused to do. "You may if you please. Papa
+never comes in here, and I don't mind it. You'll settle down in a day
+or two, and understand the extent of your liberties. Tell me first
+about Violet. She is happy?"
+
+"Quite happy, I think."
+
+"I knew he would be good to her. But does she like the kind of life?"
+
+"Oh, yes."
+
+"She has a baby, and therefore of course she is happy. She says he is
+the finest fellow in the world."
+
+"I dare say he is. They all seem to be contented with him, but they
+don't talk much about him."
+
+"No; they wouldn't. Had you a child you would have talked about him,
+Phineas. I should have loved my baby better than all the world, but I
+should have been silent about him. With Violet of course her husband
+is the first object. It would certainly be so from her nature. And so
+Oswald is quite tame?"
+
+"I don't know that he is very tame out hunting."
+
+"But to her?"
+
+"I should think always. She, you know, is very clever."
+
+"So clever!"
+
+"And would be sure to steer clear of all offence," said Phineas,
+enthusiastically.
+
+"While I could never for an hour avoid it. Did they say anything
+about the journey to Flanders?"
+
+"Chiltern did, frequently. He made me strip my shoulder to show him
+the place where he hit me."
+
+"How like Oswald!"
+
+"And he told me that he would have given one of his eyes to kill me,
+only Colepepper wouldn't let him go on. He half quarrelled with his
+second, but the man told him that I had not fired at him, and the
+thing must drop. 'It's better as it is, you know,' he said. And I
+agreed with him."
+
+"And how did Violet receive you?"
+
+"Like an angel,--as she is."
+
+"Well, yes. I'll grant she is an angel now. I was angry with her
+once, you know. You men find so many angels in your travels. You have
+been honester than some. You have generally been off with the old
+angel before you were on with the new,--as far at least as I knew."
+
+"Is that meant for rebuke, Lady Laura?"
+
+"No, my friend; no. That is all over. I said to myself when you told
+me that you would come, that I would not utter one ill-natured word.
+And I told myself more than that!"
+
+"What more?"
+
+"That you had never deserved it,--at least from me. But surely you
+were the most simple of men."
+
+"I dare say."
+
+"Men when they are true are simple. They are often false as hell,
+and then they are crafty as Lucifer. But the man who is true judges
+others by himself,--almost without reflection. A woman can be true as
+steel and cunning at the same time. How cunning was Violet, and yet
+she never deceived one of her lovers, even by a look. Did she?"
+
+"She never deceived me,--if you mean that. She never cared a straw
+about me, and told me so to my face very plainly."
+
+"She did care,--many straws. But I think she always loved Oswald. She
+refused him again and again, because she thought it wrong to run a
+great risk, but I knew she would never marry any one else. How little
+Lady Baldock understood her. Fancy your meeting Lady Baldock at
+Oswald's house!"
+
+"Fancy Augusta Boreham turning nun!"
+
+"How exquisitely grotesque it must have been when she made her
+complaint to you."
+
+"I pitied her with all my heart."
+
+"Of course you did,--because you are so soft. And now, Phineas, we
+will put it off no longer. Tell me all that you have to tell me about
+him."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+KOENIGSTEIN.
+
+
+Phineas Finn and Lady Laura Kennedy sat together discussing the
+affairs of the past till the servant told them that "My Lord" was in
+the next room, and ready to receive Mr. Finn. "You will find him much
+altered," said Lady Laura, "even more than I am."
+
+"I do not find you altered at all."
+
+"Yes, you do,--in appearance. I am a middle-aged woman, and conscious
+that I may use my privileges as such. But he has become quite an old
+man,--not in health so much as in manner. But he will be very glad to
+see you." So saying she led him into a room, in which he found the
+Earl seated near the fireplace, and wrapped in furs. He got up to
+receive his guest, and Phineas saw at once that during the two years
+of his exile from England Lord Brentford had passed from manhood to
+senility. He almost tottered as he came forward, and he wrapped his
+coat around him with that air of studious self-preservation which
+belongs only to the infirm.
+
+"It is very good of you to come and see me, Mr. Finn," he said.
+
+"Don't call him Mr. Finn, Papa. I call him Phineas."
+
+"Well, yes; that's all right, I dare say. It's a terrible long
+journey from London, isn't it, Mr. Finn?"
+
+"Too long to be pleasant, my lord."
+
+"Pleasant! Oh, dear. There's no pleasantness about it. And so they've
+got an autumn session, have they? That's always a very stupid thing
+to do, unless they want money."
+
+"But there is a money bill which must be passed. That's Mr. Daubeny's
+excuse."
+
+"Ah, if they've a money bill of course it's all right. So you're in
+Parliament again?"
+
+"I'm sorry to say I'm not." Then Lady Laura explained to her father,
+probably for the third or fourth time, exactly what was their guest's
+position. "Oh, a scrutiny. We didn't use to have any scrutinies at
+Loughton, did we? Ah, me; well, everything seems to be going to
+the dogs. I'm told they're attacking the Church now." Lady Laura
+glanced at Phineas; but neither of them said a word. "I don't
+quite understand it; but they tell me that the Tories are going to
+disestablish the Church. I'm very glad I'm out of it all. Things
+have come to such a pass that I don't see how a gentleman is to hold
+office now-a-days. Have you seen Chiltern lately?"
+
+After a while, when Phineas had told the Earl all that there was
+to tell of his son and his grandson, and all of politics and of
+Parliament, Lady Laura suddenly interrupted them. "You knew, Papa,
+that he was to see Mr. Kennedy. He has been to Loughlinter, and has
+seen him."
+
+"Oh, indeed!"
+
+"He is quite assured that I could not with wisdom return to live with
+my husband."
+
+"It is a very grave decision to make," said the Earl.
+
+"But he has no doubt about it," continued Lady Laura.
+
+"Not a shadow of doubt," said Phineas. "I will not say that Mr.
+Kennedy is mad; but the condition of his mind is such in regard to
+Lady Laura that I do not think she could live with him in safety. He
+is crazed about religion."
+
+"Dear, dear, dear," exclaimed the Earl.
+
+"The gloom of his house is insupportable. And he does not pretend
+that he desires her to return that he and she may be happy together."
+
+"What for then?"
+
+"That we might be unhappy together," said Lady Laura.
+
+"He repudiates all belief in happiness. He wishes her to return to
+him chiefly because it is right that a man and wife should live
+together."
+
+"So it is," said the Earl.
+
+"But not to the utter wretchedness of both of them," said Lady Laura.
+"He says," and she pointed to Phineas, "that were I there he would
+renew his accusation against me. He has not told me all. Perhaps he
+cannot tell me all. But I certainly will not return to Loughlinter."
+
+"Very well, my dear."
+
+"It is not very well, Papa; but, nevertheless, I will not return to
+Loughlinter. What I suffered there neither of you can understand."
+
+That afternoon Phineas went out alone to the galleries, but the next
+day she accompanied him, and showed him whatever of glory the town
+had to offer in its winter dress. They stood together before great
+masters, and together examined small gems. And then from day to
+day they were always in each other's company. He had promised to
+stay a month, and during that time he was petted and comforted
+to his heart's content. Lady Laura would have taken him into the
+Saxon Switzerland, in spite of the inclemency of the weather and her
+father's rebukes, had he not declared vehemently that he was happier
+remaining in the town. But she did succeed in carrying him off to the
+fortress of Koenigstein; and there as they wandered along the fortress
+constructed on that wonderful rock there occurred between them a
+conversation which he never forgot, and which it would not have been
+easy to forget. His own prospects had of course been frequently
+discussed. He had told her everything, down to the exact amount of
+money which he had to support him till he should again be enabled to
+earn an income, and had received assurances from her that everything
+would be just as it should be after a lapse of a few months. The
+Liberals would, as a matter of course, come in, and equally as a
+matter of course, Phineas would be in office. She spoke of this with
+such certainty that she almost convinced him. Having tempted him away
+from the safety of permanent income, the party could not do less than
+provide for him. If he could only secure a seat he would be safe; and
+it seemed that Tankerville would be a certain seat. This certainty he
+would not admit; but, nevertheless, he was comforted by his friend.
+When you have done the rashest thing in the world it is very pleasant
+to be told that no man of spirit could have acted otherwise. It was a
+matter of course that he should return to public life,--so said Lady
+Laura;--and doubly a matter of course when he found himself a widower
+without a child. "Whether it be a bad life or a good life," said Lady
+Laura, "you and I understand equally well that no other life is worth
+having after it. We are like the actors, who cannot bear to be away
+from the gaslights when once they have lived amidst their glare." As
+she said this they were leaning together over one of the parapets of
+the great fortress, and the sadness of the words struck him as they
+bore upon herself. She also had lived amidst the gaslights, and now
+she was self-banished into absolute obscurity. "You could not have
+been content with your life in Dublin," she said.
+
+"Are you content with your life in Dresden?"
+
+"Certainly not. We all like exercise; but the man who has had his
+leg cut off can't walk. Some can walk with safety; others only with
+a certain peril; and others cannot at all. You are in the second
+position, but I am in the last."
+
+"I do not see why you should not return."
+
+"And if I did what would come of it? In place of the seclusion
+of Dresden, there would be the seclusion of Portman Square or of
+Saulsby. Who would care to have me at their houses, or to come to
+mine? You know what a hazardous, chancy, short-lived thing is the
+fashion of a woman. With wealth, and wit, and social charm, and
+impudence, she may preserve it for some years, but when she has once
+lost it she can never recover it. I am as much lost to the people who
+did know me in London as though I had been buried for a century. A
+man makes himself really useful, but a woman can never do that."
+
+"All those general rules mean nothing," said Phineas. "I should try
+it."
+
+"No, Phineas. I know better than that. It would only be
+disappointment. I hardly think that after all you ever did understand
+when it was that I broke down utterly and marred my fortunes for
+ever."
+
+"I know the day that did it."
+
+"When I accepted him?"
+
+"Of course it was. I know that, and so do you. There need be no
+secret between us."
+
+"There need be no secret between us certainly,--and on my part there
+shall be none. On my part there has been none."
+
+"Nor on mine."
+
+"There has been nothing for you to tell,--since you blurted out your
+short story of love that day over the waterfall, when I tried so hard
+to stop you."
+
+"How was I to be stopped then?"
+
+"No; you were too simple. You came there with but one idea, and you
+could not change it on the spur of the moment. When I told you that
+I was engaged you could not swallow back the words that were not yet
+spoken. Ah, how well I remember it. But you are wrong, Phineas. It
+was not my engagement or my marriage that has made the world a blank
+for me." A feeling came upon him which half-choked him, so that he
+could ask her no further question. "You know that, Phineas."
+
+"It was your marriage," he said, gruffly.
+
+"It was, and has been, and still will be my strong, unalterable,
+unquenchable love for you. How could I behave to that other man with
+even seeming tenderness when my mind was always thinking of you, when
+my heart was always fixed upon you? But you have been so simple, so
+little given to vanity,"--she leaned upon his arm as she spoke,--"so
+pure and so manly, that you have not believed this, even when I told
+you. Has it not been so?"
+
+"I do not wish to believe it now."
+
+"But you do believe it? You must and shall believe it. I ask for
+nothing in return. As my God is my judge, if I thought it possible
+that your heart should be to me as mine is to you, I could have
+put a pistol to my ear sooner than speak as I have spoken." Though
+she paused for some word from him he could not utter a word. He
+remembered many things, but even to her in his present mood he could
+not allude to them;--how he had kissed her at the Falls, how she had
+bade him not come back to the house because his presence to her was
+insupportable; how she had again encouraged him to come, and had
+then forbidden him to accept even an invitation to dinner from her
+husband. And he remembered too the fierceness of her anger to him
+when he told her of his love for Violet Effingham. "I must insist
+upon it," she continued, "that you shall take me now as I really
+am,--as your dearest friend, your sister, your mother, if you will.
+I know what I am. Were my husband not still living it would be the
+same. I should never under any circumstances marry again. I have
+passed the period of a woman's life when as a woman she is loved;
+but I have not outlived the power of loving. I shall fret about you,
+Phineas, like an old hen after her one chick; and though you turn
+out to be a duck, and get away into waters where I cannot follow
+you, I shall go cackling round the pond, and always have my eye upon
+you." He was holding her now by the hand, but he could not speak
+for the tears were trickling down his cheeks. "When I was young,"
+she continued, "I did not credit myself with capacity for so much
+passion. I told myself that love after all should be a servant and
+not a master, and I married my husband fully intending to do my duty
+to him. Now we see what has come of it."
+
+"It has been his fault; not yours," said Phineas.
+
+"It was my fault,--mine; for I never loved him. Had you not told me
+what manner of man he was before? And I had believed you, though I
+denied it. And I knew when I went to Loughlinter that it was you whom
+I loved. And I knew too,--I almost knew that you would ask me to be
+your wife were not that other thing settled first. And I declared to
+myself that, in spite of both our hearts, it should not be so. I had
+no money then,--nor had you."
+
+"I would have worked for you."
+
+"Ah, yes; but you must not reproach me now, Phineas. I never deserted
+you as regarded your interests, though what little love you had
+for me was short-lived indeed. Nay; you are not accused, and shall
+not excuse yourself. You were right,--always right. When you had
+failed to win one woman your heart with a true natural spring went to
+another. And so entire had been the cure, that you went to the first
+woman with the tale of your love for the second."
+
+"To whom was I to go but to a friend?"
+
+"You did come to a friend, and though I could not drive out of my
+heart the demon of jealousy, though I was cut to the very bone, I
+would have helped you had help been possible. Though it had been the
+fixed purpose of my life that Violet and Oswald should be man and
+wife, I would have helped you because that other purpose of serving
+you in all things had become more fixed. But it was to no good end
+that I sang your praises. Violet Effingham was not the girl to marry
+this man or that at the bidding of any one;--was she?"
+
+"No, indeed."
+
+"It is of no use now talking of it; is it? But I want you to
+understand me from the beginning;--to understand all that was evil,
+and anything that was good. Since first I found that you were to me
+the dearest of human beings I have never once been untrue to your
+interests, though I have been unable not to be angry with you. Then
+came that wonderful episode in which you saved my husband's life."
+
+"Not his life."
+
+"Was it not singular that it should come from your hand? It seemed
+like Fate. I tried to use the accident, to make his friendship for
+you as thorough as my own. And then I was obliged to separate you,
+because,--because, after all I was so mere a woman that I could not
+bear to have you near me. I can bear it now."
+
+"Dear Laura!"
+
+"Yes; as your sister. I think you cannot but love me a little when
+you know how entirely I am devoted to you. I can bear to have you
+near me now and think of you only as the hen thinks of her duckling.
+For a moment you are out of the pond, and I have gathered you under
+my wing. You understand?"
+
+"I know that I am unworthy of what you say of me."
+
+"Worth has nothing to do with it,--has no bearing on it. I do not say
+that you are more worthy than all whom I have known. But when did
+worth create love? What I want is that you should believe me, and
+know that there is one bound to you who will never be unbound, one
+whom you can trust in all things,--one to whom you can confess that
+you have been wrong if you go wrong, and yet be sure that you will
+not lessen her regard. And with this feeling you must pretend to
+nothing more than friendship. You will love again, of course."
+
+"Oh, no."
+
+"Of course you will. I tried to blaze into power by a marriage, and
+I failed,--because I was a woman. A woman should marry only for
+love. You will do it yet, and will not fail. You may remember this
+too,--that I shall never be jealous again. You may tell me everything
+with safety. You will tell me everything?"
+
+"If there be anything to tell, I will."
+
+"I will never stand between you and your wife,--though I would fain
+hope that she should know how true a friend I am. Now we have walked
+here till it is dark, and the sentry will think we are taking plans
+of the place. Are you cold?"
+
+"I have not thought about the cold."
+
+"Nor have I. We will go down to the inn and warm ourselves before the
+train comes. I wonder why I should have brought you here to tell you
+my story. Oh, Phineas." Then she threw herself into his arms, and he
+pressed her to his heart, and kissed first her forehead and then her
+lips. "It shall never be so again," she said. "I will kill it out
+of my heart even though I should crucify my body. But it is not my
+love that I will kill. When you are happy I will be happy. When you
+prosper I will prosper. When you fail I will fail. When you rise,--as
+you will rise,--I will rise with you. But I will never again feel the
+pressure of your arm round my waist. Here is the gate, and the old
+guide. So, my friend, you see that we are not lost." Then they walked
+down the very steep hill to the little town below the fortress, and
+there they remained till the evening train came from Prague, and took
+them back to Dresden.
+
+Two days after this was the day fixed for Finn's departure. On
+the intermediate day the Earl begged for a few minutes' private
+conversation with him, and the two were closeted together for an
+hour. The Earl, in truth, had little or nothing to say. Things had
+so gone with him that he had hardly a will of his own left, and did
+simply that which his daughter directed him to do. He pretended to
+consult Phineas as to the expediency of his returning to Saulsby.
+Did Phineas think that his return would be of any use to the party?
+Phineas knew very well that the party would not recognise the
+difference whether the Earl lived at Dresden or in London. When a
+man has come to the end of his influence as the Earl had done he is
+as much a nothing in politics as though he had never risen above
+that quantity. The Earl had never risen very high, and even Phineas,
+with all his desire to be civil, could not say that the Earl's
+presence would materially serve the interests of the Liberal party.
+He made what most civil excuses he could, and suggested that if Lord
+Brentford should choose to return, Lady Laura would very willingly
+remain at Dresden alone. "But why shouldn't she come too?" asked the
+Earl. And then, with the tardiness of old age, he proposed his little
+plan. "Why should she not make an attempt to live once more with her
+husband?"
+
+"She never will," said Phineas.
+
+"But think how much she loses," said the Earl.
+
+"I am quite sure she never will. And I am quite sure that she ought
+not to do so. The marriage was a misfortune. As it is they are better
+apart." After that the Earl did not dare to say another word about
+his daughter; but discussed his son's affairs. Did not Phineas think
+that Chiltern might now be induced to go into Parliament? "Nothing
+would make him do so," said Phineas.
+
+"But he might farm?"
+
+"You see he has his hands full."
+
+"But other men keep hounds and farm too," said the Earl.
+
+"But Chiltern is not like other men. He gives his whole mind to it,
+and finds full employment. And then he is quite happy, and so is she.
+What more can you want for him? Everybody respects him."
+
+"That goes a very great way," said the Earl. Then he thanked Phineas
+cordially, and felt that now as ever he had done his duty by his
+family.
+
+There was no renewal of the passionate conversation which had taken
+place on the ramparts, but much of tenderness and of sympathy arose
+from it. Lady Laura took upon herself the tone and manners of an
+elder sister,--of a sister very much older than her brother,--and
+Phineas submitted to them not only gracefully but with delight to
+himself. He had not thanked her for her love when she expressed it,
+and he did not do so afterwards. But he accepted it, and bowed to it,
+and recognised it as constituting one of the future laws of his life.
+He was to do nothing of importance without her knowledge, and he
+was to be at her command should she at any time want assistance in
+England. "I suppose I shall come back some day," she said, as they
+were sitting together late on the evening before his departure.
+
+"I cannot understand why you should not do so now. Your father wishes
+it."
+
+"He thinks he does; but were he told that he was to go to-morrow, or
+next summer, it would fret him. I am assured that Mr. Kennedy could
+demand my return,--by law."
+
+"He could not enforce it."
+
+"He would attempt it. I will not go back until he consents to my
+living apart from him. And, to tell the truth, I am better here for
+awhile. They say that the sick animals always creep somewhere under
+cover. I am a sick animal, and now that I have crept here I will
+remain till I am stronger. How terribly anxious you must be about
+Tankerville!"
+
+"I am anxious."
+
+"You will telegraph to me at once? You will be sure to do that?"
+
+"Of course I will, the moment I know my fate."
+
+"And if it goes against you?"
+
+"Ah,--what then?"
+
+"I shall at once write to Barrington Erle. I don't suppose he would
+do much now for his poor cousin, but he can at any rate say what can
+be done. I should bid you come here,--only that stupid people would
+say that you were my lover. I should not mind, only that he would
+hear it, and I am bound to save him from annoyance. Would you not go
+down to Oswald again?"
+
+"With what object?"
+
+"Because anything will be better than returning to Ireland. Why not
+go down and look after Saulsby? It would be a home, and you need not
+tie yourself to it. I will speak to Papa about that. But you will get
+the seat."
+
+"I think I shall," said Phineas.
+
+"Do;--pray do! If I could only get hold of that judge by the ears!
+Do you know what time it is? It is twelve, and your train starts at
+eight." Then he arose to bid her adieu. "No," she said; "I shall see
+you off."
+
+"Indeed you will not. It will be almost night when I leave this, and
+the frost is like iron."
+
+"Neither the night nor the frost will kill me. Do you think I will
+not give you your last breakfast? God bless you, dear."
+
+And on the following morning she did give him his breakfast by
+candle-light, and went down with him to the station. The morning was
+black, and the frost was, as he had said, as hard as iron, but she
+was thoroughly good-humoured, and apparently happy. "It has been so
+much to me to have you here, that I might tell you everything," she
+said. "You will understand me now."
+
+"I understand, but I know not how to believe," he said.
+
+"You do believe. You would be worse than a Jew if you did not believe
+me. But you understand also. I want you to marry, and you must tell
+her all the truth. If I can I will love her almost as much as I do
+you. And if I live to see them, I will love your children as dearly
+as I do you. Your children shall be my children;--or at least one of
+them shall be mine. You will tell me when it is to be."
+
+"If I ever intend such a thing, I will tell you."
+
+"Now, good-bye. I shall stand back there till the train starts, but
+do not you notice me. God bless you, Phineas." She held his hand
+tight within her own for some seconds, and looked into his face with
+an unutterable love. Then she drew down her veil, and went and stood
+apart till the train had left the platform.
+
+"He has gone, Papa," Lady Laura said, as she stood afterwards by her
+father's bedside.
+
+"Has he? Yes; I know he was to go, of course. I was very glad to see
+him, Laura."
+
+"So was I, Papa;--very glad indeed. Whatever happens to him, we must
+never lose sight of him again."
+
+"We shall hear of him, of course, if he is in the House."
+
+"Whether he is in the House or out of it we must hear of him. While
+we have aught he must never want." The Earl stared at his daughter.
+The Earl was a man of large possessions, and did not as yet
+understand that he was to be called upon to share them with Phineas
+Finn. "I know, Papa, you will never think ill of me."
+
+"Never, my dear."
+
+"I have sworn that I will be a sister to that man, and I will keep my
+oath."
+
+"I know you are a very good sister to Chiltern," said the Earl. Lady
+Laura had at one time appropriated her whole fortune, which had been
+large, to the payment of her brother's debts. The money had been
+returned, and had gone to her husband. Lord Brentford now supposed
+that she intended at some future time to pay the debts of Phineas
+Finn.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+"I HAVE GOT THE SEAT."
+
+
+When Phineas returned to London, the autumn Session, though it had
+been carried on so near to Christmas as to make many members very
+unhappy, had already been over for a fortnight. Mr. Daubeny had
+played his game with consummate skill to the last. He had brought
+in no bill, but had stated his intention of doing so early in the
+following Session. He had, he said, of course been aware from the
+first that it would have been quite impossible to carry such a
+measure as that proposed during the few weeks in which it had been
+possible for them to sit between the convening of Parliament and the
+Christmas holidays; but he thought that it was expedient that the
+proposition should be named to the House and ventilated as it had
+been, so that members on both sides might be induced to give their
+most studious attention to the subject before a measure, which
+must be so momentous, should be proposed to them. As had happened,
+the unforeseen division to which the House had been pressed on the
+Address had proved that the majority of the House was in favour of
+the great reform which it was the object of his ambition to complete.
+They were aware that they had been assembled at a somewhat unusual
+and inconvenient period of the year, because the service of the
+country had demanded that certain money bills should be passed. He,
+however, rejoiced greatly that this earliest opportunity had been
+afforded to him of explaining the intentions of the Government with
+which he had the honour of being connected. In answer to this there
+arose a perfect torrent of almost vituperative antagonism from the
+opposite side of the House. Did the Right Honourable gentleman dare
+to say that the question had been ventilated in the country, when it
+had never been broached by him or any of his followers till after
+the general election had been completed? Was it not notorious to
+the country that the first hint of it had been given when the Right
+Honourable gentleman was elected for East Barsetshire, and was it not
+equally notorious that that election had been so arranged that the
+marvellous proposition of the Right Honourable gentleman should not
+be known even to his own party till there remained no possibility
+of the expression of any condemnation from the hustings? It might
+be that the Right Honourable could so rule his own followers in
+that House as to carry them with him even in a matter so absolutely
+opposite to their own most cherished convictions. It certainly seemed
+that he had succeeded in doing so for the present. But would any one
+believe that he would have carried the country, had he dared to face
+the country with such a measure in his hands? Ventilation, indeed! He
+had not dared to ventilate his proposition. He had used this short
+Session in order that he might keep his clutch fastened on power, and
+in doing so was indifferent alike to the Constitution, to his party,
+and to the country. Harder words had never been spoken in the House
+than were uttered on this occasion. But the Minister was successful.
+He had been supported on the Address; and he went home to East
+Barsetshire at Christmas, perhaps with some little fear of the
+parsons around him; but with a full conviction that he would at least
+carry the second reading of his bill.
+
+London was more than usually full and busy this year immediately
+after Christmas. It seemed as though it were admitted by all the
+Liberal party generally that the sadness of the occasion ought to
+rob the season of its usual festivities. Who could eat mince pies
+or think of Twelfth Night while so terribly wicked a scheme was in
+progress for keeping the real majority out in the cold? It was the
+injustice of the thing that rankled so deeply,--that, and a sense
+of inferiority to the cleverness displayed by Mr. Daubeny! It was
+as when a player is checkmated by some audacious combination of
+two pawns and a knight, such being all the remaining forces of the
+victorious adversary, when the beaten man has two castles and a queen
+upon the board. It was, indeed, worse than this,--for the adversary
+had appropriated to his own use the castles and the queen of the
+unhappy vanquished one. This Church Reform was the legitimate
+property of the Liberals, and had not been as yet used by them only
+because they had felt it right to keep in the background for some
+future great occasion so great and so valuable a piece of ordnance.
+It was theirs so safely that they could afford to bide their time.
+And then,--so they all said, and so some of them believed,--the
+country was not ready for so great a measure. It must come; but there
+must be tenderness in the mode of producing it. The parsons must be
+respected, and the great Church-of-England feeling of the people must
+be considered with affectionate regard. Even the most rabid Dissenter
+would hardly wish to see a structure so nearly divine attacked and
+destroyed by rude hands. With grave and slow and sober earnestness,
+with loving touches and soft caressing manipulation let the beautiful
+old Church be laid to its rest, as something too exquisite, too
+lovely, too refined for the present rough manners of the world! Such
+were the ideas as to Church Reform of the leading Liberals of the
+day; and now this man, without even a majority to back him, this
+audacious Cagliostro among statesmen, this destructive leader of all
+declared Conservatives, had come forward without a moment's warning,
+and pretended that he would do the thing out of hand! Men knew that
+it had to be done. The country had begun to perceive that the old
+Establishment must fall; and, knowing this, would not the Liberal
+backbone of Great Britain perceive the enormity of this Cagliostro's
+wickedness,--and rise against him and bury him beneath its scorn
+as it ought to do? This was the feeling that made a real Christmas
+impossible to Messrs. Ratler and Bonteen.
+
+"The one thing incredible to me," said Mr. Ratler, "is that
+Englishmen should be so mean." He was alluding to the Conservatives
+who had shown their intention of supporting Mr. Daubeny, and whom
+he accused of doing so, simply with a view to power and patronage,
+without any regard to their own consistency or to the welfare of
+the country. Mr. Ratler probably did not correctly read the minds
+of the men whom he was accusing, and did not perceive, as he should
+have done with his experience, how little there was among them of
+concerted action. To defend the Church was a duty to each of them;
+but then, so also was it a duty to support his party. And each one
+could see his way to the one duty, whereas the other was vague, and
+too probably ultimately impossible. If it were proper to throw off
+the incubus of this conjuror's authority, surely some wise, and
+great, and bold man would get up and so declare. Some junto of wise
+men of the party would settle that he should be deposed. But where
+were they to look for the wise and bold men? where even for the
+junto? Of whom did the party consist?--Of honest, chivalrous, and
+enthusiastic men, but mainly of men who were idle, and unable to
+take upon their own shoulders the responsibility of real work. Their
+leaders had been selected from the outside,--clever, eager, pushing
+men, but of late had been hardly selected from among themselves. As
+used to be the case with Italian Powers, they entrusted their cause
+to mercenary foreign generals, soldiers of fortune, who carried their
+good swords whither they were wanted; and, as of old, the leaders
+were ever ready to fight, but would themselves declare what should
+be and what should not be the _casus belli_. There was not so much
+meanness as Mr. Ratler supposed in the Conservative ranks, but very
+much more unhappiness. Would it not be better to go home and live
+at the family park all the year round, and hunt, and attend Quarter
+Sessions, and be able to declare morning and evening with a clear
+conscience that the country was going to the dogs? Such was the
+mental working of many a Conservative who supported Mr. Daubeny on
+this occasion.
+
+At the instance of Lady Laura, Phineas called upon the Duke of St.
+Bungay soon after his return, and was very kindly received by his
+Grace. In former days, when there were Whigs instead of Liberals, it
+was almost a rule of political life that all leading Whigs should be
+uncles, brothers-in-law, or cousins to each other. This was pleasant
+and gave great consistency to the party; but the system has now gone
+out of vogue. There remain of it, however, some traces, so that among
+the nobler born Liberals of the day there is still a good deal of
+agreeable family connection. In this way the St. Bungay Fitz-Howards
+were related to the Mildmays and Standishes, and such a man as
+Barrington Erle was sure to be cousin to all of them. Lady Laura
+had thus only sent her friend to a relation of her own, and as the
+Duke and Phineas had been in the same Government, his Grace was
+glad enough to receive the returning aspirant. Of course there was
+something said at first as to the life of the Earl at Dresden. The
+Duke recollected the occasion of such banishment, and shook his head;
+and attempted to look unhappy when the wretched condition of Mr.
+Kennedy was reported to him. But he was essentially a happy man, and
+shook off the gloom at once when Phineas spoke of politics. "So you
+are coming back to us, Mr. Finn?"
+
+"They tell me I may perhaps get the seat."
+
+"I am heartily glad, for you were very useful. I remember how Cantrip
+almost cried when he told me you were going to leave him. He had been
+rather put upon, I fancy, before."
+
+"There was perhaps something in that, your Grace."
+
+"There will be nothing to return to now beyond barren honours."
+
+"Not for a while."
+
+"Not for a long while," said the Duke;--"for a long while, that is,
+as candidates for office regard time. Mr. Daubeny will be safe for
+this Session at least. I doubt whether he will really attempt to
+carry his measure this year. He will bring it forward, and after the
+late division he must get his second reading. He will then break
+down gracefully in Committee, and declare that the importance of the
+interests concerned demands further inquiry. It wasn't a thing to be
+done in one year."
+
+"Why should he do it at all?" asked Phineas.
+
+"That's what everybody asks, but the answer seems to be so plain!
+Because he can do it, and we can't. He will get from our side much
+support, and we should get none from his."
+
+"There is something to me sickening in their dishonesty," said
+Phineas energetically.
+
+"The country has the advantage; and I don't know that they are
+dishonest. Ought we to come to a deadlock in legislation in order
+that parties might fight out their battle till one had killed the
+other?"
+
+"I don't think a man should support a measure which he believes to be
+destructive."
+
+"He doesn't believe it to be destructive. The belief is
+theoretic,--or not even quite that. It is hardly more than romantic.
+As long as acres are dear, and he can retain those belonging to him,
+the country gentleman will never really believe his country to be in
+danger. It is the same with commerce. As long as the Three per Cents.
+do not really mean Four per Cent.,--I may say as long as they don't
+mean Five per Cent.,--the country will be rich, though every one
+should swear that it be ruined."
+
+"I'm very glad, at the same time, that I don't call myself a
+Conservative," said Phineas.
+
+"That shows how disinterested you are, as you certainly would be
+in office. Good-bye. Come and see the Duchess when she comes to
+town. And if you've nothing better to do, give us a day or two at
+Longroyston at Easter." Now Longroyston was the Duke's well-known
+country seat, at which Whig hospitality had been dispensed with a
+lavish hand for two centuries.
+
+On the 20th January Phineas travelled down to Tankerville again in
+obedience to a summons served upon him at the instance of the judge
+who was to try his petition against Browborough. It was the special
+and somewhat unusual nature of this petition that the complainants
+not only sought to oust the sitting member, but also to give the
+seat to the late unsuccessful candidate. There was to be a scrutiny,
+by which, if it should be successful, so great a number of votes
+would be deducted from those polled on behalf of the unfortunate
+Mr. Browborough as to leave a majority for his opponent, with the
+additional disagreeable obligation upon him of paying the cost of the
+transaction by which he would thus lose his seat. Mr. Browborough,
+no doubt, looked upon the whole thing with the greatest disgust. He
+thought that a battle when once won should be regarded as over till
+the occasion should come for another battle. He had spent his money
+like a gentleman, and hated these mean ways. No one could ever say
+that he had ever petitioned. That was his way of looking at it. That
+Shibboleth of his as to the prospects of England and the Church of
+her people had, no doubt, made the House less agreeable to him during
+the last Short session than usual; but he had stuck to his party, and
+voted with Mr. Daubeny on the Address,--the obligation for such vote
+having inconveniently pressed itself upon him before the presentation
+of the petition had been formally completed. He had always stuck to
+his party. It was the pride of his life that he had been true and
+consistent. He also was summoned to Tankerville, and he was forced
+to go, although he knew that the Shibboleth would be thrown in his
+teeth.
+
+Mr. Browborough spent two or three very uncomfortable days at
+Tankerville, whereas Phineas was triumphant. There were worse things
+in store for poor Mr. Browborough than his repudiated Shibboleth, or
+even than his lost seat. Mr. Ruddles, acting with wondrous energy,
+succeeded in knocking off the necessary votes, and succeeded also in
+proving that these votes were void by reason of gross bribery. He
+astonished Phineas by the cool effrontery with which he took credit
+to himself for not having purchased votes in the Fallgate on the
+Liberal side, but Phineas was too wise to remind him that he himself
+had hinted at one time that it would be well to lay out a little
+money in that way. No one at the present moment was more clear than
+was Ruddles as to the necessity of purity at elections. Not a penny
+had been misspent by the Finnites. A vote or two from their score
+was knocked off on grounds which did not touch the candidate or his
+agents. One man had personated a vote, but this appeared to have been
+done at the instigation of some very cunning Browborough partisan.
+Another man had been wrongly described. This, however, amounted to
+nothing. Phineas Finn was seated for the borough, and the judge
+declared his purpose of recommending the House of Commons to issue
+a commission with reference to the expediency of instituting a
+prosecution. Mr. Browborough left the town in great disgust, not
+without various publicly expressed intimations from his opponents
+that the prosperity of England depended on the Church of her people.
+Phineas was gloriously entertained by the Liberals of the borough,
+and then informed that as so much had been done for him it was hoped
+that he would now open his pockets on behalf of the charities of
+the town. "Gentlemen," said Phineas, to one or two of the leading
+Liberals, "it is as well that you should know at once that I am a
+very poor man." The leading Liberals made wry faces, but Phineas was
+member for the borough.
+
+The moment that the decision was announced, Phineas, shaking off for
+the time his congratulatory friends, hurried to the post-office and
+sent his message to Lady Laura Standish at Dresden: "I have got the
+seat." He was almost ashamed of himself as the telegraph boy looked
+up at him when he gave in the words, but this was a task which he
+could not have entrusted to any one else. He almost thought that this
+was in truth the proudest and happiest moment of his life. She would
+so thoroughly enjoy his triumph, would receive from it such great
+and unselfish joy, that he almost wished that he could have taken
+the message himself. Surely had he done so there would have been fit
+occasion for another embrace.
+
+He was again a member of the British House of Commons,--was again in
+possession of that privilege for which he had never ceased to sigh
+since the moment in which he lost it. A drunkard or a gambler may be
+weaned from his ways, but not a politician. To have been in the House
+and not to be there was, to such a one as Phineas Finn, necessarily
+a state of discontent. But now he had worked his way up again, and
+he was determined that no fears for the future should harass him. He
+would give his heart and soul to the work while his money lasted. It
+would surely last him for the Session. He was all alone in the world,
+and would trust to the chapter of accidents for the future.
+
+"I never knew a fellow with such luck as yours," said Barrington Erle
+to him, on his return to London. "A seat always drops into your mouth
+when the circumstances seem to be most forlorn."
+
+"I have been lucky, certainly."
+
+"My cousin, Laura Kennedy, has been writing to me about you."
+
+"I went over to see them, you know."
+
+"So I heard. She talks some nonsense about the Earl being willing to
+do anything for you. What could the Earl do? He has no more influence
+in the Loughton borough than I have. All that kind of thing is clean
+done for,--with one or two exceptions. We got much better men while
+it lasted than we do now."
+
+"I should doubt that."
+
+"We did;--much truer men,--men who went straighter. By the bye,
+Phineas, we must have no tricks on this Church matter. We mean to do
+all we can to throw out the second reading."
+
+"You know what I said at the hustings."
+
+"D---- the hustings. I know what Browborough said, and Browborough
+voted like a man with his party. You were against the Church at the
+hustings, and he was for it. You will vote just the other way. There
+will be a little confusion, but the people of Tankerville will never
+remember the particulars."
+
+"I don't know that I can do that."
+
+"By heavens, if you don't, you shall never more be officer of
+ours,--though Laura Kennedy should cry her eyes out."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+TRUMPETON WOOD.
+
+
+In the meantime the hunting season was going on in the Brake country
+with chequered success. There had arisen the great Trumpeton Wood
+question, about which the sporting world was doomed to hear so much
+for the next twelve months,--and Lord Chiltern was in an unhappy
+state of mind. Trumpeton Wood belonged to that old friend of ours,
+the Duke of Omnium, who had now almost fallen into second childhood.
+It was quite out of the question that the Duke should himself
+interfere in such a matter, or know anything about it; but Lord
+Chiltern, with headstrong resolution, had persisted in writing to the
+Duke himself. Foxes had always hitherto been preserved in Trumpeton
+Wood, and the earths had always been stopped on receipt of due notice
+by the keepers. During the cubbing season there had arisen quarrels.
+The keepers complained that no effort was made to kill the foxes.
+Lord Chiltern swore that the earths were not stopped. Then there came
+tidings of a terrible calamity. A dying fox, with a trap to its pad,
+was found in the outskirts of the Wood; and Lord Chiltern wrote to
+the Duke. He drew the Wood in regular course before any answer could
+be received,--and three of his hounds picked up poison, and died
+beneath his eyes. He wrote to the Duke again,--a cutting letter; and
+then came from the Duke's man of business, Mr. Fothergill, a very
+short reply, which Lord Chiltern regarded as an insult. Hitherto the
+affair had not got into the sporting papers, and was simply a matter
+of angry discussion at every meet in the neighbouring counties. Lord
+Chiltern was very full of wrath, and always looked as though he
+desired to avenge those poor hounds on the Duke and all belonging
+to him. To a Master of Hounds the poisoning of one of his pack is
+murder of the deepest dye. There probably never was a Master who in
+his heart of hearts would not think it right that a detected culprit
+should be hung for such an offence. And most Masters would go further
+than this, and declare that in the absence of such detection the
+owner of the covert in which the poison had been picked up should be
+held to be responsible. In this instance the condition of ownership
+was unfortunate. The Duke himself was old, feeble, and almost
+imbecile. He had never been eminent as a sportsman; but, in a not
+energetic manner, he had endeavoured to do his duty by the country.
+His heir, Plantagenet Palliser, was simply a statesman, who, as
+regarded himself, had never a day to spare for amusement; and who, in
+reference to sport, had unfortunate fantastic notions that pheasants
+and rabbits destroyed crops, and that foxes were injurious to old
+women's poultry. He, however, was not the owner, and had refused
+to interfere. There had been family quarrels too, adverse to the
+sporting interests of the younger Palliser scions, so that the
+shooting of this wood had drifted into the hands of Mr. Fothergill
+and his friends. Now, Lord Chiltern had settled it in his own mind
+that the hounds had been poisoned, if not in compliance with Mr.
+Fothergill's orders, at any rate in furtherance of his wishes,
+and, could he have had his way, he certainly would have sent Mr.
+Fothergill to the gallows. Now, Miss Palliser, who was still staying
+at Lord Chiltern's house, was niece to the old Duke, and first cousin
+to the heir. "They are nothing to me," she said once, when Lord
+Chiltern had attempted to apologise for the abuse he was heaping on
+her relatives. "I haven't seen the Duke since I was a little child,
+and I shouldn't know my cousin were I to meet him."
+
+"So much the more gracious is your condition," said Lady
+Chiltern,--"at any rate in Oswald's estimation."
+
+"I know them, and once spent a couple of days at Matching with them,"
+said Lord Chiltern. "The Duke is an old fool, who always gave himself
+greater airs than any other man in England,--and as far as I can see,
+with less to excuse them. As for Planty Pall, he and I belong so
+essentially to different orders of things, that we can hardly be
+reckoned as being both men."
+
+"And which is the man, Lord Chiltern?"
+
+"Whichever you please, my dear; only not both. Doggett was over there
+yesterday, and found three separate traps."
+
+"What did he do with the traps?" said Lady Chiltern.
+
+"I wasn't fool enough to ask him, but I don't in the least doubt that
+he threw them into the water--or that he'd throw Palliser there too
+if he could get hold of him. As for taking the hounds to Trumpeton
+again, I wouldn't do it if there were not another covert in the
+country."
+
+"Then leave it so, and have done with it," said his wife. "I wouldn't
+fret as you do for what another man did with his own property, for
+all the foxes in England."
+
+"That is because you understand nothing of hunting, my dear. A man's
+property is his own in one sense, but isn't his own in another. A man
+can't do what he likes with his coverts."
+
+"He can cut them down."
+
+"But he can't let another pack hunt them, and he can't hunt them
+himself. If he's in a hunting county he is bound to preserve foxes."
+
+"What binds him, Oswald? A man can't be bound without a penalty."
+
+"I should think it penalty enough for everybody to hate me. What are
+you going to do about Phineas Finn?"
+
+"I have asked him to come on the 1st and stay till Parliament meets."
+
+"And is that woman coming?"
+
+"There are two or three women coming."
+
+"She with the German name, whom you made me dine with in Park Lane?"
+
+"Madame Max Goesler is coming. She brings her own horses, and they
+will stand at Doggett's."
+
+"They can't stand here, for there is not a stall."
+
+"I am so sorry that my poor little fellow should incommode you," said
+Miss Palliser.
+
+"You're a licensed offender,--though, upon my honour, I don't know
+whether I ought to give a feed of oats to any one having a connection
+with Trumpeton Wood. And what is Phineas to ride?"
+
+"He shall ride my horses," said Lady Chiltern, whose present
+condition in life rendered hunting inopportune to her.
+
+"Neither of them would carry him a mile. He wants about as good an
+animal as you can put him upon. I don't know what I'm to do. It's all
+very well for Laura to say that he must be mounted."
+
+"You wouldn't refuse to give Mr. Finn a mount!" said Lady Chiltern,
+almost with dismay.
+
+"I'd give him my right hand to ride, only it wouldn't carry him. I
+can't make horses. Harry brought home that brown mare on Tuesday with
+an overreach that she won't get over this season. What the deuce they
+do with their horses to knock them about so, I can't understand. I've
+killed horses in my time, and ridden them to a stand-still, but I
+never bruised them and battered them about as these fellows do."
+
+"Then I'd better write to Mr. Finn, and tell him," said Lady
+Chiltern, very gravely.
+
+"Oh, Phineas Finn!" said Lord Chiltern; "oh, Phineas Finn! what a
+pity it was that you and I didn't see the matter out when we stood
+opposite to each other on the sands at Blankenberg!"
+
+"Oswald," said his wife, getting up, and putting her arm over his
+shoulder, "you know you would give your best horse to Mr. Finn,
+as long as he chose to stay here, though you rode upon a donkey
+yourself."
+
+"I know that if I didn't, you would," said Lord Chiltern. And so the
+matter was settled.
+
+At night, when they were alone together, there was further discussion
+as to the visitors who were coming to Harrington Hall. "Is Gerard
+Maule to come back?" asked the husband.
+
+"I have asked him. He left his horses at Doggett's, you know."
+
+"I didn't know."
+
+"I certainly told you, Oswald. Do you object to his coming? You can't
+really mean that you care about his riding?"
+
+"It isn't that. You must have some whipping post, and he's as good
+as another. But he shilly-shallies about that girl. I hate all that
+stuff like poison."
+
+"All men are not so--abrupt shall I say?--as you were."
+
+"I had something to say, and I said it. When I had said it a dozen
+times, I got to have it believed. He doesn't say it as though he
+meant to have it believed."
+
+"You were always in earnest, Oswald."
+
+"I was."
+
+"To the extent of the three minutes which you allowed yourself. It
+sufficed, however;--did it not? You are glad you persevered?"
+
+"What fools women are."
+
+"Never mind that. Say you are glad. I like you to tell me so. Let me
+be a fool if I will."
+
+"What made you so obstinate?"
+
+"I don't know. I never could tell. It wasn't that I didn't dote upon
+you, and think about you, and feel quite sure that there never could
+be any other one than you."
+
+"I've no doubt it was all right;--only you very nearly made me shoot
+a fellow, and now I've got to find horses for him. I wonder whether
+he could ride Dandolo?"
+
+"Don't put him up on anything very hard."
+
+"Why not? His wife is dead, and he hasn't got a child, nor yet an
+acre of property. I don't know who is entitled to break his neck if
+he is not. And Dandolo is as good a horse as there is in the stable,
+if you can once get him to go. Mind, I have to start to-morrow at
+nine, for it's all eighteen miles." And so the Master of the Brake
+Hounds took himself to his repose.
+
+Lady Laura Kennedy had written to Barrington Erle respecting her
+friend's political interests, and to her sister-in-law, Lady
+Chiltern, as to his social comfort. She could not bear to think that
+he should be left alone in London till Parliament should meet, and
+had therefore appealed to Lady Chiltern as to the memory of many past
+events. The appeal had been unnecessary and superfluous. It cannot
+be said that Phineas and his affairs were matters of as close an
+interest to Lady Chiltern as to Lady Laura. If any woman loved her
+husband beyond all things Lord Chiltern's wife did, and ever had done
+so. But there had been a tenderness in regard to the young Irish
+Member of Parliament, which Violet Effingham had in old days shared
+with Lady Laura, and which made her now think that all good things
+should be done for him. She believed him to be addicted to hunting,
+and therefore horses must be provided for him. He was a widower, and
+she remembered of old that he was fond of pretty women, and she knew
+that in coming days he might probably want money;--and therefore she
+had asked Madame Max Goesler to spend a fortnight at Harrington Hall.
+Madame Max Goesler and Phineas Finn had been acquainted before, as
+Lady Chiltern was well aware. But perhaps Lady Chiltern, when she
+summoned Madame Max into the country, did not know how close the
+acquaintance had been.
+
+Madame Max came a couple of days before Phineas, and was taken out
+hunting on the morning after her arrival. She was a lady who could
+ride to hounds,--and who, indeed, could do nearly anything to which
+she set her mind. She was dark, thin, healthy, good-looking, clever,
+ambitious, rich, unsatisfied, perhaps unscrupulous,--but not without
+a conscience. As has been told in a former portion of this chronicle,
+she could always seem to be happy with her companion of the day, and
+yet there was ever present a gnawing desire to do something more and
+something better than she had as yet achieved. Of course, as he took
+her to the meet, Lord Chiltern told her his grievance respecting
+Trumpeton Wood. "But, my dear Lord Chiltern, you must not abuse the
+Duke of Omnium to me."
+
+"Why not to you?"
+
+"He and I are sworn friends."
+
+"He's a hundred years old."
+
+"And why shouldn't I have a friend a hundred years old? And as
+for Mr. Palliser, he knows no more of your foxes than I know of
+his taxes. Why don't you write to Lady Glencora? She understands
+everything."
+
+"Is she a friend of yours, too?"
+
+"My particular friend. She and I, you know, look after the poor dear
+Duke between us."
+
+"I can understand why she should sacrifice herself."
+
+"But not why I do. I can't explain it myself; but so it has come
+to pass, and I must not hear the Duke abused. May I write to Lady
+Glencora about it?"
+
+"Certainly,--if you please; but not as giving her any message from
+me. Her uncle's property is mismanaged most damnably. If you choose
+to tell her that I say so you can. I'm not going to ask anything as a
+favour. I never do ask favours. But the Duke or Planty Palliser among
+them should do one of two things. They should either stand by the
+hunting, or they should let it alone;--and they should say what they
+mean. I like to know my friends, and I like to know my enemies."
+
+"I am sure the Duke is not your enemy, Lord Chiltern."
+
+"These Pallisers have always been running with the hare and hunting
+with the hounds. They are great aristocrats, and yet are always
+going in for the people. I'm told that Planty Pall calls fox-hunting
+barbarous. Why doesn't he say so out loud, and stub up Trumpeton Wood
+and grow corn?"
+
+"Perhaps he will when Trumpeton Wood belongs to him."
+
+"I should like that much better than poisoning hounds and trapping
+foxes." When they got to the meet, conclaves of men might be
+seen gathered together here and there, and in each conclave they
+were telling something new or something old as to the iniquities
+perpetrated at Trumpeton Wood.
+
+On that evening before dinner Madame Goesler was told by her
+hostess that Phineas Finn was expected on the following day. The
+communication was made quite as a matter of course; but Lady Chiltern
+had chosen a time in which the lights were shaded, and the room was
+dark. Adelaide Palliser was present, as was also a certain Lady
+Baldock,--not that Lady Baldock who had abused all Papists to poor
+Phineas, but her son's wife. They were drinking tea together over
+the fire, and the dim lights were removed from the circle. This, no
+doubt, was simply an accident; but the gloom served Madame Goesler
+during one moment of embarrassment. "An old friend of yours is coming
+here to-morrow," said Lady Chiltern.
+
+"An old friend of mine! Shall I call my friend he or she?"
+
+"You remember Mr. Finn?"
+
+That was the moment in which Madame Goesler rejoiced that no strong
+glare of light fell upon her face. But she was a woman who would not
+long leave herself subject to any such embarrassment. "Surely," she
+said, confining herself at first to the single word.
+
+"He is coming here. He is a great friend of mine."
+
+"He always was a good friend of yours, Lady Chiltern."
+
+"And of yours, too, Madame Max. A sort of general friend, I think,
+was Mr. Finn in the old days. I hope you will be glad to see him."
+
+"Oh, dear, yes."
+
+"I thought him very nice," said Adelaide Palliser.
+
+"I remember mamma saying, before she was mamma, you know," said Lady
+Baldock, "that Mr. Finn was very nice indeed, only he was a Papist,
+and only he had got no money, and only he would fall in love with
+everybody. Does he go on falling in love with people, Violet?"
+
+"Never with married women, my dear. He has had a wife himself since
+that, Madame Goesler, and the poor thing died."
+
+"And now here he is beginning all over again," said Lady Baldock.
+
+"And as pleasant as ever," said her cousin. "You know he has done all
+manner of things for our family. He picked Oswald up once after one
+of those terrible hunting accidents; and he saved Mr. Kennedy when
+men were murdering him."
+
+"That was questionable kindness," said Lady Baldock.
+
+"And he sat for Lord Brentford's borough."
+
+"How good of him!" said Miss Palliser.
+
+"And he has done all manner of things," said Lady Chiltern.
+
+"Didn't he once fight a duel?" asked Madame Goesler.
+
+"That was the grandest thing of all," said his friend, "for he
+didn't shoot somebody whom perhaps he might have shot had he been
+as bloodthirsty as somebody else. And now he has come back to
+Parliament, and all that kind of thing, and he's coming here to hunt.
+I hope you'll be glad to see him, Madame Goesler."
+
+"I shall be very glad to see him," said Madame Goesler, slowly; "I
+heard about his success at that town, and I knew that I should meet
+him somewhere."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+"HOW WELL YOU KNEW!"
+
+
+It was necessary also that some communication should be made to
+Phineas, so that he might not come across Madame Goesler unawares.
+Lady Chiltern was more alive to that necessity than she had been to
+the other, and felt that the gentleman, if not warned of what was to
+take place, would be much more likely than the lady to be awkward at
+the trying moment. Madame Goesler would in any circumstances be sure
+to recover her self-possession very quickly, even were she to lose it
+for a moment; but so much could hardly be said for the social powers
+of Phineas Finn. Lady Chiltern therefore contrived to see him alone
+for a moment on his arrival. "Who do you think is here?"
+
+"Lady Laura has not come!"
+
+"Indeed, no; I wish she had. An old friend, but not so old as Laura!"
+
+"I cannot guess;--not Lord Fawn?"
+
+"Lord Fawn! What would Lord Fawn do here? Don't you know that Lord
+Fawn goes nowhere since his last matrimonial trouble? It's a friend
+of yours, not of mine."
+
+"Madame Goesler?" whispered Phineas.
+
+"How well you knew when I said it was a friend of yours. Madame
+Goesler is here,--not altered in the least."
+
+"Madame Goesler!"
+
+"Does it annoy you?"
+
+"Oh, no. Why should it annoy me?"
+
+"You never quarrelled with her?"
+
+"Never!"
+
+"There is no reason why you should not meet her?"
+
+"None at all;--only I was surprised. Did she know that I was coming?"
+
+"I told her yesterday. I hope that I have not done wrong or made
+things unpleasant. I knew that you used to be friends."
+
+"And as friends we parted, Lady Chiltern." He had nothing more to
+say in the matter; nor had she. He could not tell the story of what
+had taken place between himself and the lady, and she could not keep
+herself from surmising that something had taken place, which, had she
+known it, would have prevented her from bringing the two together at
+Harrington.
+
+Madame Goesler, when she was dressing, acknowledged to herself that
+she had a task before her which would require all her tact and all
+her courage. She certainly would not have accepted Lady Chiltern's
+invitation had she known that she would encounter Phineas Finn at the
+house. She had twenty-four hours to think of it, and at one time had
+almost made up her mind that some sudden business should recall her
+to London. Of course, her motive would be suspected. Of course Lady
+Chiltern would connect her departure with the man's arrival. But even
+that, bad as it would be, might be preferable to the meeting! What a
+fool had she been,--so she accused herself,--in not foreseeing that
+such an accident might happen, knowing as she did that Phineas Finn
+had reappeared in the political world, and that he and the Chiltern
+people had ever been fast friends! As she had thought about it, lying
+awake at night, she had told herself that she must certainly be
+recalled back to London by business. She would telegraph up to town,
+raising a question about any trifle, and on receipt of the answer she
+could be off with something of an excuse. The shame of running away
+from the man seemed to be a worse evil than the shame of meeting him.
+She had in truth done nothing to disgrace herself. In her desire
+to save a man whom she had loved from the ruin which she thought
+had threatened him, she had--offered him her hand. She had made
+the offer, and he had refused it! That was all. No; she would not
+be driven to confess to herself that she had ever fled from the face
+of man or woman. This man would be again in London, and she could
+not always fly. It would be only necessary that she should maintain
+her own composure, and the misery of the meeting would pass away
+after the first few minutes. One consolation was assured to her.
+She thoroughly believed in the man,--feeling certain that he had
+not betrayed her, and would not betray her. But now, as the time
+for the meeting drew near, as she stood for a moment before the
+glass,--pretending to look at herself in order that her maid might
+not remark her uneasiness, she found that her courage, great as
+it was, hardly sufficed her. She almost plotted some scheme of a
+headache, by which she might be enabled not to show herself till
+after dinner. "I am so blind that I can hardly see out of my eyes,"
+she said to the maid, actually beginning the scheme. The woman
+assumed a look of painful solicitude, and declared that "Madame did
+not look quite her best." "I suppose I shall shake it off," said
+Madame Goesler; and then she descended the stairs.
+
+
+[Illustration: "I suppose I shall shake it off."]
+
+
+The condition of Phineas Finn was almost as bad, but he had a much
+less protracted period of anticipation than that with which the lady
+was tormented. He was sent up to dress for dinner with the knowledge
+that in half an hour he would find himself in the same room with
+Madame Goesler. There could be no question of his running away, no
+possibility even of his escaping by a headache. But it may be doubted
+whether his dismay was not even more than hers. She knew that she
+could teach herself to use no other than fitting words; but he was
+almost sure that he would break down if he attempted to speak to her.
+She would be safe from blushing, but he would assuredly become as
+red as a turkey-cock's comb up to the roots of his hair. Her blood
+would be under control, but his would be coursing hither and thither
+through his veins, so as to make him utterly unable to rule himself.
+Nevertheless, he also plucked up his courage and descended, reaching
+the drawing-room before Madame Goesler had entered it. Chiltern was
+going on about Trumpeton Wood to Lord Baldock, and was renewing his
+fury against all the Pallisers, while Adelaide stood by and laughed.
+Gerard Maule was lounging on a chair, wondering that any man could
+expend such energy on such a subject. Lady Chiltern was explaining
+the merits of the case to Lady Baldock,--who knew nothing about
+hunting; and the other guests were listening with eager attention.
+A certain Mr. Spooner, who rode hard and did nothing else,
+and who acted as an unacknowledged assistant-master under Lord
+Chiltern,--there is such a man in every hunt,--acted as chorus, and
+indicated, chiefly with dumb show, the strong points of the case.
+
+"Finn, how are you?" said Lord Chiltern, stretching out his left
+hand. "Glad to have you back again, and congratulate you about the
+seat. It was put down in red herrings, and we found nearly a dozen of
+them afterwards,--enough to kill half the pack."
+
+"Picked up nine," said Mr. Spooner.
+
+"Children might have picked them up quite as well,--and eaten them,"
+said Lady Chiltern.
+
+"They didn't care about that," continued the Master. "And now
+they've wires and traps over the whole place. Palliser's a friend of
+yours--isn't he, Finn?"
+
+"Of course I knew him,--when I was in office."
+
+"I don't know what he may be in office, but he's an uncommon bad sort
+of fellow to have in a county."
+
+"Shameful!" said Mr. Spooner, lifting up both his hands.
+
+"This is my first cousin, you know," whispered Adelaide, to Lady
+Baldock.
+
+"If he were my own brother, or my grandmother, I should say the
+same," continued the angry lord. "We must have a meeting about it,
+and let the world know it,--that's all." At this moment the door was
+again opened, and Madame Goesler entered the room.
+
+When one wants to be natural, of necessity one becomes the reverse of
+natural. A clever actor,--or more frequently a clever actress,--will
+assume the appearance; but the very fact of the assumption renders
+the reality impossible. Lady Chiltern was generally very clever in
+the arrangement of all little social difficulties, and, had she
+thought less about it, might probably have managed the present affair
+in an easy and graceful manner. But the thing had weighed upon her
+mind, and she had decided that it would be expedient that she should
+say something when those two old friends first met each other again
+in her drawing-room. "Madame Max," she said, "you remember Mr. Finn."
+Lord Chiltern for a moment stopped the torrent of his abuse. Lord
+Baldock made a little effort to look uninterested, but quite in vain.
+Mr. Spooner stood on one side. Lady Baldock stared with all her
+eyes,--with some feeling of instinct that there would be something to
+see; and Gerard Maule, rising from the sofa, joined the circle. It
+seemed as though Lady Chiltern's words had caused the formation of a
+ring in the midst of which Phineas and Madame Goesler were to renew
+their acquaintance.
+
+"Very well indeed," said Madame Max, putting out her hand and looking
+full into our hero's face with her sweetest smile. "And I hope Mr.
+Finn will not have forgotten me." She did it admirably--so well that
+surely she need not have thought of running away.
+
+But poor Phineas was not happy. "I shall never forget you," said he;
+and then that unavoidable blush suffused his face, and the blood
+began to career through his veins.
+
+"I am so glad you are in Parliament again," said Madame Max.
+
+"Yes;--I've got in again, after a struggle. Are you still living in
+Park Lane?"
+
+"Oh, yes;--and shall be most happy to see you." Then she seated
+herself,--as did also Lady Chiltern by her side. "I see the poor
+Duke's iniquities are still under discussion. I hope Lord Chiltern
+recognises the great happiness of having a grievance. It would be a
+pity that so great a blessing should be thrown away upon him." For
+the moment Madame Max had got through her difficulty, and, indeed,
+had done so altogether till the moment should come in which she
+should find herself alone with Phineas. But he slunk back from the
+gathering before the fire, and stood solitary and silent till dinner
+was announced. It became his fate to take an old woman into dinner
+who was not very clearsighted. "Did you know that lady before?" she
+asked.
+
+"Oh, yes; I knew her two or three years ago in London."
+
+"Do you think she is pretty?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"All the men say so, but I never can see it. They have been saying
+ever so long that the old Duke of Omnium means to marry her on his
+deathbed, but I don't suppose there can be anything in it."
+
+"Why should he put it off for so very inopportune an occasion?" asked
+Phineas.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+COPPERHOUSE CROSS AND BROUGHTON SPINNIES.
+
+
+After all, the thing had not been so very bad. With a little courage
+and hardihood we can survive very great catastrophes, and go through
+them even without broken bones. Phineas, when he got up to his room,
+found that he had spent the evening in company with Madame Goesler,
+and had not suffered materially, except at the very first moment of
+the meeting. He had not said a word to the lady, except such as were
+spoken in mixed conversation with her and others; but they had been
+together, and no bones had been broken. It could not be that his
+old intimacy should be renewed, but he could now encounter her in
+society, as the Fates might direct, without a renewal of that feeling
+of dismay which had been so heavy on him.
+
+He was about to undress when there came a knock at the door, and his
+host entered the room. "What do you mean to do about smoking?" Lord
+Chiltern asked.
+
+"Nothing at all."
+
+"There's a fire in the smoking-room, but I'm tired, and I want to
+go to bed. Baldock doesn't smoke. Gerard Maule is smoking in his
+own room, I take it. You'll probably find Spooner at this moment
+established somewhere in the back slums, having a pipe with old
+Doggett, and planning retribution. You can join them if you please."
+
+"Not to-night, I think. They wouldn't trust me,--and I should spoil
+their plans."
+
+"They certainly wouldn't trust you,--or any other human being. You
+don't mind a horse that baulks a little, do you?"
+
+"I'm not going to hunt, Chiltern."
+
+"Yes, you are. I've got it all arranged. Don't you be a fool, and
+make us all uncomfortable. Everybody rides here;--every man, woman,
+and child about the place. You shall have one of the best horses I've
+got;--only you must be particular about your spurs."
+
+"Indeed, I'd rather not. The truth is, I can't afford to ride my own
+horses, and therefore I'd rather not ride my friends'."
+
+"That's all gammon. When Violet wrote she told you you'd be expected
+to come out. Your old flame, Madame Max, will be there, and I tell
+you she has a very pretty idea of keeping to hounds. Only Dandolo has
+that little defect."
+
+"Is Dandolo the horse?"
+
+"Yes;--Dandolo is the horse. He's up to a stone over your weight, and
+can do any mortal thing within a horse's compass. Cox won't ride him
+because he baulks, and so he has come into my stable. If you'll only
+let him know that you're on his back, and have got a pair of spurs on
+your heels with rowels in them, he'll take you anywhere. Good-night,
+old fellow. You can smoke if you choose, you know."
+
+Phineas had resolved that he would not hunt; but, nevertheless, he
+had brought boots with him, and breeches, fancying that if he did not
+he would be forced out without those comfortable appurtenances. But
+there came across his heart a feeling that he had reached a time of
+life in which it was no longer comfortable for him to live as a poor
+man with men who were rich. It had been his lot to do so when he was
+younger, and there had been some pleasure in it; but now he would
+rather live alone and dwell upon the memories of the past. He, too,
+might have been rich, and have had horses at command, had he chosen
+to sacrifice himself for money.
+
+On the next morning they started in a huge waggonette for Copperhouse
+Cross,--a meet that was suspiciously near to the Duke's fatal wood.
+Spooner had explained to Phineas over night that they never did draw
+Trumpeton Wood on Copperhouse Cross days, and that under no possible
+circumstances would Chiltern now draw Trumpeton Wood. But there is
+no saying where a fox may run. At this time of the year, just the
+beginning of February, dog-foxes from the big woods were very apt
+to be away from home, and when found would go straight for their
+own earths. It was very possible that they might find themselves in
+Trumpeton Wood, and then certainly there would be a row. Spooner
+shrugged his shoulders, and shook his head, and seemed to insinuate
+that Lord Chiltern would certainly do something very dreadful to the
+Duke or to the Duke's heir if any law of venery should again be found
+to have been broken on this occasion.
+
+The distance to Copperhouse Cross was twelve miles, and Phineas found
+himself placed in the carriage next to Madame Goesler. It had not
+been done of fixed design; but when a party of six are seated in a
+carriage, the chances are that one given person will be next to or
+opposite to any other given person. Madame Max had remembered this,
+and had prepared herself, but Phineas was taken aback when he found
+how close was his neighbourhood to the lady. "Get in, Phineas," said
+his lordship. Gerard Maule had already seated himself next to Miss
+Palliser, and Phineas had no alternative but to take the place next
+to Madame Max.
+
+"I didn't know that you rode to hounds?" said Phineas.
+
+"Oh, yes; I have done so for years. When we met it was always in
+London, Mr. Finn; and people there never know what other people do.
+Have you heard of this terrible affair about the Duke?"
+
+"Oh, dear, yes."
+
+"Poor Duke! He and I have seen a great deal of each other
+since,--since the days when you and I used to meet. He knows nothing
+about all this, and the worst of it is, he is not in a condition to
+be told."
+
+"Lady Glencora could put it all right."
+
+"I'll tell Lady Glencora, of course," said Madame Max. "It seems so
+odd in this country that the owner of a property does not seem at all
+to have any exclusive right to it. I suppose the Duke could shut up
+the wood if he liked."
+
+"But they poisoned the hounds."
+
+"Nobody supposes the Duke did that,--or even the Duke's servants, I
+should think. But Lord Chiltern will hear us if we don't take care."
+
+"I've heard every word you've been saying," exclaimed Lord Chiltern.
+
+"Has it been traced to any one?"
+
+"No,--not traced, I suppose."
+
+"What then, Lord Chiltern? You may speak out to me. When I'm wrong I
+like to be told so."
+
+"Then you're wrong now," said Lord Chiltern, "if you take the part of
+the Duke or of any of his people. He is bound to find foxes for the
+Brake hunt. It is almost a part of his title deeds. Instead of doing
+so he has had them destroyed."
+
+"It's as bad as voting against the Church establishment," said Madame
+Goesler.
+
+There was a very large meet at Copperhouse Cross, and both Madame
+Goesler and Phineas Finn found many old acquaintances there. As
+Phineas had formerly sat in the House for five years, and had been
+in office, and had never made himself objectionable either to his
+friends or adversaries, he had been widely known. He now found half
+a dozen men who were always members of Parliament,--men who seem,
+though commoners, to have been born legislators,--who all spoke to
+him as though his being member for Tankerville and hunting with the
+Brake hounds were equally matters of course. They knew him, but they
+knew nothing of the break in his life. Or if they remembered that he
+had not been seen about the House for the last two or three years
+they remembered also that accidents do happen to some men. It will
+occur now and again that a regular denizen of Westminster will get
+a fall in the political hunting-field, and have to remain about the
+world for a year or two without a seat. That Phineas had lately
+triumphed over Browborough at Tankerville was known, the event
+having been so recent; and men congratulated him, talking of poor
+Browborough,--whose heavy figure had been familiar to them for many
+a year,--but by no means recognising that the event of which they
+spoke had been, as it were, life and death to their friend. Roby was
+there, who was at this moment Mr. Daubeny's head whip and patronage
+secretary. If any one should have felt acutely the exclusion of Mr.
+Browborough from the House,--any one beyond the sufferer himself,--it
+should have been Mr. Roby; but he made himself quite pleasant, and
+even condescended to be jocose upon the occasion. "So you've beat
+poor Browborough in his own borough," said Mr. Roby.
+
+"I've beat him," said Phineas; "but not, I hope, in a borough of his
+own."
+
+"He's been there for the last fifteen years. Poor old fellow! He's
+awfully cut up about this Church Question. I shouldn't have thought
+he'd have taken anything so much to heart. There are worse fellows
+than Browborough, let me tell you. What's all this I hear about the
+Duke poisoning the foxes?" But the crowd had begun to move, and
+Phineas was not called upon to answer the question.
+
+Copperhouse Cross in the Brake Hunt was a very popular meet. It
+was easily reached by a train from London, was in the centre of an
+essentially hunting country, was near to two or three good coverts,
+and was in itself a pretty spot. Two roads intersected each other on
+the middle of Copperhouse Common, which, as all the world knows, lies
+just on the outskirts of Copperhouse Forest. A steep winding hill
+leads down from the Wood to the Cross, and there is no such thing
+within sight as an enclosure. At the foot of the hill, running under
+the wooden bridge, straggles the Copperhouse Brook,--so called by the
+hunting men of the present day, though men who know the country of
+old, or rather the county, will tell you that it is properly called
+the river Cobber, and that the spacious old farm buildings above
+were once known as the Cobber Manor House. He would be a vain man
+who would now try to change the name, as Copperhouse Cross has been
+printed in all the lists of hunting meets for at least the last
+thirty years; and the Ordnance map has utterly rejected the two b's.
+Along one of the cross-roads there was a broad extent of common, some
+seven or eight hundred yards in length, on which have been erected
+the butts used by those well-known defenders of their country, the
+Copperhouse Volunteer Rifles; and just below the bridge the sluggish
+water becomes a little lake, having probably at some time been
+artificially widened, and there is a little island and a decoy for
+ducks. On the present occasion carriages were drawn up on all the
+roads, and horses were clustered on each side of the brook, and the
+hounds sat stately on their haunches where riflemen usually kneel to
+fire, and there was a hum of merry voices, and the bright colouring
+of pink coats, and the sheen of ladies' hunting toilettes, and that
+mingled look of business and amusement which is so peculiar to our
+national sports. Two hundred men and women had come there for the
+chance of a run after a fox,--for a chance against which the odds are
+more than two to one at every hunting day,--for a chance as to which
+the odds are twenty to one against the success of the individuals
+collected; and yet, for every horseman and every horsewoman there,
+not less than L5 a head will have been spent for this one day's
+amusement. When we give a guinea for a stall at the opera we think
+that we pay a large sum; but we are fairly sure of having our music.
+When you go to Copperhouse Cross you are by no means sure of your
+opera.
+
+Why is it that when men and women congregate, though the men may beat
+the women in numbers by ten to one, and though they certainly speak
+the louder, the concrete sound that meets the ears of any outside
+listener is always a sound of women's voices? At Copperhouse Cross
+almost every one was talking, but the feeling left upon the senses
+was that of an amalgam of feminine laughter, feminine affectation,
+and feminine eagerness. Perhaps at Copperhouse Cross the determined
+perseverance with which Lady Gertrude Fitzaskerley addressed herself
+to Lord Chiltern, to Cox the huntsman, to the two whips, and at
+last to Mr. Spooner, may have specially led to the remark on this
+occasion. Lord Chiltern was very short with her, not loving Lady
+Gertrude. Cox bestowed upon her two "my lady's," and then turned from
+her to some peccant hound. But Spooner was partly gratified, and
+partly incapable, and underwent a long course of questions about
+the Duke and the poisoning. Lady Gertrude, whose father seemed to
+have owned half the coverts in Ireland, had never before heard of
+such enormity. She suggested a round robin and would not be at all
+ashamed to put her own name to it. "Oh, for the matter of that," said
+Spooner, "Chiltern can be round enough himself without any robin."
+"He can't be too round," said Lady Gertrude, with a very serious
+aspect.
+
+At last they moved away, and Phineas found himself riding by the side
+of Madame Goesler. It was natural that he should do so, as he had
+come with her. Maule had, of course, remained with Miss Palliser,
+and Chiltern and Spooner had taken themselves to their respective
+duties. Phineas might have avoided her, but in doing so he would have
+seemed to avoid her. She accepted his presence apparently as a matter
+of course, and betrayed by her words and manner no memory of past
+scenes. It was not customary with them to draw the forest, which
+indeed, as it now stood, was a forest only in name, and they trotted
+off to a gorse a mile and a half distant. This they drew blank,--then
+another gorse also blank,--and two or three little fringes of wood,
+such as there are in every country, and through which huntsmen run
+their hounds, conscious that no fox will lie there. At one o'clock
+they had not found, and the hilarity of the really hunting men as
+they ate their sandwiches and lit their cigars was on the decrease.
+The ladies talked more than ever, Lady Gertrude's voice was heard
+above them all, and Lord Chiltern trotted on close behind his hounds
+in obdurate silence. When things were going bad with him no one in
+the field dared to speak to him.
+
+Phineas had never seen his horse till he reached the meet, and there
+found a fine-looking, very strong, bay animal, with shoulders like
+the top of a hay-stack, short-backed, short-legged, with enormous
+quarters, and a wicked-looking eye. "He ought to be strong," said
+Phineas to the groom. "Oh, sir; strong ain't no word for him," said
+the groom; "'e can carry a 'ouse." "I don't know whether he's fast?"
+inquired Phineas. "He's fast enough for any 'ounds, sir," said the
+man with that tone of assurance which always carries conviction. "And
+he can jump?" "He can jump!" continued the groom; "no 'orse in my
+lord's stables can't beat him." "But he won't?" said Phineas. "It's
+only sometimes, sir, and then the best thing is to stick him at it
+till he do. He'll go, he will, like a shot at last; and then he's
+right for the day." Hunting men will know that all this was not quite
+comfortable. When you ride your own horse, and know his special
+defects, you know also how far that defect extends, and what real
+prospect you have of overcoming it. If he be slow through the mud,
+you keep a good deal on the road in heavy weather, and resolve that
+the present is not an occasion for distinguishing yourself. If he be
+bad at timber, you creep through a hedge. If he pulls, you get as far
+from the crowd as may be. You gauge your misfortune, and make your
+little calculation as to the best mode of remedying the evil. But
+when you are told that your friend's horse is perfect,--only that he
+does this or that,--there comes a weight on your mind from which you
+are unable to release it. You cannot discount your trouble at any
+percentage. It may amount to absolute ruin, as far as that day is
+concerned; and in such a circumstance you always look forward to
+the worst. When the groom had done his description, Phineas Finn
+would almost have preferred a day's canvass at Tankerville under Mr.
+Ruddles's authority to his present position.
+
+When the hounds entered Broughton Spinnies, Phineas and Madame
+Goesler were still together. He had not been riding actually at her
+side all the morning. Many men and two or three ladies had been
+talking to her. But he had never been far from her in the ruck, and
+now he was again close by her horse's head. Broughton Spinnies were
+in truth a series of small woods, running one into another almost
+without intermission, never thick, and of no breadth. There was
+always a litter or two of cubs at the place, and in no part of the
+Brake country was greater care taken in the way of preservation and
+encouragement to interesting vixens; but the lying was bad; there was
+little or no real covert; and foxes were very apt to travel and get
+away into those big woods belonging to the Duke,--where, as the Brake
+sportsmen now believed, they would almost surely come to an untimely
+end. "If we draw this blank I don't know what we are to do," said Mr.
+Spooner, addressing himself to Madame Goesler with lachrymose
+anxiety.
+
+"Have you nothing else to draw?" asked Phineas.
+
+"In the common course of things we should take Muggery Gorse, and so
+on to Trumpeton Wood. But Muggery is on the Duke's land, and Chiltern
+is in such a fix! He won't go there unless he can't help it. Muggery
+Gorse is only a mile this side of the big wood."
+
+"And foxes of course go to the big wood?" asked Madame Max.
+
+"Not always. They often come here,--and as they can't hang here, we
+have the whole country before us. We get as good runs from Muggery as
+from any covert in the country. But Chiltern won't go there to-day
+unless the hounds show a line. By George, that's a fox! That's Dido.
+That's a find!" And Spooner galloped away, as though Dido could do
+nothing with the fox she had found unless he was there to help her.
+
+Spooner was quite right, as he generally was on such occasions. He
+knew the hounds even by voice, and knew what hound he could believe.
+Most hounds will lie occasionally, but Dido never lied. And there
+were many besides Spooner who believed in Dido. The whole pack rushed
+to her music, though the body of them would have remained utterly
+unmoved at the voice of any less reverenced and less trustworthy
+colleague. The whole wood was at once in commotion,--men and women
+riding hither and thither, not in accordance with any judgment; but
+as they saw or thought they saw others riding who were supposed to
+have judgment. To get away well is so very much! And to get away well
+is often so very difficult! There are so many things of which the
+horseman is bound to think in that moment. Which way does the wind
+blow? And then, though a fox will not long run up wind, he will break
+covert up wind, as often as not. From which of the various rides
+can you find a fair exit into the open country, without a chance of
+breaking your neck before the run begins? When you hear some wild
+halloa, informing you that one fox has gone in the direction exactly
+opposite to that in which the hounds are hunting, are you sure that
+the noise is not made about a second fox? On all these matters you
+are bound to make up your mind without losing a moment; and if you
+make up your mind wrongly the five pounds you have invested in that
+day's amusement will have been spent for nothing. Phineas and Madame
+Goesler were in the very centre of the wood when Spooner rushed away
+from them down one of the rides on hearing Dido's voice; and at
+that time they were in a crowd. Almost immediately the fox was seen
+to cross another ride, and a body of horsemen rushed away in that
+direction, knowing that the covert was small, and there the animal
+must soon leave the wood. Then there was a shout of "Away!" repeated
+over and over again, and Lord Chiltern, running up like a flash of
+lightning, and passing our two friends, galloped down a third ride
+to the right of the others. Phineas at once followed the master of
+the pack, and Madame Goesler followed Phineas. Men were still riding
+hither and thither; and a farmer, meeting them, with his horse turned
+back towards the centre of the wood which they were leaving, halloaed
+out as they passed that there was no way out at the bottom. They met
+another man in pink, who screamed out something as to "the devil of a
+bank down there." Chiltern, however, was still going on, and our hero
+had not the heart to stop his horse in its gallop and turn back from
+the direction in which the hounds were running. At that moment he
+hardly remembered the presence of Madame Goesler, but he did remember
+every word that had been said to him about Dandolo. He did not in the
+least doubt but that Chiltern had chosen his direction rightly, and
+that if he were once out of the wood he would find himself with the
+hounds; but what if this brute should refuse to take him out of the
+wood? That Dandolo was very fast he soon became aware, for he gained
+upon his friend before him as they neared the fence. And then he saw
+what there was before him. A new broad ditch had been cut, with the
+express object of preventing egress or ingress at that point; and a
+great bank had been constructed with the clay. In all probability
+there might be another ditch on the other side. Chiltern, however,
+had clearly made up his mind about it. The horse he was riding went
+at it gallantly, cleared the first ditch, balanced himself for half a
+moment on the bank, and then, with a fresh spring, got into the field
+beyond. The tail hounds were running past outside the covert, and the
+master had placed himself exactly right for the work in hand. How
+excellent would be the condition of Finn if only Dandolo would do
+just as Chiltern's horse had done before him!
+
+And Phineas almost began to hope that it might be so. The horse was
+going very well, and very willingly. His head was stretched out, he
+was pulling, not more, however, than pleasantly, and he seemed to
+be as anxious as his rider. But there was a little twitch about his
+ears which his rider did not like, and then it was impossible not to
+remember that awful warning given by the groom, "It's only sometimes,
+sir." And after what fashion should Phineas ride him at the obstacle?
+He did not like to strike a horse that seemed to be going well, and
+was unwilling, as are all good riders, to use his heels. So he spoke
+to him, and proposed to lift him at the ditch. To the very edge the
+horse galloped,--too fast, indeed, if he meant to take the bank as
+Chiltern's horse had done,--and then stopping himself so suddenly
+that he must have shaken every joint in his body, he planted his
+fore feet on the very brink, and there he stood, with his head down,
+quivering in every muscle. Phineas Finn, following naturally the
+momentum which had been given to him, went over the brute's neck
+head-foremost into the ditch. Madame Max was immediately off her
+horse. "Oh, Mr. Finn, are you hurt?"
+
+But Phineas, happily, was not hurt. He was shaken and dirty, but not
+so shaken, and not so dirty, but that he was on his legs in a minute,
+imploring his companion not to mind him but go on. "Going on doesn't
+seem to be so easy," said Madame Goesler, looking at the ditch as she
+held her horse in her hand. But to go back in such circumstances is a
+terrible disaster. It amounts to complete defeat; and is tantamount
+to a confession that you must go home, because you are unable to ride
+to hounds. A man, when he is compelled to do this, is almost driven
+to resolve at the spur of the moment that he will give up hunting for
+the rest of his life. And if one thing be more essential than any
+other to the horseman in general, it is that he, and not the animal
+which he rides, shall be the master. "The best thing is to stick him
+at it till he do," the groom had said; and Phineas resolved to be
+guided by the groom.
+
+But his first duty was to attend on Madame Goesler. With very little
+assistance she was again in her saddle, and she at once declared
+herself certain that her horse could take the fence. Phineas again
+instantly jumped into his saddle, and turning Dandolo again at the
+ditch, rammed the rowels into the horse's sides. But Dandolo would
+not jump yet. He stood with his fore feet on the brink, and when
+Phineas with his whip struck him severely over the shoulders, he went
+down into the ditch on all fours, and then scrambled back again to
+his former position. "What an infernal brute!" said Phineas, gnashing
+his teeth.
+
+"He is a little obstinate, Mr. Finn; I wonder whether he'd jump if
+I gave him a lead." But Phineas was again making the attempt, urging
+the horse with spurs, whip, and voice. He had brought himself now
+to that condition in which a man is utterly reckless as to falling
+himself,--or even to the kind of fall he may get,--if he can only
+force his animal to make the attempt. But Dandolo would not make
+the attempt. With ears down and head outstretched, he either stuck
+obstinately on the brink, or allowed himself to be forced again and
+again into the ditch. "Let me try it once, Mr. Finn," said Madame
+Goesler in her quiet way.
+
+She was riding a small horse, very nearly thoroughbred, and known
+as a perfect hunter by those who habitually saw Madame Goesler ride.
+No doubt he would have taken the fence readily enough had his rider
+followed immediately after Lord Chiltern; but Dandolo had baulked at
+the fence nearly a dozen times, and evil communications will corrupt
+good manners. Without any show of violence, but still with persistent
+determination, Madame Goesler's horse also declined to jump. She put
+him at it again and again, and he would make no slightest attempt to
+do his business. Phineas raging, fuming, out of breath, miserably
+unhappy, shaking his reins, plying his whip, rattling himself about
+in the saddle, and banging his legs against the horse's sides, again
+and again plunged away at the obstacle. But it was all to no purpose.
+Dandolo was constantly in the ditch, sometimes lying with his side
+against the bank, and had now been so hustled and driven that, had he
+been on the other side, he would have had no breath left to carry his
+rider, even in the ruck of the hunt. In the meantime the hounds and
+the leading horsemen were far away,--never more to be seen on that
+day by either Phineas Finn or Madame Max Goesler. For a while, during
+the frantic efforts that were made, an occasional tardy horseman was
+viewed galloping along outside the covert, following the tracks of
+those who had gone before. But before the frantic efforts had been
+abandoned as utterly useless every vestige of the morning's work
+had left the neighbourhood of Broughton Spinnies, except these two
+unfortunate ones. At last it was necessary that the defeat should be
+acknowledged. "We're beaten, Madame Goesler," said Phineas, almost in
+tears.
+
+"Altogether beaten, Mr. Finn."
+
+"I've a good mind to swear that I'll never come out hunting again."
+
+"Swear what you like, if it will relieve you, only don't think of
+keeping such an oath. I've known you before this to be depressed by
+circumstances quite as distressing as these, and to be certain that
+all hope was over;--but yet you have recovered." This was the only
+allusion she had yet made to their former acquaintance. "And now we
+must think of getting out of the wood."
+
+"I haven't the slightest idea of the direction of anything."
+
+"Nor have I; but as we clearly can't get out this way we might as
+well try the other. Come along. We shall find somebody to put us in
+the right road. For my part I'm glad it is no worse. I thought at one
+time that you were going to break your neck." They rode on for a few
+minutes in silence, and then she spoke again. "Is it not odd, Mr.
+Finn, that after all that has come and gone you and I should find
+ourselves riding about Broughton Spinnies together?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+MADAME GOESLER'S STORY.
+
+
+"After all that has come and gone, is it not odd that you and I
+should find ourselves riding about Broughton Spinnies together?" That
+was the question which Madame Goesler asked Phineas Finn when they
+had both agreed that it was impossible to jump over the bank out of
+the wood, and it was, of course, necessary that some answer should be
+given to it.
+
+"When I saw you last in London," said Phineas, with a voice that was
+gruff, and a manner that was abrupt, "I certainly did not think that
+we should meet again so soon."
+
+"No;--I left you as though I had grounds for quarrelling; but there
+was no quarrel. I wrote to you, and tried to explain that."
+
+"You did;--and though my answer was necessarily short, I was very
+grateful."
+
+"And here you are back among us; and it does seem so odd. Lady
+Chiltern never told me that I was to meet you."
+
+"Nor did she tell me."
+
+"It is better so, for otherwise I should not have come, and then,
+perhaps, you would have been all alone in your discomfiture at the
+bank."
+
+"That would have been very bad."
+
+"You see I can be quite frank with you, Mr. Finn. I am heartily glad
+to see you, but I should not have come had I been told. And when
+I did see you, it was quite improbable that we should be thrown
+together as we are now,--was it not? Ah;--here is a man, and he can
+tell us the way back to Copperhouse Cross. But I suppose we had
+better ask for Harrington Hall at once."
+
+The man knew nothing at all about Harrington Hall, and very little
+about Copperhouse; but he did direct them on to the road, and they
+found that they were about sixteen miles from Lord Chiltern's house.
+The hounds had gone away in the direction of Trumpeton Wood, and it
+was agreed that it would be useless to follow them. The waggonette
+had been left at an inn about two miles from Copperhouse Cross, but
+they resolved to abandon that and to ride direct to Harrington Hall.
+It was now nearly three o'clock, and they would not be subjected to
+the shame which falls upon sportsmen who are seen riding home very
+early in the day. To get oneself lost before twelve, and then to come
+home, is a very degrading thing; but at any time after two you may be
+supposed to have ridden the run of the season, and to be returning
+after an excellent day's work.
+
+Then Madame Goesler began to talk about herself, and to give a short
+history of her life during the last two-and-a-half years. She did
+this in a frank natural manner, continuing her tale in a low voice,
+as though it were almost a matter of course that she should make the
+recital to so old a friend. And Phineas soon began to feel that it
+was natural that she should do so. "It was just before you left us,"
+she said, "that the Duke took to coming to my house." The duke spoken
+of was the Duke of Omnium, and Phineas well remembered to have heard
+some rumours about the Duke and Madame Max. It had been hinted to him
+that the Duke wanted to marry the lady, but that rumour he had never
+believed. The reader, if he has duly studied the history of the age,
+will know that the Duke did make an offer to Madame Goesler, pressing
+it with all his eloquence, but that Madame Goesler, on mature
+consideration, thought it best to decline to become a duchess. Of all
+this, however, the reader who understands Madame Goesler's character
+will be quite sure that she did not say a word to Phineas Finn. Since
+the business had been completed she had spoken of it to no one but to
+Lady Glencora Palliser, who had forced herself into a knowledge of
+all the circumstances while they were being acted.
+
+"I met the Duke once at Matching," said Phineas.
+
+"I remember it well. I was there, and first made the Duke's
+acquaintance on that occasion. I don't know how it was that we became
+intimate;--but we did, and then I formed a sort of friendship with
+Lady Glencora; and somehow it has come about that we have been a
+great deal together since."
+
+"I suppose you like Lady Glencora?"
+
+"Very much indeed,--and the Duke, too. The truth is, Mr. Finn, that
+let one boast as one may of one's independence,--and I very often do
+boast of mine to myself,--one is inclined to do more for a Duke of
+Omnium than for a Mr. Jones."
+
+"The Dukes have more to offer than the Joneses;--I don't mean in the
+way of wealth only, but of what one enjoys most in society
+generally."
+
+"I suppose they have. At any rate, I am glad that you should make
+some excuse for me. But I do like the man. He is gracious and noble
+in his bearing. He is now very old, and sinking fast into the grave;
+but even the wreck is noble."
+
+"I don't know that he ever did much," said Phineas.
+
+"I don't know that he ever did anything according to your idea of
+doing. There must be some men who do nothing."
+
+"But a man with his wealth and rank has opportunities so great! Look
+at his nephew!"
+
+"No doubt Mr. Palliser is a great man. He never has a moment to speak
+to his wife or to anybody else; and is always thinking so much about
+the country that I doubt if he knows anything about his own affairs.
+Of course he is a man of a different stamp,--and of a higher stamp,
+if you will. But I have an idea that such characters as those of the
+present Duke are necessary to the maintenance of a great aristocracy.
+He has had the power of making the world believe in him simply
+because he has been rich and a duke. His nephew, when he comes to the
+title, will never receive a tithe of the respect that has been paid
+to this old faineant."
+
+"But he will achieve much more than ten times the reputation," said
+Phineas.
+
+"I won't compare them, nor will I argue; but I like the Duke. Nay;--I
+love him. During the last two years I have allowed the whole fashion
+of my life to be remodelled by this intimacy. You knew what were my
+habits. I have only been in Vienna for one week since I last saw you,
+and I have spent months and months at Matching."
+
+"What do you do there?"
+
+"Read to him;--talk to him;--give him his food, and do all that in
+me lies to make his life bearable. Last year, when it was thought
+necessary that very distinguished people should be entertained at the
+great family castle,--in Barsetshire, you know--"
+
+"I have heard of the place."
+
+"A regular treaty or agreement was drawn up. Conditions were sealed
+and signed. One condition was that both Lady Glencora and I should
+be there. We put our heads together to try to avoid this; as, of
+course, the Prince would not want to see me particularly,--and it was
+altogether so grand an affair that things had to be weighed. But the
+Duke was inexorable. Lady Glencora at such a time would have other
+things to do, and I must be there, or Gatherum Castle should not be
+opened. I suggested whether I could not remain in the background and
+look after the Duke as a kind of upper nurse,--but Lady Glencora said
+it would not do."
+
+"Why should you subject yourself to such indignity?"
+
+"Simply from love of the man. But you see I was not subjected. For
+two days I wore my jewels beneath royal eyes,--eyes that will sooner
+or later belong to absolute majesty. It was an awful bore, and I
+ought to have been at Vienna. You ask me why I did it. The fact is
+that things sometimes become too strong for one, even when there is
+no real power of constraint. For years past I have been used to have
+my own way, but when there came a question of the entertainment of
+royalty I found myself reduced to blind obedience. I had to go to
+Gatherum Castle, to the absolute neglect of my business; and I went."
+
+"Do you still keep it up?"
+
+"Oh, dear, yes. He is at Matching now, and I doubt whether he will
+ever leave it again. I shall go there from here as a matter of
+course, and relieve guard with Lady Glencora."
+
+"I don't see what you get for it all."
+
+"Get;--what should I get? You don't believe in friendship, then?"
+
+"Certainly I do;--but this friendship is so unequal. I can hardly
+understand that it should have grown from personal liking on your
+side."
+
+"I think it has," said Madame Goesler, slowly. "You see, Mr. Finn,
+that you as a young man can hardly understand how natural it is that
+a young woman,--if I may call myself young,--should minister to an
+old man."
+
+"But there should be some bond to the old man."
+
+"There is a bond."
+
+"You must not be angry with me," said Phineas.
+
+"I am not in the least angry."
+
+"I should not venture to express any opinion, of course,--only that
+you ask me."
+
+"I do ask you, and you are quite welcome to express your opinion. And
+were it not expressed, I should know what you thought just the same.
+I have wondered at it myself sometimes,--that I should have become as
+it were engulfed in this new life, almost without will of my own. And
+when he dies, how shall I return to the other life? Of course I have
+the house in Park Lane still, but my very maid talks of Matching as
+my home."
+
+"How will it be when he has gone?"
+
+"Ah,--how indeed? Lady Glencora and I will have to curtsey to each
+other, and there will be an end of it. She will be a duchess then,
+and I shall no longer be wanted."
+
+"But even if you were wanted--?"
+
+"Oh, of course. It must last the Duke's time, and last no longer. It
+would not be a healthy kind of life were it not that I do my very
+best to make the evening of his days pleasant for him, and in that
+way to be of some service in the world. It has done me good to think
+that I have in some small degree sacrificed myself. Let me see;--we
+are to turn here to the left. That goes to Copperhouse Cross, no
+doubt. Is it not odd that I should have told you all this history?"
+
+"Just because this brute would not jump over the fence."
+
+"I dare say I should have told you, even if he had jumped over; but
+certainly this has been a great opportunity. Do you tell your friend
+Lord Chiltern not to abuse the poor Duke any more before me. I dare
+say our host is all right in what he says; but I don't like it.
+You'll come and see me in London, Mr. Finn?"
+
+"But you'll be at Matching?"
+
+"I do get a few days at home sometimes. You see I have escaped for
+the present,--or otherwise you and I would not have come to grief
+together in Broughton Spinnies."
+
+Soon after this they were overtaken by others who were returning
+home, and who had been more fortunate than they in getting away
+with the hounds. The fox had gone straight for Trumpeton Wood, not
+daring to try the gorse on the way, and then had been run to ground.
+Chiltern was again in a towering passion, as the earths, he said,
+had been purposely left open. But on this matter the men who had
+overtaken our friends were both of opinion that Chiltern was wrong.
+He had allowed it to be understood that he would not draw Trumpeton
+Wood, and he had therefore no right to expect that the earths should
+be stopped. But there were and had been various opinions on this
+difficult point, as the laws of hunting are complex, recondite,
+numerous, traditional, and not always perfectly understood. Perhaps
+the day may arrive in which they shall be codified under the care of
+some great and laborious master of hounds.
+
+"And they did nothing more?" asked Phineas.
+
+"Yes;--they chopped another fox before they left the place,--so that
+in point of fact they have drawn Trumpeton. But they didn't mean it."
+
+When Madame Max Goesler and Phineas had reached Harrington Hall
+they were able to give their own story of the day's sport to Lady
+Chiltern, as the remainder of the party had not as yet returned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+SPOONER OF SPOON HALL.
+
+
+Adelaide Palliser was a tall, fair girl, exquisitely made, with
+every feminine grace of motion, highly born, and carrying always
+the warranty of her birth in her appearance; but with no special
+loveliness of face. Let not any reader suppose that therefore she
+was plain. She possessed much more than a sufficiency of charm to
+justify her friends in claiming her as a beauty, and the demand had
+been generally allowed by public opinion. Adelaide Palliser was
+always spoken of as a girl to be admired; but she was not one whose
+countenance would strike with special admiration any beholder who did
+not know her. Her eyes were pleasant and bright, and, being in truth
+green, might, perhaps with propriety, be described as grey. Her nose
+was well formed. Her mouth was, perhaps, too small. Her teeth were
+perfect. Her chin was somewhat too long, and was on this account
+the defective feature of her face. Her hair was brown and plentiful;
+but in no way peculiar. No doubt she wore a chignon; but if so she
+wore it with the special view of being in no degree remarkable
+in reference to her head-dress. Such as she was,--beauty or no
+beauty--her own mind on the subject was made up, and she had resolved
+long since that the gift of personal loveliness had not been
+bestowed upon her. And yet after a fashion she was proud of her own
+appearance. She knew that she looked like a lady, and she knew also
+that she had all that command of herself which health and strength
+can give to a woman when she is without feminine affectation.
+
+Lady Chiltern, in describing her to Phineas Finn, had said that she
+talked Italian, and wrote for the _Times_. The former assertion
+was, no doubt, true, as Miss Palliser had passed some years of her
+childhood in Florence; but the latter statement was made probably
+with reference to her capability rather than her performance. Lady
+Chiltern intended to imply that Miss Palliser was so much better
+educated than young ladies in general that she was able to express
+herself intelligibly in her own language. She had been well educated,
+and would, no doubt, have done the _Times_ credit had the _Times_
+chosen to employ her.
+
+She was the youngest daughter of the youngest brother of the existing
+Duke of Omnium, and the first cousin, therefore, of Mr. Plantagenet
+Palliser, who was the eldest son of the second brother. And as her
+mother had been a Bavilard there could be no better blood. But
+Adelaide had been brought up so far away from the lofty Pallisers and
+lofty Bavilards as almost to have lost the flavour of her birth. Her
+father and mother had died when she was an infant, and she had gone
+to the custody of a much older half-sister, Mrs. Atterbury, whose
+mother had been not a Bavilard, but a Brown. And Mr. Atterbury was a
+mere nobody, a rich, erudite, highly-accomplished gentleman, whose
+father had made his money at the bar, and whose grandfather had
+been a country clergyman. Mrs. Atterbury, with her husband, was
+still living at Florence; but Adelaide Palliser had quarrelled with
+Florence life, and had gladly consented to make a long visit to her
+friend Lady Chiltern.
+
+In Florence she had met Gerard Maule, and the acquaintance had not
+been viewed with favour by the Atterburys. Mrs. Atterbury knew
+the history of the Maule family, and declared to her sister that
+no good could come from any intimacy. Old Mr. Maule, she said,
+was disreputable. Mrs. Maule, the mother,--who, according to Mr.
+Atterbury, had been the only worthy member of the family,--was long
+since dead. Gerard Maule's sister had gone away with an Irish cousin,
+and they were now living in India on the professional income of
+a captain in a foot regiment. Gerard Maule's younger brother had
+gone utterly to the dogs, and nobody knew anything about him.
+Maule Abbey, the family seat in Herefordshire, was,--so said Mrs.
+Atterbury,--absolutely in ruins. The furniture, as all the world
+knew, had been sold by the squire's creditors under the sheriff's
+order ten years ago, and not a chair or a table had been put into
+the house since that time. The property, which was small,--L2,000
+a year at the outside,--was, no doubt, entailed on the eldest son;
+and Gerard, fortunately, had a small fortune of his own, independent
+of his father. But then he was also a spendthrift,--so said Mrs.
+Atterbury,--keeping a stable full of horses, for which he could not
+afford to pay; and he was, moreover, the most insufferably idle man
+who ever wandered about the world without any visible occupation
+for his hours. "But he hunts," said Adelaide. "Do you call that an
+occupation?" asked Mrs. Atterbury with scorn. Now Mrs. Atterbury
+painted pictures, copied Madonnas, composed sonatas, corresponded
+with learned men in Rome, Berlin, and Boston, had been the intimate
+friend of Cavour, had paid a visit to Garibaldi on his island with
+the view of explaining to him the real condition of Italy,--and was
+supposed to understand Bismarck. Was it possible that a woman who so
+filled her own life should accept hunting as a creditable employment
+for a young man, when it was admitted to be his sole employment? And,
+moreover, she desired that her sister Adelaide should marry a certain
+Count Brudi, who, according to her belief, had more advanced ideas
+about things in general than any other living human being. Adelaide
+Palliser had determined that she would not marry Count Brudi; had,
+indeed, almost determined that she would marry Gerard Maule, and
+had left her brother-in-law's house in Florence after something
+like a quarrel. Mrs. Atterbury had declined to authorise the visit
+to Harrington Hall, and then Adelaide had pleaded her age and
+independence. She was her own mistress if she so chose to call
+herself, and would not, at any rate, remain in Florence at the
+present moment to receive the attentions of Signor Brudi. Of the
+previous winter she had passed three months with some relatives in
+England, and there she had learned to ride to hounds, had first met
+Gerard Maule, and had made acquaintance with Lady Chiltern. Gerard
+Maule had wandered to Italy after her, appearing at Florence in his
+desultory way, having no definite purpose, not even that of asking
+Adelaide to be his wife,--but still pursuing her, as though he wanted
+her without knowing what he wanted. In the course of the Spring,
+however, he had proposed, and had been almost accepted. But Adelaide,
+though she would not yield to her sister, had been frightened. She
+knew that she loved the man, and she swore to herself a thousand
+times that she would not be dictated to by her sister;--but was she
+prepared to accept the fate which would at once be hers were she now
+to marry Gerard Maule? What could she do with a man who had no ideas
+of his own as to what he ought to do with himself?
+
+Lady Chiltern was in favour of the marriage. The fortune, she said,
+was as much as Adelaide was entitled to expect, the man was a
+gentleman, was tainted by no vices, and was truly in love. "You had
+better let them fight it out somewhere else," Lord Chiltern had said
+when his wife proposed that the invitation to Gerard Maule should be
+renewed; but Lady Chiltern had known that if "fought out" at all, it
+must be fought out at Harrington Hall. "We have asked him to come
+back," she said to Adelaide, "in order that you may make up your
+mind. If he chooses to come, it will show that he is in earnest; and
+then you must take him, or make him understand that he is not to be
+taken." Gerard Maule had chosen to come; but Adelaide Palliser had
+not as yet quite made up her mind.
+
+Perhaps there is nothing so generally remarkable in the conduct of
+young ladies in the phase of life of which we are now speaking as the
+facility,--it may almost be said audacity,--with which they do make
+up their minds. A young man seeks a young woman's hand in marriage,
+because she has waltzed stoutly with him, and talked pleasantly
+between the dances;--and the young woman gives it, almost with
+gratitude. As to the young man, the readiness of his action is less
+marvellous than hers. He means to be master, and, by the very nature
+of the joint life they propose to lead, must take her to his sphere
+of life, not bind himself to hers. If he worked before he will work
+still. If he was idle before he will be idle still; and he probably
+does in some sort make a calculation and strike a balance between his
+means and the proposed additional burden of a wife and children. But
+she, knowing nothing, takes a monstrous leap in the dark, in which
+everything is to be changed, and in which everything is trusted to
+chance. Miss Palliser, however, differing in this from the majority
+of her friends and acquaintances, frightened, perhaps by those
+representations of her sister to which she would not altogether
+yield, had paused, and was still pausing. "Where should we go and
+live if I did marry him?" she said to Lady Chiltern.
+
+"I suppose he has an opinion of his own on that subject?"
+
+"Not in the least, I should think."
+
+"Has he never said anything about it?"
+
+"Oh dear no. Matters have not got so far as that at all;--nor would
+they ever, out of his own head. If we were married and taken away to
+the train he would only ask what place he should take the tickets for
+when he got to the station."
+
+"Couldn't you manage to live at Maule Abbey?"
+
+"Perhaps we might; only there is no furniture, and, as I am told,
+only half a roof."
+
+"It does seem to be absurd that you two should not make up your mind,
+just as other people do," said Lady Chiltern. "Of course he is not a
+rich man, but you have known that all along."
+
+"It is not a question of wealth or poverty, but of an utterly
+lack-a-daisical indifference to everything in the world."
+
+"He is not indifferent to you."
+
+"That is the marvellous part of it," said Miss Palliser.
+
+This was said on the evening of the famous day at Broughton Spinnies,
+and late on that night Lord Chiltern predicted to his wife that
+another episode was about to occur in the life of their friend.
+
+"What do you think Spooner has just asked me?"
+
+"Permission to fight the Duke, or Mr. Palliser?"
+
+"No,--it's nothing about the hunting. He wants to know if you'd mind
+his staying here three or four days longer."
+
+"What a very odd request!"
+
+"It is odd, because he was to have gone to-morrow. I suppose there's
+no objection."
+
+"Of course not if you like to have him."
+
+"I don't like it a bit," said Lord Chiltern; "but I couldn't turn him
+out. And I know what it means."
+
+"What does it mean?"
+
+"You haven't observed anything?"
+
+"I have observed nothing in Mr. Spooner, except an awe-struck horror
+at the trapping of a fox."
+
+"He's going to propose to Adelaide Palliser."
+
+"Oswald! You are not in earnest."
+
+"I believe he is. He would have told me if he thought I could give
+him the slightest encouragement. You can't very well turn him out
+now."
+
+"He'll get an answer that he won't like if he does," said Lady
+Chiltern.
+
+Miss Palliser had ridden well on that day, and so had Gerard Maule.
+That Mr. Spooner should ride well to hounds was quite a matter of
+course. It was the business of his life to do so, and he did it with
+great judgment. He hated Maule's style of riding, considering it to
+be flashy, injurious to hunting, and unsportsmanlike; and now he had
+come to hate the man. He had, of course, perceived how close were the
+attentions paid by Mr. Maule to Miss Palliser, and he thought that
+he perceived that Miss Palliser did not accept them with thorough
+satisfaction. On his way back to Harrington Hall he made some
+inquiries, and was taught to believe that Mr. Maule was not a man
+of very high standing in the world. Mr. Spooner himself had a very
+pretty property of his own,--which was all his own. There was no
+doubt about his furniture, or about the roof at Spoon Hall. He was
+Spooner of Spoon Hall, and had been High Sheriff for his county. He
+was not so young as he once had been;--but he was still a young man,
+only just turned forty, and was his own master in everything. He
+could read, and he always looked at the country newspaper; but a book
+was a thing that he couldn't bear to handle. He didn't think he had
+ever seen a girl sit a horse better than Adelaide Palliser sat hers,
+and a girl who rode as she did would probably like a man addicted to
+hunting. Mr. Spooner knew that he understood hunting, whereas that
+fellow Maule cared for nothing but jumping over flights of rails.
+He asked a few questions that evening of Phineas Finn respecting
+Gerard Maule, but did not get much information. "I don't know where
+he lives;" said Phineas; "I never saw him till I met him here."
+
+"Don't you think he seems sweet upon that girl?"
+
+"I shouldn't wonder if he is."
+
+"She's an uncommonly clean-built young woman, isn't she?" said Mr.
+Spooner; "but it seems to me she don't care much for Master Maule.
+Did you see how he was riding to-day?"
+
+"I didn't see anything, Mr. Spooner."
+
+"No, no; you didn't get away. I wish he'd been with you. But she went
+uncommon well." After that he made his request to Lord Chiltern, and
+Lord Chiltern, with a foresight quite unusual to him, predicted the
+coming event to his wife.
+
+There was shooting on the following day, and Gerard Maule and Mr.
+Spooner were both out. Lunch was sent down to the covert side, and
+the ladies walked down and joined the sportsmen. On this occasion Mr.
+Spooner's assiduity was remarkable, and seemed to be accepted with
+kindly grace. Adelaide even asked a question about Trumpeton Wood,
+and expressed an opinion that her cousin was quite wrong because
+he did not take the matter up. "You know it's the keepers do it
+all," said Mr. Spooner, shaking his head with an appearance of great
+wisdom. "You never can have foxes unless you keep your keepers well
+in hand. If they drew the Spoon Hall coverts blank I'd dismiss my man
+the next day."
+
+
+[Illustration: "You know it's the keepers do it all."]
+
+
+"It mightn't be his fault."
+
+"He knows my mind, and he'll take care that there are foxes. They've
+been at my stick covert three times this year, and put a brace out
+each time. A leash went from it last Monday week. When a man really
+means a thing, Miss Palliser, he can pretty nearly always do it."
+Miss Palliser replied with a smile that she thought that to be true,
+and Mr. Spooner was not slow at perceiving that this afforded good
+encouragement to him in regard to that matter which was now weighing
+most heavily upon his mind.
+
+On the next day there was hunting again, and Phineas was mounted on a
+horse more amenable to persuasion than old Dandolo. There was a fair
+run in the morning, and both Phineas and Madame Max were carried
+well. The remarkable event in the day, however, was the riding of
+Dandolo in the afternoon by Lord Chiltern himself. He had determined
+that the horse should go out, and had sworn that he would ride him
+over a fence if he remained there making the attempt all night. For
+two weary hours he did remain, with a groom behind him, spurring the
+brute against a thick hedge, with a ditch at the other side of it,
+and at the end of the two hours he succeeded. The horse at last made
+a buck leap and went over with a loud grunt. On his way home Lord
+Chiltern sold the horse to a farmer for fifteen pounds;--and that
+was the end of Dandolo as far as the Harrington Hall stables were
+concerned. This took place on the Friday, the 8th of February. It was
+understood that Mr. Spooner was to return to Spoon Hall on Saturday,
+and on Monday, the 11th, Phineas was to go to London. On the 12th
+the Session would begin, and he would once more take his seat in
+Parliament.
+
+"I give you my word and honour, Lady Chiltern," Gerard Maule said to
+his hostess, "I believe that oaf of a man is making up to Adelaide."
+Mr. Maule had not been reticent about his love towards Lady Chiltern,
+and came to her habitually in all his troubles.
+
+"Chiltern has told me the same thing."
+
+"No!"
+
+"Why shouldn't he see it, as well as you? But I wouldn't believe it."
+
+"Upon my word I believe it's true. But, Lady Chiltern--"
+
+"Well, Mr. Maule."
+
+"You know her so well."
+
+"Adelaide, you mean?"
+
+"You understand her thoroughly. There can't be anything in it; is
+there?"
+
+"How anything?"
+
+"She can't really--like him?"
+
+"Mr. Maule, if I were to tell her that you had asked such a question
+as that I don't believe that she'd ever speak a word to you again;
+and it would serve you right. Didn't you call him an oaf?"
+
+"I did."
+
+"And how long has she known him?"
+
+"I don't believe she ever spoke to him before yesterday."
+
+"And yet you think that she will be ready to accept this oaf as her
+husband to-morrow! Do you call that respect?"
+
+"Girls do such wonderful strange things. What an impudent ass he must
+be!"
+
+"I don't see that at all. He may be an ass and yet not impudent, or
+impudent and yet not an ass. Of course he has a right to speak his
+mind,--and she will have a right to speak hers."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+SOMETHING OUT OF THE WAY.
+
+
+The Brake hounds went out four days a week, Monday, Wednesday,
+Friday, and Saturday; but the hunting party on this Saturday was very
+small. None of the ladies joined in it, and when Lord Chiltern came
+down to breakfast at half-past eight he met no one but Gerard Maule.
+"Where's Spooner?" he asked. But neither Maule nor the servant could
+answer the question. Mr. Spooner was a man who never missed a day
+from the beginning of cubbing to the end of the season, and who,
+when April came, could give you an account of the death of every fox
+killed. Chiltern cracked his eggs, and said nothing more for the
+moment, but Gerard Maule had his suspicions. "He must be coming,"
+said Maule; "suppose you send up to him." The servant was sent, and
+came down with Mr. Spooner's compliments. Mr. Spooner didn't mean
+to hunt to-day. He had something of a headache. He would see Lord
+Chiltern at the meet on Monday.
+
+Maule immediately declared that neither would he hunt; but Lord
+Chiltern looked at him, and he hesitated. "I don't care about your
+knowing," said Gerard.
+
+"Oh,--I know. Don't you be an ass."
+
+"I don't see why I should give him an opportunity."
+
+"You're to go and pull your boots and breeches off because he has not
+put his on, and everybody is to be told of it! Why shouldn't he have
+an opportunity, as you call it? If the opportunity can do him any
+good, you may afford to be very indifferent."
+
+"It's a piece of d---- impertinence," said Maule, with most unusual
+energy.
+
+"Do you finish your breakfast, and come and get into the trap. We've
+twenty miles to go. You can ask Spooner on Monday how he spent his
+morning."
+
+At ten o'clock the ladies came down to breakfast, and the whole party
+were assembled. "Mr. Spooner!" said Lady Chiltern to that gentleman,
+who was the last to enter the room. "This is a marvel!" He was
+dressed in a dark-blue frock-coat, with a coloured silk handkerchief
+round his neck, and had brushed his hair down close to his head. He
+looked quite unlike himself, and would hardly have been known by
+those who had never seen him out of the hunting field. In his dress
+clothes of an evening, or in his shooting coat, he was still himself.
+But in the garb he wore on the present occasion he was quite unlike
+Spooner of Spoon Hall, whose only pride in regard to clothes had
+hitherto been that he possessed more pairs of breeches than any
+other man in the county. It was ascertained afterwards, when
+the circumstances came to be investigated, that he had sent
+a man all the way across to Spoon Hall for that coat and the
+coloured neck-handkerchief on the previous day; and some one, most
+maliciously, told the story abroad. Lady Chiltern, however, always
+declared that her secrecy on the matter had always been inviolable.
+
+"Yes, Lady Chiltern; yes," said Mr. Spooner, as he took a seat at the
+table; "wonders never cease, do they?" He had prepared himself even
+for this moment, and had determined to show Miss Palliser that he
+could be sprightly and engaging even without his hunting habiliments.
+
+"What will Lord Chiltern do without you?" one of the ladies asked.
+
+"He'll have to do his best."
+
+"He'll never kill a fox," said Miss Palliser.
+
+"Oh, yes; he knows what he's about. I was so fond of my pillow this
+morning that I thought I'd let the hunting slide for once. A man
+should not make a toil of his pleasure."
+
+Lady Chiltern knew all about it, but Adelaide Palliser knew nothing.
+Madame Goesler, when she observed the light-blue necktie, at once
+suspected the execution of some great intention. Phineas was absorbed
+in his observation of the difference in the man. In his pink coat
+he always looked as though he had been born to wear it, but his
+appearance was now that of an amateur actor got up in a miscellaneous
+middle-age costume. He was sprightly, but the effort was painfully
+visible. Lady Baldock said something afterwards, very ill-natured,
+about a hog in armour, and old Mrs. Burnaby spoke the truth when she
+declared that all the comfort of her tea and toast was sacrificed
+to Mr. Spooner's frock coat. But what was to be done with him when
+breakfast was over? For a while he was fixed upon poor Phineas, with
+whom he walked across to the stables. He seemed to feel that he could
+hardly hope to pounce upon his prey at once, and that he must bide
+his time.
+
+Out of the full heart the mouth speaks. "Nice girl, Miss Palliser,"
+he said to Phineas, forgetting that he had expressed himself nearly
+in the same way to the same man on a former occasion.
+
+"Very nice, indeed. It seems to me that you are sweet upon her
+yourself."
+
+"Who? I! Oh, no--I don't think of those sort of things. I suppose I
+shall marry some day. I've a house fit for a lady to-morrow, from top
+to bottom, linen and all. And my property's my own."
+
+"That's a comfort."
+
+"I believe you. There isn't a mortgage on an acre of it, and that's
+what very few men can say. As for Miss Palliser, I don't know that
+a man could do better; only I don't think much of those things. If
+ever I do pop the question, I shall do it on the spur of the moment.
+There'll be no preparation with me, nor yet any beating about the
+bush. 'Would it suit your views, my dear, to be Mrs. Spooner?' that's
+about the long and the short of it. A clean-made little mare, isn't
+she?" This last observation did not refer to Adelaide Palliser, but
+to an animal standing in Lord Chiltern's stables. "He bought her from
+Charlie Dickers for a twenty pound note last April. The mare hadn't
+a leg to stand upon. Charlie had been stagging with her for the last
+two months, and knocked her all to pieces. She's a screw, of course,
+but there isn't anything carries Chiltern so well. There's nothing
+like a good screw. A man'll often go with two hundred and fifty
+guineas between his legs, supposed to be all there because the
+animal's sound, and yet he don't know his work. If you like schooling
+a young 'un, that's all very well. I used to be fond of it myself;
+but I've come to feel that being carried to hounds without much
+thinking about it is the cream of hunting, after all. I wonder what
+the ladies are at? Shall we go back and see?" Then they turned to the
+house, and Mr. Spooner began to be a little fidgety. "Do they sit
+altogether mostly all the morning?"
+
+"I fancy they do."
+
+"I suppose there's some way of dividing them. They tell me you know
+all about women. If you want to get one to yourself, how do you
+manage it?"
+
+"In perpetuity, do you mean, Mr. Spooner?"
+
+"Any way;--in the morning, you know."
+
+"Just to say a few words to her?"
+
+"Exactly that;--just to say a few words. I don't mind asking you,
+because you've done this kind of thing before."
+
+"I should watch my opportunity," said Phineas, remembering a period
+of his life in which he had watched much and had found it very
+difficult to get an opportunity.
+
+"But I must go after lunch," said Mr. Spooner; "I'm expected home to
+dinner, and I don't know much whether they'll like me to stop over
+Sunday."
+
+"If you were to tell Lady Chiltern--"
+
+"I was to have gone on Thursday, you know. You won't tell anybody?"
+
+"Oh dear no."
+
+"I think I shall propose to that girl. I've about made up my mind to
+do it, only a fellow can't call her out before half-a-dozen of them.
+Couldn't you get Lady C. to trot her out into the garden? You and she
+are as thick as thieves."
+
+"I should think Miss Palliser was rather difficult to be managed."
+
+Phineas declined to interfere, taking upon himself to assure
+Mr. Spooner that attempts to arrange matters in that way never
+succeeded. He went in and settled himself to the work of answering
+correspondents at Tankerville, while Mr. Spooner hung about the
+drawing-room, hoping that circumstances and time might favour him. It
+is to be feared that he made himself extremely disagreeable to poor
+Lady Chiltern, to whom he was intending to open his heart could he
+only find an opportunity for so much as that. But Lady Chiltern was
+determined not to have his confidence, and at last withdrew from the
+scene in order that she might not be entrapped. Before lunch had come
+all the party knew what was to happen,--except Adelaide herself. She,
+too, perceived that something was in the wind, that there was some
+stir, some discomfort, some secret affair forward, or some event
+expected which made them all uneasy;--and she did connect it with
+the presence of Mr. Spooner. But, in pitiable ignorance of the facts
+that were clear enough to everybody else, she went on watching and
+wondering, with a half-formed idea that the house would be more
+pleasant as soon as Mr. Spooner should have taken his departure. He
+was to go after lunch. But on such occasions there is, of course, a
+latitude, and "after lunch" may be stretched at any rate to the five
+o'clock tea. At three o'clock Mr. Spooner was still hanging about.
+Madame Goesler and Phineas, with an openly declared intention of
+friendly intercourse, had gone out to walk together. Lord and Lady
+Baldock were on horseback. Two or three old ladies hung over the
+fire and gossiped. Lady Chiltern had retired to her baby;--when on a
+sudden Adelaide Palliser declared her intention of walking into the
+village. "Might I accompany you, Miss Palliser?" said Mr. Spooner;
+"I want a walk above all things." He was very brave, and persevered
+though it was manifest that the lady did not desire his company.
+Adelaide said something about an old woman whom she intended to
+visit; whereupon Mr. Spooner declared that visiting old women was the
+delight of his life. He would undertake to give half a sovereign to
+the old woman if Miss Palliser would allow him to come. He was very
+brave, and persevered in such a fashion that he carried his point.
+Lady Chiltern from her nursery window saw them start through the
+shrubbery together.
+
+"I have been waiting for this opportunity all the morning," said Mr.
+Spooner, gallantly.
+
+But in spite of his gallantry, and although she had known, almost
+from breakfast time, that he had been waiting for something, still
+she did not suspect his purpose. It has been said that Mr. Spooner
+was still young, being barely over forty years of age; but he had
+unfortunately appeared to be old to Miss Palliser. To himself it
+seemed as though the fountains of youth were still running through
+all his veins. Though he had given up schooling young horses, he
+could ride as hard as ever. He could shoot all day. He could take
+"his whack of wine," as he called it, sit up smoking half the night,
+and be on horseback the next morning after an early breakfast without
+the slightest feeling of fatigue. He was a red-faced little man,
+with broad shoulders, clean shaven, with small eyes, and a nose on
+which incipient pimples began to show themselves. To himself and the
+comrades of his life he was almost as young as he had ever been; but
+the young ladies of the county called him Old Spooner, and regarded
+him as a permanent assistant unpaid huntsman to the Brake hounds. It
+was not within the compass of Miss Palliser's imagination to conceive
+that this man should intend to propose himself to her as her lover.
+
+"I have been waiting for this opportunity all the morning," said Mr.
+Spooner. Adelaide Palliser turned round and looked at him, still
+understanding nothing. Ride at any fence hard enough, and the chances
+are you'll get over. The harder you ride the heavier the fall, if
+you get a fall; but the greater the chance of your getting over.
+This had been a precept in the life of Mr. Spooner, verified by much
+experience, and he had resolved that he would be guided by it on this
+occasion. "Ever since I first saw you, Miss Palliser, I have been so
+much taken by you that,--that,--in point of fact, I love you better
+than all the women in the world I ever saw; and will you,--will you
+be Mrs. Spooner?"
+
+He had at any rate ridden hard at his fence. There had been no
+craning,--no looking about for an easy place, no hesitation as he
+brought his horse up to it. No man ever rode straighter than he did
+on this occasion. Adelaide stopped short on the path, and he stood
+opposite to her, with his fingers inserted between the closed buttons
+of his frock-coat. "Mr. Spooner!" exclaimed Adelaide.
+
+"I am quite in earnest, Miss Palliser; no man ever was more in
+earnest. I can offer you a comfortable well-furnished home, an
+undivided heart, a good settlement, and no embarrassment on the
+property. I'm fond of a country life myself, but I'll adapt myself
+to you in everything reasonable."
+
+"You are mistaken, Mr. Spooner; you are indeed."
+
+"How mistaken?"
+
+"I mean that it is altogether out of the question. You have surprised
+me so much that I couldn't stop you sooner; but pray do not speak of
+it again."
+
+"It is a little sudden, but what is a man to do? If you will only
+think of it--"
+
+"I can't think of it at all. There is no need for thinking. Really,
+Mr. Spooner, I can't go on with you. If you wouldn't mind turning
+back I'll walk into the village by myself." Mr. Spooner, however, did
+not seem inclined to obey this injunction, and stood his ground, and,
+when she moved on, walked on beside her. "I must insist on being left
+alone," she said.
+
+"I haven't done anything out of the way," said the lover.
+
+"I think it's very much out of the way. I have hardly ever spoken to
+you before. If you will only leave me now there shall not be a word
+more said about it."
+
+But Mr. Spooner was a man of spirit. "I'm not in the least ashamed of
+what I've done," he said.
+
+"But you might as well go away, when it can't be of any use."
+
+"I don't know why it shouldn't be of use. Miss Palliser, I'm a man of
+good property. My great-great-grandfather lived at Spoon Hall, and
+we've been there ever since. My mother was one of the Platters of
+Platter House. I don't see that I've done anything out of the way. As
+for shilly-shallying, and hanging about, I never knew any good come
+from it. Don't let us quarrel, Miss Palliser. Say that you'll take a
+week to think of it."
+
+"But I won't think of it at all; and I won't go on walking with you.
+If you'll go one way, Mr. Spooner, I'll go the other."
+
+Then Mr. Spooner waxed angry. "Why am I to be treated with disdain?"
+he said.
+
+"I don't want to treat you with disdain. I only want you to go away."
+
+"You seem to think that I'm something,--something altogether beneath
+you."
+
+And so in truth she did. Miss Palliser had never analysed her own
+feelings and emotions about the Spooners whom she met in society; but
+she probably conceived that there were people in the world who, from
+certain accidents, were accustomed to sit at dinner with her, but
+who were no more fitted for her intimacy than were the servants who
+waited upon her. Such people were to her little more than the tables
+and chairs with which she was brought in contact. They were persons
+with whom it seemed to her to be impossible that she should have
+anything in common,--who were her inferiors, as completely as were
+the menials around her. Why she should thus despise Mr. Spooner,
+while in her heart of hearts she loved Gerard Maule, it would be
+difficult to explain. It was not simply an affair of age,--nor of
+good looks, nor altogether of education. Gerard Maule was by no means
+wonderfully erudite. They were both addicted to hunting. Neither
+of them did anything useful. In that respect Mr. Spooner stood the
+higher, as he managed his own property successfully. But Gerard Maule
+so wore his clothes, and so carried his limbs, and so pronounced his
+words that he was to be regarded as one entitled to make love to any
+lady; whereas poor Mr. Spooner was not justified in proposing to
+marry any woman much more gifted than his own housemaid. Such, at
+least, were Adelaide Palliser's ideas. "I don't think anything of the
+kind," she said, "only I want you to go away. I shall go back to the
+house, and I hope you won't accompany me. If you do, I shall turn
+the other way." Whereupon she did retire at once, and he was left
+standing in the path.
+
+There was a seat there, and he sat down for a moment to think of it
+all. Should he persevere in his suit, or should he rejoice that he
+had escaped from such an ill-conditioned minx? He remembered that he
+had read, in his younger days, that lovers in novels generally do
+persevere, and that they are almost always successful at last. In
+affairs of the heart, such perseverance was, he thought, the correct
+thing. But in this instance the conduct of the lady had not given him
+the slightest encouragement. When a horse balked with him at a fence,
+it was his habit to force the animal till he jumped it,--as the
+groom had recommended Phineas to do. But when he had encountered
+a decided fall, it was not sensible practice to ride the horse at
+the same place again. There was probably some occult cause for
+failure. He could not but own that he had been thrown on the present
+occasion,--and upon the whole, he thought that he had better give it
+up. He found his way back to the house, put up his things, and got
+away to Spoon Hall in time for dinner, without seeing Lady Chiltern
+or any of her guests.
+
+
+[Illustration: He sat down for a moment to think of it all.]
+
+
+"What has become of Mr. Spooner?" Maule asked, as soon as he returned
+to Harrington Hall.
+
+"Nobody knows," said Lady Chiltern, "but I believe he has gone."
+
+"Has anything happened?"
+
+"I have heard no tidings; but, if you ask for my opinion, I think
+something has happened. A certain lady seems to have been ruffled,
+and a certain gentleman has disappeared. I am inclined to think that
+a few unsuccessful words have been spoken." Gerard Maule saw that
+there was a smile in her eye, and he was satisfied.
+
+"My dear, what did Mr. Spooner say to you during his walk?" This
+question was asked by the ill-natured old lady in the presence of
+nearly all the party.
+
+"We were talking of hunting," said Adelaide.
+
+"And did the poor old woman get her half-sovereign?"
+
+"No;--he forgot that. We did not go into the village at all. I was
+tired and came back."
+
+"Poor old woman;--and poor Mr. Spooner!"
+
+Everybody in the house knew what had occurred, as Mr. Spooner's
+discretion in the conduct of this affair had not been equal to his
+valour; but Miss Palliser never confessed openly, and almost taught
+herself to believe that the man had been mad or dreaming during that
+special hour.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+PHINEAS AGAIN IN LONDON.
+
+
+Phineas, on his return to London, before he had taken his seat in the
+House, received the following letter from Lady Laura Kennedy:--
+
+
+   Dresden, Feb. 8, 1870.
+
+   DEAR FRIEND,--
+
+   I thought that perhaps you would have written to me from
+   Harrington. Violet has told me of the meeting between you
+   and Madame Goesler, and says that the old friendship seems
+   to have been perfectly re-established. She used to think
+   once that there might be more than friendship, but I
+   never quite believed that. She tells me that Chiltern is
+   quarrelling with the Pallisers. You ought not to let him
+   quarrel with people. I know that he would listen to you.
+   He always did.
+
+   I write now especially because I have just received so
+   dreadful a letter from Mr. Kennedy! I would send it you
+   were it not that there are in it a few words which on his
+   behalf I shrink from showing even to you. It is full of
+   threats. He begins by quotations from the Scriptures, and
+   from the Prayer-Book, to show that a wife has no right to
+   leave her husband,--and then he goes on to the law. One
+   knows all that of course. And then he asks whether he ever
+   ill-used me? Was he ever false to me? Do I think, that
+   were I to choose to submit the matter to the iniquitous
+   practices of the present Divorce Court, I could prove
+   anything against him by which even that low earthly
+   judge would be justified in taking from him his marital
+   authority? And if not,--have I no conscience? Can I
+   reconcile it to myself to make his life utterly desolate
+   and wretched simply because duties which I took upon
+   myself at my marriage have become distasteful to me?
+
+   These questions would be very hard to answer, were there
+   not other questions that I could ask. Of course I was
+   wrong to marry him. I know that now, and I repent my sin
+   in sackcloth and ashes. But I did not leave him after
+   I married him till he had brought against me horrid
+   accusations,--accusations which a woman could not bear,
+   which, if he believed them himself, must have made it
+   impossible for him to live with me. Could any wife live
+   with a husband who declared to her face that he believed
+   that she had a lover? And in this very letter he says that
+   which almost repeats the accusation. He has asked me how I
+   can have dared to receive you, and desires me never either
+   to see you or to wish to see you again. And yet he sent
+   for you to Loughlinter before you came, in order that you
+   might act as a friend between us. How could I possibly
+   return to a man whose power of judgment has so absolutely
+   left him?
+
+   I have a conscience in the matter, a conscience that
+   is very far from being at ease. I have done wrong, and
+   have shipwrecked every hope in this world. No woman was
+   ever more severely punished. My life is a burden to me,
+   and I may truly say that I look for no peace this side
+   the grave. I am conscious, too, of continued sin,--a
+   sin unlike other sins,--not to be avoided, of daily
+   occurrence, a sin which weighs me to the ground. But I
+   should not sin the less were I to return to him. Of course
+   he can plead his marriage. The thing is done. But it can't
+   be right that a woman should pretend to love a man whom
+   she loathes. I couldn't live with him. If it were simply
+   to go and die, so that his pride would be gratified by my
+   return, I would do it; but I should not die. There would
+   come some horrid scene, and I should be no more a wife to
+   him than I am while living here.
+
+   He now threatens me with publicity. He declares that
+   unless I return to him he will put into some of the papers
+   a statement of the whole case. Of course this would be
+   very bad. To be obscure and untalked of is all the comfort
+   that now remains to me. And he might say things that
+   would be prejudicial to others,--especially to you. Could
+   this in any way be prevented? I suppose the papers would
+   publish anything; and you know how greedily people will
+   read slander about those whose names are in any way
+   remarkable. In my heart I believe he is insane; but it is
+   very hard that one's privacy should be at the mercy of a
+   madman. He says that he can get an order from the Court of
+   Queen's Bench which will oblige the judges in Saxony to
+   send me back to England in the custody of the police, but
+   that I do not believe. I had the opinion of Sir Gregory
+   Grogram before I came away, and he told me that it was not
+   so. I do not fear his power over my person, while I remain
+   here, but that the matter should be dragged forward before
+   the public.
+
+   I have not answered him yet, nor have I shown his letter
+   to Papa. I hardly liked to tell you when you were here,
+   but I almost fear to talk to Papa about it. He never urges
+   me to go back, but I know that he wishes that I should do
+   so. He has ideas about money, which seem singular to me,
+   knowing, as I do, how very generous he has been himself.
+   When I married, my fortune, as you knew, had been just
+   used in paying Chiltern's debts. Mr. Kennedy had declared
+   himself to be quite indifferent about it, though the sum
+   was large. The whole thing was explained to him, and he
+   was satisfied. Before a year was over he complained to
+   Papa, and then Papa and Chiltern together raised the
+   money,--L40,000,--and it was paid to Mr. Kennedy. He
+   has written more than once to Papa's lawyer to say that,
+   though the money is altogether useless to him, he will not
+   return a penny of it, because by doing so he would seem
+   to abandon his rights. Nobody has asked him to return
+   it. Nobody has asked him to defray a penny on my account
+   since I left him. But Papa continues to say that the
+   money should not be lost to the family. I cannot, however,
+   return to such a husband for the sake of L40,000. Papa is
+   very angry about the money, because he says that if it had
+   been paid in the usual way at my marriage, settlements
+   would have been required that it should come back to the
+   family after Mr. Kennedy's death in the event of my having
+   no child. But, as it is now, the money would go to his
+   estate after my death. I don't understand why it should be
+   so, but Papa is always harping upon it, and declaring that
+   Mr. Kennedy's pretended generosity has robbed us all. Papa
+   thinks that were I to return this could be arranged; but
+   I could not go back to him for such a reason. What does
+   it matter? Chiltern and Violet will have enough; and of
+   what use would it be to such a one as I am to have a sum
+   of money to leave behind me? I should leave it to your
+   children, Phineas, and not to Chiltern's.
+
+   He bids me neither see you nor write to you,--but how can
+   I obey a man whom I believe to be mad? And when I will
+   not obey him in the greater matter by returning to him it
+   would be absurd were I to attempt to obey him in smaller
+   details. I don't suppose I shall see you very often. His
+   letter has, at any rate, made me feel that it would be
+   impossible for me to return to England, and it is not
+   likely that you will soon come here again. I will not even
+   ask you to do so, though your presence gave a brightness
+   to my life for a few days which nothing else could have
+   produced. But when the lamp for a while burns with special
+   brightness there always comes afterwards a corresponding
+   dullness. I had to pay for your visit, and for the comfort
+   of my confession to you at Koenigstein. I was determined
+   that you should know it all; but, having told you, I do
+   not want to see you again. As for writing, he shall not
+   deprive me of the consolation,--nor I trust will you.
+
+   Do you think that I should answer his letter, or will it
+   be better that I should show it to Papa? I am very averse
+   to doing this, as I have explained to you; but I would
+   do so if I thought that Mr. Kennedy really intended to
+   act upon his threats. I will not conceal from you that it
+   would go nigh to kill me if my name were dragged through
+   the papers. Can anything be done to prevent it? If he were
+   known to be mad of course the papers would not publish his
+   statements; but I suppose that if he were to send a letter
+   from Loughlinter with his name to it they would print it.
+   It would be very, very cruel.
+
+   God bless you. I need not say how faithfully I am
+
+   Your friend,
+
+   L. K.
+
+
+This letter was addressed to Phineas at his club, and there he
+received it on the evening before the meeting of Parliament. He sat
+up for nearly an hour thinking of it after he read it. He must answer
+it at once. That was a matter of course. But he could give her no
+advice that would be of any service to her. He was, indeed, of all
+men the least fitted to give her counsel in her present emergency.
+It seemed to him that as she was safe from any attack on her person,
+she need only remain at Dresden, answering his letter by what softest
+negatives she could use. It was clear to him that in his present
+condition she could take no steps whatever in regard to the money.
+That must be left to his conscience, to time, and to chance. As to
+the threat of publicity, the probability, he thought, was that it
+would lead to nothing. He doubted whether any respectable newspaper
+would insert such a statement as that suggested. Were it published,
+the evil must be borne. No diligence on her part, or on the part of
+her lawyers, could prevent it.
+
+But what had she meant when she wrote of continual sin, sin not to be
+avoided, of sin repeated daily which nevertheless weighed her to the
+ground? Was it expected of him that he should answer that portion of
+her letter? It amounted to a passionate renewal of that declaration
+of affection for himself which she had made at Koenigstein, and which
+had pervaded her whole life since some period antecedent to her
+wretched marriage. Phineas, as he thought of it, tried to analyse the
+nature of such a love. He also, in those old days, had loved her, and
+had at once resolved that he must tell her so, though his hopes of
+success had been poor indeed. He had taken the first opportunity, and
+had declared his purpose. She, with the imperturbable serenity of a
+matured kind-hearted woman, had patted him on the back, as it were,
+as she told him of her existing engagement with Mr. Kennedy. Could
+it be that at that moment she could have loved him as she now said
+she did, and that she should have been so cold, so calm, and so kind;
+while, at that very moment, this coldness, calmness, and kindness was
+but a thin crust over so strong a passion? How different had been
+his own love! He had been neither calm nor kind. He had felt himself
+for a day or two to be so terribly knocked about that the world was
+nothing to him. For a month or two he had regarded himself as a man
+peculiarly circumstanced,--marked for misfortune and for a solitary
+life. Then he had retricked his beams, and before twelve months were
+passed had almost forgotten his love. He knew now, or thought that
+he knew,--that the continued indulgence of a hopeless passion was a
+folly opposed to the very instincts of man and woman,--a weakness
+showing want of fibre and of muscle in the character. But here was
+a woman who could calmly conceal her passion in its early days and
+marry a man whom she did not love in spite of it, who could make her
+heart, her feelings, and all her feminine delicacy subordinate to
+material considerations, and nevertheless could not rid herself of
+her passion in the course of years, although she felt its existence
+to be an intolerable burden on her conscience. On which side lay
+strength of character and on which side weakness? Was he strong or
+was she?
+
+And he tried to examine his own feelings in regard to her. The thing
+was so long ago that she was to him as some aunt, or sister, so much
+the elder as to be almost venerable. He acknowledged to himself a
+feeling which made it incumbent upon him to spend himself in her
+service, could he serve her by any work of his. He was,--or would be,
+devoted to her. He owed her a never-dying gratitude. But were she
+free to marry again to-morrow, he knew that he could not marry her.
+She herself had said the same thing. She had said that she would be
+his sister. She had specially required of him that he should make
+known to her his wife, should he ever marry again. She had declared
+that she was incapable of further jealousy;--and yet she now told him
+of daily sin of which her conscience could not assoil itself.
+
+"Phineas," said a voice close to his ears, "are you repenting your
+sins?"
+
+"Oh, certainly;--what sins?"
+
+It was Barrington Erle. "You know that we are going to do nothing
+to-morrow," continued he.
+
+"So I am told."
+
+"We shall let the Address pass almost without a word. Gresham will
+simply express his determination to oppose the Church Bill to the
+knife. He means to be very plain-spoken about it. Whatever may be the
+merits of the Bill, it must be regarded as an unconstitutional effort
+to retain power in the hands of the minority, coming from such hands
+as those of Mr. Daubeny. I take it he will go at length into the
+question of majorities, and show how inexpedient it is on behalf
+of the nation that any Ministry should remain in power who cannot
+command a majority in the House on ordinary questions. I don't know
+whether he will do that to-morrow or at the second reading of the
+Bill."
+
+"I quite agree with him."
+
+"Of course you do. Everybody agrees with him. No gentleman can have
+a doubt on the subject. Personally, I hate the idea of Church Reform.
+Dear old Mildmay, who taught me all I know, hates it too. But Mr.
+Gresham is the head of our party now, and much as I may differ from
+him on many things, I am bound to follow him. If he proposes Church
+Reform in my time, or anything else, I shall support him."
+
+"I know those are your ideas."
+
+"Of course they are. There are no other ideas on which things can be
+made to work. Were it not that men get drilled into it by the force
+of circumstances any government in this country would be impossible.
+Were it not so, what should we come to? The Queen would find herself
+justified in keeping in any set of Ministers who could get her
+favour, and ambitious men would prevail without any support from the
+country. The Queen must submit to dictation from some quarter."
+
+"She must submit to advice, certainly."
+
+"Don't cavil at a word when you know it to be true," said Barrington,
+energetically. "The constitution of the country requires that she
+should submit to dictation. Can it come safely from any other quarter
+than that of a majority of the House of Commons?"
+
+"I think not."
+
+"We are all agreed about that. Not a single man in either House would
+dare to deny it. And if it be so, what man in his senses can think
+of running counter to the party which he believes to be right in its
+general views? A man so burthened with scruples as to be unable to
+act in this way should keep himself aloof from public life. Such a
+one cannot serve the country in Parliament, though he may possibly do
+so with pen and ink in his closet."
+
+"I wonder then that you should have asked me to come forward again
+after what I did about the Irish land question," said Phineas.
+
+"A first fault may be forgiven when the sinner has in other respects
+been useful. The long and the short of it is that you must vote
+with us against Daubeny's bill. Browborough sees it plainly enough.
+He supported his chief in the teeth of all his protestations at
+Tankerville."
+
+"I am not Browborough."
+
+"Nor half so good a man if you desert us," said Barrington Erle, with
+anger.
+
+"I say nothing about that. He has his ideas of duty, and I have mine.
+But I will go so far as this. I have not yet made up my mind. I shall
+ask advice; but you must not quarrel with me if I say that I must
+seek it from some one who is less distinctly a partisan than you
+are."
+
+"From Monk?"
+
+"Yes;--from Mr. Monk. I do think it will be bad for the country that
+this measure should come from the hands of Mr. Daubeny."
+
+"Then why the d---- should you support it, and oppose your own party
+at the same time? After that you can't do it. Well, Ratler, my guide
+and philosopher, how is it going to be?"
+
+Mr. Ratler had joined them, but was still standing before the seat
+they occupied, not condescending to sit down in amicable intercourse
+with a man as to whom he did not yet know whether to regard him as
+a friend or foe. "We shall be very quiet for the next month or six
+weeks," said Ratler.
+
+"And then?" asked Phineas.
+
+"Well, then it will depend on what may be the number of a few insane
+men who never ought to have seats in the House."
+
+"Such as Mr. Monk and Mr. Turnbull?" Now it was well known that both
+those gentlemen, who were recognised as leading men, were strong
+Radicals, and it was supposed that they both would support any bill,
+come whence it might, which would separate Church and State.
+
+"Such as Mr. Monk," said Ratler. "I will grant that Turnbull may be
+an exception. It is his business to go in for everything in the way
+of agitation, and he at any rate is consistent. But when a man has
+once been in office,--why then--"
+
+"When he has taken the shilling?" said Phineas. "Just so. I confess
+I do not like a deserter."
+
+"Phineas will be all right," said Barrington Erle.
+
+"I hope so," said Mr. Ratler, as he passed on.
+
+"Ratler and I run very much in the same groove," said Barrington,
+"but I fancy there is some little difference in the motive power."
+
+"Ratler wants place."
+
+"And so do I."
+
+"He wants it just as most men want professional success," said
+Phineas. "But if I understand your object, it is chiefly the
+maintenance of the old-established political power of the Whigs. You
+believe in families?"
+
+"I do believe in the patriotism of certain families. I believe that
+the Mildmays, FitzHowards, and Pallisers have for some centuries
+brought up their children to regard the well-being of their country
+as their highest personal interest, and that such teaching has been
+generally efficacious. Of course, there have been failures. Every
+child won't learn its lesson however well it may be taught. But the
+school in which good training is most practised will, as a rule, turn
+out the best scholars. In this way I believe in families. You have
+come in for some of the teaching, and I expect to see you a scholar
+yet."
+
+The House met on the following day, and the Address was moved and
+seconded; but there was no debate. There was not even a full House.
+The same ceremony had taken place so short a time previously, that
+the whole affair was flat and uninteresting. It was understood that
+nothing would in fact be done. Mr. Gresham, as leader of his side
+of the House, confined himself to asserting that he should give
+his firmest opposition to the proposed measure, which was, it
+seemed, so popular with the gentlemen who sat on the other side,
+and who supported the so-called Conservative Government of the day.
+His reasons for doing so had been stated very lately, and must
+unfortunately be repeated very soon, and he would not, therefore, now
+trouble the House with them. He did not on this occasion explain his
+ideas as to majorities, and the Address was carried by seven o'clock
+in the evening. Mr. Daubeny named a day a month hence for the first
+reading of his bill, and was asked the cause of the delay by some
+member on a back bench. "Because it cannot be ready sooner," said
+Mr. Daubeny. "When the honourable gentleman has achieved a position
+which will throw upon him the responsibility of bringing forward
+some great measure for the benefit of his country, he will probably
+find it expedient to devote some little time to details. If he do
+not, he will be less anxious to avoid attack than I am." A Minister
+can always give a reason; and, if he be clever, he can generally
+when doing so punish the man who asks for it. The punishing of an
+influential enemy is an indiscretion; but an obscure questioner may
+often be crushed with good effect.
+
+Mr. Monk's advice to Phineas was both simple and agreeable. He
+intended to support Mr. Gresham, and of course counselled his friend
+to do the same.
+
+"But you supported Mr. Daubeny on the Address before Christmas," said
+Phineas.
+
+"And shall therefore be bound to explain why I oppose him now;--but
+the task will not be difficult. The Queen's speech to Parliament was
+in my judgment right, and therefore I concurred in the Address. But I
+certainly cannot trust Mr. Daubeny with Church Reform. I do not know
+that many will make the same distinction, but I shall do so."
+
+Phineas soon found himself sitting in the House as though he had
+never left it. His absence had not been long enough to make the place
+feel strange to him. He was on his legs before a fortnight was over
+asking some question of some Minister, and of course insinuating
+as he did so that the Minister in question had been guilty of some
+enormity of omission or commission. It all came back upon him as
+though he had been born to the very manner. And as it became known
+to the Ratlers that he meant to vote right on the great coming
+question,--to vote right and to speak right in spite of his doings
+at Tankerville,--everybody was civil to him. Mr. Bonteen did express
+an opinion to Mr. Ratler that it was quite impossible that Phineas
+Finn should ever again accept office, as of course the Tankervillians
+would never replace him in his seat after manifest apostasy to his
+pledge; but Mr. Ratler seemed to think very little of that. "They
+won't remember, Lord bless you;--and then he's one of those fellows
+that always get in somewhere. He's not a man I particularly like; but
+you'll always see him in the House;--up and down, you know. When a
+fellow begins early, and has got it in him, it's hard to shake him
+off." And thus even Mr. Ratler was civil to our hero.
+
+Lady Laura Kennedy's letter had, of course, been answered,--not
+without very great difficulty. "My dear Laura," he had begun,--for
+the first time in his life. She had told him to treat her as
+a brother would do, and he thought it best to comply with her
+instructions. But beyond that, till he declared himself at the end to
+be hers affectionately, he made no further protestation of affection.
+He made no allusion to that sin which weighed so heavily on her, but
+answered all her questions. He advised her to remain at Dresden. He
+assured her that no power could be used to enforce her return. He
+expressed his belief that Mr. Kennedy would abstain from making any
+public statement, but suggested that if any were made the answering
+of it should be left to the family lawyer. In regard to the money, he
+thought it impossible that any step should be taken. He then told her
+all there was to tell of Lord and Lady Chiltern, and something also
+of himself. When the letter was written he found that it was cold and
+almost constrained. To his own ears it did not sound like the hearty
+letter of a generous friend. It savoured of the caution with which
+it had been prepared. But what could he do? Would he not sin against
+her and increase her difficulties if he addressed her with warm
+affection? Were he to say a word that ought not to be addressed to
+any woman he might do her an irreparable injury; and yet the tone of
+his own letter was odious to him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+MR. MAULE, SENIOR.
+
+
+The life of Mr. Maurice Maule, of Maule Abbey, the father of Gerard
+Maule, had certainly not been prosperous. He had from his boyhood
+enjoyed a reputation for cleverness, and at school had done great
+things,--winning prizes, spouting speeches on Speech days, playing in
+elevens, and looking always handsome. He had been one of those show
+boys of which two or three are generally to be found at our great
+schools, and all manner of good things had been prophesied on his
+behalf. He had been in love before he was eighteen, and very nearly
+succeeded in running away with the young lady before he went to
+college. His father had died when he was an infant, so that at
+twenty-one he was thought to be in possession of comfortable wealth.
+At Oxford he was considered to have got into a good set,--men of
+fashion who were also given to talking of books,--who spent money,
+read poetry, and had opinions of their own respecting the Tracts
+and Mr. Newman. He took his degree, and then started himself in the
+world upon that career which is of all the most difficult to follow
+with respect and self-comfort. He proposed to himself the life of an
+idle man with a moderate income,--a life which should be luxurious,
+refined, and graceful, but to which should be attached the burden
+of no necessary occupation. His small estate gave him but little to
+do, as he would not farm any portion of his own acres. He became a
+magistrate in his county; but he would not interest himself with the
+price of a good yoke of bullocks, as did Mr. Justice Shallow,--nor
+did he ever care how a score of ewes went at any fair. There is no
+harder life than this. Here and there we may find a man who has so
+trained himself that day after day he can devote his mind without
+compulsion to healthy pursuits, who can induce himself to work,
+though work be not required from him for any ostensible object, who
+can save himself from the curse of misusing his time, though he has
+for it no defined and necessary use; but such men are few, and are
+made of better metal than was Mr. Maule. He became an idler, a man of
+luxury, and then a spendthrift. He was now hardly beyond middle life,
+and he assumed for himself the character of a man of taste. He loved
+music, and pictures, and books, and pretty women. He loved also good
+eating and drinking; but conceived of himself that in his love for
+them he was an artist, and not a glutton. He had married early, and
+his wife had died soon. He had not given himself up with any special
+zeal to the education of his children, nor to the preservation of his
+property. The result of his indifference has been told in a previous
+chapter. His house was deserted, and his children were scattered
+about the world. His eldest son, having means of his own, was living
+an idle, desultory life, hardly with prospects of better success than
+had attended his father.
+
+Mr. Maule was now something about fifty-five years of age, and
+almost considered himself young. He lived in chambers on a flat in
+Westminster, and belonged to two excellent clubs. He had not been
+near his property for the last ten years, and as he was addicted to
+no country sport there were ten weeks in the year which were terrible
+to him. From the middle of August to the end of October for him there
+was no whist, no society,--it may almost be said no dinner. He had
+tried going to the seaside; he had tried going to Paris; he had
+endeavoured to enjoy Switzerland and the Italian lakes;--but all
+had failed, and he had acknowledged to himself that this sad period
+of the year must always be endured without relaxation, and without
+comfort.
+
+Of his children he now took but little notice. His daughter was
+married and in India. His younger son had disappeared, and the father
+was perhaps thankful that he was thus saved from trouble. With his
+elder son he did maintain some amicable intercourse, but it was very
+slight in its nature. They never corresponded unless the one had
+something special to say to the other. They had no recognised ground
+for meeting. They did not belong to the same clubs. They did not live
+in the same circles. They did not follow the same pursuits. They were
+interested in the same property;--but, as on that subject there had
+been something approaching to a quarrel, and as neither looked for
+assistance from the other, they were now silent on the matter. The
+father believed himself to be a poorer man than his son, and was very
+sore on the subject; but he had nothing beyond a life interest in
+his property, and there remained to him a certain amount of prudence
+which induced him to abstain from eating more of his pudding,--lest
+absolute starvation and the poorhouse should befall him. There still
+remained to him the power of spending some five or six hundred a
+year, and upon this practice had taught him to live with a very
+considerable amount of self-indulgence. He dined out a great deal,
+and was known everywhere as Mr. Maule of Maule Abbey.
+
+He was a slight, bright-eyed, grey-haired, good-looking man,
+who had once been very handsome. He had married, let us say for
+love;--probably very much by chance. He had ill-used his wife, and
+had continued a long-continued liaison with a complaisant friend.
+This had lasted some twenty years of his life, and had been to him an
+intolerable burden. He had come to see the necessity of employing his
+good looks, his conversational powers, and his excellent manners on
+a second marriage which might be lucrative; but the complaisant lady
+had stood in his way. Perhaps there had been a little cowardice on
+his part; but at any rate he had hitherto failed. The season for such
+a mode of relief was not, however, as yet clean gone with him, and
+he was still on the look out. There are women always in the market
+ready to buy for themselves the right to hang on the arm of a real
+gentleman. That Mr. Maurice Maule was a real gentleman no judge in
+such matters had ever doubted.
+
+On a certain morning just at the end of February Mr. Maule was
+sitting in his library,--so-called,--eating his breakfast, at about
+twelve o'clock; and at his side there lay a note from his son Gerard.
+Gerard had written to say that he would call on that morning, and the
+promised visit somewhat disturbed the father's comfort. He was in
+his dressing-gown and slippers, and had his newspaper in his hand.
+When his newspaper and breakfast should be finished,--as they would
+be certainly at the same moment,--there were in store for him two
+cigarettes, and perhaps some new French novel which had just reached
+him. They would last him till two o'clock. Then he would dress and
+saunter out in his great coat, made luxurious with furs. He would
+see a picture, or perhaps some china-vase, of which news had reached
+him, and would talk of them as though he might be a possible buyer.
+Everybody knew that he never bought anything;--but he was a man whose
+opinion on such matters was worth having. Then he would call on
+some lady whose acquaintance at the moment might be of service to
+him;--for that idea of blazing once more out into the world on a
+wife's fortune was always present to him. At about five he would
+saunter into his club, and play a rubber in a gentle unexcited manner
+till seven. He never played for high points, and would never be
+enticed into any bet beyond the limits of his club stakes. Were he
+to lose L10 or L20 at a sitting his arrangements would be greatly
+disturbed, and his comfort seriously affected. But he played well,
+taking pains with his game, and some who knew him well declared that
+his whist was worth a hundred a year to him. Then he would dress and
+generally dine in society. He was known as a good diner out, though
+in what his excellence consisted they who entertained him might find
+it difficult to say. He was not witty, nor did he deal in anecdotes.
+He spoke with a low voice, never addressing himself to any but his
+neighbour, and even to his neighbour saying but little. But he looked
+like a gentleman, was well dressed, and never awkward. After dinner
+he would occasionally play another rubber; but twelve o'clock always
+saw him back into his own rooms. No one knew better than Mr. Maule
+that the continual bloom of lasting summer which he affected requires
+great accuracy in living. Late hours, nocturnal cigars, and midnight
+drinkings, pleasurable though they may be, consume too quickly the
+free-flowing lamps of youth, and are fatal at once to the husbanded
+candle-ends of age.
+
+But such as his days were, every minute of them was precious to him.
+He possessed the rare merit of making a property of his time and
+not a burden. He had so shuffled off his duties that he had now
+rarely anything to do that was positively disagreeable. He had been
+a spendthrift; but his creditors, though perhaps never satisfied,
+had been quieted. He did not now deal with reluctant and hard-tasked
+tenants, but with punctual, though inimical, trustees, who paid to
+him with charming regularity that portion of his income which he was
+allowed to spend. But that he was still tormented with the ambition
+of a splendid marriage it might be said of him that he was completely
+at his ease. Now, as he lit his cigarette, he would have been
+thoroughly comfortable, were it not that he was threatened with
+disturbance by his son. Why should his son wish to see him, and thus
+break in upon him at the most charming hour of the day? Of course
+his son would not come to him without having some business in hand
+which must be disagreeable. He had not the least desire to see his
+son,--and yet, as they were on amicable terms, he could not deny
+himself after the receipt of his son's note. Just at one, as he
+finished his first cigarette, Gerard was announced.
+
+"Well, Gerard!"
+
+"Well, father,--how are you? You are looking as fresh as paint, sir."
+
+"Thanks for the compliment, if you mean one. I am pretty well. I
+thought you were hunting somewhere."
+
+"So I am; but I have just come up to town to see you. I find you have
+been smoking;--may I light a cigar?"
+
+"I never do smoke cigars here, Gerard. I'll offer you a cigarette."
+The cigarette was reluctantly offered, and accepted with a shrug.
+"But you didn't come here merely to smoke, I dare say."
+
+"Certainly not, sir. We do not often trouble each other, father; but
+there are things about which I suppose we had better speak. I'm going
+to be married!"
+
+"To be married!" The tone in which Mr. Maule, senior, repeated the
+words was much the same as might be used by any ordinary father if
+his son expressed an intention of going into the shoe-black business.
+
+"Yes, sir. It's a kind of thing men do sometimes."
+
+"No doubt;--and it's a kind of thing that they sometimes repent of
+having done."
+
+"Let us hope for the best. It is too late at any rate to think about
+that, and as it is to be done, I have come to tell you."
+
+"Very well. I suppose you are right to tell me. Of course you know
+that I can do nothing for you; and I don't suppose that you can do
+anything for me. As far as your own welfare goes, if she has a large
+fortune,--"
+
+"She has no fortune."
+
+"No fortune!"
+
+"Two or three thousand pounds perhaps."
+
+"Then I look upon it as an act of simple madness, and can only say
+that as such I shall treat it. I have nothing in my power, and
+therefore I can neither do you good or harm; but I will not hear
+any particulars, and I can only advise you to break it off, let the
+trouble be what it may."
+
+"I certainly shall not do that, sir."
+
+"Then I have nothing more to say. Don't ask me to be present, and
+don't ask me to see her."
+
+"You haven't heard her name yet."
+
+"I do not care one straw what her name is."
+
+"It is Adelaide Palliser."
+
+"Adelaide Muggins would be exactly the same thing to me. My dear
+Gerard, I have lived too long in the world to believe that men can
+coin into money the noble blood of well-born wives. Twenty thousand
+pounds is worth more than all the blood of all the Howards, and
+a wife even with twenty thousand pounds would make you a poor,
+embarrassed, and half-famished man."
+
+"Then I suppose I shall be whole famished, as she certainly has not
+got a quarter of that sum."
+
+"No doubt you will."
+
+"Yet, sir, married men with families have lived on my income."
+
+"And on less than a quarter of it. The very respectable man who
+brushes my clothes no doubt does so. But then you see he has been
+brought up in that way. I suppose that you as a bachelor put by every
+year at least half your income?"
+
+"I never put by a shilling, sir. Indeed, I owe a few hundred pounds."
+
+"And yet you expect to keep a house over your head, and an expensive
+wife and family, with lady's maid, nurses, cook, footman, and grooms,
+on a sum which has been hitherto insufficient for your own wants! I
+didn't think you were such an idiot, my boy."
+
+"Thank you, sir."
+
+"What will her dress cost?"
+
+"I have not the slightest idea."
+
+"I dare say not. Probably she is a horsewoman. As far as I know
+anything of your life that is the sphere in which you will have made
+the lady's acquaintance."
+
+"She does ride."
+
+"No doubt, and so do you; and it will be very easy to say whither you
+will ride together if you are fools enough to get married. I can only
+advise you to do nothing of the kind. Is there anything else?"
+
+There was much more to be said if Gerard could succeed in forcing his
+father to hear him. Mr. Maule, who had hitherto been standing, seated
+himself as he asked that last question, and took up the book which
+had been prepared for his morning's delectation. It was evidently
+his intention that his son should leave him. The news had been
+communicated to him, and he had said all that he could say on the
+subject. He had at once determined to confine himself to a general
+view of the matter, and to avoid details,--which might be personal to
+himself. But Gerard had been specially required to force his father
+into details. Had he been left to himself he would certainly have
+thought that the conversation had gone far enough. He was inclined,
+almost as well as his father, to avoid present discomfort. But when
+Miss Palliser had suddenly,--almost suddenly,--accepted him; and
+when he had found himself describing the prospects of his life in
+her presence and in that of Lady Chiltern, the question of the
+Maule Abbey inheritance had of necessity been discussed. At Maule
+Abbey there might be found a home for the married couple, and,--so
+thought Lady Chiltern,--the only fitting home. Mr. Maule, the father,
+certainly did not desire to live there. Probably arrangements might
+be made for repairing the house and furnishing it with Adelaide's
+money. Then, if Gerard Maule would be prudent, and give up hunting,
+and farm a little himself,--and if Adelaide would do her own
+housekeeping and dress upon forty pounds a year, and if they would
+both live an exemplary, model, energetic, and strictly economical
+life, both ends might be made to meet. Adelaide had been quite
+enthusiastic as to the forty pounds, and had suggested that she would
+do it for thirty. The housekeeping was a matter of course, and the
+more so as a leg of mutton roast or boiled would be the beginning
+and the end of it. To Adelaide the discussion had been exciting and
+pleasurable, and she had been quite in earnest when looking forward
+to a new life at Maule Abbey. After all there could be no such great
+difficulty for a young married couple to live on L800 a year, with
+a house and garden of their own. There would be no carriage and no
+man servant till,--till old Mr. Maule was dead. The suggestion as to
+the ultimate and desirable haven was wrapped up in ambiguous words.
+"The property must be yours some day," suggested Lady Chiltern.
+"If I outlive my father." "We take that for granted; and then, you
+know--" So Lady Chiltern went on, dilating upon a future state of
+squirearchal bliss and rural independence. Adelaide was enthusiastic;
+but Gerard Maule,--after he had assented to the abandonment of his
+hunting, much as a man assents to being hung when the antecedents of
+his life have put any option in the matter out of his power,--had
+sat silent and almost moody while the joys of his coming life were
+described to him. Lady Chiltern, however, had been urgent in pointing
+out to him that the scheme of living at Maule Abbey could not be
+carried out without his father's assistance. They all knew that Mr.
+Maule himself could not be affected by the matter, and they also
+knew that he had but very little power in reference to the property.
+But the plan could not be matured without some sanction from him.
+Therefore there was still much more to be said when the father had
+completed the exposition of his views on marriage in general. "I
+wanted to speak to you about the property," said Gerard. He had been
+specially enjoined to be staunch in bringing his father to the point.
+
+"And what about the property?"
+
+"Of course my marriage will not affect your interests."
+
+"I should say not. It would be very odd if it did. As it is, your
+income is much larger than mine."
+
+"I don't know how that is, sir; but I suppose you will not refuse to
+give me a helping hand if you can do so without disturbance to your
+own comfort."
+
+"In what sort of way? Don't you think anything of that kind can be
+managed better by the lawyer? If there is a thing I hate, it is
+business."
+
+Gerard, remembering his promise to Lady Chiltern, did persevere,
+though the perseverance went much against the grain with him. "We
+thought, sir, that if you would consent we might live at Maule
+Abbey."
+
+"Oh;--you did; did you?"
+
+"Is there any objection?"
+
+"Simply the fact that it is my house, and not yours."
+
+"It belongs, I suppose, to the property; and as--"
+
+"As what?" asked the father, turning upon the son with sharp angry
+eyes, and with something of real animation in his face.
+
+Gerard was very awkward in conveying his meaning to his father. "And
+as," he continued,--"as it must come to me, I suppose, some day, and
+it will be the proper sort of thing that we should live there then,
+I thought that you would agree that if we went and lived there now it
+would be a good sort of thing to do."
+
+"That was your idea?"
+
+"We talked it over with our friend, Lady Chiltern."
+
+"Indeed! I am so much obliged to your friend, Lady Chiltern, for the
+interest she takes in my affairs. Pray make my compliments to Lady
+Chiltern, and tell her at the same time that, though no doubt I have
+one foot in the grave, I should like to keep my house for the other
+foot, though too probably I may never be able to drag it so far as
+Maule Abbey."
+
+"But you don't think of living there."
+
+"My dear boy, if you will inquire among any friends you may happen
+to know who understand the world better than Lady Chiltern seems
+to do, they will tell you that a son should not suggest to his
+father the abandonment of the family property, because the father
+may--probably--soon--be conveniently got rid of under ground."
+
+"There was no thought of such a thing," said Gerard.
+
+"It isn't decent. I say that with all due deference to Lady
+Chiltern's better judgment. It's not the kind of thing that men
+do. I care less about it than most men, but even I object to such
+a proposition when it is made so openly. No doubt I am old." This
+assertion Mr. Maule made in a weak, quavering voice, which showed
+that had his intention been that way turned in his youth, he might
+probably have earned his bread on the stage.
+
+"Nobody thought of your being old, sir."
+
+"I shan't last long, of course. I am a poor feeble creature. But
+while I do live, I should prefer not to be turned out of my own
+house,--if Lady Chiltern could be induced to consent to such an
+arrangement. My doctor seems to think that I might linger on for a
+year or two,--with great care."
+
+"Father, you know I was thinking of nothing of the kind."
+
+"We won't act the king and the prince any further, if you please.
+The prince protested very well, and, if I remember right, the father
+pretended to believe him. In my weak state you have rather upset me.
+If you have no objection I would choose to be left to recover myself
+a little."
+
+"And is that all that you will say to me?"
+
+"Good heavens;--what more can you want? I will not--consent--to give
+up--my house at Maule Abbey for your use,--as long as I live. Will
+that do? And if you choose to marry a wife and starve, I won't think
+that any reason why I should starve too. Will that do? And your
+friend, Lady Chiltern, may--go--and be d----d. Will that do?"
+
+"Good morning, sir."
+
+"Good morning, Gerard." So the interview was over, and Gerard Maule
+left the room. The father, as soon as he was alone, immediately lit
+another cigarette, took up his French novel, and went to work as
+though he was determined to be happy and comfortable again without
+losing a moment. But he found this to be beyond his power. He had
+been really disturbed, and could not easily compose himself. The
+cigarette was almost at once chucked into the fire, and the little
+volume was laid on one side. Mr. Maule rose almost impetuously from
+his chair, and stood with his back to the fire, contemplating the
+proposition that had been made to him.
+
+It was actually true that he had been offended by the very faint idea
+of death which had been suggested to him by his son. Though he was
+a man bearing no palpable signs of decay, in excellent health, with
+good digestion,--who might live to be ninety,--he did not like to
+be warned that his heir would come after him. The claim which had
+been put forward to Maule Abbey by his son had rested on the fact
+that when he should die the place must belong to his son;--and the
+fact was unpleasant to him. Lady Chiltern had spoken of him behind
+his back as being mortal, and in doing so had been guilty of an
+impertinence. Maule Abbey, no doubt, was a ruined old house, in
+which he never thought of living,--which was not let to a tenant by
+the creditors of his estate, only because its condition was unfit
+for tenancy. But now Mr. Maule began to think whether he might not
+possibly give the lie to these people who were compassing his death,
+by returning to the halls of his ancestors, if not in the bloom of
+youth, still in the pride of age. Why should he not live at Maule
+Abbey if this successful marriage could be effected? He almost knew
+himself well enough to be aware that a month at Maule Abbey would
+destroy him; but it is the proper thing for a man of fashion to have
+a place of his own, and he had always been alive to the glory of
+being Mr. Maule of Maule Abbey. In preparing the way for the marriage
+that was to come he must be so known. To be spoken of as the father
+of Maule of Maule Abbey would have been fatal to him. To be the
+father of a married son at all was disagreeable, and therefore
+when the communication was made to him he had managed to be very
+unpleasant. As for giving up Maule Abbey,--! He fretted and fumed
+as he thought of the proposition through the hour which should have
+been to him an hour of enjoyment; and his anger grew hot against
+his son as he remembered all that he was losing. At last, however,
+he composed himself sufficiently to put on with becoming care his
+luxurious furred great coat, and then he sallied forth in quest of
+the lady.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+"PURITY OF MORALS, FINN."
+
+
+Mr. Quintus Slide was now, as formerly, the editor of the People's
+Banner, but a change had come over the spirit of his dream. His
+newspaper was still the People's Banner, and Mr. Slide still
+professed to protect the existing rights of the people, and to demand
+new rights for the people. But he did so as a Conservative. He had
+watched the progress of things, and had perceived that duty called
+upon him to be the organ of Mr. Daubeny. This duty he performed with
+great zeal, and with an assumption of consistency and infallibility
+which was charming. No doubt the somewhat difficult task of veering
+round without inconsistency, and without flaw to his infallibility,
+was eased by Mr. Daubeny's newly-declared views on Church matters.
+The People's Banner could still be a genuine People's Banner in
+reference to ecclesiastical policy. And as that was now the subject
+mainly discussed by the newspapers, the change made was almost
+entirely confined to the lauding of Mr. Daubeny instead of Mr.
+Turnbull. Some other slight touches were no doubt necessary. Mr.
+Daubeny was the head of the Conservative party in the kingdom, and
+though Mr. Slide himself might be of all men in the kingdom the most
+democratic, or even the most destructive, still it was essential that
+Mr. Daubeny's organ should support the Conservative party all round.
+It became Mr. Slide's duty to speak of men as heaven-born patriots
+whom he had designated a month or two since as bloated aristocrats
+and leeches fattened on the blood of the people. Of course remarks
+were made by his brethren of the press,--remarks which were intended
+to be very unpleasant. One evening newspaper took the trouble to
+divide a column of its own into double columns, printing on one
+side of the inserted line remarks made by the People's Banner in
+September respecting the Duke of ----, and the Marquis of ----, and
+Sir ---- ----, which were certainly very harsh; and on the other side
+remarks equally laudatory as to the characters of the same titled
+politicians. But a journalist, with the tact and experience of Mr.
+Quintus Slide, knew his business too well to allow himself to be
+harassed by any such small stratagem as that. He did not pause to
+defend himself, but boldly attacked the meanness, the duplicity,
+the immorality, the grammar, the paper, the type, and the wife of
+the editor of the evening newspaper. In the storm of wind in which
+he rowed it was unnecessary for him to defend his own conduct.
+"And then," said he at the close of a very virulent and successful
+article, "the hirelings of ---- dare to accuse me of inconsistency!"
+The readers of the People's Banner all thought that their editor
+had beaten his adversary out of the field.
+
+Mr. Quintus Slide was certainly well adapted for his work. He could
+edit his paper with a clear appreciation of the kind of matter which
+would best conduce to its success, and he could write telling leading
+articles himself. He was indefatigable, unscrupulous, and devoted
+to his paper. Perhaps his great value was shown most clearly in his
+distinct appreciation of the low line of public virtue with which
+his readers would be satisfied. A highly-wrought moral strain would
+he knew well create either disgust or ridicule. "If there is any
+beastliness I 'ate it is 'igh-faluting," he has been heard to say to
+his underlings. The sentiment was the same as that conveyed in the
+"Point de zele" of Talleyrand. "Let's 'ave no d----d nonsense," he
+said on another occasion, when striking out from a leading article
+a passage in praise of the patriotism of a certain public man. "Mr.
+Gresham is as good as another man, no doubt; what we want to know is
+whether he's along with us." Mr. Gresham was not along with Mr. Slide
+at present, and Mr. Slide found it very easy to speak ill of Mr.
+Gresham.
+
+Mr. Slide one Sunday morning called at the house of Mr. Bunce in
+Great Marlborough Street, and asked for Phineas Finn. Mr. Slide and
+Mr. Bunce had an old acquaintance with each other, and the editor was
+not ashamed to exchange a few friendly words with the law-scrivener
+before he was shown up to the member of Parliament. Mr. Bunce was an
+outspoken, eager, and honest politician,--with very little accurate
+knowledge of the political conditions by which he was surrounded,
+but with a strong belief in the merits of his own class. He was a
+sober, hardworking man, and he hated all men who were not sober and
+hardworking. He was quite clear in his mind that all nobility should
+be put down, and that all property in land should be taken away
+from men who were enabled by such property to live in idleness.
+What should be done with the land when so taken away was a question
+which he had not yet learnt to answer. At the present moment he
+was accustomed to say very hard words of Mr. Slide behind his back,
+because of the change which had been effected in the People's
+Banner, and he certainly was not the man to shrink from asserting
+in a person's presence aught that he said in his absence. "Well, Mr.
+Conservative Slide," he said, stepping into the little back parlour,
+in which the editor was left while Mrs. Bunce went up to learn
+whether the member of Parliament would receive his visitor.
+
+"None of your chaff, Bunce."
+
+"We have enough of your chaff, anyhow; don't we, Mr. Slide? I still
+sees the Banner, Mr. Slide,--most days; just for the joke of it."
+
+"As long as you take it, Bunce, I don't care what the reason is."
+
+"I suppose a heditor's about the same as a Cabinet Minister. You've
+got to keep your place;--that's about it, Mr. Slide."
+
+"We've got to tell the people who's true to 'em. Do you believe
+that Gresham 'd ever have brought in a Bill for doing away with the
+Church? Never;--not if he'd been Prime Minister till doomsday. What
+you want is progress."
+
+"That's about it, Mr. Slide."
+
+"And where are you to get it? Did you ever hear that a rose by any
+other name 'd smell as sweet? If you can get progress from the
+Conservatives, and you want progress, why not go to the Conservatives
+for it? Who repealed the corn laws? Who gave us 'ousehold suffrage?"
+
+"I think I've been told all that before, Mr. Slide; them things
+weren't given by no manner of means, as I look at it. We just went in
+and took 'em. It was hall a haccident whether it was Cobden or Peel,
+Gladstone or Disraeli, as was the servants we employed to do our
+work. But Liberal is Liberal, and Conservative is Conservative. What
+are you, Mr. Slide, to-day?"
+
+"If you'd talk of things, Bunce, which you understand, you would not
+talk quite so much nonsense."
+
+At this moment Mrs. Bunce entered the room, perhaps preventing a
+quarrel, and offered to usher Mr. Slide up to the young member's
+room. Phineas had not at first been willing to receive the gentleman,
+remembering that when they had last met the intercourse had not been
+pleasant,--but he knew that enmities are foolish things, and that
+it did not become him to perpetuate a quarrel with such a man as Mr.
+Quintus Slide. "I remember him very well, Mrs. Bunce."
+
+"I know you didn't like him, Sir."
+
+"Not particularly."
+
+"No more don't I. No more don't Bunce. He's one of them as 'd say
+a'most anything for a plate of soup and a glass of wine. That's what
+Bunce says."
+
+"It won't hurt me to see him."
+
+"No, sir; it won't hurt you. It would be a pity indeed if the likes
+of him could hurt the likes of you." And so Mr. Quintus Slide was
+shown up into the room.
+
+The first greeting was very affectionate, at any rate on the part of
+the editor. He grasped the young member's hand, congratulated him
+on his seat, and began his work as though he had never been all but
+kicked out of that very same room by its present occupant. "Now you
+want to know what I'm come about; don't you?"
+
+"No doubt I shall hear in good time, Mr. Slide."
+
+"It's an important matter;--and so you'll say when you do hear. And
+it's one in which I don't know whether you'll be able to see your way
+quite clear."
+
+"I'll do my best, if it concerns me."
+
+"It does." So saying, Mr. Slide, who had seated himself in an
+arm-chair by the fireside opposite to Phineas, crossed his legs,
+folded his arms on his breast, put his head a little on one side,
+and sat for a few moments in silence, with his eyes fixed on his
+companion's face. "It does concern you, or I shouldn't be here.
+Do you know Mr. Kennedy,--the Right Honourable Robert Kennedy, of
+Loughlinter, in Scotland?"
+
+"I do know Mr. Kennedy."
+
+"And do you know Lady Laura Kennedy, his wife?"
+
+"Certainly I do."
+
+"So I supposed. And do you know the Earl of Brentford, who is, I take
+it, father to the lady in question?"
+
+"Of course I do. You know that I do." For there had been a time in
+which Phineas had been subjected to the severest censure which the
+People's Banner could inflict upon him, because of his adherence
+to Lord Brentford, and the vials of wrath had been poured out by the
+hands of Mr. Quintus Slide himself.
+
+"Very well. It does not signify what I know or what I don't. Those
+preliminary questions I have been obliged to ask as my justification
+for coming to you on the present occasion. Mr. Kennedy has I believe
+been greatly wronged."
+
+"I am not prepared to talk about Mr. Kennedy's affairs," said Phineas
+gravely.
+
+"But unfortunately he is prepared to talk about them. That's the rub.
+He has been ill-used, and he has come to the People's Banner for
+redress. Will you have the kindness to cast your eye down that slip?"
+Whereupon the editor handed to Phineas a long scrap of printed paper,
+amounting to about a column and a half of the People's Banner,
+containing a letter to the editor dated from Loughlinter, and signed
+Robert Kennedy at full length.
+
+"You don't mean to say that you're going to publish this," said
+Phineas before he had read it.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"The man is a madman."
+
+"There's nothing in the world easier than calling a man mad. It's
+what we do to dogs when we want to hang them. I believe Mr. Kennedy
+has the management of his own property. He is not too mad for that.
+But just cast your eye down and read it."
+
+Phineas did cast his eye down, and read the whole letter;--nor as
+he read it could he bring himself to believe that the writer of it
+would be judged to be mad from its contents. Mr. Kennedy had told
+the whole story of his wrongs, and had told it well,--with piteous
+truthfulness, as far as he himself knew and understood the truth. The
+letter was almost simple in its wailing record of his own desolation.
+With a marvellous absence of reticence he had given the names of all
+persons concerned. He spoke of his wife as having been, and being,
+under the influence of Mr. Phineas Finn;--spoke of his own former
+friendship for that gentleman, who had once saved his life when
+he fell among thieves, and then accused Phineas of treachery in
+betraying that friendship. He spoke with bitter agony of the injury
+done him by the Earl, his wife's father, in affording a home to his
+wife, when her proper home was at Loughlinter. And then declared
+himself willing to take the sinning woman back to his bosom. "That
+she had sinned is certain," he said; "I do not believe she has sinned
+as some sin; but, whatever be her sin, it is for a man to forgive as
+he hopes for forgiveness." He expatiated on the absolute and almost
+divine right which it was intended that a husband should exercise
+over his wife, and quoted both the Old and New Testament in proof of
+his assertions. And then he went on to say that he appealed to public
+sympathy, through the public press, because, owing to some gross
+insufficiency in the laws of extradition, he could not call upon the
+magistracy of a foreign country to restore to him his erring wife.
+But he thought that public opinion, if loudly expressed, would have
+an effect both upon her and upon her father, which his private words
+could not produce. "I wonder very greatly that you should put such a
+letter as that into type," said Phineas when he had read it all.
+
+"Why shouldn't we put it into type?"
+
+"You don't mean to say that you'll publish it."
+
+"Why shouldn't we publish it?"
+
+"It's a private quarrel between a man and his wife. What on earth
+have the public got to do with that?"
+
+"Private quarrels between gentlemen and ladies have been public
+affairs for a long time past. You must know that very well."
+
+"When they come into court they are."
+
+"In court and out of court! The morale of our aristocracy,--what
+you call the Upper Ten,--would be at a low ebb indeed if the public
+press didn't act as their guardians. Do you think that if the Duke
+of ---- beats his wife black and blue, nothing is to be said about it
+unless the Duchess brings her husband into court? Did you ever know
+of a separation among the Upper Ten, that wasn't handled by the
+press one way or the other? It's my belief that there isn't a peer
+among 'em all as would live with his wife constant, if it was not
+for the press;--only some of the very old ones, who couldn't help
+themselves."
+
+"And you call yourself a Conservative?"
+
+"Never mind what I call myself. That has nothing to do with what
+we're about now. You see that letter, Finn. There is nothing little
+or dirty about us. We go in for morals and purity of life, and we
+mean to do our duty by the public without fear or favour. Your name
+is mentioned there in a manner that you won't quite like, and I think
+I am acting uncommon kind by you in showing it to you before we
+publish it." Phineas, who still held the slip in his hand, sat silent
+thinking of the matter. He hated the man. He could not endure the
+feeling of being called Finn by him without showing his resentment.
+As regarded himself, he was thoroughly well inclined to kick Mr.
+Slide and his Banner into the street. But he was bound to think
+first of Lady Laura. Such a publication as this, which was now
+threatened, was the misfortune which the poor woman dreaded more
+than any other. He, personally, had certainly been faultless in the
+matter. He had never addressed a word of love to Mr. Kennedy's wife
+since the moment in which she had told him that she was engaged to
+marry the Laird of Loughlinter. Were the letter to be published he
+could answer it, he thought, in such a manner as to defend himself
+and her without damage to either. But on her behalf he was bound to
+prevent this publicity if it could be prevented;--and he was bound
+also, for her sake, to allow himself to be called Finn by this most
+obnoxious editor. "In the ordinary course of things, Finn, it will
+come out to-morrow morning," said the obnoxious editor.
+
+"Every word of it is untrue," said Phineas.
+
+"You say that, of course."
+
+"And I should at once declare myself willing to make such a statement
+on oath. It is a libel of the grossest kind, and of course there
+would be a prosecution. Both Lord Brentford and I would be driven to
+that."
+
+"We should be quite indifferent. Mr. Kennedy would hold us harmless.
+We're straightforward. My showing it to you would prove that."
+
+"What is it you want, Mr. Slide?"
+
+"Want! You don't suppose we want anything. If you think that the
+columns of the People's Banner are to be bought, you must have
+opinions respecting the press of the day which make me pity you as
+one grovelling in the very dust. The daily press of London is pure
+and immaculate. That is, the morning papers are. Want, indeed! What
+do you think I want?"
+
+"I have not the remotest idea."
+
+"Purity of morals, Finn;--punishment for the guilty;--defence for the
+innocent;--support for the weak;--safety for the oppressed;--and a
+rod of iron for the oppressors!"
+
+"But that is a libel."
+
+"It's very heavy on the old Earl, and upon you, and upon Lady
+Laura;--isn't it?"
+
+"It's a libel,--as you know. You tell me that purity of morals can be
+supported by such a publication as this! Had you meant to go on with
+it, you would hardly have shown it to me."
+
+"You're in the wrong box there, Finn. Now I'll tell you what
+we'll do,--on behalf of what I call real purity. We'll delay the
+publication if you'll undertake that the lady shall go back to her
+husband."
+
+"The lady is not in my hands."
+
+"She's under your influence. You were with her over at Dresden not
+much more than a month ago. She'd go sharp enough if you told her."
+
+"You never made a greater mistake in your life."
+
+"Say that you'll try."
+
+"I certainly will not do so."
+
+"Then it goes in to-morrow," said Mr. Quintus Slide, stretching out
+his hand and taking back the slip.
+
+"What on earth is your object?"
+
+"Morals! Morals! We shall be able to say that we've done our best to
+promote domestic virtue and secure forgiveness for an erring wife.
+You've no notion, Finn, in your mind of what will soon be the hextent
+of the duties, privileges, and hinfluences of the daily press;--the
+daily morning press, that is; for I look on those little evening
+scraps as just so much paper and ink wasted. You won't interfere,
+then?"
+
+"Yes, I will;--if you'll give me time. Where is Mr. Kennedy?"
+
+"What has that to do with it? Do you write over to Lady Laura and the
+old lord and tell them that if she'll undertake to be at Loughlinter
+within a month this shall be suppressed. Will you do that?"
+
+"Let me first see Mr. Kennedy."
+
+Mr. Slide thought a while over that matter. "Well," said he at last,
+"you can see Kennedy if you will. He came up to town four or five
+days ago, and he's staying at an hotel in Judd Street."
+
+"An hotel in Judd Street?"
+
+"Yes;--Macpherson's in Judd Street. I suppose he likes to keep among
+the Scotch. I don't think he ever goes out of the house, and he's
+waiting in London till this thing is published."
+
+"I will go and see him," said Phineas.
+
+"I shouldn't wonder if he murdered you;--but that's between you and
+him."
+
+"Just so."
+
+"And I shall hear from you?"
+
+"Yes," said Phineas, hesitating as he made the promise. "Yes, you
+shall hear from me."
+
+"We've got our duty to do, and we mean to do it. If we see that we
+can induce the lady to go back to her husband, we shall habstain from
+publishing, and virtue will be its own reward. I needn't tell you
+that such a letter as that would sell a great many copies, Finn."
+Then, at last, Mr. Slide arose and departed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+MACPHERSON'S HOTEL.
+
+
+Phineas, when he was left alone, found himself greatly at a loss as
+to what he had better do. He had pledged himself to see Mr. Kennedy,
+and was not much afraid of encountering personal violence at the
+hands of that gentleman. But he could think of nothing which he could
+with advantage say to Mr. Kennedy. He knew that Lady Laura would not
+return to her husband. Much as she dreaded such exposure as was now
+threatened, she would not return to Loughlinter to avoid even that.
+He could not hold out any such hope to Mr. Kennedy;--and without
+doing so how could he stop the publication? He thought of getting
+an injunction from the Vice-Chancellor;--but it was now Sunday, and
+he had understood that the publication would appear on the morrow,
+unless stopped by some note from himself. He thought of finding some
+attorney, and taking him to Mr. Kennedy; but he knew that Mr. Kennedy
+would be deterred by no attorney. Then he thought of Mr. Low. He
+would see Mr. Kennedy first, and then go to Mr. Low's house.
+
+Judd Street runs into the New Road near the great stations of the
+Midland and Northern Railways, and is a highly respectable street.
+But it can hardly be called fashionable, as is Piccadilly; or
+central, as is Charing Cross; or commercial, as is the neighbourhood
+of St. Paul's. Men seeking the shelter of an hotel in Judd Street
+most probably prefer decent and respectable obscurity to other
+advantages. It was some such feeling, no doubt, joined to the fact
+that the landlord had originally come from the neighbourhood of
+Loughlinter, which had taken Mr. Kennedy to Macpherson's Hotel.
+Phineas, when he called at about three o'clock on Sunday afternoon,
+was at once informed by Mrs. Macpherson that Mr. Kennedy was "nae
+doubt at hame, but was nae willing to see folk on the Saaboth."
+Phineas pleaded the extreme necessity of his business, alleging
+that Mr. Kennedy himself would regard its nature as a sufficient
+justification for such Sabbath-breaking,--and sent up his card.
+Then there came down a message to him. Could not Mr. Finn postpone
+his visit to the following morning? But Phineas declared that it
+could not be postponed. Circumstances, which he would explain to
+Mr. Kennedy, made it impossible. At last he was desired to walk up
+stairs, though Mrs. Macpherson, as she showed him the way, evidently
+thought that her house was profaned by such wickedness.
+
+Macpherson in preparing his house had not run into that extravagance
+of architecture which has lately become so common in our hotels.
+It was simply an ordinary house, with the words "Macpherson's
+Hotel" painted on a semi-circular board over the doorway. The front
+parlour had been converted into a bar, and in the back parlour the
+Macphersons lived. The staircase was narrow and dirty, and in the
+front drawing-room,--with the chamber behind for his bedroom,--Mr.
+Kennedy was installed. Mr. Macpherson probably did not expect any
+customers beyond those friendly Scots who came up to London from his
+own side of the Highlands. Mrs. Macpherson, as she opened the door,
+was silent and almost mysterious. Such a breach of the law might
+perhaps be justified by circumstances of which she knew nothing, but
+should receive no sanction from her which she could avoid. So she did
+not even whisper the name.
+
+Mr. Kennedy, as Phineas entered, slowly rose from his chair, putting
+down the Bible which had been in his hands. He did not speak at once,
+but looked at his visitor over the spectacles which he wore. Phineas
+thought that he was even more haggard in appearance and aged than
+when they two had met hardly three months since at Loughlinter. There
+was no shaking of hands, and hardly any pretence at greeting. Mr.
+Kennedy simply bowed his head, and allowed his visitor to begin the
+conversation.
+
+"I should not have come to you on such a day as this, Mr. Kennedy--"
+
+"It is a day very unfitted for the affairs of the world," said Mr.
+Kennedy.
+
+"Had not the matter been most pressing in regard both to time and its
+own importance."
+
+"So the woman told me, and therefore I have consented to see you."
+
+"You know a man of the name of--Slide, Mr. Kennedy?" Mr. Kennedy
+shook his head. "You know the editor of the People's Banner?" Again
+he shook his head. "You have, at any rate, written a letter for
+publication to that newspaper."
+
+"Need I consult you as to what I write?"
+
+"But he,--the editor,--has consulted me."
+
+"I can have nothing to do with that."
+
+"This Mr. Slide, the editor of the People's Banner, has just been
+with me, having in his hand a printed letter from you, which,--you
+will excuse me, Mr. Kennedy,--is very libellous."
+
+"I will bear the responsibility of that."
+
+"But you would not wish to publish falsehood about your wife, or even
+about me."
+
+"Falsehood! sir; how dare you use that word to me? Is it false to say
+that she has left my house? Is it false to say that she is my wife,
+and cannot desert me, as she has done, without breaking her vows, and
+disregarding the laws both of God and man? Am I false when I say that
+I gave her no cause? Am I false when I offer to take her back, let
+her faults be what they may have been? Am I false when I say that her
+father acts illegally in detaining her? False! False in your teeth!
+Falsehood is villany, and it is not I that am the villain."
+
+"You have joined my name in the accusation."
+
+"Because you are her paramour. I know you now;--viper that was warmed
+in my bosom! Will you look me in the face and tell me that, had
+it not been for you, she would not have strayed from me?" To this
+Phineas could make no answer. "Is it not true that when she went with
+me to the altar you had been her lover?"
+
+"I was her lover no longer, when she once told me that she was to be
+your wife."
+
+"Has she never spoken to you of love since? Did she not warn you from
+the house in her faint struggle after virtue? Did she not whistle you
+back again when she found the struggle too much for her? When I asked
+you to the house, she bade you not come. When I desired that you
+might never darken my eyes again, did she not seek you? With whom was
+she walking on the villa grounds by the river banks when she resolved
+that she would leave all her duties and desert me? Will you dare
+to say that you were not then in her confidence? With whom was she
+talking when she had the effrontery to come and meet me at the house
+of the Prime Minister, which I was bound to attend? Have you not been
+with her this very winter in her foreign home?"
+
+"Of course I have,--and you sent her a message by me."
+
+"I sent no message. I deny it. I refused to be an accomplice in your
+double guilt. I laid my command upon you that you should not visit my
+wife in my absence, and you disobeyed, and you are an adulterer. Who
+are you that you are to come for ever between me and my wife?"
+
+"I never injured you in thought or deed. I come to you now because I
+have seen a printed letter which contains a gross libel upon myself."
+
+"It is printed then?" he asked, in an eager tone.
+
+"It is printed; but it need not, therefore, be published. It is a
+libel, and should not be published. I shall be forced to seek redress
+at law. You cannot hope to regain your wife by publishing false
+accusations against her."
+
+"They are true. I can prove every word that I have written. She dare
+not come here, and submit herself to the laws of her country. She is
+a renegade from the law, and you abet her in her sin. But it is not
+vengeance that I seek. 'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.'"
+
+"It looks like vengeance, Mr. Kennedy."
+
+"Is it for you to teach me how I shall bear myself in this time of my
+great trouble?" Then suddenly he changed; his voice falling from one
+of haughty defiance to a low, mean, bargaining whisper. "But I'll
+tell you what I'll do. If you will say that she shall come back again
+I'll have it cancelled, and pay all the expenses."
+
+"I cannot bring her back to you."
+
+"She'll come if you tell her. If you'll let them understand that she
+must come they'll give way. You can try it at any rate."
+
+"I shall do nothing of the kind. Why should I ask her to submit
+herself to misery?"
+
+"Misery! What misery? Why should she be miserable? Must a woman need
+be miserable because she lives with her husband? You hear me say that
+I will forgive everything. Even she will not doubt me when I say so,
+because I have never lied to her. Let her come back to me, and she
+shall live in peace and quiet, and hear no word of reproach."
+
+"I can have nothing to do with it, Mr. Kennedy."
+
+"Then, sir, you shall abide my wrath." With that he sprang quickly
+round, grasping at something which lay upon a shelf near him, and
+Phineas saw that he was armed with a pistol. Phineas, who had
+hitherto been seated, leaped to his legs; but the pistol in a moment
+was at his head, and the madman pulled at the trigger. But the
+mechanism of the instrument required that some bolt should be loosed
+before the hammer would fall upon the nipple, and the unhandy wretch
+for an instant fumbled over the work so that Phineas, still facing
+his enemy, had time to leap backwards towards the door. But Kennedy,
+though he was awkward, still succeeded in firing before our friend
+could leave the room. Phineas heard the thud of the bullet, and knew
+that it must have passed near his head. He was not struck, however;
+and the man, frightened at his own deed, abstained from the second
+shot, or loitered long enough in his remorse to enable his prey to
+escape. With three or four steps Phineas leaped down the stairs, and,
+finding the front door closed, took shelter within Mrs. Macpherson's
+bar. "The man is mad," he said; "did you not hear the shot?" The
+woman was too frightened to reply, but stood trembling, holding
+Phineas by the arm. There was nobody in the house, she said, but
+she and the two lasses. "Nae doobt the Laird's by ordinaire," she
+said at last. She had known of the pistol; but had not dared to have
+it removed. She and Macpherson had only feared that he would hurt
+himself,--and had at last agreed, as day after day passed without any
+injury from the weapon, to let the thing remain unnoticed. She had
+heard the shot, and had been sure that one of the two men above would
+have been killed.
+
+
+[Illustration: "Then, sir, you shall abide my wrath."]
+
+
+Phineas was now in great doubt as to what duty was required of him.
+His first difficulty consisted in this,--that his hat was still in
+Mr. Kennedy's room, and that Mrs. Macpherson altogether refused to go
+and fetch it. While they were still discussing this, and Phineas had
+not as yet resolved whether he would first get a policeman or go at
+once to Mr. Low, the bell from the room was rung furiously. "It's
+the Laird," said Mrs. Macpherson, "and if naebody waits on him he'll
+surely be shooting ane of us." The two girls were now outside the bar
+shaking in their shoes, and evidently unwilling to face the danger.
+At last the door of the room above was opened, and our hero's hat was
+sent rolling down the stairs.
+
+It was clear to Phineas that the man was so mad as to be not even
+aware of the act he had perpetrated. "He'll do nothing more with the
+pistol," he said, "unless he should attempt to destroy himself." At
+last it was determined that one of the girls should be sent to fetch
+Macpherson home from the Scotch Church, and that no application
+should be made at once to the police. It seemed that the Macphersons
+knew the circumstances of their guest's family, and that there was a
+cousin of his in London who was the only one with whom he seemed to
+have any near connection. The thing that had occurred was to be told
+to this cousin, and Phineas left his address, so that if it should be
+thought necessary he might be called upon to give his account of the
+affair. Then, in his perturbation of spirit, he asked for a glass of
+brandy; and having swallowed it, was about to take his leave. "The
+brandy wull be saxpence, sir," said Mrs. Macpherson, as she wiped the
+tears from her eyes.
+
+Having paid for his refreshment, Phineas got into a cab, and had
+himself driven to Mr. Low's house. He had escaped from his peril,
+and now again it became his strongest object to stop the publication
+of the letter which Slide had shown him. But as he sat in the cab
+he could not hinder himself from shuddering at the danger which had
+been so near to him. He remembered his sensation as he first saw the
+glimmer of the barrel of the pistol, and then became aware of the
+man's first futile attempt, and afterwards saw the flash and heard
+the hammer fall at the same moment. He had once stood up to be fired
+at in a duel, and had been struck by the ball. But nothing in that
+encounter had made him feel sick and faint through every muscle as
+he had felt just now. As he sat in the cab he was aware that but for
+the spirits he had swallowed he would be altogether overcome, and
+he doubted even now whether he would be able to tell his story to
+Mr. Low. Luckily perhaps for him neither Mr. Low nor his wife were
+at home. They were out together, but were expected in between five
+and six. Phineas declared his purpose of waiting for them, and
+requested that Mr. Low might be asked to join him in the dining-room
+immediately on his return. In this way an hour was allowed him, and
+he endeavoured to compose himself. Still, even at the end of the
+hour, his heart was beating so violently that he could hardly control
+the motion of his own limbs. "Low, I have been shot at by a madman,"
+he said, as soon as his friend entered the room. He had determined to
+be calm, and to speak much more of the document in the editor's hands
+than of the attempt which had been made on his own life; but he had
+been utterly unable to repress the exclamation.
+
+"Shot at?"
+
+"Yes; by Robert Kennedy; the man who was Chancellor of the
+Duchy;--almost within a yard of my head." Then he sat down and burst
+out into a fit of convulsive laughter.
+
+The story about the pistol was soon told, and Mr. Low was of opinion
+that Phineas should not have left the place without calling in
+policemen and giving an account to them of the transaction. "But
+I had something else on my mind," said Phineas, "which made it
+necessary that I should see you at once;--something more important
+even than this madman's attack upon me. He has written a most
+foul-mouthed attack upon his wife, which is already in print, and
+will I fear be published to-morrow morning." Then he told the story
+of the letter. "Slide no doubt will be at the People's Banner
+office to-night, and I can see him there. Perhaps when I tell
+him what has occurred he will consent to drop the publication
+altogether."
+
+But in this view of the matter Mr. Low did not agree with his
+visitor. He argued the case with a deliberation which to Phineas in
+his present state of mind was almost painful. If the whole story of
+what had occurred were told to Quintus Slide, that worthy protector
+of morals and caterer for the amusement of the public would, Mr.
+Low thought, at once publish the letter and give a statement of the
+occurrence at Macpherson's Hotel. There would be nothing to hinder
+him from so profitable a proceeding, as he would know that no one
+would stir on behalf of Lady Laura in the matter of the libel, when
+the tragedy of Mr. Kennedy's madness should have been made known. The
+publication would be as safe as attractive. But if Phineas should
+abstain from going to him at all, the same calculation which had
+induced him to show the letter would induce him to postpone the
+publication, at any rate for another twenty-four hours. "He means
+to make capital out of his virtue; and he won't give that up for
+the sake of being a day in advance. In the meantime we will get an
+injunction from the Vice-Chancellor to stop the publication."
+
+"Can we do that in one day?"
+
+"I think we can. Chancery isn't what it used to be," said Mr. Low,
+with a sigh. "I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll go this very moment
+to Pickering." Mr. Pickering at this time was one of the three
+Vice-Chancellors. "It isn't exactly the proper thing for counsel
+to call on a judge on a Sunday afternoon with the direct intention
+of influencing his judgment for the following morning; but this
+is a case in which a point may be strained. When such a paper as
+the People's Banner gets hold of a letter from a madman, which
+if published would destroy the happiness of a whole family, one
+shouldn't stick at a trifle. Pickering is just the man to take a
+common-sense view of the matter. You'll have to make an affidavit
+in the morning, and we can get the injunction served before two or
+three o'clock. Mr. Septimus Slope, or whatever his name is, won't
+dare to publish it after that. Of course, if it comes out to-morrow
+morning, we shall have been too late; but this will be our best
+chance." So Mr. Low got his hat and umbrella, and started for the
+Vice-Chancellor's house. "And I tell you what, Phineas;--do you stay
+and dine here. You are so flurried by all this, that you are not fit
+to go anywhere else."
+
+"I am flurried."
+
+"Of course you are. Never mind about dressing. Do you go up and tell
+Georgiana all about it;--and have dinner put off half-an-hour. I must
+hunt Pickering up, if I don't find him at home." Then Phineas did
+go upstairs and tell Georgiana--otherwise Mrs. Low--the whole story.
+Mrs. Low was deeply affected, declaring her opinion very strongly as
+to the horrible condition of things, when madmen could go about with
+pistols, and without anybody to take care against them. But as to
+Lady Laura Kennedy, she seemed to think that the poor husband had
+great cause of complaint, and that Lady Laura ought to be punished.
+Wives, she thought, should never leave their husbands on any pretext;
+and, as far as she had heard the story, there had been no pretext at
+all in the case. Her sympathies were clearly with the madman, though
+she was quite ready to acknowledge that any and every step should be
+taken which might be adverse to Mr. Quintus Slide.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+MADAME GOESLER IS SENT FOR.
+
+
+When the elder Mr. Maule had sufficiently recovered from the
+perturbation of mind and body into which he had been thrown by the
+ill-timed and ill-worded proposition of his son to enable him to
+resume the accustomed tenour of his life, he arrayed himself in his
+morning winter costume, and went forth in quest of a lady. So much
+was told some few chapters back, but the name of the lady was not
+then disclosed. Starting from Victoria Street, Westminster, he walked
+slowly across St. James's Park and the Green Park till he came out in
+Piccadilly, near the bottom of Park Lane. As he went up the Lane he
+looked at his boots, at his gloves, and at his trousers, and saw that
+nothing was unduly soiled. The morning air was clear and frosty, and
+had enabled him to dispense with the costly comfort of a cab. Mr.
+Maule hated cabs in the morning,--preferring never to move beyond the
+tether of his short daily constitutional walk. A cab for going out to
+dinner was a necessity;--but his income would not stand two or three
+cabs a day. Consequently he never went north of Oxford Street, or
+east of the theatres, or beyond Eccleston Square towards the river.
+The regions of South Kensington and New Brompton were a trouble to
+him, as he found it impossible to lay down a limit in that direction
+which would not exclude him from things which he fain would not
+exclude. There are dinners given at South Kensington which such a
+man as Mr. Maule cannot afford not to eat. In Park Lane he knocked
+at the door of a very small house,--a house that might almost be
+called tiny by comparison of its dimensions with those around it, and
+then asked for Madame Goesler. Madame Goesler had that morning gone
+into the country. Mr. Maule in his blandest manner expressed some
+surprise, having understood that she had not long since returned from
+Harrington Hall. To this the servant assented, but went on to explain
+that she had been in town only a day or two when she was summoned
+down to Matching by a telegram. It was believed, the man said, that
+the Duke of Omnium was poorly. "Oh! indeed;--I am sorry to hear
+that," said Mr. Maule, with a wry face. Then, with steps perhaps a
+little less careful, he walked back across the park to his club. On
+taking up the evening paper he at once saw a paragraph stating that
+the Duke of Omnium's condition to-day was much the same as yesterday;
+but that he had passed a quiet night. That very distinguished but
+now aged physician, Sir Omicron Pie, was still staying at Matching
+Priory. "So old Omnium is going off the hooks at last," said Mr.
+Maule to a club acquaintance.
+
+The club acquaintance was in Parliament, and looked at the matter
+from a strictly parliamentary point of view. "Yes, indeed. It has
+given a deal of trouble."
+
+Mr. Maule was not parliamentary, and did not understand.
+"Why trouble,--except to himself? He'll leave his Garter and
+strawberry-leaves, and all his acres behind him."
+
+"What is Gresham to do about the Exchequer when he comes in? I don't
+know whom he's to send there. They talk of Bonteen, but Bonteen
+hasn't half weight enough. They'll offer it to Monk, but Monk 'll
+never take office again."
+
+"Ah, yes. Planty Pall was Chancellor of the Exchequer. I suppose he
+must give that up now?"
+
+The parliamentary acquaintance looked up at the unparliamentary man
+with that mingled disgust and pity which parliamentary gentlemen and
+ladies always entertain for those who have not devoted their minds
+to the constitutional forms of the country. "The Chancellor of the
+Exchequer can't very well sit in the House of Lords, and Palliser
+can't very well help becoming Duke of Omnium. I don't know whether he
+can take the decimal coinage question with him, but I fear not. They
+don't like it at all in the city."
+
+"I believe I'll go and play a rubber of whist," said Mr. Maule.
+He played his whist, and lost thirty points without showing the
+slightest displeasure, either by the tone of his voice or by any
+grimace of his countenance. And yet the money which passed from his
+hands was material to him. But he was great at such efforts as these,
+and he understood well the fluctuations of the whist table. The
+half-crowns which he had paid were only so much invested capital.
+
+He dined at his club this evening, and joined tables with another
+acquaintance who was not parliamentary. Mr. Parkinson Seymour was
+a man much of his own stamp, who cared not one straw as to any
+difficulty which the Prime Minister might feel in filling the office
+of Chancellor of the Exchequer. There were men by dozens ready and
+willing, and no doubt able,--or at any rate, one as able as the
+other,--to manage the taxes of the country. But the blue riband and
+the Lord Lieutenancy of Barsetshire were important things,--which
+would now be in the gift of Mr. Daubeny; and Lady Glencora would at
+last be a duchess,--with much effect on Society, either good or bad.
+And Planty Pall would be a duke, with very much less capability, as
+Mr. Parkinson Seymour thought, for filling that great office, than
+that which the man had displayed who was now supposed to be dying
+at Matching. "He has been a fine old fellow," said Mr. Parkinson
+Seymour.
+
+"Very much so. There ain't many of that stamp left."
+
+"I don't know one," continued the gentleman, with enthusiasm. "They
+all go in for something now, just as Jones goes in for being a bank
+clerk. They are politicians, or gamblers, or, by heaven, tradesmen,
+as some of them are. The Earl of Tydvil and Lord Merthyr are in
+partnership together working their own mines,--by the Lord, with a
+regular deed of partnership, just like two cheesemongers. The Marquis
+of Maltanops has a share in a bitter beer house at Burton. And
+the Duke of Discount, who married old Ballance's daughter, and is
+brother-in-law to young George Advance, retains his interest in the
+house in Lombard Street. I know it for a fact."
+
+"Old Omnium was above that kind of thing," said Mr. Maule.
+
+"Lord bless you;--quite another sort of man. There is nothing left
+like it now. With a princely income I don't suppose he ever put by
+a shilling in his life. I've heard it said that he couldn't afford
+to marry, living in the manner in which he chose to live. And he
+understood what dignity meant. None of them understand that now.
+Dukes are as common as dogs in the streets, and a marquis thinks no
+more of himself than a market-gardener. I'm very sorry the old duke
+should go. The nephew may be very good at figures, but he isn't fit
+to fill his uncle's shoes. As for Lady Glencora, no doubt as things
+go now she's very popular, but she's more like a dairy-maid than a
+duchess to my way of thinking."
+
+There was not a club in London, and hardly a drawing-room in which
+something was not said that day in consequence of the two bulletins
+which had appeared as to the condition of the old Duke;--and in no
+club and in no drawing-room was a verdict given against the dying
+man. It was acknowledged everywhere that he had played his part in a
+noble and even in a princely manner, that he had used with a becoming
+grace the rich things that had been given him, and that he had
+deserved well of his country. And yet, perhaps, no man who had lived
+during the same period, or any portion of the period, had done less,
+or had devoted himself more entirely to the consumption of good
+things without the slightest idea of producing anything in return!
+But he had looked like a duke, and known how to set a high price on
+his own presence.
+
+To Mr. Maule the threatened demise of this great man was not without
+a peculiar interest. His acquaintance with Madame Goesler had not
+been of long standing, nor even as yet had it reached a close
+intimacy. During the last London season he had been introduced to
+her, and had dined twice at her house. He endeavoured to make himself
+agreeable to her, and he flattered himself that he had succeeded. It
+may be said of him generally, that he had the gift of making himself
+pleasant to women. When last she had parted from him with a smile,
+repeating the last few words of some good story which he had told
+her, the idea struck him that she after all might perhaps be the
+woman. He made his inquiries, and had learned that there was not
+a shadow of a doubt as to her wealth,--or even to her power of
+disposing of that wealth as she pleased. So he wrote to her a pretty
+little note, in which he gave to her the history of that good story,
+how it originated with a certain Cardinal, and might be found in
+certain memoirs,--which did not, however, bear the best reputation in
+the world. Madame Goesler answered his note very graciously, thanking
+him for the reference, but declaring that the information given was
+already so sufficient that she need prosecute the inquiry no further.
+Mr. Maule smiled as he declared to himself that those memoirs would
+certainly be in Madame Goesler's hands before many days were over.
+Had his intimacy been a little more advanced he would have sent the
+volume to her.
+
+But he also learned that there was some romance in the lady's life
+which connected her with the Duke of Omnium. He was diligent in
+seeking information, and became assured that there could be no chance
+for himself, or for any man, as long as the Duke was alive. Some
+hinted that there had been a private marriage,--a marriage, however,
+which Madame Goesler had bound herself by solemn oaths never to
+disclose. Others surmised that she was the Duke's daughter. Hints
+were, of course, thrown out as to a connection of another kind,--but
+with no great vigour, as it was admitted on all hands that Lady
+Glencora, the Duke's niece by marriage, and the mother of the Duke's
+future heir, was Madame Goesler's great friend. That there was
+a mystery was a fact very gratifying to the world at large; and
+perhaps, upon the whole, the more gratifying in that nothing had
+occurred to throw a gleam of light upon the matter since the fact
+of the intimacy had become generally known. Mr. Maule was aware,
+however, that there could be no success for him as long as the Duke
+lived. Whatever might be the nature of the alliance, it was too
+strong to admit of any other while it lasted. But the Duke was a very
+old,--or, at least, a very infirm man. And now the Duke was dying.
+Of course it was only a chance. Mr. Maule knew the world too well
+to lay out any great portion of his hopes on a prospect so doubtful.
+But it was worth a struggle, and he would so struggle that he might
+enjoy success, should success come, without laying himself open
+to the pangs of disappointment. Mr. Maule hated to be unhappy or
+uncomfortable, and therefore never allowed any aspiration to proceed
+to such length as to be inconvenient to his feelings should it not be
+gratified.
+
+In the meantime Madame Max Goesler had been sent for, and had hurried
+off to Matching almost without a moment's preparation. As she sat in
+the train, thinking of it, tears absolutely filled her eyes. "Poor
+dear old man," she said to herself; and yet the poor dear old man had
+simply been a trouble to her, adding a most disagreeable task to her
+life, and one which she was not called on to perform by any sense of
+duty. "How is he?" she said anxiously, when she met Lady Glencora in
+the hall at Matching. The two women kissed each other as though they
+had been almost sisters since their birth. "He is a little better
+now, but he was very uneasy when we telegraphed this morning. He
+asked for you twice, and then we thought it better to send."
+
+"Oh, of course it was best," said Madame Goesler.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+"I WOULD DO IT NOW."
+
+
+Though it was rumoured all over London that the Duke of Omnium was
+dying, his Grace had been dressed and taken out of his bed-chamber
+into a sitting-room, when Madame Goesler was brought into his
+presence by Lady Glencora Palliser. He was reclining in a great
+arm-chair, with his legs propped up on cushions, and a respectable
+old lady in a black silk gown and a very smart cap was attending
+to his wants. The respectable old lady took her departure when the
+younger ladies entered the room, whispering a word of instruction
+to Lady Glencora as she went. "His Grace should have his broth at
+half-past four, my lady, and a glass and a half of champagne. His
+Grace won't drink his wine out of a tumbler, so perhaps your ladyship
+won't mind giving it him at twice."
+
+"Marie has come," said Lady Glencora.
+
+"I knew she would come," said the old man, turning his head round
+slowly on the back of his chair. "I knew she would be good to me to
+the last." And he laid his withered hand on the arm of his chair, so
+that the woman whose presence gratified him might take it within hers
+and comfort him.
+
+"Of course I have come," said Madame Goesler, standing close by him
+and putting her left arm very lightly on his shoulder. It was all
+that she could do for him, but it was in order that she might do this
+that she had been summoned from London to his side. He was wan and
+worn and pale,--a man evidently dying, the oil of whose lamp was all
+burned out; but still as he turned his eyes up to the woman's face
+there was a remnant of that look of graceful faineant nobility which
+had always distinguished him. He had never done any good, but he
+had always carried himself like a duke, and like a duke he carried
+himself to the end.
+
+"He is decidedly better than he was this morning," said Lady
+Glencora.
+
+"It is pretty nearly all over, my dear. Sit down, Marie. Did they
+give you anything after your journey?"
+
+"I could not wait, Duke."
+
+"I'll get her some tea," said Lady Glencora. "Yes, I will. I'll do it
+myself. I know he wants to say a word to you alone." This she added
+in a whisper.
+
+But sick people hear everything, and the Duke did hear the whisper.
+"Yes, my dear;--she is quite right. I am glad to have you for a
+minute alone. Do you love me, Marie?"
+
+It was a foolish question to be asked by a dying old man of a young
+woman who was in no way connected with him, and whom he had never
+seen till some three or four years since. But it was asked with
+feverish anxiety, and it required an answer. "You know I love you,
+Duke. Why else should I be here?"
+
+"It is a pity you did not take the coronet when I offered it you."
+
+"Nay, Duke, it was no pity. Had I done so, you could not have had us
+both."
+
+"I should have wanted only you."
+
+"And I should have stood aloof,--in despair to think that I was
+separating you from those with whom your Grace is bound up so
+closely. We have ever been dear friends since that."
+
+"Yes;--we have been dear friends. But--" Then he closed his eyes, and
+put his long thin fingers across his face, and lay back awhile in
+silence, still holding her by the other hand. "Kiss me, Marie," he
+said at last; and she stooped over him and kissed his forehead. "I
+would do it now if I thought it would serve you." She only shook her
+head and pressed his hand closely. "I would; I would. Such things
+have been done, my dear."
+
+
+[Illustration: "I would; I would."]
+
+
+"Such a thing shall never be done by me, Duke."
+
+They remained seated side by side, the one holding the other by the
+hand, but without uttering another word, till Lady Glencora returned
+bringing a cup of tea and a morsel of toast in her own hand. Madame
+Goesler, as she took it, could not help thinking how it might have
+been with her had she accepted the coronet which had been offered. In
+that case she might have been a duchess herself, but assuredly she
+would not have been waited upon by a future duchess. As it was, there
+was no one in that family who had not cause to be grateful to her.
+When the Duke had sipped a spoonful of his broth, and swallowed his
+allowance of wine, they both left him, and the respectable old lady
+with the smart cap was summoned back to her position. "I suppose he
+whispered something very gracious to you," Lady Glencora said when
+they were alone.
+
+"Very gracious."
+
+"And you were gracious to him,--I hope."
+
+"I meant to be."
+
+"I'm sure you did. Poor old man! If you had done what he asked you I
+wonder whether his affection would have lasted as it has done."
+
+"Certainly not, Lady Glen. He would have known that I had injured
+him."
+
+"I declare I think you are the wisest woman I ever met, Madame Max.
+I am sure you are the most discreet. If I had always been as wise as
+you are!"
+
+"You always have been wise."
+
+"Well,--never mind. Some people fall on their feet like cats; but you
+are one of those who never fall at all. Others tumble about in the
+most unfortunate way, without any great fault of their own. Think of
+that poor Lady Laura."
+
+"Yes, indeed."
+
+"I suppose it's true about Mr. Kennedy. You've heard of it of course
+in London." But as it happened Madame Goesler had not heard the
+story. "I got it from Barrington Erle, who always writes to me if
+anything happens. Mr. Kennedy has fired a pistol at the head of
+Phineas Finn."
+
+"At Phineas Finn!"
+
+"Yes, indeed. Mr. Finn went to him at some hotel in London. No
+one knows what it was about; but Mr. Kennedy went off in a fit of
+jealousy, and fired a pistol at him."
+
+"He did not hit him?"
+
+"It seems not. Mr. Finn is one of those Irish gentlemen who always
+seem to be under some special protection. The ball went through his
+whiskers and didn't hurt him."
+
+"And what has become of Mr. Kennedy?"
+
+"Nothing, it seems. Nobody sent for the police, and he has been
+allowed to go back to Scotland,--as though a man were permitted by
+special Act of Parliament to try to murder his wife's lover. It would
+be a bad law, because it would cause such a deal of bloodshed."
+
+"But he is not Lady Laura's lover," said Madame Goesler, gravely.
+
+"That would make the law difficult, because who is to say whether a
+man is or is not a woman's lover?"
+
+"I don't think there was ever anything of that kind."
+
+"They were always together, but I dare say it was Platonic. I
+believe these kind of things generally are Platonic. And as for Lady
+Laura;--heavens and earth!--I suppose it must have been Platonic.
+What did the Duke say to you?"
+
+"He bade me kiss him."
+
+"Poor dear old man. He never ceases to speak of you when you are
+away, and I do believe he could not have gone in peace without seeing
+you. I doubt whether in all his life he ever loved any one as he
+loves you. We dine at half-past seven, dear: and you had better just
+go into his room for a moment as you come down. There isn't a soul
+here except Sir Omicron Pie, and Plantagenet, and two of the other
+nephews,--whom, by the bye, he has refused to see. Old Lady Hartletop
+wanted to come."
+
+"And you wouldn't have her?"
+
+"I couldn't have refused. I shouldn't have dared. But the Duke would
+not hear of it. He made me write to say that he was too weak to see
+any but his nearest relatives. Then he made me send for you, my
+dear;--and now he won't see the relatives. What shall we do if Lady
+Hartletop turns up? I'm living in fear of it. You'll have to be shut
+up out of sight somewhere if that should happen."
+
+During the next two or three days the Duke was neither much better
+nor much worse. Bulletins appeared in the newspapers, though no one
+at Matching knew from whence they came. Sir Omicron Pie, who, having
+retired from general practice, was enabled to devote his time to the
+"dear Duke," protested that he had no hand in sending them out. He
+declared to Lady Glencora every morning that it was only a question
+of time. "The vital spark is on the spring," said Sir Omicron, waving
+a gesture heavenward with his hand. For three days Mr. Palliser was
+at Matching, and he duly visited his uncle twice a day. But not a
+syllable was ever said between them beyond the ordinary words of
+compliments. Mr. Palliser spent his time with his private secretary,
+working out endless sums and toiling for unapproachable results in
+reference to decimal coinage. To him his uncle's death would be a
+great blow, as in his eyes to be Chancellor of the Exchequer was much
+more than to be Duke of Omnium. For herself Lady Glencora was nearly
+equally indifferent, though she did in her heart of hearts wish that
+her son should go to Eton with the title of Lord Silverbridge.
+
+On the third morning the Duke suddenly asked a question of Madame
+Goesler. The two were again sitting near to each other, and the Duke
+was again holding her hand; but Lady Glencora was also in the room.
+"Have you not been staying with Lord Chiltern?"
+
+"Yes, Duke."
+
+"He is a friend of yours."
+
+"I used to know his wife before they were married."
+
+"Why does he go on writing me letters about a wood?" This he asked in
+a wailing voice, as though he were almost weeping. "I know nothing
+of Lord Chiltern. Why does he write to me about the wood? I wish he
+wouldn't write to me."
+
+"He does not know that you are ill, Duke. By-the-bye, I promised to
+speak to Lady Glencora about it. He says that foxes are poisoned at
+Trumpeton Wood."
+
+"I don't believe a word of it," said the Duke. "No one would poison
+foxes in my wood. I wish you'd see about it, Glencora. Plantagenet
+will never attend to anything. But he shouldn't write to me. He ought
+to know better than to write letters to me. I will not have people
+writing letters to me. Why don't they write to Fothergill?" and then
+the Duke began in truth to whimper.
+
+"I'll put it all right," said Lady Glencora.
+
+"I wish you would. I don't like them to say there are no foxes; and
+Plantagenet never will attend to anything." The wife had long since
+ceased to take the husband's part when accusations such as this were
+brought against him. Nothing could make Mr. Palliser think it worth
+his while to give up any shred of his time to such a matter as the
+preservation of foxes.
+
+On the fourth day the catastrophe happened which Lady Glencora had
+feared. A fly with a pair of horses from the Matching Road station
+was driven up to the door of the Priory, and Lady Hartletop was
+announced. "I knew it," said Lady Glencora, slapping her hand down on
+the table in the room in which she was sitting with Madame Goesler.
+Unfortunately the old lady was shown into the room before Madame
+Goesler could escape, and they passed each other on the threshold.
+The Dowager Marchioness of Hartletop was a very stout old lady, now
+perhaps nearer to seventy than sixty-five years of age, who for many
+years had been the intimate friend of the Duke of Omnium. In latter
+days, during which she had seen but little of the Duke himself, she
+had heard of Madame Max Goesler, but she had never met that lady.
+Nevertheless, she knew the rival friend at a glance. Some instinct
+told her that that woman with the black brow and the dark curls was
+Madame Goesler. In these days the Marchioness was given to waddling
+rather than to walking, but she waddled past the foreign female,--as
+she had often called Madame Max,--with a dignified though duck-like
+step. Lady Hartletop was a bold woman; and it must be supposed that
+she had some heart within her or she would hardly have made such
+a journey with such a purpose. "Dear Lady Hartletop," said Lady
+Glencora, "I am so sorry that you should have had this trouble."
+
+"I must see him," said Lady Hartletop. Lady Glencora put both her
+hands together piteously, as though deprecating her visitor's wrath.
+"I must insist on seeing him."
+
+"Sir Omicron has refused permission to any one to visit him."
+
+"I shall not go till I've seen him. Who was that lady?"
+
+"A friend of mine," said Lady Glencora, drawing herself up.
+
+"She is--, Madame Goesler."
+
+"That is her name, Lady Hartletop. She is my most intimate friend."
+
+"Does she see the Duke?"
+
+Lady Glencora, when expressing her fear that the woman would come
+to Matching, had confessed that she was afraid of Lady Hartletop.
+And a feeling of dismay--almost of awe--had fallen upon her on
+hearing the Marchioness announced. But when she found herself thus
+cross-examined, she resolved that she would be bold. Nothing on
+earth should induce her to open the door of the Duke's room to Lady
+Hartletop, nor would she scruple to tell the truth about Madame
+Goesler. "Yes," she said, "Madame Goesler does see the Duke."
+
+"And I am to be excluded!"
+
+"My dear Lady Hartletop, what can I do? The Duke for some time past
+has been accustomed to the presence of my friend, and therefore her
+presence now is no disturbance. Surely that can be understood."
+
+"I should not disturb him."
+
+"He would be inexpressibly excited were he to know that you were even
+in the house. And I could not take it upon myself to tell him."
+
+Then Lady Hartletop threw herself upon a sofa, and began to weep
+piteously. "I have known him for more than forty years," she moaned,
+through her choking tears. Lady Glencora's heart was softened, and
+she was kind and womanly; but she would not give way about the Duke.
+It would, as she knew, have been useless, as the Duke had declared
+that he would see no one except his eldest nephew, his nephew's wife,
+and Madame Goesler.
+
+That evening was very dreadful to all of them at Matching,--except
+to the Duke, who was never told of Lady Hartletop's perseverance.
+The poor old woman could not be sent away on that afternoon, and was
+therefore forced to dine with Mr. Palliser. He, however, was warned
+by his wife to say nothing in the lady's presence about his uncle,
+and he received her as he would receive any other chance guest
+at his wife's table. But the presence of Madame Goesler made the
+chief difficulty. She herself was desirous of disappearing for that
+evening, but Lady Glencora would not permit it. "She has seen you,
+my dear, and asked about you. If you hide yourself, she'll say all
+sorts of things." An introduction was therefore necessary, and Lady
+Hartletop's manner was grotesquely grand. She dropped a very low
+curtsey, and made a very long face, but she did not say a word. In
+the evening the Marchioness sat close to Lady Glencora, whispering
+many things about the Duke; and condescending at last to a final
+entreaty that she might be permitted to see him on the following
+morning. "There is Sir Omicron," said Lady Glencora, turning round
+to the little doctor. But Lady Hartletop was too proud to appeal to
+Sir Omicron, who, as a matter of course, would support the orders of
+Lady Glencora. On the next morning Madame Goesler did not appear at
+the breakfast-table, and at eleven Lady Hartletop was taken back to
+the train in Lady Glencora's carriage. She had submitted herself to
+discomfort, indignity, fatigue, and disappointment; and it had all
+been done for love. With her broad face, and her double chin, and her
+heavy jowl, and the beard that was growing round her lips, she did
+not look like a romantic woman; but, in spite of appearances, romance
+and a duck-like waddle may go together. The memory of those forty
+years had been strong upon her, and her heart was heavy because she
+could not see that old man once again. Men will love to the last,
+but they love what is fresh and new. A woman's love can live on the
+recollection of the past, and cling to what is old and ugly. "What
+an episode!" said Lady Glencora, when the unwelcome visitor was
+gone;--"but it's odd how much less dreadful things are than you think
+they will be. I was frightened when I heard her name; but you see
+we've got through it without much harm."
+
+A week passed by, and still the Duke was living. But now he was too
+weak to be moved from one room to another, and Madame Goesler passed
+two hours each day sitting by his bedside. He would lie with his hand
+out upon the coverlid, and she would put hers upon it; but very few
+words passed between them. He grumbled again about the Trumpeton
+Woods, and Lord Chiltern's interference, and complained of his
+nephew's indifference. As to himself and his own condition, he seemed
+to be, at any rate, without discomfort, and was certainly free from
+fear. A clergyman attended him, and gave him the sacrament. He took
+it,--as the champagne prescribed by Sir Omicron, or the few mouthfuls
+of chicken broth which were administered to him by the old lady with
+the smart cap; but it may be doubted whether he thought much more of
+the one remedy than of the other. He knew that he had lived, and that
+the thing was done. His courage never failed him. As to the future,
+he neither feared much nor hoped much; but was, unconsciously,
+supported by a general trust in the goodness and the greatness of
+the God who had made him what he was. "It is nearly done now, Marie,"
+he said to Madame Goesler one evening. She only pressed his hand in
+answer. His condition was too well understood between them to allow
+of her speaking to him of any possible recovery. "It has been a great
+comfort to me that I have known you," he said.
+
+"Oh no!"
+
+"A great comfort;--only I wish it had been sooner. I could have
+talked to you about things which I never did talk of to any one. I
+wonder why I should have been a duke, and another man a servant."
+
+"God Almighty ordained such difference."
+
+"I'm afraid I have not done it well;--but I have tried; indeed I have
+tried." Then she told him he had ever lived as a great nobleman ought
+to live. And, after a fashion, she herself believed what she was
+saying. Nevertheless, her nature was much nobler than his; and she
+knew that no man should dare to live idly as the Duke had lived.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+THE DUKE'S WILL.
+
+
+On the ninth day after Madame Goesler's arrival the Duke died, and
+Lady Glencora Palliser became Duchess of Omnium. But the change
+probably was much greater to Mr. Palliser than to his wife. It would
+seem to be impossible to imagine a greater change than had come upon
+him. As to rank, he was raised from that of a simple commoner to the
+very top of the tree. He was made master of almost unlimited wealth,
+Garters, and lord-lieutenancies; and all the added grandeurs which
+come from high influence when joined to high rank were sure to be
+his. But he was no more moved by these things than would have been a
+god, or a block of wood. His uncle was dead; but his uncle had been
+an old man, and his grief on that score was moderate. As soon as his
+uncle's body had been laid in the family vault at Gatherum, men would
+call him Duke of Omnium; and then he could never sit again in the
+House of Commons. It was in that light, and in that light only, that
+he regarded the matter. To his uncle it had been everything to be
+Duke of Omnium. To Plantagenet Palliser it was less than nothing.
+He had lived among men and women with titles all his life, himself
+untitled, but regarded by them as one of themselves, till the thing,
+in his estimation, had come to seem almost nothing. One man walked
+out of a room before another man; and he, as Chancellor of the
+Exchequer, had, during a part of his career, walked out of most rooms
+before most men. But he cared not at all whether he walked out first
+or last,--and for him there was nothing else in it. It was a toy that
+would perhaps please his wife, but he doubted even whether she would
+not cease to be Lady Glencora with regret. In himself this thing that
+had happened had absolutely crushed him. He had won for himself by
+his own aptitudes and his own industry one special position in the
+empire,--and that position, and that alone, was incompatible with the
+rank which he was obliged to assume! His case was very hard, and he
+felt it;--but he made no complaint to human ears. "I suppose you must
+give up the Exchequer," his wife said to him. He shook his head, and
+made no reply. Even to her he could not explain his feelings.
+
+I think, too, that she did regret the change in her name, though she
+was by no means indifferent to the rank. As Lady Glencora she had
+made a reputation which might very possibly fall away from her as
+Duchess of Omnium. Fame is a skittish jade, more fickle even than
+Fortune, and apt to shy, and bolt, and plunge away on very trifling
+causes. As Lady Glencora Palliser she was known to every one, and had
+always done exactly as she had pleased. The world in which she lived
+had submitted to her fantasies, and had placed her on a pedestal from
+which, as Lady Glencora, nothing could have moved her. She was by no
+means sure that the same pedestal would be able to carry the Duchess
+of Omnium. She must begin again, and such beginnings are dangerous.
+As Lady Glencora she had almost taken upon herself to create a
+rivalry in society to certain very distinguished, and indeed
+illustrious, people. There were only two houses in London, she used
+to say, to which she never went. The "never" was not quite true;--but
+there had been something in it. She doubted whether as Duchess of
+Omnium she could go on with this. She must lay down her mischief,
+and abandon her eccentricity, and in some degree act like other
+duchesses. "The poor old man," she said to Madame Goesler; "I wish
+he could have gone on living a little longer." At this time the
+two ladies were alone together at Matching. Mr. Palliser, with the
+cousins, had gone to Gatherum, whither also had been sent all that
+remained of the late Duke, in order that fitting funeral obsequies
+might be celebrated over the great family vault.
+
+"He would hardly have wished it himself, I think."
+
+"One never knows,--and as far as one can look into futurity one has
+no idea what would be one's own feelings. I suppose he did enjoy
+life."
+
+"Hardly, for the last twelve months," said Madame Goesler.
+
+"I think he did. He was happy when you were about him; and he
+interested himself about things. Do you remember how much he used to
+think of Lady Eustace and her diamonds? When I first knew him he was
+too magnificent to care about anything."
+
+"I suppose his nature was the same."
+
+"Yes, my dear; his nature was the same, but he was strong enough to
+restrain his nature, and wise enough to know that his magnificence
+was incompatible with ordinary interests. As he got to be older he
+broke down, and took up with mere mortal gossip. But I think it must
+have made him happier."
+
+"He showed his weakness in coming to me," said Madame Goesler,
+laughing.
+
+"Of course he did;--not in liking your society, but in wanting to
+give you his name. I have often wondered what kind of things he used
+to say to that old Lady Hartletop. That was in his full grandeur,
+and he never condescended to speak much then. I used to think him so
+hard; but I suppose he was only acting his part. I used to call him
+the Grand Lama to Plantagenet when we were first married,--before
+Planty was born. I shall always call him Silverbridge now instead of
+Planty."
+
+"I would let others do that."
+
+"Of course I was joking; but others will, and he will be spoilt.
+I wonder whether he will live to be a Grand Lama or a popular
+Minister. There cannot be two positions further apart. My husband,
+no doubt, thinks a good deal of himself as a statesman and a clever
+politician,--at least I suppose he does; but he has not the slightest
+reverence for himself as a nobleman. If the dear old Duke were
+hobbling along Piccadilly, he was conscious that Piccadilly was
+graced by his presence, and never moved without being aware that
+people looked at him, and whispered to each other,--'There goes the
+Duke of Omnium.' Plantagenet considers himself inferior to a sweeper
+while on the crossing, and never feels any pride of place unless he
+is sitting on the Treasury Bench with his hat over his eyes."
+
+"He'll never sit on the Treasury Bench again."
+
+"No;--poor dear. He's an Othello now with a vengeance, for his
+occupation is gone. I spoke to him about your friend and the foxes,
+and he told me to write to Mr. Fothergill. I will as soon as it's
+decent. I fancy a new duchess shouldn't write letters about foxes
+till the old Duke is buried. I wonder what sort of a will he'll have
+made. There's nothing I care twopence for except his pearls. No man
+in England had such a collection of precious stones. They'd been
+yours, my dear, if you had consented to be Mrs. O."
+
+The Duke was buried and the will was read, and Plantagenet Palliser
+was addressed as Duke of Omnium by all the tenantry and retainers
+of the family in the great hall of Gatherum Castle. Mr. Fothergill,
+who had upon occasion in former days been driven by his duty to
+remonstrate with the heir, was all submission. Planty Pall had come
+to the throne, and half a county was ready to worship him. But he
+did not know how to endure worship, and the half county declared
+that he was stern and proud, and more haughty even than his uncle.
+At every "Grace" that was flung at him he winced and was miserable,
+and declared to himself that he should never become accustomed to
+his new life. So he sat all alone, and meditated how he might best
+reconcile the forty-eight farthings which go to a shilling with that
+thorough-going useful decimal, fifty.
+
+But his meditations did not prevent him from writing to his wife, and
+on the following morning, Lady Glencora,--as she shall be called now
+for the last time,--received a letter from him which disturbed her a
+good deal. She was in her room when it was brought to her, and for
+an hour after reading it hardly knew how to see her guest and friend,
+Madame Goesler. The passage in the letter which produced this dismay
+was as follows:--"He has left to Madame Goesler twenty thousand
+pounds and all his jewels. The money may be very well, but I think
+he has been wrong about the jewellery. As to myself I do not care a
+straw, but you will be sorry; and then people will talk. The lawyers
+will, of course, write to her, but I suppose you had better tell her.
+They seem to think that the stones are worth a great deal of money;
+but I have long learned never to believe any statement that is made
+to me. They are all here, and I suppose she will have to send some
+authorised person to have them packed. There is a regular inventory,
+of which a copy shall be sent to her by post as soon as it can be
+prepared." Now it must be owned that the duchess did begrudge her
+friend the duke's collection of pearls and diamonds.
+
+About noon they met. "My dear," she said, "you had better hear your
+good fortune at once. Read that,--just that side. Plantagenet is
+wrong in saying that I shall regret it. I don't care a bit about
+it. If I want a ring or a brooch he can buy me one. But I never did
+care about such things, and I don't now. The money is all just as it
+should be." Madame Goesler read the passage, and the blood mounted
+up into her face. She read it very slowly, and when she had finished
+reading it she was for a moment or two at a loss for her words to
+express herself. "You had better send one of Garnett's people,"
+said the Duchess, naming the house of a distinguished jeweller and
+goldsmith in London.
+
+"It will hardly need," said Madame Goesler.
+
+"You had better be careful. There is no knowing what they are worth.
+He spent half his income on them, I believe, during part of his
+life." There was a roughness about the Duchess of which she was
+herself conscious, but which she could not restrain, though she knew
+that it betrayed her chagrin.
+
+Madame Goesler came gently up to her and touched her arm caressingly.
+"Do you remember," said Madame Goesler, "a small ring with a black
+diamond,--I suppose it was a diamond,--which he always wore?"
+
+"I remember that he always did wear such a ring."
+
+"I should like to have that," said Madame Goesler.
+
+"You have them all,--everything. He makes no distinction."
+
+"I should like to have that, Lady Glen,--for the sake of the hand
+that wore it. But, as God is great above us, I will never take aught
+else that has belonged to the Duke."
+
+"Not take them!"
+
+"Not a gem; not a stone; not a shilling."
+
+"But you must."
+
+"I rather think that I can be under no such obligation," she said,
+laughing. "Will you write to Mr. Palliser,--or I should say, to the
+Duke,--to-night, and tell him that my mind is absolutely made up?"
+
+"I certainly shall not do that."
+
+"Then I must. As it is, I shall have pleasant memories of his Grace.
+According to my ability I have endeavoured to be good to him, and I
+have no stain on my conscience because of his friendship. If I took
+his money and his jewels,--or rather your money and your jewels,--do
+you think I could say as much?"
+
+"Everybody takes what anybody leaves them by will."
+
+"I will be an exception to the rule, Lady Glen. Don't you think that
+your friendship is more to me than all the diamonds in London?"
+
+"You shall have both, my dear," said the Duchess,--quite in earnest
+in her promise. Madame Goesler shook her head. "Nobody ever
+repudiates legacies. The Queen would take the jewels if they were
+left to her."
+
+"I am not the Queen. I have to be more careful what I do than any
+queen. I will take nothing under the Duke's will. I will ask a boon
+which I have already named, and if it be given me as a gift by
+the Duke's heir, I will wear it till I die. You will write to Mr.
+Palliser?"
+
+"I couldn't do it," said the Duchess.
+
+"Then I will write myself." And she did write, and of all the rich
+things which the Duke of Omnium had left to her, she took nothing but
+the little ring with the black stone which he had always worn on his
+finger.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+AN EDITOR'S WRATH.
+
+
+On that Sunday evening in London Mr. Low was successful in finding
+the Vice-Chancellor, and the great judge smiled and nodded, listened
+to the story, and acknowledged that the circumstances were very
+peculiar. He thought that an injunction to restrain the publication
+might be given at once upon Mr. Finn's affidavit; and that the
+peculiar circumstances justified the peculiarity of Mr. Low's
+application. Whether he would have said as much had the facts
+concerned the families of Mr. Joseph Smith and his son-in-law Mr.
+John Jones, instead of the Earl of Brentford and the Right Honourable
+Robert Kennedy, some readers will perhaps doubt, and may doubt also
+whether an application coming from some newly-fledged barrister would
+have been received as graciously as that made by Mr. Low, Q.C. and
+M.P.,--who would probably himself soon sit on some lofty legal bench.
+On the following morning Phineas and Mr. Low,--and no doubt also Mr.
+Vice-Chancellor Pickering,--obtained early copies of the People's
+Banner, and were delighted to find that Mr. Kennedy's letter did not
+appear in it. Mr. Low had made his calculation rightly. The editor,
+considering that he would gain more by having the young member of
+Parliament and the Standish family, as it were, in his hands than by
+the publication of a certain libellous letter, had resolved to put
+the document back for at least twenty-four hours, even though the
+young member neither came nor wrote as he had promised. The letter
+did not appear, and before ten o'clock Phineas Finn had made his
+affidavit in a dingy little room behind the Vice-Chancellor's Court.
+The injunction was at once issued, and was of such potency that
+should any editor dare to publish any paper therein prohibited, that
+editor and that editor's newspaper would assuredly be crumpled up in
+a manner very disagreeable, if not altogether destructive. Editors
+of newspapers are self-willed, arrogant, and stiff-necked, a race
+of men who believe much in themselves and little in anything else,
+with no feelings of reverence or respect for matters which are
+august enough to other men;--but an injunction from a Court of
+Chancery is a power which even an editor respects. At about noon
+Vice-Chancellor Pickering's injunction was served at the office of
+the People's Banner in Quartpot Alley, Fleet Street. It was done
+in duplicate,--or perhaps in triplicate,--so that there should be
+no evasion; and all manner of crumpling was threatened in the event
+of any touch of disobedience. All this happened on Monday, March the
+first, while the poor dying Duke was waiting impatiently for the
+arrival of his friend at Matching. Phineas was busy all the morning
+till it was time that he should go down to the House. For as soon as
+he could leave Mr. Low's chambers in Lincoln's Inn he had gone to
+Judd Street, to inquire as to the condition of the man who had tried
+to murder him. He there saw Mr. Kennedy's cousin, and received an
+assurance from that gentleman that Robert Kennedy should be taken
+down at once to Loughlinter. Up to that moment not a word had been
+said to the police as to what had been done. No more notice had been
+taken of the attempt to murder than might have been necessary had Mr.
+Kennedy thrown a clothes-brush at his visitor's head. There was the
+little hole in the post of the door with the bullet in it, just six
+feet above the ground; and there was the pistol, with five chambers
+still loaded, which Macpherson had cunningly secured on his return
+from church, and given over to the cousin that same evening. There
+was certainly no want of evidence, but nobody was disposed to use it.
+
+At noon the injunction was served in Quartpot Alley, and was put into
+Mr. Slide's hands on his arrival at the office at three o'clock. That
+gentleman's duties required his attendance from three till five in
+the afternoon, and then again from nine in the evening till any hour
+in the morning at which he might be able to complete the People's
+Banner for that day's use. He had been angry with Phineas when the
+Sunday night passed without a visit or letter at the office, as
+a promise had been made that there should be either a visit or a
+letter; but he had felt sure, as he walked into the city from his
+suburban residence at Camden Town, that he would now find some
+communication on the great subject. The matter was one of most
+serious importance. Such a letter as that which was in his possession
+would no doubt create much surprise, and receive no ordinary
+attention. A People's Banner could hardly ask for a better bit of
+good fortune than the privilege of first publishing such a letter. It
+would no doubt be copied into every London paper, and into hundreds
+of provincial papers, and every journal so copying it would be
+bound to declare that it was taken from the columns of the People's
+Banner. It was, indeed, addressed "To the Editor of the People's
+Banner" in the printed slip which Mr. Slide had shown to Phineas
+Finn, though Kennedy himself had not prefixed to it any such
+direction. And the letter, in the hands of Quintus Slide, would
+not simply have been a letter. It might have been groundwork for,
+perhaps, some half-dozen leading articles, all of a most attractive
+kind. Mr. Slide's high moral tone upon such an occasion would have
+been qualified to do good to every British matron, and to add
+virtues to the Bench of Bishops. All this he had postponed with some
+inadequately defined idea that he could do better with the property
+in his hands by putting himself into personal communication with the
+persons concerned. If he could manage to reconcile such a husband
+to such a wife,--or even to be conspicuous in an attempt to do so;
+and if he could make the old Earl and the young Member of Parliament
+feel that he had spared them by abstaining from the publication, the
+results might be very beneficial. His conception of the matter had
+been somewhat hazy, and he had certainly made a mistake. But, as
+he walked from his home to Quartpot Alley, he little dreamed of
+the treachery with which he had been treated. "Has Phineas Finn
+been here?" he asked as he took his accustomed seat within a small
+closet, that might be best described as a glass cage. Around him lay
+the debris of many past newspapers, and the germs of many future
+publications. To all the world except himself it would have been a
+chaos, but to him, with his experience, it was admirable order. No;
+Mr. Finn had not been there. And then, as he was searching among the
+letters for one from the Member for Tankerville, the injunction was
+thrust into his hands. To say that he was aghast is but a poor form
+of speech for the expression of his emotion.
+
+He had been "done"--"sold,"--absolutely robbed by that
+wretchedly-false Irishman whom he had trusted with all the confidence
+of a candid nature and an open heart! He had been most treacherously
+misused! Treachery was no adequate word for the injury inflicted
+on him. The more potent is a man, the less accustomed to endure
+injustice, and the more his power to inflict it,--the greater is the
+sting and the greater the astonishment when he himself is made to
+suffer. Newspaper editors sport daily with the names of men of whom
+they do not hesitate to publish almost the severest words that can
+be uttered;--but let an editor be himself attacked, even without
+his name, and he thinks that the thunderbolts of heaven should fall
+upon the offender. Let his manners, his truth, his judgment, his
+honesty, or even his consistency be questioned, and thunderbolts
+are forthcoming, though they may not be from heaven. There should
+certainly be a thunderbolt or two now, but Mr. Slide did not at first
+quite see how they were to be forged.
+
+He read the injunction again and again. As far as the document went
+he knew its force, and recognised the necessity of obedience. He
+might, perhaps, be able to use the information contained in the
+letter from Mr. Kennedy, so as to harass Phineas and Lady Laura and
+the Earl, but he was at once aware that it must not be published.
+An editor is bound to avoid the meshes of the law, which are always
+infinitely more costly to companies, or things, or institutions, than
+they are to individuals. Of fighting with Chancery he had no notion;
+but it should go hard with him if he did not have a fight with
+Phineas Finn. And then there arose another cause for deep sorrow. A
+paragraph was shown to him in a morning paper of that day which must,
+he thought, refer to Mr. Kennedy and Phineas Finn. "A rumour has
+reached us that a member of Parliament, calling yesterday afternoon
+upon a right honourable gentleman, a member of a late Government, at
+his hotel, was shot at by the latter in his sitting room. Whether
+the rumour be true or not we have no means of saying, and therefore
+abstain from publishing names. We are informed that the gentleman who
+used the pistol was out of his mind. The bullet did not take effect."
+How cruel it was that such information should have reached the hands
+of a rival, and not fallen in the way of the People's Banner! And
+what a pity that the bullet should have been wasted! The paragraph
+must certainly refer to Phineas Finn and Kennedy. Finn, a Member of
+Parliament, had been sent by Slide himself to call upon Kennedy, a
+member of the late Government, at Kennedy's hotel. And the paragraph
+must be true. He himself had warned Finn that there would be danger
+in the visit. He had even prophesied murder,--and murder had been
+attempted! The whole transaction had been, as it were, the very
+goods and chattels of the People's Banner, and the paper had been
+shamefully robbed of its property. Mr. Slide hardly doubted that
+Phineas Finn had himself sent the paragraph to an adverse paper,
+with the express view of adding to the injury inflicted upon the
+Banner. That day Mr. Slide hardly did his work effectively within his
+glass cage, so much was his mind affected, and at five o'clock, when
+he left his office, instead of going at once home to Mrs. Slide at
+Camden Town, he took an omnibus, and went down to Westminster. He
+would at once confront the traitor who had deceived him.
+
+It must be acknowledged on behalf of this editor that he did in truth
+believe that he had been hindered from doing good. The whole practice
+of his life had taught him to be confident that the editor of a
+newspaper must be the best possible judge,--indeed the only possible
+good judge,--whether any statement or story should or should not
+be published. Not altogether without a conscience, and intensely
+conscious of such conscience as did constrain him, Mr. Quintus
+Slide imagined that no law of libel, no injunction from any
+Vice-Chancellor, no outward power or pressure whatever was needed to
+keep his energies within their proper limits. He and his newspaper
+formed together a simply beneficent institution, any interference
+with which must of necessity be an injury to the public. Everything
+done at the office of the People's Banner was done in the interest
+of the People,--and, even though individuals might occasionally be
+made to suffer by the severity with which their names were handled
+in its columns, the general result was good. What are the sufferings
+of the few to the advantage of the many? If there be fault in
+high places, it is proper that it be exposed. If there be fraud,
+adulteries, gambling, and lasciviousness,--or even quarrels and
+indiscretions among those whose names are known, let every detail
+be laid open to the light, so that the people may have a warning.
+That such details will make a paper "pay" Mr. Slide knew also; but
+it is not only in Mr. Slide's path of life that the bias of a man's
+mind may lead him to find that virtue and profit are compatible.
+An unprofitable newspaper cannot long continue its existence, and,
+while existing, cannot be widely beneficial. It is the circulation,
+the profitable circulation,--of forty, fifty, sixty, or a hundred
+thousand copies through all the arteries and veins of the public body
+which is beneficent. And how can such circulation be effected unless
+the taste of the public be consulted? Mr. Quintus Slide, as he walked
+up Westminster Hall, in search of that wicked member of Parliament,
+did not at all doubt the goodness of his cause. He could not contest
+the Vice-Chancellor's injunction, but he was firm in his opinion
+that the Vice-Chancellor's injunction had inflicted an evil on the
+public at large, and he was unhappy within himself in that the power
+and majesty and goodness of the press should still be hampered by
+ignorance, prejudice, and favour for the great. He was quite sure
+that no injunction would have been granted in favour of Mr. Joseph
+Smith and Mr. John Jones.
+
+He went boldly up to one of the policemen who sit guarding the door
+of the lobby of our House of Commons, and asked for Mr. Finn. The
+Cerberus on the left was not sure whether Mr. Finn was in the House,
+but would send in a card if Mr. Slide would stand on one side. For
+the next quarter of an hour Mr. Slide heard no more of his message,
+and then applied again to the Cerberus. The Cerberus shook his head,
+and again desired the applicant to stand on one side. He had done all
+that in him lay. The other watchful Cerberus standing on the right,
+observing that the intruder was not accommodated with any member,
+intimated to him the propriety of standing back in one of the
+corners. Our editor turned round upon the man as though he would
+bite him;--but he did stand back, meditating an article on the
+gross want of attention to the public shown in the lobby of the
+House of Commons. Is it possible that any editor should endure any
+inconvenience without meditating an article? But the judicious editor
+thinks twice of such things. Our editor was still in his wrath when
+he saw his prey come forth from the House with a card,--no doubt his
+own card. He leaped forward in spite of the policeman, in spite of
+any Cerberus, and seized Phineas by the arm. "I want just to have a
+few words," he said. He made an effort to repress his wrath, knowing
+that the whole world would be against him should he exhibit any
+violence of indignation on that spot; but Phineas could see it all in
+the fire of his eye.
+
+"Certainly," said Phineas, retiring to the side of the lobby, with a
+conviction that the distance between him and the House was already
+sufficient.
+
+"Can't you come down into Westminster Hall?"
+
+"I should only have to come up again. You can say what you've got to
+say here."
+
+"I've got a great deal to say. I never was so badly treated in my
+life;--never." He could not quite repress his voice, and he saw that
+a policeman looked at him. Phineas saw it also.
+
+"Because we have hindered you from publishing an untrue and very
+slanderous letter about a lady!"
+
+"You promised me that you'd come to me yesterday."
+
+"I think not. I think I said that you should hear from me,--and you
+did."
+
+"You call that truth,--and honesty!"
+
+"Certainly I do. Of course it was my first duty to stop the
+publication of the letter."
+
+"You haven't done that yet."
+
+"I've done my best to stop it. If you have nothing more to say I'll
+wish you good evening."
+
+"I've a deal more to say. You were shot at, weren't you?"
+
+"I have no desire to make any communication to you on anything that
+has occurred, Mr. Slide. If I stayed with you all the afternoon I
+could tell you nothing more. Good evening."
+
+"I'll crush you," said Quintus Slide, in a stage whisper; "I will, as
+sure as my name is Slide."
+
+Phineas looked at him and retired into the House, whither Quintus
+Slide could not follow him, and the editor of the People's Banner
+was left alone in his anger.
+
+"How a cock can crow on his own dunghill!" That was Mr. Slide's
+first feeling, as with a painful sense of diminished consequence
+he retraced his steps through the outer lobbies and down into
+Westminster Hall. He had been browbeaten by Phineas Finn, simply
+because Phineas had been able to retreat within those happy doors. He
+knew that to the eyes of all the policemen and strangers assembled
+Phineas Finn had been a hero, a Parliamentary hero, and he had
+been some poor outsider,--to be ejected at once should he make
+himself disagreeable to the Members. Nevertheless, had he not all the
+columns of the People's Banner in his pocket? Was he not great in
+the Fourth Estate,--much greater than Phineas Finn in his estate?
+Could he not thunder every night so that an audience to be counted
+by hundreds of thousands should hear his thunder;--whereas this
+poor Member of Parliament must struggle night after night for an
+opportunity of speaking; and could then only speak to benches half
+deserted; or to a few Members half asleep,--unless the Press should
+choose to convert his words into thunderbolts. Who could doubt for
+a moment with which lay the greater power? And yet this wretched
+Irishman, who had wriggled himself into Parliament on a petition,
+getting the better of a good, downright English John Bull by a
+quibble, had treated him with scorn,--the wretched Irishman being for
+the moment like a cock on his own dunghill. Quintus Slide was not
+slow to tell himself that he also had an elevation of his own, from
+which he could make himself audible. In former days he had forgiven
+Phineas Finn more than once. If he ever forgave Phineas Finn again
+might his right hand forget its cunning, and never again draw blood
+or tear a scalp.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+THE FIRST THUNDERBOLT.
+
+
+It was not till after Mr. Slide had left him that Phineas wrote the
+following letter to Lady Laura:--
+
+
+   House of Commons, 1st March, 18--.
+
+   MY DEAR FRIEND,
+
+   I have a long story to tell, which I fear I shall find
+   difficult in the telling; but it is so necessary that you
+   should know the facts that I must go through with it as
+   best I may. It will give you very great pain; but the
+   result as regards your own position will not I think be
+   injurious to you.
+
+   Yesterday, Sunday, a man came to me who edits a newspaper,
+   and whom I once knew. You will remember when I used to
+   tell you in Portman Square of the amenities and angers of
+   Mr. Slide,--the man who wanted to sit for Loughton. He is
+   the editor. He brought me a long letter from Mr. Kennedy
+   himself, intended for publication, and which was already
+   printed, giving an elaborate and, I may say, a most
+   cruelly untrue account of your quarrel. I read the letter,
+   but of course cannot remember the words. Nor if I could
+   remember them should I repeat them. They contained all the
+   old charges with which you are familiar, and which your
+   unfortunate husband now desired to publish in consummation
+   of his threats. Why Mr. Slide should have brought me the
+   paper before publishing it I can hardly understand. But he
+   did so;--and told me that Mr. Kennedy was in town. We have
+   managed among us to obtain a legal warrant for preventing
+   the publication of the letter, and I think I may say that
+   it will not see the light.
+
+   When Mr. Slide left me I called on Mr. Kennedy, whom I
+   found in a miserable little hotel, in Judd Street, kept
+   by Scotch people named Macpherson. They had come from the
+   neighbourhood of Loughlinter, and knew Mr. Kennedy well.
+   This was yesterday afternoon, Sunday, and I found some
+   difficulty in making my way into his presence. My object
+   was to induce him to withdraw the letter;--for at that
+   time I doubted whether the law could interfere quickly
+   enough to prevent the publication.
+
+   I found your husband in a very sad condition. What he said
+   or what I said I forget; but he was as usual intensely
+   anxious that you should return to him. I need not hesitate
+   now to say that he is certainly mad. After a while, when I
+   expressed my assured opinion that you would not go back to
+   Loughlinter, he suddenly turned round, grasped a revolver,
+   and fired at my head. How I got out of the room I don't
+   quite remember. Had he repeated the shot, which he might
+   have done over and over again, he must have hit me. As
+   it was I escaped, and blundered down the stairs to Mrs.
+   Macpherson's room.
+
+   They whom I have consulted in the matter, namely,
+   Barrington Erle and my particular friend, Mr. Low,--to
+   whom I went for legal assistance in stopping the
+   publication,--seem to think that I should have at once
+   sent for the police, and given Mr. Kennedy in charge. But
+   I did not do so, and hitherto the police have, I believe,
+   no knowledge of what occurred. A paragraph appeared in one
+   of the morning papers to-day, giving almost an accurate
+   account of the matter, but mentioning neither the place
+   nor any of the names. No doubt it will be repeated in
+   all the papers, and the names will soon be known. But
+   the result will be simply a general conviction as to the
+   insanity of poor Mr. Kennedy,--as to which they who know
+   him have had for a long time but little doubt.
+
+   The Macphersons seem to have been very anxious to screen
+   their guest. At any other hotel no doubt the landlord
+   would have sent for the police;--but in this case the
+   attempt was kept quite secret. They did send for George
+   Kennedy, a cousin of your husband's, whom I think you
+   know, and whom I saw this morning. He assures me that
+   Robert Kennedy is quite aware of the wickedness of the
+   attempt he made, and that he is plunged in deep remorse.
+   He is to be taken down to Loughlinter to-morrow, and
+   is,--so says his cousin,--as tractable as a child. What
+   George Kennedy means to do, I cannot say; but for myself,
+   as I did not send for the police at the moment, as I am
+   told I ought to have done, I shall now do nothing. I don't
+   know that a man is subject to punishment because he does
+   not make complaint. I suppose I have a right to regard it
+   all as an accident if I please.
+
+   But for you this must be very important. That Mr. Kennedy
+   is insane there cannot now, I think, be a doubt; and
+   therefore the question of your returning to him,--as far
+   as there has been any question,--is absolutely settled.
+   None of your friends would be justified in allowing you to
+   return. He is undoubtedly mad, and has done an act which
+   is not murderous only on that conclusion. This settles the
+   question so perfectly that you could, no doubt, reside in
+   England now without danger. Mr. Kennedy himself would feel
+   that he could take no steps to enforce your return after
+   what he did yesterday. Indeed, if you could bring yourself
+   to face the publicity, you could, I imagine, obtain a
+   legal separation which would give you again the control of
+   your own fortune. I feel myself bound to mention this; but
+   I give you no advice. You will no doubt explain all the
+   circumstances to your father.
+
+   I think I have now told you everything that I need tell
+   you. The thing only happened yesterday, and I have been
+   all the morning busy, getting the injunction, and seeing
+   Mr. George Kennedy. Just before I began this letter that
+   horrible editor was with me again, threatening me with
+   all the penalties which an editor can inflict. To tell
+   the truth, I do feel confused among them all, and still
+   fancy that I hear the click of the pistol. That newspaper
+   paragraph says that the ball went through my whiskers,
+   which was certainly not the case;--but a foot or two off
+   is quite near enough for a pistol ball.
+
+   The Duke of Omnium is dying, and I have heard to-day that
+   Madame Goesler, our old friend, has been sent for to
+   Matching. She and I renewed our acquaintance the other day
+   at Harrington.
+
+   God bless you.
+
+   Your most sincere friend,
+
+   PHINEAS FINN.
+
+   Do not let my news oppress you. The firing of the pistol
+   is a thing done and over without evil results. The state
+   of Mr. Kennedy's mind is what we have long suspected; and,
+   melancholy though it be, should contain for you at any
+   rate this consolation,--that the accusations made against
+   you would not have been made had his mind been unclouded.
+
+
+Twice while Finn was writing this letter was he rung into the House
+for a division, and once it was suggested to him to say a few words
+of angry opposition to the Government on some not important subject
+under discussion. Since the beginning of the Session hardly a night
+had passed without some verbal sparring, and very frequently the
+limits of parliamentary decorum had been almost surpassed. Never
+within the memory of living politicians had political rancour been so
+sharp, and the feeling of injury so keen, both on the one side and on
+the other. The taunts thrown at the Conservatives, in reference to
+the Church, had been almost unendurable,--and the more so because the
+strong expressions of feeling from their own party throughout the
+country were against them. Their own convictions also were against
+them. And there had for a while been almost a determination through
+the party to deny their leader and disclaim the bill. But a feeling
+of duty to the party had prevailed, and this had not been done. It
+had not been done; but the not doing of it was a sore burden on the
+half-broken shoulders of many a man who sat gloomily on the benches
+behind Mr. Daubeny. Men goaded as they were, by their opponents,
+by their natural friends, and by their own consciences, could not
+bear it in silence, and very bitter things were said in return. Mr.
+Gresham was accused of a degrading lust for power. No other feeling
+could prompt him to oppose with a factious acrimony never before
+exhibited in that House,--so said some wretched Conservative with
+broken back and broken heart,--a measure which he himself would only
+be too willing to carry were he allowed the privilege of passing over
+to the other side of the House for the purpose. In these encounters,
+Phineas Finn had already exhibited his prowess, and, in spite of his
+declarations at Tankerville, had become prominent as an opponent to
+Mr. Daubeny's bill. He had, of course, himself been taunted, and held
+up in the House to the execration of his own constituents; but he had
+enjoyed his fight, and had remembered how his friend Mr. Monk had
+once told him that the pleasure lay all on the side of opposition.
+But on this evening he declined to speak. "I suppose you have hardly
+recovered from Kennedy's pistol," said Mr. Ratler, who had, of
+course, heard the whole story. "That, and the whole affair together
+have upset me," said Phineas. "Fitzgibbon will do it for you; he's in
+the House." And so it happened that on that occasion the Honourable
+Laurence Fitzgibbon made a very effective speech against the
+Government.
+
+On the next morning from the columns of the People's Banner was
+hurled the first of those thunderbolts with which it was the purpose
+of Mr. Slide absolutely to destroy the political and social life of
+Phineas Finn. He would not miss his aim as Mr. Kennedy had done. He
+would strike such blows that no constituency should ever venture to
+return Mr. Finn again to Parliament; and he thought that he could
+also so strike his blows that no mighty nobleman, no distinguished
+commoner, no lady of rank should again care to entertain the
+miscreant and feed him with the dainties of fashion. The first
+thunderbolt was as follows:--
+
+
+   We abstained yesterday from alluding to a circumstance
+   which occurred at a small hotel in Judd Street on Sunday
+   afternoon, and which, as we observe, was mentioned by one
+   of our contemporaries. The names, however, were not given,
+   although the persons implicated were indicated. We can
+   see no reason why the names should be concealed. Indeed,
+   as both the gentlemen concerned have been guilty of very
+   great criminality, we think that we are bound to tell the
+   whole story,--and this the more especially as certain
+   circumstances have in a very peculiar manner placed us in
+   possession of the facts.
+
+   It is no secret that for the last two years Lady
+   Laura Kennedy has been separated from her husband,
+   the Honourable Robert Kennedy, who, in the last
+   administration, under Mr. Mildmay, held the office of
+   Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster; and we believe as
+   little a secret that Mr. Kennedy has been very persistent
+   in endeavouring to recall his wife to her home. With equal
+   persistence she has refused to obey, and we have in our
+   hands the clearest possible evidence that Mr. Kennedy has
+   attributed her obstinate refusal to influence exercised
+   over her by Mr. Phineas Finn, who three years since was
+   her father's nominee for the then existing borough of
+   Loughton, and who lately succeeded in ousting poor Mr.
+   Browborough from his seat for Tankerville by his impetuous
+   promises to support that very measure of Church Reform
+   which he is now opposing with that venom which makes him
+   valuable to his party. Whether Mr. Phineas Finn will ever
+   sit in another Parliament we cannot, of course, say, but
+   we think we can at least assure him that he will never
+   again sit for Tankerville.
+
+   On last Sunday afternoon Mr. Finn, knowing well the
+   feeling with which he is regarded by Mr. Kennedy, outraged
+   all decency by calling upon that gentleman, whose address
+   he obtained from our office. What took place between them
+   no one knows, and, probably, no one ever will know. But
+   the interview was ended by Mr. Kennedy firing a pistol
+   at Mr. Finn's head. That he should have done so without
+   the grossest provocation no one will believe. That Mr.
+   Finn had gone to the husband to interfere with him
+   respecting his wife is an undoubted fact,--a fact which,
+   if necessary, we are in a position to prove. That such
+   interference must have been most heartrending every one
+   will admit. This intruder, who had thrust himself upon the
+   unfortunate husband on the Sabbath afternoon, was the very
+   man whom the husband accuses of having robbed him of the
+   company and comfort of his wife. But we cannot, on that
+   account, absolve Mr. Kennedy of the criminality of his
+   act. It should be for a jury to decide what view should
+   be taken of that act, and to say how far the outrageous
+   provocation offered should be allowed to palliate the
+   offence. But hitherto the matter has not reached the
+   police. Mr. Finn was not struck, and managed to escape
+   from the room. It was his manifest duty as one of
+   the community, and more especially so as a member of
+   Parliament, to have reported all the circumstances at
+   once to the police. This was not done by him, nor by the
+   persons who keep the hotel. That Mr. Finn should have
+   reasons of his own for keeping the whole affair secret,
+   and for screening the attempt at murder, is clear enough.
+   What inducements have been used with the people of the
+   house we cannot, of course, say. But we understand that
+   Mr. Kennedy has been allowed to leave London without
+   molestation.
+
+   Such is the true story of what occurred on Sunday
+   afternoon in Judd Street, and, knowing what we do, we
+   think ourselves justified in calling upon Major Mackintosh
+   to take the case into his own hands.
+
+
+Now Major Mackintosh was at this time the head of the London
+constabulary.
+
+
+   It is quite out of the question that such a transaction
+   should take place in the heart of London at three o'clock
+   on a Sunday afternoon, and be allowed to pass without
+   notice. We intend to keep as little of what we know
+   from the public as possible, and do not hesitate to
+   acknowledge that we are debarred by an injunction of
+   the Vice-Chancellor from publishing a certain document
+   which would throw the clearest light upon the whole
+   circumstance. As soon as possible after the shot was
+   fired Mr. Finn went to work, and, as we think, by
+   misrepresentations, obtained the injunction early on
+   yesterday morning. We feel sure that it would not have
+   been granted had the transaction in Judd Street been at
+   the time known to the Vice-Chancellor in all its enormity.
+   Our hands are, of course, tied. The document in question
+   is still with us, but it is sacred. When called upon to
+   show it by any proper authority we shall be ready; but,
+   knowing what we do know, we should not be justified in
+   allowing the matter to sleep. In the meantime we call upon
+   those whose duty it is to preserve the public peace to
+   take the steps necessary for bringing the delinquents to
+   justice.
+
+   The effect upon Mr. Finn, we should say, must be his
+   immediate withdrawal from public life. For the last year
+   or two he has held some subordinate but permanent place
+   in Ireland, which he has given up on the rumour that the
+   party to which he has attached himself is likely to return
+   to office. That he is a seeker after office is notorious.
+   That any possible Government should now employ him, even
+   as a tide-waiter, is quite out of the question; and it
+   is equally out of the question that he should be again
+   returned to Parliament, were he to resign his seat on
+   accepting office. As it is, we believe, notorious that
+   this gentleman cannot maintain the position which he holds
+   without being paid for his services, it is reasonable to
+   suppose that his friends will recommend him to retire, and
+   seek his living in some obscure, and, let us hope, honest
+   profession.
+
+
+Mr. Slide, when his thunderbolt was prepared, read it over with
+delight, but still with some fear as to probable results. It was
+expedient that he should avoid a prosecution for libel, and essential
+that he should not offend the majesty of the Vice-Chancellor's
+injunction. Was he sure that he was safe in each direction? As to
+the libel, he could not tell himself that he was certainly safe. He
+was saying very hard things both of Lady Laura and of Phineas Finn,
+and sailing very near the wind. But neither of those persons would
+probably be willing to prosecute; and, should he be prosecuted, he
+would then, at any rate, be able to give in Mr. Kennedy's letter as
+evidence in his own defence. He really did believe that what he was
+doing was all done in the cause of morality. It was the business of
+such a paper as that which he conducted to run some risk in defending
+morals, and exposing distinguished culprits on behalf of the
+public. And then, without some such risk, how could Phineas Finn be
+adequately punished for the atrocious treachery of which he had been
+guilty? As to the Chancellor's order, Mr. Slide thought that he had
+managed that matter very completely. No doubt he had acted in direct
+opposition to the spirit of the injunction, but legal orders are read
+by the letter, and not by the spirit. It was open to him to publish
+anything he pleased respecting Mr. Kennedy and his wife, subject,
+of course, to the general laws of the land in regard to libel.
+The Vice-Chancellor's special order to him referred simply to a
+particular document, and from that document he had not quoted a word,
+though he had contrived to repeat all the bitter things which it
+contained, with much added venom of his own. He felt secure of being
+safe from any active anger on the part of the Vice-Chancellor.
+
+The article was printed and published. The reader will perceive that
+it was full of lies. It began with a lie in that statement that "we
+abstained yesterday from alluding to circumstances" which had been
+unknown to the writer when his yesterday's paper was published.
+The indignant reference to poor Finn's want of delicacy in forcing
+himself upon Mr. Kennedy on the Sabbath afternoon, was, of course,
+a tissue of lies. The visit had been made almost at the instigation
+of the editor himself. The paper from beginning to end was full of
+falsehood and malice, and had been written with the express intention
+of creating prejudice against the man who had offended the writer.
+But Mr. Slide did not know that he was lying, and did not know that
+he was malicious. The weapon which he used was one to which his hand
+was accustomed, and he had been led by practice to believe that the
+use of such weapons by one in his position was not only fair, but
+also beneficial to the public. Had anybody suggested to him that he
+was stabbing his enemy in the dark, he would have averred that he
+was doing nothing of the kind, because the anonymous accusation of
+sinners in high rank was, on behalf of the public, the special duty
+of writers and editors attached to the public press. Mr. Slide's
+blood was running high with virtuous indignation against our hero as
+he inserted those last cruel words as to the choice of an obscure but
+honest profession.
+
+Phineas Finn read the article before he sat down to breakfast on the
+following morning, and the dagger went right into his bosom. Every
+word told upon him. With a jaunty laugh within his own sleeve he had
+assured himself that he was safe against any wound which could be
+inflicted on him from the columns of the People's Banner. He had
+been sure that he would be attacked, and thought that he was armed
+to bear it. But the thin blade penetrated every joint of his harness,
+and every particle of the poison curdled in his blood. He was hurt
+about Lady Laura; he was hurt about his borough of Tankerville; he
+was hurt by the charges against him of having outraged delicacy;
+he was hurt by being handed over to the tender mercies of Major
+Mackintosh; he was hurt by the craft with which the Vice-Chancellor's
+injunction had been evaded; but he was especially hurt by the
+allusions to his own poverty. It was necessary that he should earn
+his bread, and no doubt he was a seeker after place. But he did not
+wish to obtain wages without working for them; and he did not see why
+the work and wages of a public office should be less honourable than
+those of any other profession. To him, with his ideas, there was no
+profession so honourable, as certainly there were none which demanded
+greater sacrifices or were more precarious. And he did believe that
+such an article as that would have the effect of shutting against
+him the gates of that dangerous Paradise which he desired to enter.
+He had no great claim upon his party; and, in giving away the good
+things of office, the giver is only too prone to recognise any
+objections against an individual which may seem to relieve him from
+the necessity of bestowing aught in that direction. Phineas felt that
+he would almost be ashamed to show his face at the clubs or in the
+House. He must do so as a matter of course, but he knew that he could
+not do so without confessing by his visage that he had been deeply
+wounded by the attack in the People's Banner.
+
+He went in the first instance to Mr. Low, and was almost surprised
+that Mr. Low should not have yet even have heard that such an attack
+had been made. He had almost felt, as he walked to Lincoln's Inn,
+that everybody had looked at him, and that passers-by in the street
+had declared to each other that he was the unfortunate one who
+had been doomed by the editor of the People's Banner to seek some
+obscure way of earning his bread. Mr. Low took the paper, read, or
+probably only half read, the article, and then threw the sheet aside
+as worthless. "What ought I to do?"
+
+"Nothing at all."
+
+"One's first desire would be to beat him to a jelly."
+
+"Of all courses that would be the worst, and would most certainly
+conduce to his triumph."
+
+"Just so;--I only allude to the pleasure one would have, but which
+one has to deny oneself. I don't know whether he has laid himself
+open for libel."
+
+"I should think not. I have only just glanced at it, and therefore
+can't give an opinion; but I should think you would not dream of such
+a thing. Your object is to screen Lady Laura's name."
+
+"I have to think of that first."
+
+"It may be necessary that steps should be taken to defend her
+character. If an accusation be made with such publicity as to enforce
+belief if not denied, the denial must be made, and may probably be
+best made by an action for libel. But that must be done by her or her
+friends,--but certainly not by you."
+
+"He has laughed at the Vice-Chancellor's injunction."
+
+"I don't think that you can interfere. If, as you believe, Mr.
+Kennedy be insane, that fact will probably soon be proved, and will
+have the effect of clearing Lady Laura's character. A wife may be
+excused for leaving a mad husband."
+
+"And you think I should do nothing?"
+
+"I don't see what you can do. You have encountered a chimney sweeper,
+and of course you get some of the soot. What you do do, and what
+you do not do, must depend at any rate on the wishes of Lady Laura
+Kennedy and her father. It is a matter in which you must make
+yourself subordinate to them."
+
+Fuming and fretting, and yet recognising the truth of Mr. Low's
+words, Phineas left the chambers, and went down to his club. It was
+a Wednesday, and the House was to sit in the morning; but before
+he went to the House he put himself in the way of certain of his
+associates in order that he might hear what would be said, and learn
+if possible what was thought. Nobody seemed to treat the accusations
+in the newspaper as very serious, though all around him congratulated
+him on his escape from Mr. Kennedy's pistol. "I suppose the poor man
+really is mad," said Lord Cantrip, whom he met on the steps of one of
+the clubs.
+
+"No doubt, I should say."
+
+"I can't understand why you didn't go to the police."
+
+"I had hoped the thing would not become public," said Phineas.
+
+"Everything becomes public;--everything of that kind. It is very hard
+upon poor Lady Laura."
+
+"That is the worst of it, Lord Cantrip."
+
+"If I were her father I should bring her to England, and demand a
+separation in a regular and legal way. That is what he should do now
+in her behalf. She would then have an opportunity of clearing her
+character from imputations which, to a certain extent, will affect
+it, even though they come from a madman, and from the very scum of
+the press."
+
+"You have read that article?"
+
+"Yes;--I saw it but a minute ago."
+
+"I need not tell you that there is not the faintest ground in the
+world for the imputation made against Lady Laura there."
+
+"I am sure that there is none;--and therefore it is that I tell you
+my opinion so plainly. I think that Lord Brentford should be advised
+to bring Lady Laura to England, and to put down the charges openly in
+Court. It might be done either by an application to the Divorce Court
+for a separation, or by an action against the newspaper for libel.
+I do not know Lord Brentford quite well enough to intrude upon him
+with a letter, but I have no objection whatever to having my name
+mentioned to him. He and I and you and poor Mr. Kennedy sat together
+in the same Government, and I think that Lord Brentford would trust
+my friendship so far." Phineas thanked him, and assured him that what
+he had said should be conveyed to Lord Brentford.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+THE SPOONER CORRESPONDENCE.
+
+
+It will be remembered that Adelaide Palliser had accepted the hand of
+Mr. Maule, junior, and that she and Lady Chiltern between them had
+despatched him up to London on an embassy to his father, in which he
+failed very signally. It had been originally Lady Chiltern's idea
+that the proper home for the young couple would be the ancestral
+hall, which must be theirs some day, and in which, with exceeding
+prudence, they might be able to live as Maules of Maule Abbey upon
+the very limited income which would belong to them. How slight were
+the grounds for imputing such stern prudence to Gerard Maule both
+the ladies felt;--but it had become essential to do something; the
+young people were engaged to each other, and a manner of life must be
+suggested, discussed, and as far as possible arranged. Lady Chiltern
+was useful at such work, having a practical turn of mind, and
+understanding well the condition of life for which it was necessary
+that her friend should prepare herself. The lover was not vicious,
+he neither drank nor gambled, nor ran himself hopelessly in debt.
+He was good-humoured and tractable, and docile enough when nothing
+disagreeable was asked from him. He would have, he said, no objection
+to live at Maule Abbey if Adelaide liked it. He didn't believe much
+in farming, but would consent at Adelaide's request to be the owner
+of bullocks. He was quite ready to give up hunting, having already
+taught himself to think that the very few good runs in a season
+were hardly worth the trouble of getting up before daylight all the
+winter. He went forth, therefore, on his embassy, and we know how he
+failed. Another lover would have communicated the disastrous tidings
+at once to the lady; but Gerard Maule waited a week before he did so,
+and then told his story in half-a-dozen words. "The governor cut up
+rough about Maule Abbey, and will not hear of it. He generally does
+cut up rough."
+
+"But he must be made to hear of it," said Lady Chiltern. Two days
+afterwards the news reached Harrington of the death of the Duke of
+Omnium. A letter of an official nature reached Adelaide from Mr.
+Fothergill, in which the writer explained that he had been desired by
+Mr. Palliser to communicate to her and the relatives the sad tidings.
+"So the poor old man has gone at last," said Lady Chiltern, with that
+affectation of funereal gravity which is common to all of us.
+
+"Poor old Duke!" said Adelaide. "I have been hearing of him as a sort
+of bugbear all my life. I don't think I ever saw him but once, and
+then he gave me a kiss and a pair of earrings. He never paid any
+attention to us at all, but we were taught to think that Providence
+had been very good to us in making the Duke our uncle."
+
+"He was very rich?"
+
+"Horribly rich, I have always heard."
+
+"Won't he leave you something? It would be very nice now that you are
+engaged to find that he has given you five thousand pounds."
+
+"Very nice indeed;--but there is not a chance of it. It has always
+been known that everything is to go to the heir. Papa had his fortune
+and spent it. He and his brother were never friends, and though the
+Duke did once give me a kiss I imagine that he forgot my existence
+immediately afterwards."
+
+"So the Duke of Omnium is dead," said Lord Chiltern when he came home
+that evening.
+
+"Adelaide has had a letter to tell her so this afternoon."
+
+"Mr. Fothergill wrote to me," said Adelaide;--"the man who is so
+wicked about the foxes."
+
+"I don't care a straw about Mr. Fothergill; and now my mouth is
+closed against your uncle. But it's quite frightful to think that a
+Duke of Omnium must die like anybody else."
+
+"The Duke is dead;--long live the Duke," said Lady Chiltern. "I
+wonder how Mr. Palliser will like it."
+
+"Men always do like it, I suppose," said Adelaide.
+
+"Women do," said Lord Chiltern. "Lady Glencora will be delighted to
+reign,--though I can hardly fancy her by any other name. By the bye,
+Adelaide, I have got a letter for you."
+
+"A letter for me, Lord Chiltern!"
+
+"Well,--yes; I suppose I had better give it you. It is not addressed
+to you, but you must answer it."
+
+"What on earth is it?"
+
+"I think I can guess," said Lady Chiltern, laughing. She had guessed
+rightly, but Adelaide Palliser was still altogether in the dark when
+Lord Chiltern took a letter from his pocket and handed it to her. As
+he did so he left the room, and his wife followed him. "I shall be
+upstairs, Adelaide, if you want advice," said Lady Chiltern.
+
+The letter was from Mr. Spooner. He had left Harrington Hall after
+the uncourteous reception which had been accorded to him by Miss
+Palliser in deep disgust, resolving that he would never again speak
+to her, and almost resolving that Spoon Hall should never have a
+mistress in his time. But with his wine after dinner his courage
+came back to him, and he began to reflect once more that it is not
+the habit of young ladies to accept their lovers at the first offer.
+There was living with Mr. Spooner at this time a very attached
+friend, whom he usually consulted in all emergencies, and to whom
+on this occasion he opened his heart. Mr. Edward Spooner, commonly
+called Ned by all who knew him, and not unfrequently so addressed
+by those who did not, was a distant cousin of the Squire's, who
+unfortunately had no particular income of his own. For the last ten
+years he had lived at Spoon Hall, and had certainly earned his bread.
+The Squire had achieved a certain credit for success as a country
+gentleman. Nothing about his place was out of order. His own farming,
+which was extensive, succeeded. His bullocks and sheep won prizes.
+His horses were always useful and healthy. His tenants were solvent,
+if not satisfied, and he himself did not owe a shilling. Now many
+people in the neighbourhood attributed all this to the judicious
+care of Mr. Edward Spooner, whose eye was never off the place, and
+whose discretion was equal to his zeal. In giving the Squire his due,
+one must acknowledge that he recognised the merits of his cousin,
+and trusted him in everything. That night, as soon as the customary
+bottle of claret had succeeded the absolutely normal bottle of port
+after dinner, Mr. Spooner of Spoon Hall opened his heart to his
+cousin.
+
+"I shall have to walk, then," said Ned.
+
+"Not if I know it," said the Squire. "You don't suppose I'm going to
+let any woman have the command of Spoon Hall?"
+
+"They do command,--inside, you know."
+
+"No woman shall ever turn you out of this house, Ned."
+
+"I'm not thinking of myself, Tom," said the cousin. "Of course you'll
+marry some day, and of course I must take my chance. I don't see why
+it shouldn't be Miss Palliser as well as another."
+
+"The jade almost made me angry."
+
+"I suppose that's the way with most of 'em. 'Ludit exultim metuitque
+tangi'." For Ned Spooner had himself preserved some few tattered
+shreds of learning from his school days. "You don't remember about
+the filly?"
+
+"Yes I do; very well," said the Squire.
+
+"'Nuptiarum expers.' That's what it is, I suppose. Try it again."
+The advice on the part of the cousin was genuine and unselfish. That
+Mr. Spooner of Spoon Hall should be rejected by a young lady without
+any fortune seemed to him to be impossible. At any rate it is the
+duty of a man in such circumstances to persevere. As far as Ned knew
+the world, ladies always required to be asked a second or a third
+time. And then no harm can come from such perseverance. "She can't
+break your bones, Tom."
+
+There was much honesty displayed on this occasion. The Squire, when
+he was thus instigated to persevere, did his best to describe the
+manner in which he had been rejected. His powers of description were
+not very great, but he did not conceal anything wilfully. "She was as
+hard as nails, you know."
+
+"I don't know that that means much. Horace's filly kicked a few, no
+doubt."
+
+"She told me that if I'd go one way, she'd go the other!"
+
+"They always say about the hardest things that come to their tongues.
+They don't curse and swear as we do, or there'd be no bearing them.
+If you really like her--"
+
+"She's such a well-built creature! There's a look of blood about her
+I don't see in any of 'em. That sort of breeding is what one wants to
+get through the mud with."
+
+Then it was that the cousin recommended a letter to Lord Chiltern.
+Lord Chiltern was at the present moment to be regarded as the lady's
+guardian, and was the lover's intimate friend. A direct proposal
+had already been made to the young lady, and this should now be
+repeated to the gentleman who for the time stood in the position of
+her father. The Squire for a while hesitated, declaring that he was
+averse to make his secret known to Lord Chiltern. "One doesn't want
+every fellow in the country to know it," he said. But in answer to
+this the cousin was very explicit. There could be but little doubt
+that Lord Chiltern knew the secret already; and he would certainly
+be rather induced to keep it as a secret than to divulge it if it
+were communicated to him officially. And what other step could the
+Squire take? It would not be likely that he should be asked again to
+Harrington Hall with the express view of repeating his offer. The
+cousin was quite of opinion that a written proposition should be
+made; and on that very night the cousin himself wrote out a letter
+for the Squire to copy in the morning. On the morning the Squire
+copied the letter,--not without additions of his own, as to which he
+had very many words with his discreet cousin,--and in a formal manner
+handed it to Lord Chiltern towards the afternoon of that day, having
+devoted his whole morning to the finding of a proper opportunity
+for doing so. Lord Chiltern had read the letter, and had, as we see,
+delivered it to Adelaide Palliser. "That's another proposal from Mr.
+Spooner," Lady Chiltern said, as soon as they were alone.
+
+"Exactly that."
+
+"I knew he'd go on with it. Men are such fools."
+
+"I don't see that he's a fool at all;" said Lord Chiltern, almost in
+anger. "Why shouldn't he ask a girl to be his wife? He's a rich man,
+and she hasn't got a farthing."
+
+"You might say the same of a butcher, Oswald."
+
+"Mr. Spooner is a gentleman."
+
+"You do not mean to say that he's fit to marry such a girl as
+Adelaide Palliser?"
+
+"I don't know what makes fitness. He's got a red nose, and if she
+don't like a red nose,--that's unfitness. Gerard Maule's nose isn't
+red, and I dare say therefore he's fitter. Only, unfortunately, he
+has no money."
+
+"Adelaide Palliser would no more think of marrying Mr. Spooner than
+you would have thought of marrying the cook."
+
+"If I had liked the cook I should have asked her, and I don't see why
+Mr. Spooner shouldn't ask Miss Palliser. She needn't take him."
+
+In the meantime Miss Palliser was reading the following letter:--
+
+
+   Spoon Hall, 11th March, 18--.
+
+   MY DEAR LORD CHILTERN,--
+
+   I venture to suppose that at present you are acting as
+   the guardian of Miss Palliser, who has been staying at
+   your house all the winter. If I am wrong in this I hope
+   you will pardon me, and consent to act in that capacity
+   for this occasion. I entertain feelings of the greatest
+   admiration and warmest affection for the young lady I have
+   named, which I ventured to express when I had the pleasure
+   of staying at Harrington Hall in the early part of last
+   month. I cannot boast that I was received on that occasion
+   with much favour; but I know that I am not very good at
+   talking, and we are told in all the books that no man has
+   a right to expect to be taken at the first time of asking.
+   Perhaps Miss Palliser will allow me, through you, to
+   request her to consider my proposal with more deliberation
+   than was allowed to me before, when I spoke to her perhaps
+   with injudicious hurry.
+
+
+So far the Squire adopted his cousin's words without alteration.
+
+
+   I am the owner of my own property,--which is more than
+   everybody can say. My income is nearly L4,000 a year. I
+   shall be willing to make any proper settlement that may
+   be recommended by the lawyers,--though I am strongly of
+   opinion that an estate shouldn't be crippled for the
+   sake of the widow. As to refurnishing the old house, and
+   all that, I'll do anything that Miss Palliser may please.
+   She knows my taste about hunting, and I know hers, so that
+   there need not be any difference of opinion on that score.
+
+   Miss Palliser can't suspect me of any interested motives.
+   I come forward because I think she is the most charming
+   girl I ever saw, and because I love her with all my heart.
+   I haven't got very much to say for myself, but if she'll
+   consent to be the mistress of Spoon Hall, she shall have
+   all that the heart of a woman can desire.
+
+   Pray believe me,
+   My dear Lord Chiltern,
+   Yours very sincerely,
+
+   THOMAS PLATTER SPOONER.
+
+   As I believe that Miss Palliser is fond of books, it may
+   be well to tell her that there is an uncommon good library
+   at Spoon Hall. I shall have no objection to go abroad for
+   the honeymoon for three or four months in the summer.
+
+
+The postscript was the Squire's own, and was inserted in opposition
+to the cousin's judgment. "She won't come for the sake of the books,"
+said the cousin. But the Squire thought that the attractions should
+be piled up. "I wouldn't talk of the honeymoon till I'd got her to
+come round a little," said the cousin. The Squire thought that the
+cousin was falsely delicate, and pleaded that all girls like to be
+taken abroad when they're married. The second half of the body of the
+letter was very much disfigured by the Squire's petulance; so that
+the modesty with which he commenced was almost put to the blush by
+a touch of arrogance in the conclusion. That sentence in which the
+Squire declared that an estate ought not to be crippled for the sake
+of the widow was very much questioned by the cousin. "Such a word as
+'widow' never ought to go into such a letter as this." But the Squire
+protested that he would not be mealy-mouthed. "She can bear to think
+of it, I'll go bail; and why shouldn't she hear about what she can
+think about?" "Don't talk about furniture yet, Tom," the cousin said;
+but the Squire was obstinate, and the cousin became hopeless. That
+word about loving her with all his heart was the cousin's own, but
+what followed, as to her being mistress of Spoon Hall, was altogether
+opposed to his judgment. "She'll be proud enough of Spoon Hall if
+she comes here," said the Squire. "I'd let her come first," said the
+cousin.
+
+We all know that the phraseology of the letter was of no importance
+whatever. When it was received the lady was engaged to another
+man; and she regarded Mr. Spooner of Spoon Hall as being guilty of
+unpardonable impudence in approaching her at all.
+
+"A red-faced vulgar old man, who looks as if he did nothing but
+drink," she said to Lady Chiltern.
+
+"He does you no harm, my dear."
+
+"But he does do harm. He makes things very uncomfortable. He has no
+business to think it possible. People will suppose that I gave him
+encouragement."
+
+"I used to have lovers coming to me year after year,--the same
+people,--whom I don't think I ever encouraged; but I never felt angry
+with them."
+
+"But you didn't have Mr. Spooner."
+
+"Mr. Spooner didn't know me in those days, or there is no saying what
+might have happened." Then Lady Chiltern argued the matter on views
+directly opposite to those which she had put forward when discussing
+the matter with her husband. "I always think that any man who is
+privileged to sit down to table with you is privileged to ask.
+There are disparities of course which may make the privilege
+questionable,--disparities of age, rank, and means."
+
+"And of tastes," said Adelaide.
+
+"I don't know about that.--A poet doesn't want to marry a poetess,
+nor a philosopher a philosopheress. A man may make himself a fool
+by putting himself in the way of certain refusal; but I take it
+the broad rule is that a man may fall in love with any lady who
+habitually sits in his company."
+
+"I don't agree with you at all. What would be said if the curate at
+Long Royston were to propose to one of the FitzHoward girls?"
+
+"The Duchess would probably ask the Duke to make the young man a
+bishop out of hand, and the Duke would have to spend a morning in
+explaining to her the changes which have come over the making of
+bishops since she was young. There is no other rule that you can
+lay down, and I think that girls should understand that they have
+to fight their battles subject to that law. It's very easy to say,
+'No.'"
+
+"But a man won't take 'No.'"
+
+"And it's lucky for us sometimes that they don't," said Lady
+Chiltern, remembering certain passages in her early life.
+
+The answer was written that night by Lord Chiltern after much
+consultation. As to the nature of the answer,--that it should be a
+positive refusal,--of course there could be no doubt; but then arose
+a question whether a reason should be given, or whether the refusal
+should be simply a refusal. At last it was decided that a reason
+should be given, and the letter ran as follows:--
+
+
+   MY DEAR MR. SPOONER,
+
+   I am commissioned to inform you that Miss Palliser is
+   engaged to be married to Mr. Gerard Maule.
+
+   Yours faithfully,
+
+   CHILTERN.
+
+
+The young lady had consented to be thus explicit because it had been
+already determined that no secret should be kept as to her future
+prospects.
+
+"He is one of those poverty-stricken wheedling fellows that one meets
+about the world every day," said the Squire to his cousin--"a fellow
+that rides horses that he can't pay for, and owes some poor devil of
+a tailor for the breeches that he sits in. They eat, and drink, and
+get along heaven only knows how. But they're sure to come to smash at
+last. Girls are such fools nowadays."
+
+"I don't think there has ever been much difference in that," said the
+cousin.
+
+"Because a man greases his whiskers, and colours his hair, and paints
+his eyebrows, and wears kid gloves, by George, they'll go through
+fire and water after him. He'll never marry her."
+
+"So much the better for her."
+
+"But I hate such d---- impudence. What right has a man to come
+forward in that way who hasn't got a house over his head, or the
+means of getting one? Old Maule is so hard up that he can barely
+get a dinner at his club in London. What I wonder at is that Lady
+Chiltern shouldn't know better."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+REGRETS.
+
+
+Madame Goesler remained at Matching till after the return of Mr.
+Palliser--or, as we must now call him, the Duke of Omnium--from
+Gatherum Castle, and was therefore able to fight her own battle
+with him respecting the gems and the money which had been left her.
+He brought to her with his own hands the single ring which she had
+requested, and placed it on her finger. "The goldsmith will soon make
+that all right," she said, when it was found to be much too large for
+the largest finger on which she could wear a ring. "A bit shall be
+taken out, but I will not have it reset."
+
+"You got the lawyer's letter and the inventory, Madame Goesler?"
+
+"Yes, indeed. What surprises me is that the dear old man should never
+have spoken of so magnificent a collection of gems."
+
+"Orders have been given that they shall be packed."
+
+"They may be packed or unpacked, of course, as your Grace pleases,
+but pray do not connect me with the packing."
+
+"You must be connected with it."
+
+"But I wish not to be connected with it, Duke. I have written to the
+lawyer to renounce the legacy, and, if your Grace persists, I must
+employ a lawyer of my own to renounce them after some legal form.
+Pray do not let the case be sent to me, or there will be so much
+trouble, and we shall have another great jewel robbery. I won't take
+it in, and I won't have the money, and I will have my own way. Lady
+Glen will tell you that I can be very obstinate when I please."
+
+
+[Illustration: "Lady Glen will tell you that I can be very
+obstinate when I please."]
+
+
+Lady Glencora had told him so already. She had been quite sure that
+her friend would persist in her determination as to the legacy, and
+had thought that her husband should simply accept Madame Goesler's
+assurances to that effect. But a man who had been Chancellor of the
+Exchequer could not deal with money, or even with jewels, so lightly.
+He assured his wife that such an arrangement was quite out of the
+question. He remarked that property was property, by which he meant
+to intimate that the real owner of substantial wealth could not be
+allowed to disembarrass himself of his responsibilities or strip
+himself of his privileges by a few generous but idle words. The late
+Duke's will was a very serious thing, and it seemed to the heir that
+this abandoning of a legacy bequeathed by the Duke was a making
+light of the Duke's last act and deed. To refuse money in such
+circumstances was almost like refusing rain from heaven, or warmth
+from the sun. It could not be done. The things were her property, and
+though she might, of course, chuck them into the street, they would
+no less be hers. "But I won't have them, Duke," said Madame Goesler;
+and the late Chancellor of the Exchequer found that no proposition
+made by him in the House had ever been received with a firmer
+opposition. His wife told him that nothing he could say would be of
+any avail, and rather ridiculed his idea of the solemnity of wills.
+"You can't make a person take a thing because you write it down on a
+thick bit of paper, any more than if you gave it her across a table.
+I understand it all, of course. She means to show that she didn't
+want anything from the Duke. As she refused the name and title, she
+won't have the money and jewels. You can't make her take them, and
+I'm quite sure you can't talk her over." The young Duke was not
+persuaded, but had to give the battle up,--at any rate, for the
+present.
+
+On the 19th of March Madame Goesler returned to London, having been
+at Matching Priory for more than three weeks. On her journey back to
+Park Lane many thoughts crowded on her mind. Had she, upon the whole,
+done well in reference to the Duke of Omnium? The last three years of
+her life had been sacrificed to an old man with whom she had not in
+truth possessed aught in common. She had persuaded herself that there
+had existed a warm friendship between them;--but of what nature could
+have been a friendship with one whom she had not known till he had
+been in his dotage? What words of the Duke's speaking had she ever
+heard with pleasure, except certain terms of affection which had been
+half mawkish and half senile? She had told Phineas Finn, while riding
+home with him from Broughton Spinnies, that she had clung to the Duke
+because she loved him, but what had there been to produce such love?
+The Duke had begun his acquaintance with her by insulting her,--and
+had then offered to make her his wife. This,--which would have
+conferred upon her some tangible advantages, such as rank, and
+wealth, and a great name,--she had refused, thinking that the price
+to be paid for them was too high, and that life might even yet have
+something better in store for her. After that she had permitted
+herself to become, after a fashion, head nurse to the old man, and
+in that pursuit had wasted three years of what remained to her of
+her youth. People, at any rate, should not say of her that she had
+accepted payment for the three years' service by taking a casket of
+jewels. She would take nothing that should justify any man in saying
+that she had been enriched by her acquaintance with the Duke of
+Omnium. It might be that she had been foolish, but she would be more
+foolish still were she to accept a reward for her folly. As it was
+there had been something of romance in it,--though the romance of
+friendship at the bedside of a sick and selfish old man had hardly
+been satisfactory.
+
+Even in her close connection with the present Duchess there was
+something which was almost hollow. Had there not been a compact
+between them, never expressed, but not the less understood? Had
+not her dear friend, Lady Glen, agreed to bestow upon her support,
+fashion, and all kinds of worldly good things,--on condition that she
+never married the old Duke? She had liked Lady Glencora,--had enjoyed
+her friend's society, and been happy in her friend's company,--but
+she had always felt that Lady Glencora's attraction to herself had
+been simply on the score of the Duke. It was necessary that the Duke
+should be pampered and kept in good humour. An old man, let him be
+ever so old, can do what he likes with himself and his belongings. To
+keep the Duke out of harm's way Lady Glencora had opened her arms to
+Madame Goesler. Such, at least, was the interpretation which Madame
+Goesler chose to give to the history of the last three years. They
+had not, she thought, quite understood her. When once she had made up
+her mind not to marry the Duke, the Duke had been safe from her;--as
+his jewels and money should be safe now that he was dead.
+
+Three years had passed by, and nothing had been done of that which
+she had intended to do. Three years had passed, which to her, with
+her desires, were so important. And yet she hardly knew what were her
+desires, and had never quite defined her intentions. She told herself
+on this very journey that the time had now gone by, and that in
+losing these three years she had lost everything. As yet,--so she
+declared to herself now,--the world had done but little for her. Two
+old men had loved her; one had become her husband, and the other had
+asked to become so;--and to both she had done her duty. To both she
+had been grateful, tender, and self-sacrificing. From the former she
+had, as his widow, taken wealth which she valued greatly; but the
+wealth alone had given her no happiness. From the latter, and from
+his family, she had accepted a certain position. Some persons, high
+in repute and fashion, had known her before, but everybody knew her
+now. And yet what had all this done for her? Dukes and duchesses,
+dinner-parties and drawing-rooms,--what did they all amount to? What
+was it that she wanted?
+
+She was ashamed to tell herself that it was love. But she knew
+this,--that it was necessary for her happiness that she should devote
+herself to some one. All the elegancies and outward charms of life
+were delightful, if only they could be used as the means to some end.
+As an end themselves they were nothing. She had devoted herself to
+this old man who was now dead, and there had been moments in which
+she had thought that that sufficed. But it had not sufficed, and
+instead of being borne down by grief at the loss of her friend, she
+found herself almost rejoicing at relief from a vexatious burden.
+Had she been a hypocrite then? Was it her nature to be false? After
+that she reflected whether it might not be best for her to become
+a devotee,--it did not matter much in what branch of the Christian
+religion, so that she could assume some form of faith. The sour
+strictness of the confident Calvinist or the asceticism of St.
+Francis might suit her equally,--if she could only believe in Calvin
+or in St. Francis. She had tried to believe in the Duke of Omnium,
+but there she had failed. There had been a saint at whose shrine she
+thought she could have worshipped with a constant and happy devotion,
+but that saint had repulsed her from his altar.
+
+Mr. Maule, Senior, not understanding much of all this, but still
+understanding something, thought that he might perhaps be the
+saint. He knew well that audacity in asking is a great merit in a
+middle-aged wooer. He was a good deal older than the lady, who, in
+spite of all her experiences, was hardly yet thirty. But then he
+was,--he felt sure,--very young for his age, whereas she was old.
+She was a widow; he was a widower. She had a house in town and an
+income. He had a place in the country and an estate. She knew all the
+dukes and duchesses, and he was a man of family. She could make him
+comfortably opulent. He could make her Mrs. Maule of Maule Abbey.
+She, no doubt, was good-looking. Mr. Maule, Senior, as he tied on
+his cravat, thought that even in that respect there was no great
+disparity between them. Considering his own age, Mr. Maule, Senior,
+thought there was not perhaps a better-looking man than himself about
+Pall Mall. He was a little stiff in the joints and moved rather
+slowly, but what was wanting in suppleness was certainly made up in
+dignity.
+
+He watched his opportunity, and called in Park Lane on the day after
+Madame Goesler's return. There was already between them an amount of
+acquaintance which justified his calling, and, perhaps, there had
+been on the lady's part something of that cordiality of manner which
+is wont to lead to intimate friendship. Mr. Maule had made himself
+agreeable, and Madame Goesler had seemed to be grateful. He was
+admitted, and on such an occasion it was impossible not to begin the
+conversation about the "dear Duke." Mr. Maule could afford to talk
+about the Duke, and to lay aside for a short time his own cause,
+as he had not suggested to himself the possibility of becoming
+pressingly tender on his own behalf on this particular occasion.
+Audacity in wooing is a great virtue, but a man must measure even his
+virtues. "I heard that you had gone to Matching, as soon as the poor
+Duke was taken ill," he said.
+
+She was in mourning, and had never for a moment thought of denying
+the peculiarity of the position she had held in reference to the old
+man. She could not have been content to wear her ordinary coloured
+garments after sitting so long by the side of the dying man. A
+hired nurse may do so, but she had not been that. If there had been
+hypocrisy in her friendship the hypocrisy must be maintained to the
+end.
+
+"Poor old man! I only came back yesterday."
+
+"I never had the pleasure of knowing his Grace," said Mr. Maule. "But
+I have always heard him named as a nobleman of whom England might
+well be proud."
+
+Madame Goesler was not at the moment inclined to tell lies on the
+matter, and did not think that England had much cause to be proud of
+the Duke of Omnium. "He was a man who held a very peculiar position,"
+she said.
+
+"Most peculiar;--a man of infinite wealth, and of that special
+dignity which I am sorry to say so many men of rank among us are
+throwing aside as a garment which is too much for them. We can all
+wear coats, but it is not every one that can carry a robe. The Duke
+carried his to the last." Madame Goesler remembered how he looked
+with his nightcap on, when he had lost his temper because they would
+not let him have a glass of curacoa. "I don't know that we have any
+one left that can be said to be his equal," continued Mr. Maule.
+
+"No one like him, perhaps. He was never married, you know."
+
+"But was once willing to marry," said Mr. Maule, "if all that we
+hear be true." Madame Goesler, without a smile and equally without a
+frown, looked as though the meaning of Mr. Maule's words had escaped
+her. "A grand old gentleman! I don't know that anybody will ever say
+as much for his heir."
+
+"The men are very different."
+
+"Very different indeed. I dare say that Mr. Palliser, as Mr.
+Palliser, has been a useful man. But so is a coal-heaver a useful
+man. The grace and beauty of life will be clean gone when we all
+become useful men."
+
+"I don't think we are near that yet."
+
+"Upon my word, Madame Goesler, I am not so sure about it. Here are
+sons of noblemen going into trade on every side of us. We have earls
+dealing in butter, and marquises sending their peaches to market.
+There was nothing of that kind about the Duke. A great fortune had
+been entrusted to him, and he knew that it was his duty to spend it.
+He did spend it, and all the world looked up to him. It must have
+been a great pleasure to you to know him so well."
+
+Madame Goesler was saved the necessity of making any answer to this
+by the announcement of another visitor. The door was opened, and
+Phineas Finn entered the room. He had not seen Madame Goesler since
+they had been together at Harrington Hall, and had never before met
+Mr. Maule. When riding home with the lady after their unsuccessful
+attempt to jump out of the wood, Phineas had promised to call in
+Park Lane whenever he should learn that Madame Goesler was not at
+Matching. Since that the Duke had died, and the bond with Matching no
+longer existed. It seemed but the other day that they were talking
+about the Duke together, and now the Duke was gone. "I see you are in
+mourning," said Phineas, as he still held her hand. "I must say one
+word to condole with you for your lost friend."
+
+"Mr. Maule and I were now speaking of him," she said, as she
+introduced the two gentlemen. "Mr. Finn and I had the pleasure of
+meeting your son at Harrington Hall a few weeks since, Mr. Maule."
+
+"I heard that he had been there. Did you know the Duke, Mr. Finn?"
+
+"After the fashion in which such a one as I would know such a one as
+the Duke, I knew him. He probably had forgotten my existence."
+
+"He never forgot any one," said Madame Goesler.
+
+"I don't know that I was ever introduced to him," continued Mr.
+Maule, "and I shall always regret it. I was telling Madame Goesler
+how profound a reverence I had for the Duke's character." Phineas
+bowed, and Madame Goesler, who was becoming tired of the Duke as a
+subject of conversation, asked some question as to what had been
+going on in the House. Mr. Maule, finding it to be improbable that he
+should be able to advance his cause on that occasion, took his leave.
+The moment he was gone Madame Goesler's manner changed altogether.
+She left her former seat and came near to Phineas, sitting on a sofa
+close to the chair he occupied; and as she did so she pushed her hair
+back from her face in a manner that he remembered well in former
+days.
+
+"I am so glad to see you," she said. "Is it not odd that he should
+have gone so soon after what we were saying but the other day?"
+
+"You thought then that he would not last long."
+
+"Long is comparative. I did not think he would be dead within six
+weeks, or I should not have been riding there. He was a burden to me,
+Mr. Finn."
+
+"I can understand that."
+
+"And yet I shall miss him sorely. He had given all the colour to my
+life which it possessed. It was not very bright, but still it was
+colour."
+
+"The house will be open to you just the same."
+
+"I shall not go there. I shall see Lady Glencora in town, of course;
+but I shall not go to Matching; and as to Gatherum Castle, I would
+not spend another week there, if they would give it me. You haven't
+heard of his will?"
+
+"No;--not a word. I hope he remembered you,--to mention your name.
+You hardly wanted more."
+
+"Just so. I wanted no more than that."
+
+"It was made, perhaps, before you knew him."
+
+"He was always making it, and always altering it. He left me money,
+and jewels of enormous value."
+
+"I am so glad to hear it."
+
+"But I have refused to take anything. Am I not right?"
+
+"I don't know why you should refuse."
+
+"There are people who will say that--I was his mistress. If a woman
+be young, a man's age never prevents such scandal. I don't know that
+I can stop it, but I can perhaps make it seem to be less probable.
+And after all that has passed, I could not bear that the Pallisers
+should think that I clung to him for what I could get. I should be
+easier this way."
+
+"Whatever is best to be done, you will do it;--I know that."
+
+"Your praise goes beyond the mark, my friend. I can be both generous
+and discreet;--but the difficulty is to be true. I did take one
+thing,--a black diamond that he always wore. I would show it you, but
+the goldsmith has it to make it fit me. When does the great affair
+come off at the House?"
+
+"The bill will be read again on Monday, the first."
+
+"What an unfortunate day!--You remember young Mr. Maule? Is he not
+like his father? And yet in manners they are as unlike as possible."
+
+"What is the father?" Phineas asked.
+
+"A battered old beau about London, selfish and civil, pleasant and
+penniless, and I should think utterly without a principle. Come again
+soon. I am so anxious to hear that you are getting on. And you have
+got to tell me all about that shooting with the pistol." Phineas as
+he walked away thought that Madame Goesler was handsomer even than
+she used to be.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+THE DUKE AND DUCHESS IN TOWN.
+
+
+At the end of March the Duchess of Omnium, never more to be called
+Lady Glencora by the world at large, came up to London. The
+Duke, though he was now banished from the House of Commons, was
+nevertheless wanted in London; and what funereal ceremonies were
+left might be accomplished as well in town as at Matching Priory. No
+old Ministry could be turned out and no new Ministry formed without
+the assistance of the young Duchess. It was a question whether she
+should not be asked to be Mistress of the Robes, though those who
+asked it knew very well that she was the last woman in England to
+hamper herself by dependence on the Court. Up to London they came;
+and, though of course they went into no society, the house in Carlton
+Gardens was continually thronged with people who had some special
+reason for breaking the ordinary rules of etiquette in their desire
+to see how Lady Glencora carried herself as Duchess of Omnium. "Do
+you think she's altered much?" said Aspasia Fitzgibbon, an elderly
+spinster, the daughter of Lord Claddagh, and sister of Laurence
+Fitzgibbon, member for one of the western Irish counties. "I don't
+think she was quite so loud as she used to be."
+
+Mrs. Bonteen was of opinion that there was a change. "She was always
+uncertain, you know, and would scratch like a cat if you offended
+her."
+
+"And won't she scratch now?" asked Miss Fitzgibbon.
+
+"I'm afraid she'll scratch oftener. It was always a trick of hers to
+pretend to think nothing of rank;--but she values her place as highly
+as any woman in England."
+
+This was Mrs. Bonteen's opinion; but Lady Baldock, who was present,
+differed. This Lady Baldock was not the mother, but the sister-in-law
+of that Augusta Boreham who had lately become Sister Veronica John.
+"I don't believe it," said Lady Baldock. "She always seems to me to
+be like a great schoolgirl who has been allowed too much of her own
+way. I think people give way to her too much, you know." As Lady
+Baldock was herself the wife of a peer, she naturally did not stand
+so much in awe of a duchess as did Mrs. Bonteen, or Miss Fitzgibbon.
+
+"Have you seen the young Duke?" asked Mr. Ratler of Barrington Erle.
+
+"Yes; I have been with him this morning."
+
+"How does he like it?"
+
+"He's bothered out of his life,--as a hen would be if you were to
+throw her into water. He's so shy, he hardly knows how to speak to
+you; and he broke down altogether when I said something about the
+Lords."
+
+"He'll not do much more."
+
+"I don't know about that," said Erle. "He'll get used to it, and go
+into harness again. He's a great deal too good to be lost."
+
+"He didn't give himself airs?"
+
+"What!--Planty Pall! If I know anything of a man he's not the man to
+do that because he's a duke. He can hold his own against all comers,
+and always could. Quiet as he always seemed, he knew who he was, and
+who other people were. I don't think you'll find much difference in
+him when he has got over the annoyance." Mr. Ratler, however, was
+of a different opinion. Mr. Ratler had known many docile members of
+the House of Commons who had become peers by the death of uncles and
+fathers, and who had lost all respect for him as soon as they were
+released from the crack of the whip. Mr. Ratler rather despised peers
+who had been members of the House of Commons, and who passed by
+inheritance from a scene of unparalleled use and influence to one of
+idle and luxurious dignity.
+
+Soon after their arrival in London the Duchess wrote the following
+very characteristic letter:--
+
+
+   DEAR LORD CHILTERN,
+
+   Mr. Palliser-- [Then having begun with a mistake, she
+   scratched the word through with her pen.] The Duke has
+   asked me to write about Trumpeton Wood, as he knows
+   nothing about it, and I know just as little. But if
+   you say what you want, it shall be done. Shall we get
+   foxes and put them there? Or ought there to be a special
+   fox-keeper? You mustn't be angry because the poor old Duke
+   was too feeble to take notice of the matter. Only speak,
+   and it shall be done.
+
+   Yours faithfully,
+
+   GLENCORA O.
+
+   Madame Goesler spoke to me about it; but at that time we
+   were in trouble.
+
+
+The answer was as characteristic:--
+
+
+   DEAR DUCHESS OF OMNIUM,
+
+   Thanks. What is wanted, is that keepers should know that
+   there are to be foxes. When keepers know that foxes are
+   really expected, there always are foxes. The men latterly
+   have known just the contrary. It is all a question of
+   shooting. I don't mean to say a word against the late
+   Duke. When he got old the thing became bad. No doubt it
+   will be right now.
+
+   Faithfully yours,
+
+   CHILTERN.
+
+   Our hounds have been poisoned in Trumpeton Wood. This
+   would never have been done had not the keepers been
+   against the hunting.
+
+
+Upon receipt of this she sent the letter to Mr. Fothergill, with a
+request that there might be no more shooting in Trumpeton Wood. "I'll
+be shot if we'll stand that, you know," said Mr. Fothergill to one of
+his underlings. "There are two hundred and fifty acres in Trumpeton
+Wood, and we're never to kill another pheasant because Lord Chiltern
+is Master of the Brake Hounds. Property won't be worth having at that
+rate."
+
+The Duke by no means intended to abandon the world of politics, or
+even the narrower sphere of ministerial work, because he had been
+ousted from the House of Commons, and from the possibility of filling
+the office which he had best liked. This was proved to the world
+by the choice of his house for a meeting of the party on the 30th
+of March. As it happened, this was the very day on which he and
+the Duchess returned to London; but nevertheless the meeting was
+held there, and he was present at it. Mr. Gresham then repeated his
+reasons for opposing Mr. Daubeny's bill; and declared that even while
+doing so he would, with the approbation of his party, pledge himself
+to bring in a bill somewhat to the same effect, should he ever again
+find himself in power. And he declared that he would do this solely
+with the view of showing how strong was his opinion that such a
+measure should not be left in the hands of the Conservative party. It
+was doubted whether such a political proposition had ever before been
+made in England. It was a simple avowal that on this occasion men
+were to be regarded, and not measures. No doubt such is the case, and
+ever has been the case, with the majority of active politicians. The
+double pleasure of pulling down an opponent, and of raising oneself,
+is the charm of a politician's life. And by practice this becomes
+extended to so many branches, that the delights,--and also the
+disappointments,--are very widespread. Great satisfaction is felt
+by us because by some lucky conjunction of affairs our man, whom we
+never saw, is made Lord-Lieutenant of a county, instead of another
+man, of whom we know as little. It is a great thing to us that Sir
+Samuel Bobwig, an excellent Liberal, is seated high on the bench of
+justice, instead of that time-serving Conservative, Sir Alexander
+McSilk. Men and not measures are, no doubt, the very life of
+politics. But then it is not the fashion to say so in public places.
+Mr. Gresham was determined to introduce that fashion on the present
+occasion. He did not think very much of Mr. Daubeny's Bill. So
+he told his friends at the Duke's house. The Bill was full of
+faults,--went too far in one direction, and not far enough in
+another. It was not difficult to pick holes in the Bill. But the
+sin of sins consisted in this,--that it was to be passed, if passed
+at all, by the aid of men who would sin against their consciences
+by each vote they gave in its favour. What but treachery could be
+expected from an army in which every officer, and every private, was
+called upon to fight against his convictions? The meeting passed
+off without dissension, and it was agreed that the House of Commons
+should be called upon to reject the Church Bill simply because it
+was proposed from that side of the House on which the minority was
+sitting. As there were more than two hundred members present on the
+occasion, by none of whom were any objections raised, it seemed
+probable that Mr. Gresham might be successful. There was still,
+however, doubt in the minds of some men. "It's all very well," said
+Mr. Ratler, "but Turnbull wasn't there, you know."
+
+But from what took place the next day but one in Park Lane it would
+almost seem that the Duchess had been there. She came at once to see
+Madame Goesler, having very firmly determined that the Duke's death
+should not have the appearance of interrupting her intimacy with her
+friend. "Was it not very disagreeable,"--asked Madame Goesler,--"just
+the day you came to town?"
+
+"We didn't think of that at all. One is not allowed to think of
+anything now. It was very improper, of course, because of the Duke's
+death;--but that had to be put on one side. And then it was quite
+contrary to etiquette that Peers and Commoners should be brought
+together. I think there was some idea of making sure of Plantagenet,
+and so they all came and wore out our carpets. There wasn't above a
+dozen peers; but they were enough to show that all the old landmarks
+have been upset. I don't think any one would have objected if I had
+opened the meeting myself, and called upon Mrs. Bonteen to second
+me."
+
+"Why Mrs. Bonteen?"
+
+"Because next to myself she's the most talkative and political woman
+we have. She was at our house yesterday, and I'm not quite sure that
+she doesn't intend to cut me out."
+
+"We must put her down, Lady Glen."
+
+"Perhaps she'll put me down now that we're half shelved. The men did
+make such a racket, and yet no one seemed to speak for two minutes
+except Mr. Gresham, who stood upon my pet footstool, and kicked it
+almost to pieces."
+
+"Was Mr. Finn there?"
+
+"Everybody was there, I suppose. What makes you ask particularly
+about Mr. Finn?"
+
+"Because he's a friend."
+
+"That's come up again, has it? He's the handsome Irishman, isn't he,
+that came to Matching, the same day that brought you there?"
+
+"He is an Irishman, and he was at Matching, that day."
+
+"He's certainly handsome. What a day that was, Marie! When one thinks
+of it all,--of all the perils and all the salvations, how strange
+it is! I wonder whether you would have liked it now if you were the
+Dowager Duchess."
+
+"I should have had some enjoyment, I suppose."
+
+
+[Illustration: "I should have had some enjoyment, I suppose."]
+
+
+"I don't know that it would have done us any harm, and yet how keen I
+was about it. We can't give you the rank now, and you won't take the
+money."
+
+"Not the money, certainly."
+
+"Plantagenet says you'll have to take it;--but it seems to me he's
+always wrong. There are so many things that one must do that one
+doesn't do. He never perceives that everything gets changed every
+five years. So Mr. Finn is the favourite again?"
+
+"He is a friend whom I like. I may be allowed to have a friend, I
+suppose."
+
+"A dozen, my dear;--and all of them good-looking. Good-bye, dear.
+Pray come to us. Don't stand off and make yourself disagreeable.
+We shan't be giving dinner parties, but you can come whenever you
+please. Tell me at once;--do you mean to be disagreeable?"
+
+Then Madame Goesler was obliged to promise that she would not be more
+disagreeable than her nature had made her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+THE WORLD BECOMES COLD.
+
+
+A great deal was said by very many persons in London as to the
+murderous attack which had been made by Mr. Kennedy on Phineas Finn
+in Judd Street, but the advice given by Mr. Slide in The People's
+Banner to the police was not taken. No public or official inquiry
+was made into the circumstance. Mr. Kennedy, under the care of his
+cousin, retreated to Scotland; and, as it seemed, there was to be
+an end of it. Throughout the month of March various smaller bolts
+were thrust both at Phineas and at the police by the editor of
+the above-named newspaper, but they seemed to fall without much
+effect. No one was put in prison; nor was any one ever examined. But,
+nevertheless, these missiles had their effect. Everybody knew that
+there had been a "row" between Mr. Kennedy and Phineas Finn, and that
+the "row" had been made about Mr. Kennedy's wife. Everybody knew
+that a pistol had been fired at Finn's head; and a great many people
+thought that there had been some cause for the assault. It was
+alleged at one club that the present member for Tankerville had spent
+the greater part of the last two years at Dresden, and at another
+that he had called on Mr. Kennedy twice, once down in Scotland,
+and once at the hotel in Judd Street, with a view of inducing that
+gentleman to concede to a divorce. There was also a very romantic
+story afloat as to an engagement which had existed between Lady Laura
+and Phineas Finn before the lady had been induced by her father to
+marry the richer suitor. Various details were given in corroboration
+of these stories. Was it not known that the Earl had purchased the
+submission of Phineas Finn by a seat for his borough of Loughton?
+Was it not known that Lord Chiltern, the brother of Lady Laura, had
+fought a duel with Phineas Finn? Was it not known that Mr. Kennedy
+himself had been as it were coerced into quiescence by the singular
+fact that he had been saved from garotters in the street by the
+opportune interference of Phineas Finn? It was even suggested that
+the scene with the garotters had been cunningly planned by Phineas
+Finn, that he might in this way be able to restrain the anger of
+the husband of the lady whom he loved. All these stories were very
+pretty; but as the reader, it is hoped, knows, they were all untrue.
+Phineas had made but one short visit to Dresden in his life. Lady
+Laura had been engaged to Mr. Kennedy before Phineas had ever spoken
+to her of his love. The duel with Lord Chiltern had been about
+another lady, and the seat at Loughton had been conferred upon
+Phineas chiefly on account of his prowess in extricating Mr. Kennedy
+from the garotters,--respecting which circumstance it may be said
+that as the meeting in the street was fortuitous, the reward was
+greater than the occasion seemed to require.
+
+While all these things were being said Phineas became something of a
+hero. A man who is supposed to have caused a disturbance between two
+married people, in a certain rank of life, does generally receive a
+certain meed of admiration. A man who was asked out to dinner twice
+a week before such rumours were afloat, would probably receive double
+that number of invitations afterwards. And then to have been shot
+at by a madman in a room, and to be the subject of the venom of a
+People's Banner, tends also to Fame. Other ladies besides Madame
+Goesler were anxious to have the story from the very lips of the
+hero, and in this way Phineas Finn became a conspicuous man. But
+Fame begets envy, and there were some who said that the member for
+Tankerville had injured his prospects with his party. It may be very
+well to give a dinner to a man who has caused the wife of a late
+Cabinet Minister to quarrel with her husband; but it can hardly be
+expected that he should be placed in office by the head of the party
+to which that late Cabinet Minister belonged. "I never saw such a
+fellow as you are," said Barrington Erle to him. "You are always
+getting into a mess."
+
+"Nobody ought to know better than you how false all these calumnies
+are." This he said because Erle and Lady Laura were cousins.
+
+"Of course they are calumnies; but you had heard them before, and
+what made you go poking your head into the lion's mouth?"
+
+Mr. Bonteen was very much harder upon him than was Barrington Erle.
+"I never liked him from the first, and always knew he would not run
+straight. No Irishman ever does." This was said to Viscount Fawn, a
+distinguished member of the Liberal party, who had but lately been
+married, and was known to have very strict notions as to the bonds of
+matrimony. He had been heard to say that any man who had interfered
+with the happiness of a married couple should be held to have
+committed a capital offence.
+
+"I don't know whether the story about Lady Laura is true."
+
+"Of course it's true. All the world knows it to be true. He was
+always there; at Loughlinter, and at Saulsby, and in Portman
+Square after she had left her husband. The mischief he has done is
+incalculable. There's a Conservative sitting in poor Kennedy's seat
+for Dunross-shire."
+
+"That might have been the case anyway."
+
+"Nothing could have turned Kennedy out. Don't you remember how he
+behaved about the Irish Land Question? I hate such fellows."
+
+"If I thought it true about Lady Laura--"
+
+Lord Fawn was again about to express his opinion in regard to
+matrimony, but Mr. Bonteen was too impetuous to listen to him. "It's
+out of the question that he should come in again. At any rate if he
+does, I won't. I shall tell Gresham so very plainly. The women will
+do all that they can for him. They always do for a fellow of that
+kind."
+
+Phineas heard of it;--not exactly by any repetition of the words
+that were spoken, but by chance phrases, and from the looks of men.
+Lord Cantrip, who was his best friend among those who were certain
+to hold high office in a Liberal Government, did not talk to him
+cheerily,--did not speak as though he, Phineas, would as a matter
+of course have some place assigned to him. And he thought that Mr.
+Gresham was hardly as cordial to him as he might be when they met
+in the closer intercourse of the House. There was always a word
+or two spoken, and sometimes a shaking of hands. He had no right
+to complain. But yet he knew that something was wanting. We can
+generally read a man's purpose towards us in his manner, if his
+purposes are of much moment to us.
+
+Phineas had written to Lady Laura, giving her an account of the
+occurrence in Judd Street on the 1st of March, and had received from
+her a short answer by return of post. It contained hardly more than
+a thanksgiving that his life had not been sacrificed, and in a day or
+two she had written again, letting him know that she had determined
+to consult her father. Then on the last day of the month he received
+the following letter:--
+
+
+   Dresden, March 27th, 18--.
+
+   MY DEAR FRIEND,--
+
+   At last we have resolved that we will go back to
+   England,--almost at once. Things have gone so rapidly
+   that I hardly know how to explain them all, but that is
+   Papa's resolution. His lawyer, Mr. Forster, tells him
+   that it will be best, and goes so far as to say that it
+   is imperative on my behalf that some steps should be taken
+   to put an end to the present state of things. I will
+   not scruple to tell you that he is actuated chiefly by
+   considerations as to money. It is astonishing to me that
+   a man who has all his life been so liberal should now in
+   his old age think so much about it. It is, however, in no
+   degree for himself. It is all for me. He cannot bear to
+   think that my fortune should be withheld from me by Mr.
+   Kennedy while I have done nothing wrong. I was obliged to
+   show him your letter, and what you said about the control
+   of money took hold of his mind at once. He thinks that
+   if my unfortunate husband be insane, there can be no
+   difficulty in my obtaining a separation on terms which
+   would oblige him or his friends to restore this horrid
+   money.
+
+   Of course I could stay if I chose. Papa would not refuse
+   to find a home for me here. But I do agree with Mr.
+   Forster that something should be done to stop the tongues
+   of ill-conditioned people. The idea of having my name
+   dragged through the newspapers is dreadful to me; but if
+   this must be done one way or the other, it will be better
+   that it should be done with truth. There is nothing that
+   I need fear,--as you know so well.
+
+   I cannot look forward to happiness anywhere. If the
+   question of separation were once settled, I do not know
+   whether I would not prefer returning here to remaining in
+   London. Papa has got tired of the place, and wants, he
+   says, to see Saulsby once again before he dies. What can
+   I say in answer to this, but that I will go? We have sent
+   to have the house in Portman Square got ready for us, and
+   I suppose we shall be there about the 15th of next month.
+   Papa has instructed Mr. Forster to tell Mr. Kennedy's
+   lawyer that we are coming, and he is to find out, if he
+   can, whether any interference in the management of the
+   property has been as yet made by the family. Perhaps I
+   ought to tell you that Mr. Forster has expressed surprise
+   that you did not call on the police when the shot was
+   fired. Of course I can understand it all. God bless you.
+
+   Your affectionate friend,
+
+   L. K.
+
+
+Phineas was obliged to console himself by reflecting that if she
+understood him of course that was everything. His first and great
+duty in the matter had been to her. If in performing that duty he had
+sacrificed himself, he must bear his undeserved punishment like a
+man. That he was to be punished he began to perceive too clearly. The
+conviction that Mr. Daubeny must recede from the Treasury Bench after
+the coming debate became every day stronger, and within the little
+inner circles of the Liberal party the usual discussions were made
+as to the Ministry which Mr. Gresham would, as a matter of course,
+be called upon to form. But in these discussions Phineas Finn did
+not find himself taking an assured and comfortable part. Laurence
+Fitzgibbon, his countryman,--who in the way of work had never been
+worth his salt,--was eager, happy, and without a doubt. Others of the
+old stagers, men who had been going in and out ever since they had
+been able to get seats in Parliament, stood about in clubs, and in
+lobbies, and chambers of the House, with all that busy, magpie air
+which is worn only by those who have high hopes of good things to
+come speedily. Lord Mount Thistle was more sublime and ponderous
+than ever, though they who best understood the party declared that
+he would never again be invited to undergo the cares of office. His
+lordship was one of those terrible political burdens, engendered
+originally by private friendship or family considerations, which
+one Minister leaves to another. Sir Gregory Grogram, the great Whig
+lawyer, showed plainly by his manner that he thought himself at last
+secure of reaching the reward for which he had been struggling all
+his life; for it was understood by all men who knew anything that
+Lord Weazeling was not to be asked again to sit on the Woolsack.
+No better advocate or effective politician ever lived; but it was
+supposed that he lacked dignity for the office of first judge in
+the land. That most of the old lot would come back was a matter of
+course.
+
+There would be the Duke,--the Duke of St. Bungay, who had for years
+past been "the Duke" when Liberal administrations were discussed, and
+the second Duke, whom we know so well; and Sir Harry Coldfoot, and
+Legge Wilson, Lord Cantrip, Lord Thrift, and the rest of them. There
+would of course be Lord Fawn, Mr. Ratler, and Mr. Erle. The thing was
+so thoroughly settled that one was almost tempted to think that the
+Prime Minister himself would have no voice in the selections to be
+made. As to one office it was acknowledged on all sides that a doubt
+existed which would at last be found to be very injurious,--as some
+thought altogether crushing,--to the party. To whom would Mr. Gresham
+entrust the financial affairs of the country? Who would be the new
+Chancellor of the Exchequer? There were not a few who inferred that
+Mr. Bonteen would be promoted to that high office. During the last
+two years he had devoted himself to decimal coinage with a zeal only
+second to that displayed by Plantagenet Palliser, and was accustomed
+to say of himself that he had almost perished under his exertions. It
+was supposed that he would have the support of the present Duke of
+Omnium,--and that Mr. Gresham, who disliked the man, would be coerced
+by the fact that there was no other competitor. That Mr. Bonteen
+should go into the Cabinet would be gall and wormwood to many brother
+Liberals; but gall and wormwood such as this have to be swallowed.
+The rising in life of our familiar friends is, perhaps, the bitterest
+morsel of the bitter bread which we are called upon to eat in life.
+But we do eat it; and after a while it becomes food to us,--when we
+find ourselves able to use, on behalf, perhaps, of our children, the
+influence of those whom we had once hoped to leave behind in the race
+of life. When a man suddenly shoots up into power few suffer from it
+very acutely. The rise of a Pitt can have caused no heart-burning.
+But Mr. Bonteen had been a hack among the hacks, had filled the usual
+half-dozen places, had been a junior Lord, a Vice-President, a Deputy
+Controller, a Chief Commissioner, and a Joint Secretary. His hopes
+had been raised or abased among the places of L1,000, L1,200, or
+L1,500 a year. He had hitherto culminated at L2,000, and had been
+supposed with diligence to have worked himself up to the top of
+the ladder, as far as the ladder was accessible to him. And now he
+was spoken of in connection with one of the highest offices of the
+State! Of course this created much uneasiness, and gave rise to
+many prophecies of failure. But in the midst of it all no office
+was assigned to Phineas Finn; and there was a general feeling, not
+expressed, but understood, that his affair with Mr. Kennedy stood in
+his way.
+
+Quintus Slide had undertaken to crush him! Could it be possible that
+so mean a man should be able to make good so monstrous a threat?
+The man was very mean, and the threat had been absurd as well as
+monstrous; and yet it seemed that it might be realised. Phineas was
+too proud to ask questions, even of Barrington Erle, but he felt
+that he was being "left out in the cold," because the editor of The
+People's Banner had said that no government could employ him; and at
+this moment, on the very morning of the day which was to usher in the
+great debate, which was to be so fatal to Mr. Daubeny and his Church
+Reform, another thunderbolt was hurled. The "we" of The People's
+Banner had learned that the very painful matter, to which they had
+been compelled by a sense of duty to call the public attention in
+reference to the late member for Dunross-shire and the present member
+for Tankerville, would be brought before one of the tribunals of the
+country, in reference to the matrimonial differences between Mr.
+Kennedy and his wife. It would be in the remembrance of their readers
+that the unfortunate gentleman had been provoked to fire a pistol
+at the head of the member for Tankerville,--a circumstance which,
+though publicly known, had never been brought under the notice of
+the police. There was reason to hope that the mystery might now
+be cleared up, and that the ends of justice would demand that a
+certain document should be produced, which they,--the "we,"--had been
+vexatiously restrained from giving to their readers, although it had
+been most carefully prepared for publication in the columns of The
+People's Banner. Then the thunderbolt went on to say that there was
+evidently a great move among the members of the so-called Liberal
+party, who seemed to think that it was only necessary that they
+should open their mouths wide enough in order that the sweets of
+office should fall into them. The "we" were quite of a different
+opinion. The "we" believed that no Minister for many a long day had
+been so firmly fixed on the Treasury Bench as was Mr. Daubeny at the
+present moment. But this at any rate might be inferred;--that should
+Mr. Gresham by any unhappy combination of circumstances be called
+upon to form a Ministry, it would be quite impossible for him to
+include within it the name of the member for Tankerville. This was
+the second great thunderbolt that fell,--and so did the work of
+crushing our poor friend proceed.
+
+There was a great injustice in all this; at least so Phineas
+thought;--injustice, not only from the hands of Mr. Slide, who was
+unjust as a matter of course, but also from those who ought to have
+been his staunch friends. He had been enticed over to England almost
+with a promise of office, and he was sure that he had done nothing
+which deserved punishment, or even censure. He could not condescend
+to complain,--nor indeed as yet could he say that there was ground
+for complaint. Nothing had been done to him. Not a word had been
+spoken,--except those lying words in the newspapers which he was too
+proud to notice. On one matter, however, he was determined to be
+firm. When Barrington Erle had absolutely insisted that he should
+vote upon the Church Bill in opposition to all that he had said upon
+the subject at Tankerville, he had stipulated that he should have an
+opportunity in the great debate which would certainly take place of
+explaining his conduct,--or, in other words, that the privilege of
+making a speech should be accorded to him at a time in which very
+many members would no doubt attempt to speak and would attempt in
+vain. It may be imagined,--probably still is imagined by a great
+many,--that no such pledge as this could be given, that the right
+to speak depends simply on the Speaker's eye, and that energy at
+the moment in attracting attention would alone be of account to an
+eager orator. But Phineas knew the House too well to trust to such
+a theory. That some preliminary assistance would be given to the
+travelling of the Speaker's eye, in so important a debate, he knew
+very well; and he knew also that a promise from Barrington Erle or
+from Mr. Ratler would be his best security. "That will be all right,
+of course," said Barrington Erle to him on the evening the day before
+the debate: "We have quite counted on your speaking." There had been
+a certain sullenness in the tone with which Phineas had asked his
+question as though he had been labouring under a grievance, and he
+felt himself rebuked by the cordiality of the reply. "I suppose we
+had better fix it for Monday or Tuesday," said the other. "We hope
+to get it over by Tuesday, but there is no knowing. At any rate you
+shan't be thrown over." It was almost on his tongue,--the entire
+story of his grievance, the expression of his feeling that he was not
+being treated as one of the chosen; but he restrained himself. He
+liked Barrington Erle well enough, but not so well as to justify him
+in asking for sympathy.
+
+Nor had it been his wont in any of the troubles of his life to ask
+for sympathy from a man. He had always gone to some woman;--in old
+days to Lady Laura, or to Violet Effingham, or to Madame Goesler. By
+them he could endure to be petted, praised, or upon occasion even
+pitied. But pity or praise from any man had been distasteful to him.
+On the morning of the 1st of April he again went to Park Lane, not
+with any formed plan of telling the lady of his wrongs, but driven by
+a feeling that he wanted comfort, which might perhaps be found there.
+The lady received him very kindly, and at once inquired as to the
+great political tournament which was about to be commenced. "Yes; we
+begin to-day," said Phineas. "Mr. Daubeny will speak, I should say,
+from half-past four till seven. I wonder you don't go and hear him."
+
+"What a pleasure! To hear a man speak for two hours and a half about
+the Church of England. One must be very hard driven for amusement!
+Will you tell me that you like it?"
+
+"I like to hear a good speech."
+
+"But you have the excitement before you of making a good speech in
+answer. You are in the fight. A poor woman, shut up in a cage, feels
+there more acutely than anywhere else how insignificant a position
+she fills in the world."
+
+"You don't advocate the rights of women, Madame Goesler?"
+
+"Oh, no. Knowing our inferiority I submit without a grumble; but I am
+not sure that I care to go and listen to the squabbles of my masters.
+You may arrange it all among you, and I will accept what you do,
+whether it be good or bad,--as I must; but I cannot take so much
+interest in the proceeding as to spend my time in listening where I
+cannot speak, and in looking when I cannot be seen. You will speak?"
+
+"Yes; I think so."
+
+"I shall read your speech, which is more than I shall do for most of
+the others. And when it is all over, will your turn come?"
+
+"Not mine individually, Madame Goesler."
+
+"But it will be yours individually;--will it not?" she asked with
+energy. Then gradually, with half-pronounced sentences, he explained
+to her that even in the event of the formation of a Liberal
+Government, he did not expect that any place would be offered to him.
+"And why not? We have been all speaking of it as a certainty."
+
+He longed to inquire who were the all of whom she spoke, but he could
+not do it without an egotism which would be distasteful to him. "I
+can hardly tell;--but I don't think I shall be asked to join them."
+
+"You would wish it?"
+
+"Yes;--talking to you I do not see why I should hesitate to say so."
+
+"Talking to me, why should you hesitate to say anything about
+yourself that is true? I can hold my tongue. I do not gossip about my
+friends. Whose doing is it?"
+
+"I do not know that it is any man's doing."
+
+"But it must be. Everybody said that you were to be one of them if
+you could get the other people out. Is it Mr. Bonteen?"
+
+"Likely enough. Not that I know anything of the kind; but as I hate
+him from the bottom of my heart, it is natural to suppose that he has
+the same feeling in regard to me."
+
+"I agree with you there."
+
+"But I don't know that it comes from any feeling of that kind."
+
+"What does it come from?"
+
+"You have heard all the calumny about Lady Laura Kennedy."
+
+"You do not mean to say that a story such as that has affected your
+position."
+
+"I fancy it has. But you must not suppose, Madame Goesler, that I
+mean to complain. A man must take these things as they come. No one
+has received more kindness from friends than I have, and few perhaps
+more favours from fortune. All this about Mr. Kennedy has been
+unlucky,--but it cannot be helped."
+
+"Do you mean to say that the morals of your party will be offended?"
+said Madame Goesler, almost laughing.
+
+"Lord Fawn, you know, is very particular. In sober earnest one cannot
+tell how these things operate; but they do operate gradually. One's
+friends are sometimes very glad of an excuse for not befriending
+one."
+
+"Lady Laura is coming home?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"That will put an end to it."
+
+"There is nothing to put an end to except the foul-mouthed malice of
+a lying newspaper. Nobody believes anything against Lady Laura."
+
+"I'm not so sure of that. I believe nothing against her."
+
+"I'm sure you do not, Madame Goesler. Nor do I think that anybody
+does. It is too absurd for belief from beginning to end. Good-bye.
+Perhaps I shall see you when the debate is over."
+
+"Of course you will. Good-bye, and success to your oratory." Then
+Madame Goesler resolved that she would say a few judicious words to
+her friend, the Duchess, respecting Phineas Finn.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+THE TWO GLADIATORS.
+
+
+The great debate was commenced with all the solemnities which are
+customary on such occasions, and which make men think for the day
+that no moment of greater excitement has ever blessed or cursed the
+country. Upon the present occasion London was full of clergymen.
+The specially clerical clubs,--the Oxford and Cambridge, the Old
+University, and the Athenaeum,--were black with them. The bishops and
+deans, as usual, were pleasant in their manner and happy-looking, in
+spite of adverse circumstances. When one sees a bishop in the hours
+of the distress of the Church, one always thinks of the just and
+firm man who will stand fearless while the ruins of the world are
+falling about his ears. But the parsons from the country were a sorry
+sight to see. They were in earnest with all their hearts, and did
+believe,--not that the crack of doom was coming, which they could
+have borne with equanimity if convinced that their influence would
+last to the end,--but that the Evil One was to be made welcome
+upon the earth by Act of Parliament. It is out of nature that any
+man should think it good that his own order should be repressed,
+curtailed, and deprived of its power. If we go among cab-drivers
+or letter-carriers, among butlers or gamekeepers, among tailors or
+butchers, among farmers or graziers, among doctors or attorneys, we
+shall find in each set of men a conviction that the welfare of the
+community depends upon the firmness with which they,--especially
+they,--hold their own. This is so manifestly true with the Bar that
+no barrister in practice scruples to avow that barristers in practice
+are the salt of the earth. The personal confidence of a judge in his
+own position is beautiful, being salutary to the country, though not
+unfrequently damaging to the character of the man. But if this be so
+with men who are conscious of no higher influence than that exercised
+over the bodies and minds of their fellow creatures, how much
+stronger must be the feeling when the influence affects the soul! To
+the outsider, or layman, who simply uses a cab, or receives a letter,
+or goes to law, or has to be tried, these pretensions are ridiculous
+or annoying, according to the ascendancy of the pretender at the
+moment. But as the clerical pretensions are more exacting than
+all others, being put forward with an assertion that no answer is
+possible without breach of duty and sin, so are they more galling.
+The fight has been going on since the idea of a mitre first entered
+the heart of a priest,--since dominion in this world has found itself
+capable of sustentation by the exercise of fear as to the world to
+come. We do believe,--the majority among us does so,--that if we live
+and die in sin we shall after some fashion come to great punishment,
+and we believe also that by having pastors among us who shall be
+men of God, we may best aid ourselves and our children in avoiding
+this bitter end. But then the pastors and men of God can only be
+human,--cannot be altogether men of God; and so they have oppressed
+us, and burned us, and tortured us, and hence come to love palaces,
+and fine linen, and purple, and, alas, sometimes, mere luxury and
+idleness. The torturing and the burning, as also to speak truth the
+luxury and the idleness, have, among us, been already conquered, but
+the idea of ascendancy remains. What is a thoughtful man to do who
+acknowledges the danger of his soul, but cannot swallow his parson
+whole simply because he has been sent to him from some source in
+which he has no special confidence, perhaps by some distant lord,
+perhaps by a Lord Chancellor whose political friend has had a son
+with a tutor? What is he to do when, in spite of some fine linen
+and purple left among us, the provision for the man of God in his
+parish or district is so poor that no man of God fitted to teach
+him will come and take it? In no spirit of animosity to religion he
+begins to tell himself that Church and State together was a monkish
+combination, fit perhaps for monkish days, but no longer having
+fitness, and not much longer capable of existence in this country.
+But to the parson himself,--to the honest, hardworking, conscientious
+priest who does in his heart of hearts believe that no diminution in
+the general influence of his order can be made without ruin to the
+souls of men,--this opinion, when it becomes dominant, is as though
+the world were in truth breaking to pieces over his head. The world
+has been broken to pieces in the same way often;--but extreme Chaos
+does not come. The cabman and the letter-carrier always expect that
+Chaos will very nearly come when they are disturbed. The barristers
+are sure of Chaos when the sanctity of Benchers is in question. What
+utter Chaos would be promised to us could any one with impunity
+contemn the majesty of the House of Commons! But of all these
+Chaoses there can be no Chaos equal to that which in the mind of a
+zealous Oxford-bred constitutional country parson must attend that
+annihilation of his special condition which will be produced by
+the disestablishment of the Church. Of all good fellows he is the
+best good fellow. He is genial, hospitable, well-educated, and
+always has either a pretty wife or pretty daughters. But he has so
+extreme a belief in himself that he cannot endure to be told that
+absolute Chaos will not come at once if he be disturbed. And now
+disturbances,--ay, and utter dislocation and ruin were to come from
+the hands of a friend! Was it wonderful that parsons should be seen
+about Westminster in flocks with _"Et tu, Brute"_ written on their
+faces as plainly as the law on the brows of a Pharisee?
+
+The Speaker had been harassed for orders. The powers and prowess
+of every individual member had been put to the test. The galleries
+were crowded. Ladies' places had been ballotted for with desperate
+enthusiasm, in spite of the sarcasm against the House which Madame
+Goesler had expressed. Two royal princes and a royal duke were
+accommodated within the House in an irregular manner. Peers swarmed
+in the passages, and were too happy to find standing room. Bishops
+jostled against lay barons with no other preference than that
+afforded to them by their broader shoulders. Men, and especially
+clergymen, came to the galleries loaded with sandwiches and flasks,
+prepared to hear all there was to be heard should the debate last
+from 4 P.M. to the same hour on the following morning. At two in the
+afternoon the entrances to the House were barred, and men of all
+ranks,--deans, prebends, peers' sons, and baronets,--stood there
+patiently waiting till some powerful nobleman should let them
+through. The very ventilating chambers under the House were filled
+with courteous listeners, who had all pledged themselves that under
+no possible provocation would they even cough during the debate.
+
+A few minutes after four, in a House from which hardly more than a
+dozen members were absent, Mr. Daubeny took his seat with that air of
+affected indifference to things around him which is peculiar to him.
+He entered slowly, amidst cheers from his side of the House, which
+no doubt were loud in proportion to the dismay of the cheerers as to
+the matter in hand. Gentlemen lacking substantial sympathy with their
+leader found it to be comfortable to deceive themselves, and raise
+their hearts at the same time by the easy enthusiasm of noise. Mr.
+Daubeny having sat down and covered his head just raised his hat from
+his brows, and then tried to look as though he were no more than any
+other gentleman present. But the peculiar consciousness of the man
+displayed itself even in his constrained absence of motion. You could
+see that he felt himself to be the beheld of all beholders, and that
+he enjoyed the position,--with some slight inward trepidation lest
+the effort to be made should not equal the greatness of the occasion.
+Immediately after him Mr. Gresham bustled up the centre of the House
+amidst a roar of good-humoured welcome. We have had many Ministers
+who have been personally dearer to their individual adherents in the
+House than the present leader of the Opposition and late Premier,
+but none, perhaps, who has been more generally respected by his
+party for earnestness and sincerity. On the present occasion there
+was a fierceness, almost a ferocity, in his very countenance, to
+the fire of which friends and enemies were equally anxious to add
+fuel,--the friends in order that so might these recreant Tories be
+more thoroughly annihilated, and the enemies, that their enemy's
+indiscretion might act back upon himself to his confusion. For,
+indeed, it never could be denied that as a Prime Minister Mr. Gresham
+could be very indiscreet.
+
+A certain small amount of ordinary business was done, to the disgust
+of expectant strangers, which was as trivial as possible in its
+nature,--so arranged, apparently, that the importance of what was to
+follow might be enhanced by the force of contrast. And, to make the
+dismay of the novice stranger more thorough, questions were asked
+and answers were given in so low a voice, and Mr. Speaker uttered a
+word or two in so quick and shambling a fashion, that he, the novice
+stranger, began to fear that no word of the debate would reach him
+up there in his crowded back seat. All this, however, occupied but a
+few minutes, and at twenty minutes past four Mr. Daubeny was on his
+legs. Then the novice stranger found that, though he could not see Mr.
+Daubeny without the aid of an opera glass, he could hear every word
+that fell from his lips.
+
+Mr. Daubeny began by regretting the hardness of his position, in that
+he must, with what thoroughness he might be able to achieve, apply
+himself to two great subjects, whereas the right honourable gentleman
+opposite had already declared, with all the formality which could be
+made to attach itself to a combined meeting of peers and commoners,
+that he would confine himself strictly to one. The subject selected
+by the right honourable gentleman opposite on the present occasion
+was not the question of Church Reform. The right honourable gentleman
+had pledged himself with an almost sacred enthusiasm to ignore that
+subject altogether. No doubt it was the question before the House,
+and he, himself,--the present speaker,--must unfortunately discuss
+it at some length. The right honourable gentleman opposite would not,
+on this great occasion, trouble himself with anything of so little
+moment. And it might be presumed that the political followers of the
+right honourable gentleman would be equally reticent, as they were
+understood to have accepted his tactics without a dissentient voice.
+He, Mr. Daubeny, was the last man in England to deny the importance
+of the question which the right honourable gentleman would select
+for discussions in preference to that of the condition of the
+Church. That question was a very simple one, and might be put to
+the House in a very few words. Coming from the mouth of the right
+honourable gentleman, the proposition would probably be made in this
+form:--"That this House does think that I ought to be Prime Minister
+now, and as long as I may possess a seat in this House." It was
+impossible to deny the importance of that question; but perhaps he,
+Mr. Daubeny, might be justified in demurring to the preference given
+to it over every other matter, let that matter be of what importance
+it might be to the material welfare of the country.
+
+He made his point well; but he made it too often. And an attack of
+that kind, personal and savage in its nature, loses its effect when
+it is evident that the words have been prepared. A good deal may be
+done in dispute by calling a man an ass or a knave,--but the resolve
+to use the words should have been made only at the moment, and they
+should come hot from the heart. There was much neatness and some
+acuteness in Mr. Daubeny's satire, but there was no heat, and it was
+prolix. It had, however, the effect of irritating Mr. Gresham,--as
+was evident from the manner in which he moved his hat and shuffled
+his feet.
+
+A man destined to sit conspicuously on our Treasury Bench, or on the
+seat opposite to it, should ask the gods for a thick skin as a first
+gift. The need of this in our national assembly is greater than
+elsewhere, because the differences between the men opposed to each
+other are smaller. When two foes meet together in the same Chamber,
+one of whom advocates the personal government of an individual ruler,
+and the other that form of State, which has come to be called a Red
+Republic, they deal, no doubt, weighty blows of oratory at each
+other, but blows which never hurt at the moment. They may cut each
+other's throats if they can find an opportunity; but they do not bite
+each other like dogs over a bone. But when opponents are almost in
+accord, as is always the case with our parliamentary gladiators,
+they are ever striving to give maddening little wounds through
+the joints of the harness. What is there with us to create the
+divergence necessary for debate but the pride of personal skill in
+the encounter? Who desires among us to put down the Queen, or to
+repudiate the National Debt, or to destroy religious worship, or even
+to disturb the ranks of society? When some small measure of reform
+has thoroughly recommended itself to the country,--so thoroughly that
+all men know that the country will have it,--then the question arises
+whether its details shall be arranged by the political party which
+calls itself Liberal,--or by that which is termed Conservative. The
+men are so near to each other in all their convictions and theories
+of life that nothing is left to them but personal competition for the
+doing of the thing that is to be done. It is the same in religion.
+The apostle of Christianity and the infidel can meet without a chance
+of a quarrel; but it is never safe to bring together two men who
+differ about a saint or a surplice.
+
+Mr. Daubeny, having thus attacked and wounded his enemy, rushed
+boldly into the question of Church Reform, taking no little pride
+to himself and to his party that so great a blessing should be
+bestowed upon the country from so unexpected a source. "See what we
+Conservatives can do. In fact we will conserve nothing when we find
+that you do not desire to have it conserved any longer. 'Quod minime
+reris Graia pandetur ab urbe.'" It was exactly the reverse of the
+complaint which Mr. Gresham was about to make. On the subject of
+the Church itself he was rather misty but very profound. He went
+into the question of very early Churches indeed, and spoke of the
+misappropriation of endowments in the time of Eli. The establishment
+of the Levites had been no doubt complete; but changes had been
+effected as circumstances required. He was presumed to have alluded
+to the order of Melchisedek, but he abstained from any mention of the
+name. He roamed very wide, and gave many of his hearers an idea that
+his erudition had carried him into regions in which it was impossible
+to follow him. The gist of his argument was to show that audacity in
+Reform was the very backbone of Conservatism. By a clearly pronounced
+disunion of Church and State the theocracy of Thomas a Becket would
+be restored, and the people of England would soon again become the
+faithful flocks of faithful shepherds. By taking away the endowments
+from the parishes, and giving them back in some complicated way to
+the country, the parishes would be better able than ever to support
+their clergymen. Bishops would be bishops indeed, when they were no
+longer the creatures of a Minister's breath. As to the deans, not
+seeing a clear way to satisfy aspirants for future vacancies in the
+deaneries, he became more than usually vague, but seemed to imply
+that the Bill which was now with the leave of the House to be read
+a second time, contained no clause forbidding the appointment of
+deans, though the special stipend of the office must be matter of
+consideration with the new Church Synod.
+
+The details of this part of his speech were felt to be dull by the
+strangers. As long as he would abuse Mr. Gresham, men could listen
+with pleasure; and could keep their attention fixed while he referred
+to the general Conservatism of the party which he had the honour
+of leading. There was a raciness in the promise of so much Church
+destruction from the chosen leader of the Church party, which was
+assisted by a conviction in the minds of most men that it was
+impossible for unfortunate Conservatives to refuse to follow this
+leader, let him lead where he might. There was a gratification in
+feeling that the country party was bound to follow, even should he
+take them into the very bowels of a mountain, as the pied piper did
+the children of Hamelin;--and this made listening pleasant. But when
+Mr. Daubeny stated the effect of his different clauses, explaining
+what was to be taken and what left,--with a fervent assurance that
+what was to be left would, under the altered circumstances, go much
+further than the whole had gone before,--then the audience became
+weary, and began to think that it was time that some other gentleman
+should be upon his legs. But at the end of the Minister's speech
+there was another touch of invective which went far to redeem him.
+He returned to that personal question to which his adversary had
+undertaken to confine himself, and expressed a holy horror at
+the political doctrine which was implied. He, during a prolonged
+Parliamentary experience, had encountered much factious opposition.
+He would even acknowledge that he had seen it exercised on both sides
+of the House, though he had always striven to keep himself free from
+its baneful influence. But never till now had he known a statesman
+proclaim his intention of depending upon faction, and upon faction
+alone, for the result which he desired to achieve. Let the right
+honourable gentleman raise a contest on either the principles or
+the details of the measure, and he would be quite content to abide
+the decision of the House; but he should regard such a raid as that
+threatened against him and his friends by the right honourable
+gentleman as unconstitutional, revolutionary, and tyrannical. He felt
+sure that an opposition so based, and so maintained, even if it be
+enabled by the heated feelings of the moment to obtain an unfortunate
+success in the House, would not be encouraged by the sympathy
+and support of the country at large. By these last words he was
+understood to signify that should he be beaten on the second reading,
+not in reference to the merits of the Bill, but simply on the issue
+as proposed by Mr. Gresham, he would again dissolve the House before
+he would resign. Now it was very well understood that there were
+Liberal members in the House who would prefer even the success of Mr.
+Daubeny to a speedy reappearance before their constituents.
+
+Mr. Daubeny spoke till nearly eight, and it was surmised at the time
+that he had craftily arranged his oratory so as to embarrass his
+opponent. The House had met at four, and was to sit continuously till
+it was adjourned for the night. When this is the case, gentlemen
+who speak about eight o'clock are too frequently obliged to address
+themselves to empty benches. On the present occasion it was Mr.
+Gresham's intention to follow his opponent at once, instead of
+waiting, as is usual with a leader of his party, to the close of the
+debate. It was understood that Mr. Gresham would follow Mr. Daubeny,
+with the object of making a distinct charge against Ministers, so
+that the vote on this second reading of the Church Bill might in
+truth be a vote of want of confidence. But to commence his speech at
+eight o'clock when the House was hungry and uneasy, would be a trial.
+Had Mr. Daubeny closed an hour sooner there would, with a little
+stretching of the favoured hours, have been time enough. Members
+would not have objected to postpone their dinner till half-past
+eight, or perhaps nine, when their favourite orator was on his legs.
+But with Mr. Gresham beginning a great speech at eight, dinner would
+altogether become doubtful, and the disaster might be serious. It was
+not probable that Mr. Daubeny had even among his friends proclaimed
+any such strategy; but it was thought by the political speculators of
+the day that such an idea had been present to his mind.
+
+But Mr. Gresham was not to be turned from his purpose. He waited for
+a few moments, and then rose and addressed the Speaker. A few members
+left the House;--gentlemen, doubtless, whose constitutions, weakened
+by previous service, could not endure prolonged fasting. Some who had
+nearly reached the door returned to their seats, mindful of Messrs.
+Roby and Ratler. But for the bulk of those assembled the interest
+of the moment was greater even than the love of dinner. Some of the
+peers departed, and it was observed that a bishop or two left the
+House; but among the strangers in the gallery, hardly a foot of space
+was gained. He who gave up his seat then, gave it up for the night.
+
+Mr. Gresham began with a calmness of tone which seemed almost to be
+affected, but which arose from a struggle on his own part to repress
+that superabundant energy of which he was only too conscious. But the
+calmness soon gave place to warmth, which heated itself into violence
+before he had been a quarter of an hour upon his legs. He soon became
+even ferocious in his invective, and said things so bitter that
+he had himself no conception of their bitterness. There was this
+difference between the two men,--that whereas Mr. Daubeny hit always
+as hard as he knew how to hit, having premeditated each blow, and
+weighed its results beforehand, having calculated his power even to
+the effect of a blow repeated on a wound already given, Mr. Gresham
+struck right and left and straightforward with a readiness engendered
+by practice, and in his fury might have murdered his antagonist
+before he was aware that he had drawn blood. He began by refusing
+absolutely to discuss the merits of the bill. The right honourable
+gentleman had prided himself on his generosity as a Greek. He would
+remind the right honourable gentleman that presents from Greeks had
+ever been considered dangerous. "It is their gifts, and only their
+gifts, that we fear," he said. The political gifts of the right
+honourable gentleman, extracted by him from his unwilling colleagues
+and followers, had always been more bitter to the taste than Dead
+Sea apples. That such gifts should not be bestowed on the country
+by unwilling hands, that reform should not come from those who
+themselves felt the necessity of no reform, he believed to be
+the wish not only of that House, but of the country at large.
+Would any gentleman on that bench, excepting the right honourable
+gentleman himself,--and he pointed to the crowded phalanx of the
+Government,--get up and declare that this measure of Church Reform,
+this severance of Church and State, was brought forward in consonance
+with his own long-cherished political conviction? He accused that
+party of being so bound to the chariot wheels of the right honourable
+gentleman, as to be unable to abide by their own convictions. And as
+to the right honourable gentleman himself, he would appeal to his
+followers opposite to say whether the right honourable gentleman was
+possessed of any one strong political conviction.
+
+He had been accused of being unconstitutional, revolutionary, and
+tyrannical. If the House would allow him he would very shortly
+explain his idea of constitutional government as carried on in this
+country. It was based and built on majorities in that House, and
+supported solely by that power. There could be no constitutional
+government in this country that was not so maintained. Any other
+government must be both revolutionary and tyrannical. Any other
+government was a usurpation; and he would make bold to tell the
+right honourable gentleman that a Minister in this country who should
+recommend Her Majesty to trust herself to advisers not supported by a
+majority of the House of Commons, would plainly be guilty of usurping
+the powers of the State. He threw from him with disdain the charge
+which had been brought against himself of hankering after the sweets
+of office. He indulged and gloried in indulging the highest ambition
+of an English subject. But he gloried much more in the privileges and
+power of that House, within the walls of which was centred all that
+was salutary, all that was efficacious, all that was stable in the
+political constitution of his country. It had been his pride to have
+acted during nearly all his political life with that party which had
+commanded a majority, but he would defy his most bitter adversary, he
+would defy the right honourable gentleman himself, to point to any
+period of his career in which he had been unwilling to succumb to a
+majority when he himself had belonged to the minority.
+
+He himself would regard the vote on this occasion as a vote of want
+of confidence. He took the line he was now taking because he desired
+to bring the House to a decision on that question. He himself had not
+that confidence in the right honourable gentleman which would justify
+him in accepting a measure on so important a subject as the union or
+severance of Church and State from his hands. Should the majority of
+the House differ from him and support the second reading of the Bill,
+he would at once so far succumb as to give his best attention to
+the clauses of the bill, and endeavour with the assistance of those
+gentlemen who acted with him to make it suitable to the wants of the
+country by omissions and additions as the clauses should pass through
+Committee. But before doing that he would ask the House to decide
+with all its solemnity and all its weight whether it was willing to
+accept from the hands of the right honourable gentleman any measure
+of reform on a matter so important as this now before them. It was
+nearly ten when he sat down; and then the stomach of the House could
+stand it no longer, and an adjournment at once took place.
+
+On the next morning it was generally considered that Mr. Daubeny had
+been too long and Mr. Gresham too passionate. There were some who
+declared that Mr. Gresham had never been finer than when he described
+the privileges of the House of Commons; and others who thought that
+Mr. Daubeny's lucidity had been marvellous; but in this case, as in
+most others, the speeches of the day were generally thought to have
+been very inferior to the great efforts of the past.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+THE UNIVERSE.
+
+
+Before the House met again the quidnuncs about the clubs, on both
+sides of the question, had determined that Mr. Gresham's speech,
+whether good or not as an effort of oratory, would serve its intended
+purpose. He would be backed by a majority of votes, and it might
+have been very doubtful whether such would have been the case had
+he attempted to throw out the Bill on its merits. Mr. Ratler, by
+the time that prayers had been read, had become almost certain of
+success. There were very few Liberals in the House who were not
+anxious to declare by their votes that they had no confidence in Mr.
+Daubeny. Mr. Turnbull, the great Radical, and, perhaps, some two
+dozen with him, would support the second reading, declaring that they
+could not reconcile it with their consciences to record a vote in
+favour of a union of Church and State. On all such occasions as the
+present Mr. Turnbull was sure to make himself disagreeable to those
+who sat near to him in the House. He was a man who thought that so
+much was demanded of him in order that his independence might be
+doubted by none. It was nothing to him, he was wont to say, who
+called himself Prime Minister, or Secretary here, or President there.
+But then there would be quite as much of this independence on the
+Conservative as on the Liberal side of the House. Surely there would
+be more than two dozen gentlemen who would be true enough to the
+cherished principles of their whole lives to vote against such a Bill
+as this! It was the fact that there were so very few so true which
+added such a length to the faces of the country parsons. Six months
+ago not a country gentleman in England would have listened to such a
+proposition without loud protests as to its revolutionary wickedness.
+And now, under the sole pressure of one man's authority, the subject
+had become so common that men were assured that the thing would be
+done even though of all things that could be done it were the worst.
+"It is no good any longer having any opinion upon anything," one
+parson said to another, as they sat together at their club with
+their newspapers in their hands. "Nothing frightens any one,--no
+infidelity, no wickedness, no revolution. All reverence is at an end,
+and the Holy of Holies is no more even to the worshipper than the
+threshold of the Temple." Though it became known that the Bill would
+be lost, what comfort was there in that, when the battle was to be
+won, not by the chosen Israelites to whom the Church with all its
+appurtenances ought to be dear, but by a crew of Philistines who
+would certainly follow the lead of their opponents in destroying the
+holy structure?
+
+On the Friday the debate was continued with much life on the
+Ministerial side of the House. It was very easy for them to cry
+Faction! Faction! and hardly necessary for them to do more. A few
+parrot words had been learned as to the expediency of fitting the
+great and increasing Church of England to the growing necessity of
+the age. That the CHURCH OF ENGLAND would still be the CHURCH OF
+ENGLAND was repeated till weary listeners were sick of the unmeaning
+words. But the zeal of the combatants was displayed on that other
+question. Faction was now the avowed weapon of the leaders of
+the so-called Liberal side of the House, and it was very easy to
+denounce the new doctrine. Every word that Mr. Gresham had spoken
+was picked in pieces, and the enormity of his theory was exhibited.
+He had boldly declared to them that they were to regard men and not
+measures, and they were to show by their votes whether they were
+prepared to accept such teaching. The speeches were, of course, made
+by alternate orators, but the firing from the Conservative benches
+was on this evening much the louder.
+
+It would have seemed that with such an issue between them they might
+almost have consented to divide after the completion of the two great
+speeches. The course on which they were to run had been explained
+to them, and it was not probable that any member's intention as to
+his running would now be altered by anything that he might hear. Mr.
+Turnbull's two dozen defaulters were all known, and the two dozen and
+four true Conservatives were known also. But, nevertheless, a great
+many members were anxious to speak. It would be the great debate
+of the Session, and the subject to be handled,--that, namely, of
+the general merits and demerits of the two political parties,--was
+wide and very easy. On that night it was past one o'clock when Mr.
+Turnbull adjourned the House.
+
+"I'm afraid we must put you off till Tuesday," Mr. Ratler said on the
+Sunday afternoon to Phineas Finn.
+
+"I have no objection at all, so long as I get a fair place on that
+day."
+
+"There shan't be a doubt about that. Gresham particularly wants you
+to speak, because you are pledged to a measure of disestablishment.
+You can insist on his own views,--that even should such a measure be
+essentially necessary--"
+
+"Which I think it is," said Phineas.
+
+"Still it should not be accepted from the old Church-and-State
+party."
+
+There was something pleasant in this to Phineas Finn,--something that
+made him feel for the moment that he had perhaps mistaken the bearing
+of his friend towards him. "We are sure of a majority, I suppose," he
+said.
+
+"Absolutely sure," said Ratler. "I begin to think it will amount to
+half a hundred,--perhaps more."
+
+"What will Daubeny do?"
+
+"Go out. He can't do anything else. His pluck is certainly wonderful,
+but even with his pluck he can't dissolve again. His Church Bill has
+given him a six months' run, and six months is something."
+
+"Is it true that Grogram is to be Chancellor?" Phineas asked the
+question, not from any particular solicitude as to the prospects
+of Sir Gregory Grogram, but because he was anxious to hear whether
+Mr. Ratler would speak to him with anything of the cordiality of
+fellowship respecting the new Government. But Mr. Ratler became at
+once discreet and close, and said that he did not think that anything
+as yet was known as to the Woolsack. Then Phineas retreated again
+within his shell, with a certainty that nothing would be done for
+him.
+
+And yet to whom could this question of place be of such vital
+importance as it was to him? He had come back to his old haunts from
+Ireland, abandoning altogether the pleasant safety of an assured
+income, buoyed by the hope of office. He had, after a fashion, made
+his calculations. In the present disposition of the country it was,
+he thought, certain that the Liberal party must, for the next twenty
+years, have longer periods of power than their opponents; and he had
+thought also that were he in the House, some place would eventually
+be given to him. He had been in office before, and had been
+especially successful. He knew that it had been said of him that of
+the young debutants of latter years he had been the best. He had left
+his party by opposing them; but he had done so without creating any
+ill-will among the leaders of his party,--in a manner that had been
+regarded as highly honourable to him, and on departing had received
+expressions of deep regret from Mr. Gresham himself. When Barrington
+Erle had wanted him to return to his old work, his own chief doubt
+had been about the seat. But he had been bold and had adventured all,
+and had succeeded. There had been some little trouble about those
+pledges given at Tankerville, but he would be able to turn them even
+to the use of his party. It was quite true that nothing had been
+promised him; but Erle, when he had written, bidding him to come over
+from Ireland, must have intended him to understand that he would be
+again enrolled in the favoured regiment, should he be able to show
+himself as the possessor of a seat in the House. And yet,--yet he
+felt convinced that when the day should come it would be to him a
+day of disappointment, and that when the list should appear his name
+would not be on it. Madame Goesler had suggested to him that Mr.
+Bonteen might be his enemy, and he had replied by stating that he
+himself hated Mr. Bonteen. He now remembered that Mr. Bonteen had
+hardly spoken to him since his return to London, though there had not
+in fact been any quarrel between them. In this condition of mind he
+longed to speak openly to Barrington Erle, but he was restrained by
+a feeling of pride, and a still existing idea that no candidate for
+office, let his claim be what it might, should ask for a place. On
+that Sunday evening he saw Bonteen at the club. Men were going in and
+out with that feverish excitement which always prevails on the eve of
+a great parliamentary change. A large majority against the Government
+was considered to be certain; but there was an idea abroad that
+Mr. Daubeny had some scheme in his head by which to confute the
+immediate purport of his enemies. There was nothing to which the
+audacity of the man was not equal. Some said that he would dissolve
+the House,--which had hardly as yet been six months sitting.
+Others were of opinion that he would simply resolve not to vacate
+his place,--thus defying the majority of the House and all the
+ministerial traditions of the country. Words had fallen from him
+which made some men certain that such was his intention. That it
+should succeed ultimately was impossible. The whole country would
+rise against him. Supplies would be refused. In every detail of
+Government he would be impeded. But then,--such was the temper of
+the man,--it was thought that all these horrors would not deter him.
+There would be a blaze and a confusion, in which timid men would
+doubt whether the constitution would be burned to tinder or only
+illuminated; but that blaze and that confusion would be dear to
+Mr. Daubeny if he could stand as the centre figure,--the great
+pyrotechnist who did it all, red from head to foot with the glare of
+the squibs with which his own hands were filling all the spaces. The
+anticipation that some such display might take place made men busy
+and eager; so that on that Sunday evening they roamed about from
+one place of meeting to another, instead of sitting at home with
+their wives and daughters. There was at this time existing a small
+club,--so called though unlike other clubs,--which had entitled
+itself the Universe. The name was supposed to be a joke, as it was
+limited to ninety-nine members. It was domiciled in one simple and
+somewhat mean apartment. It was kept open only one hour before and
+one hour after midnight, and that only on two nights of the week,
+and that only when Parliament was sitting. Its attractions were not
+numerous, consisting chiefly of tobacco and tea. The conversation was
+generally listless and often desultory; and occasionally there would
+arise the great and terrible evil of a punster whom every one hated
+but no one had life enough to put down. But the thing had been a
+success, and men liked to be members of the Universe. Mr. Bonteen was
+a member, and so was Phineas Finn. On this Sunday evening the club
+was open, and Phineas, as he entered the room, perceived that his
+enemy was seated alone on a corner of a sofa. Mr. Bonteen was not a
+man who loved to be alone in public places, and was apt rather to
+make one of congregations, affecting popularity, and always at work
+increasing his influence. But on this occasion his own greatness had
+probably isolated him. If it were true that he was to be the new
+Chancellor of the Exchequer,--to ascend from demi-godhead to the
+perfect divinity of the Cabinet,--and to do so by a leap which would
+make him high even among first-class gods, it might be well for
+himself to look to himself and choose new congregations. Or, at
+least, it would be becoming that he should be chosen now instead of
+being a chooser. He was one who could weigh to the last ounce the
+importance of his position, and make most accurate calculations as
+to the effect of his intimacies. On that very morning Mr. Gresham
+had suggested to him that in the event of a Liberal Government being
+formed, he should hold the high office in question. This, perhaps,
+had not been done in the most flattering manner, as Mr. Gresham had
+deeply bewailed the loss of Mr. Palliser, and had almost demanded a
+pledge from Mr. Bonteen that he would walk exactly in Mr. Palliser's
+footsteps;--but the offer had been made, and could not be retracted;
+and Mr. Bonteen already felt the warmth of the halo of perfect
+divinity.
+
+There are some men who seem to have been born to be Cabinet
+Ministers,--dukes mostly, or earls, or the younger sons of such,--who
+have been trained to it from their very cradles, and of whom we may
+imagine that they are subject to no special awe when they first
+enter into that august assembly, and feel but little personal
+elevation. But to the political aspirant not born in the purple of
+public life, this entrance upon the counsels of the higher deities
+must be accompanied by a feeling of supreme triumph, dashed by
+considerable misgivings. Perhaps Mr. Bonteen was revelling in his
+triumph;--perhaps he was anticipating his misgivings. Phineas, though
+disinclined to make any inquiries of a friend which might seem to
+refer to his own condition, felt no such reluctance in regard to
+one who certainly could not suspect him of asking a favour. He was
+presumed to be on terms of intimacy with the man, and he took his
+seat beside him, asking some question as to the debate. Now Mr.
+Bonteen had more than once expressed an opinion among his friends
+that Phineas Finn would throw his party over, and vote with the
+Government. The Ratlers and Erles and Fitzgibbons all knew that
+Phineas was safe, but Mr. Bonteen was still in doubt. It suited him
+to affect something more than doubt on the present occasion. "I
+wonder that you should ask me," said Mr. Bonteen.
+
+"What do you mean by that?"
+
+"I presume that you, as usual, will vote against us."
+
+"I never voted against my party but once," said Phineas, "and then I
+did it with the approbation of every man in it for whose good opinion
+I cared a straw." There was insult in his tone as he said this, and
+something near akin to insult in his words.
+
+"You must do it again now, or break every promise that you made at
+Tankerville."
+
+"Do you know what promise I made at Tankerville? I shall break no
+promise."
+
+"You must allow me to say, Mr. Finn, that the kind of independence
+which is practised by you and Mr. Monk, grand as it may be on the
+part of men who avowedly abstain from office, is a little dangerous
+when it is now and again adopted by men who have taken place. I like
+to be sure that the men who are in the same boat with me won't take
+it into their heads that their duty requires them to scuttle the
+ship." Having so spoken, Mr. Bonteen, with nearly all the grace of a
+full-fledged Cabinet Minister, rose from his seat on the corner of
+the sofa and joined a small congregation.
+
+Phineas felt that his ears were tingling and that his face was red.
+He looked round to ascertain from the countenances of others whether
+they had heard what had been said. Nobody had been close to them, and
+he thought that the conversation had been unnoticed. He knew now that
+he had been imprudent in addressing himself to Mr. Bonteen, though
+the question that he had first asked had been quite commonplace. As
+it was, the man, he thought, had been determined to affront him,
+and had made a charge against him which he could not allow to pass
+unnoticed. And then there was all the additional bitterness in it
+which arose from the conviction that Bonteen had spoken the opinion
+of other men as well as his own, and that he had plainly indicated
+that the gates of the official paradise were to be closed against the
+presumed offender. Phineas had before believed that it was to be so,
+but that belief had now become assurance. He got up in his misery to
+leave the room, but as he did so he met Laurence Fitzgibbon. "You
+have heard the news about Bonteen?" said Laurence.
+
+"What news?"
+
+"He's to be pitchforked up to the Exchequer. They say it's quite
+settled. The higher a monkey climbs--; you know the proverb." So
+saying Laurence Fitzgibbon passed into the room, and Phineas Finn
+took his departure in solitude.
+
+And so the man with whom he had managed to quarrel utterly was to be
+one in the Cabinet, a man whose voice would probably be potential in
+the selection of minor members of the Government. It seemed to him to
+be almost incredible that such a one as Mr. Bonteen should be chosen
+for such an office. He had despised almost as soon as he had known
+Mr. Bonteen, and had rarely heard the future manager of the finance
+of the country spoken of with either respect or regard. He had
+regarded Mr. Bonteen as a useful, dull, unscrupulous politician, well
+accustomed to Parliament, acquainted with the bye-paths and back
+doors of official life,--and therefore certain of employment when
+the Liberals were in power; but there was no one in the party he had
+thought less likely to be selected for high place. And yet this man
+was to be made Chancellor of the Exchequer, while he, Phineas Finn,
+very probably at this man's instance, was to be left out in the cold.
+
+He knew himself to be superior to the man he hated, to have higher
+ideas of political life, and to be capable of greater political
+sacrifices. He himself had sat shoulder to shoulder with many men
+on the Treasury Bench whose political principles he had not greatly
+valued; but of none of them had he thought so little as he had done
+of Mr. Bonteen. And yet this Mr. Bonteen was to be the new Chancellor
+of the Exchequer! He walked home to his lodgings in Marlborough
+Street, wretched because of his own failure;--doubly wretched because
+of the other man's success.
+
+He laid awake half the night thinking of the words that had been
+spoken to him, and after breakfast on the following morning he wrote
+the following note to his enemy:--
+
+
+   House of Commons, 5th April, 18--.
+
+   DEAR MR. BONTEEN,
+
+   It is matter of extreme regret to me that last night at
+   the Universe I should have asked you some chance question
+   about the coming division. Had I guessed to what it might
+   have led, I should not have addressed you. But as it is
+   I can hardly abstain from noticing what appeared to me
+   to be a personal charge made against myself with a great
+   want of the courtesy which is supposed to prevail among
+   men who have acted together. Had we never done so my
+   original question to you might perhaps have been deemed
+   an impertinence.
+
+   As it was, you accused me of having been dishonest to my
+   party, and of having "scuttled the ship." On the occasion
+   to which you alluded I acted with much consideration,
+   greatly to the detriment of my own prospects,--and as I
+   believed with the approbation of all who knew anything of
+   the subject. If you will make inquiry of Mr. Gresham, or
+   Lord Cantrip who was then my chief, I think that either
+   will tell you that my conduct on that occasion was not
+   such as to lay me open to reproach. If you will do this,
+   I think that you cannot fail afterwards to express regret
+   for what you said to me last night.
+
+   Yours sincerely,
+
+   PHINEAS FINN.
+
+   Thos. Bonteen, Esq., M.P.
+
+
+He did not like the letter when he had written it, but he did not
+know how to improve it, and he sent it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+POLITICAL VENOM.
+
+
+On the Monday Mr. Turnbull opened the ball by declaring his reasons
+for going into the same lobby with Mr. Daubeny. This he did at great
+length. To him all the mighty pomp and all the little squabbles of
+office were, he said, as nothing. He would never allow himself to
+regard the person of the Prime Minister. The measure before the House
+ever had been and ever should be all in all to him. If the public
+weal were more regarded in that House, and the quarrels of men less
+considered, he thought that the service of the country would be
+better done. He was answered by Mr. Monk, who was sitting near him,
+and who intended to support Mr. Gresham. Mr. Monk was rather happy
+in pulling his old friend, Mr. Turnbull, to pieces, expressing his
+opinion that a difference in men meant a difference in measures. The
+characters of men whose principles were known were guarantees for the
+measures they would advocate. To him,--Mr. Monk,--it was matter of
+very great moment who was Prime Minister of England. He was always
+selfish enough to wish for a Minister with whom he himself could
+agree on the main questions of the day. As he certainly could not say
+that he had political confidence in the present Ministry, he should
+certainly vote against them on this occasion.
+
+In the course of the evening Phineas found a letter addressed to
+himself from Mr. Bonteen. It was as follows:--
+
+
+   House of Commons, April 5th, 18--.
+
+   DEAR MR. FINN,
+
+   I never accused you of dishonesty. You must have misheard
+   or misunderstood me if you thought so. I did say that you
+   had scuttled the ship;--and as you most undoubtedly did
+   scuttle it,--you and Mr. Monk between you,--I cannot
+   retract my words.
+
+   I do not want to go to any one for testimony as to your
+   merits on the occasion. I accused you of having done
+   nothing dishonourable or disgraceful. I think I said that
+   there was danger in the practice of scuttling. I think
+   so still, though I know that many fancy that those who
+   scuttle do a fine thing. I don't deny that it's fine, and
+   therefore you can have no cause of complaint against me.
+
+   Yours truly,
+
+   J. BONTEEN.
+
+
+He had brought a copy of his own letter in his pocket to the House,
+and he showed the correspondence to Mr. Monk. "I would not have
+noticed it, had I been you," said he.
+
+"You can have no idea of the offensive nature of the remark when it
+was made."
+
+"It's as offensive to me as to you, but I should not think of moving
+in such a matter. When a man annoys you, keep out of his way. It is
+generally the best thing you can do."
+
+"If a man were to call you a liar?"
+
+"But men don't call each other liars. Bonteen understands the world
+much too well to commit himself by using any word which common
+opinion would force him to retract. He says we scuttled the ship.
+Well;--we did. Of all the political acts of my life it is the one
+of which I am most proud. The manner in which you helped me has
+entitled you to my affectionate esteem. But we did scuttle the ship.
+Before you can quarrel with Bonteen you must be able to show that a
+metaphorical scuttling of a ship must necessarily be a disgraceful
+act. You see how he at once retreats behind the fact that it need not
+be so."
+
+"You wouldn't answer his letter."
+
+"I think not. You can do yourself no good by a correspondence in
+which you cannot get a hold of him. And if you did get a hold of him
+you would injure yourself much more than him. Just drop it." This
+added much to our friend's misery, and made him feel that the weight
+of it was almost more than he could bear. His enemy had got the
+better of him at every turn. He had now rushed into a correspondence
+as to which he would have to own by his silence that he had been
+confuted. And yet he was sure that Mr. Bonteen had at the club
+insulted him most unjustifiably, and that if the actual truth were
+known, no man, certainly not Mr. Monk, would hesitate to say that
+reparation was due to him. And yet what could he do? He thought that
+he would consult Lord Cantrip, and endeavour to get from his late
+Chief some advice more palatable than that which had been tendered to
+him by Mr. Monk.
+
+In the meantime animosities in the House were waxing very furious;
+and, as it happened, the debate took a turn that was peculiarly
+injurious to Phineas Finn in his present state of mind. The rumour as
+to the future promotion of Mr. Bonteen, which had been conveyed by
+Laurence Fitzgibbon to Phineas at the Universe, had, as was natural,
+spread far and wide, and had reached the ears of those who still
+sat on the Ministerial benches. Now it is quite understood among
+politicians in this country that no man should presume that he will
+have imposed upon him the task of forming a Ministry until he has
+been called upon by the Crown to undertake that great duty. Let the
+Gresham or the Daubeny of the day be ever so sure that the reins of
+the State chariot must come into his hands, he should not visibly
+prepare himself for the seat on the box till he has actually been
+summoned to place himself there. At this moment it was alleged that
+Mr. Gresham had departed from the reticence and modesty usual in
+such a position as his, by taking steps towards the formation of a
+Cabinet, while it was as yet quite possible that he might never be
+called upon to form any Cabinet. Late on this Monday night, when the
+House was quite full, one of Mr. Daubeny's leading lieutenants, a
+Secretary of State, Sir Orlando Drought by name,--a gentleman who if
+he had any heart in the matter must have hated this Church Bill from
+the very bottom of his heart, and who on that account was the more
+bitter against opponents who had not ceased to throw in his teeth his
+own political tergiversation,--fell foul of Mr. Gresham as to this
+rumoured appointment to the Chancellorship of the Exchequer. The
+reader will easily imagine the things that were said. Sir Orlando
+had heard, and had been much surprised at hearing, that a certain
+honourable member of that House, who had long been known to them as
+a tenant of the Ministerial bench, had already been appointed to a
+high office. He, Sir Orlando, had not been aware that the office had
+been vacant, or that if vacant it would have been at the disposal of
+the right honourable gentleman; but he believed that there was no
+doubt that the place in question, with a seat in the Cabinet, had
+been tendered to, and accepted by, the honourable member to whom he
+alluded. Such was the rabid haste with which the right honourable
+gentleman opposite, and his colleagues, were attempting, he would not
+say to climb, but to rush into office, by opposing a great measure of
+Reform, the wisdom of which, as was notorious to all the world, they
+themselves did not dare to deny. Much more of the same kind was said,
+during which Mr. Gresham pulled about his hat, shuffled his feet,
+showed his annoyance to all the House, and at last jumped upon his
+legs.
+
+"If," said Sir Orlando Drought,--"if the right honourable gentleman
+wishes to deny the accuracy of any statements that I have made, I
+will give way to him for the moment, that he may do so."
+
+"I deny utterly, not only the accuracy, but every detail of the
+statement made by the right honourable gentleman opposite," said
+Mr. Gresham, still standing and holding his hat in his hand as he
+completed his denial.
+
+"Does the right honourable gentleman mean to assure me that he has
+not selected his future Chancellor of the Exchequer?"
+
+"The right honourable gentleman is too acute not to be aware that we
+on this side of the House may have made such selection, and that yet
+every detail of the statement which he has been rash enough to make
+to the House may be--unfounded. The word, sir, is weak; but I would
+fain avoid the use of any words which, justifiable though they might
+be, would offend the feelings of the House. I will explain to the
+House exactly what has been done."
+
+Then there was a great hubbub--cries of "Order," "Gresham," "Spoke,"
+"Hear, hear," and the like,--during which Sir Orlando Drought and Mr.
+Gresham both stood on their legs. So powerful was Mr. Gresham's voice
+that, through it all, every word that he said was audible to the
+reporters. His opponent hardly attempted to speak, but stood relying
+upon his right. Mr. Gresham said he understood that it was the desire
+of the House that he should explain the circumstances in reference
+to the charge that had been made against him, and it would certainly
+be for the convenience of the House that this should be done at
+the moment. The Speaker of course ruled that Sir Orlando was in
+possession of the floor, but suggested that it might be convenient
+that he should yield to the right honourable gentleman on the
+other side for a few minutes. Mr. Gresham, as a matter of course,
+succeeded. Rights and rules, which are bonds of iron to a little man,
+are packthread to a giant. No one in all that assembly knew the House
+better than did Mr. Gresham, was better able to take it by storm, or
+more obdurate in perseverance. He did make his speech, though clearly
+he had no right to do so. The House, he said, was aware, that by the
+most unfortunate demise of the late Duke of Omnium, a gentleman had
+been removed from this House to another place, whose absence from
+their counsels would long be felt as a very grievous loss. Then he
+pronounced a eulogy on Plantagenet Palliser, so graceful and well
+arranged, that even the bitterness of the existing opposition was
+unable to demur to it. The House was well aware of the nature of the
+labours which now for some years past had occupied the mind of the
+noble duke; and the paramount importance which the country attached
+to their conclusion. The noble duke no doubt was not absolutely
+debarred from a continuance of his work by the change which had
+fallen upon him; but it was essential that some gentleman, belonging
+to the same party with the noble duke, versed in office, and having a
+seat in that House, should endeavour to devote himself to the great
+measure which had occupied so much of the attention of the late
+Chancellor of the Exchequer. No doubt it must be fitting that the
+gentleman so selected should be at the Exchequer, in the event of
+their party coming into office. The honourable gentleman to whom
+allusion had been made had acted throughout with the present noble
+duke in arranging the details of the measure in question; and the
+probability of his being able to fill the shoes left vacant by
+the accession to the peerage of the noble duke had, indeed, been
+discussed;--but the discussion had been made in reference to the
+measure, and only incidentally in regard to the office. He, Mr.
+Gresham, held that he had done nothing that was indiscreet,--nothing
+that his duty did not demand. If right honourable gentlemen opposite
+were of a different opinion, he thought that that difference came
+from the fact that they were less intimately acquainted than he
+unfortunately had been with the burdens and responsibilities of
+legislation.
+
+There was very little in the dispute which seemed to be worthy of
+the place in which it occurred, or of the vigour with which it was
+conducted; but it served to show the temper of the parties, and to
+express the bitterness of the political feelings of the day. It was
+said at the time, that never within the memory of living politicians
+had so violent an animosity displayed itself in the House as had
+been witnessed on this night. While Mr. Gresham was giving his
+explanation, Mr. Daubeny had arisen, and with a mock solemnity that
+was peculiar to him on occasions such as these, had appealed to the
+Speaker whether the right honourable gentleman opposite should not be
+called upon to resume his seat. Mr. Gresham had put him down with a
+wave of his hand. An affected stateliness cannot support itself but
+for a moment; and Mr. Daubeny had been forced to sit down when the
+Speaker did not at once support his appeal. But he did not forget
+that wave of the hand, nor did he forgive it. He was a man who in
+public life rarely forgot, and never forgave. They used to say
+of him that "at home" he was kindly and forbearing, simple and
+unostentatious. It may be so. Who does not remember that horrible
+Turk, Jacob Asdrubal, the Old Bailey barrister, the terror of
+witnesses, the bane of judges,--who was gall and wormwood to all
+opponents. It was said of him that "at home" his docile amiability
+was the marvel of his friends, and delight of his wife and daughters.
+"At home," perhaps, Mr. Daubeny might have been waved at, and have
+forgiven it; but men who saw the scene in the House of Commons knew
+that he would never forgive Mr. Gresham. As for Mr. Gresham himself,
+he triumphed at the moment, and exulted in his triumph.
+
+Phineas Finn heard it all, and was disgusted to find that his enemy
+thus became the hero of the hour. It was, indeed, the opinion
+generally of the Liberal party that Mr. Gresham had not said much to
+flatter his new Chancellor of the Exchequer. In praise of Plantagenet
+Palliser he had been very loud, and he had no doubt said that which
+implied the capability of Mr. Bonteen, who, as it happened, was
+sitting next to him at the time; but he had implied also that the
+mantle which was to be transferred from Mr. Palliser to Mr. Bonteen
+would be carried by its new wearer with grace very inferior to that
+which had marked all the steps of his predecessor. Ratler, and
+Erle, and Fitzgibbon, and others had laughed in their sleeves at
+the expression, understood by them, of Mr. Gresham's doubt as to
+the qualifications of his new assistant, and Sir Orlando Drought,
+in continuing his speech, remarked that the warmth of the right
+honourable gentleman had been so completely expended in abusing his
+enemies that he had had none left for the defence of his friend.
+But to Phineas it seemed that this Bonteen, who had so grievously
+injured him, and whom he so thoroughly despised, was carrying off
+all the glories of the fight. A certain amount of consolation was,
+however, afforded to him. Between one and two o'clock he was told
+by Mr. Ratler that he might enjoy the privilege of adjourning the
+debate,--by which would accrue to him the right of commencing on the
+morrow,--and this he did at a few minutes before three.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+SEVENTY-TWO.
+
+
+On the next morning Phineas, with his speech before him, was obliged
+for a while to forget, or at least to postpone, Mr. Bonteen and his
+injuries. He could not now go to Lord Cantrip, as the hours were
+too precious to him, and, as he felt, too short. Though he had been
+thinking what he would say ever since the debate had become imminent,
+and knew accurately the line which he would take, he had not as yet
+prepared a word of his speech. But he had resolved that he would
+not prepare a word otherwise than he might do by arranging certain
+phrases in his memory. There should be nothing written; he had tried
+that before in old days, and had broken down with the effort. He
+would load himself with no burden of words in itself so heavy that
+the carrying of it would incapacitate him for any other effort.
+
+After a late breakfast he walked out far away, into the Regent's
+Park, and there, wandering among the uninteresting paths, he devised
+triumphs of oratory for himself. Let him resolve as he would to
+forget Mr. Bonteen, and that charge of having been untrue to his
+companions, he could not restrain himself from efforts to fit the
+matter after some fashion into his speech. Dim ideas of a definition
+of political honesty crossed his brain, bringing with him, however,
+a conviction that his thought must be much more clearly worked out
+than it could be on that day before he might venture to give it birth
+in the House of Commons. He knew that he had been honest two years
+ago in separating himself from his colleagues. He knew that he would
+be honest now in voting with them, apparently in opposition to the
+pledges he had given at Tankerville. But he knew also that it would
+behove him to abstain from speaking of himself unless he could do so
+in close reference to some point specially in dispute between the two
+parties. When he returned to eat a mutton chop at Great Marlborough
+Street at three o'clock he was painfully conscious that all his
+morning had been wasted. He had allowed his mind to run revel,
+instead of tying it down to the formation of sentences and
+construction of arguments.
+
+He entered the House with the Speaker at four o'clock, and took his
+seat without uttering a word to any man. He seemed to be more than
+ever disjoined from his party. Hitherto, since he had been seated
+by the Judge's order, the former companions of his Parliamentary
+life,--the old men whom he had used to know,--had to a certain degree
+admitted him among them. Many of them sat on the front Opposition
+bench, whereas he, as a matter of course, had seated himself behind.
+But he had very frequently found himself next to some man who had
+held office and was living in the hope of holding it again, and
+had felt himself to be in some sort recognised as an aspirant. Now
+it seemed to him that it was otherwise. He did not doubt but that
+Bonteen had shown the correspondence to his friends, and that the
+Ratlers and Erles had conceded that he, Phineas, was put out of
+court by it. He sat doggedly still, at the end of a bench behind
+Mr. Gresham, and close to the gangway. When Mr. Gresham entered the
+House he was received with much cheering; but Phineas did not join in
+the cheer. He was studious to avoid any personal recognition of the
+future giver-away of places, though they two were close together; and
+he then fancied that Mr. Gresham had specially and most ungraciously
+abstained from any recognition of him. Mr. Monk, who sat near him,
+spoke a kind word to him. "I shan't be very long," said Phineas; "not
+above twenty minutes, I should think." He was able to assume an air
+of indifference, and yet at the moment he heartily wished himself
+back in Dublin. It was not now that he feared the task immediately
+before him, but that he was overcome by the feeling of general
+failure which had come upon him. Of what use was it to him or to any
+one else that he should be there in that assembly, with the privilege
+of making a speech that would influence no human being, unless his
+being there could be made a step to something beyond? While the usual
+preliminary work was being done, he looked round the House, and saw
+Lord Cantrip in the Peers' gallery. Alas! of what avail was that? He
+had always been able to bind to him individuals with whom he had been
+brought into close contact; but more than that was wanted in this
+most precarious of professions, in which now, for a second time, he
+was attempting to earn his bread.
+
+At half-past four he was on his legs in the midst of a crowded House.
+The chance,--perhaps the hope,--of some such encounter as that of the
+former day, brought members into their seats, and filled the gallery
+with strangers. We may say, perhaps, that the highest duty imposed
+upon us as a nation is the management of India; and we may also
+say that in a great national assembly personal squabbling among
+its members is the least dignified work in which it can employ
+itself. But the prospect of an explanation,--or otherwise of a
+fight,--between two leading politicians will fill the House; and any
+allusion to our Eastern Empire will certainly empty it. An aptitude
+for such encounters is almost a necessary qualification for a popular
+leader in Parliament, as is a capacity for speaking for three
+hours to the reporters, and to the reporters only,--a necessary
+qualification for an Under-Secretary of State for India.
+
+Phineas had the advantage of the temper of the moment in a House
+thoroughly crowded, and he enjoyed it. Let a man doubt ever so much
+his own capacity for some public exhibition which he has undertaken;
+yet he will always prefer to fail,--if fail he must,--before a large
+audience. But on this occasion there was no failure. That sense of
+awe from the surrounding circumstances of the moment, which had once
+been heavy on him, and which he still well remembered, had been
+overcome, and had never returned to him. He felt now that he should
+not lack words to pour out his own individual grievances were it not
+that he was prevented by a sense of the indiscretion of doing so. As
+it was, he did succeed in alluding to his own condition in a manner
+that brought upon him no reproach. He began by saying that he should
+not have added to the difficulty of the debate,--which was one simply
+of length,--were it not that he had been accused in advance of voting
+against a measure as to which he had pledged himself at the hustings
+to do all that he could to further it. No man was more anxious than
+he, an Irish Roman Catholic, to abolish that which he thought to be
+the anomaly of a State Church, and he did not in the least doubt that
+he should now be doing the best in his power with that object in
+voting against the second reading of the present bill. That such a
+measure should be carried by the gentlemen opposite, in their own
+teeth, at the bidding of the right honourable gentleman who led
+them, he thought to be impossible. Upon this he was hooted at from
+the other side with many gestures of indignant denial, and was, of
+course, equally cheered by those around him. Such interruptions are
+new breath to the nostrils of all orators, and Phineas enjoyed the
+noise. He repeated his assertion that it would be an evil thing for
+the country that the measure should be carried by men who in their
+hearts condemned it, and was vehemently called to order for this
+assertion about the hearts of gentlemen. But a speaker who can
+certainly be made amenable to authority for vilipending in debate
+the heart of any specified opponent, may with safety attribute all
+manner of ill to the agglomerated hearts of a party. To have told any
+individual Conservative,--Sir Orlando Drought for instance,--that
+he was abandoning all the convictions of his life, because he was a
+creature at the command of Mr. Daubeny, would have been an insult
+that would have moved even the Speaker from his serenity; but you can
+hardly be personal to a whole bench of Conservatives,--to bench above
+bench of Conservatives. The charge had been made and repeated over
+and over again, till all the Orlando Droughts were ready to cut some
+man's throat,--whether their own, or Mr. Daubeny's, or Mr. Gresham's,
+they hardly knew. It might probably have been Mr. Daubeny's for
+choice, had any real cutting of a throat been possible. It was now
+made again by Phineas Finn,--with the ostensible object of defending
+himself,--and he for the moment became the target for Conservative
+wrath. Some one asked him in fury by what right he took upon himself
+to judge of the motives of gentlemen on that side of the House of
+whom personally he knew nothing. Phineas replied that he did not
+at all doubt the motives of the honourable gentleman who asked
+the question, which he was sure were noble and patriotic. But
+unfortunately the whole country was convinced that the Conservative
+party as a body was supporting this measure, unwillingly, and at the
+bidding of one man;--and, for himself, he was bound to say that he
+agreed with the country. And so the row was renewed and prolonged,
+and the gentlemen assembled, members and strangers together, passed a
+pleasant evening.
+
+Before he sat down, Phineas made one allusion to that former
+scuttling of the ship,--an accusation as to which had been made
+against him so injuriously by Mr. Bonteen. He himself, he said, had
+been called impractical, and perhaps he might allude to a vote which
+he had given in that House when last he had the honour of sitting
+there, and on giving which he resigned the office which he had then
+held. He had the gratification of knowing that he had been so far
+practical as to have then foreseen the necessity of a measure which
+had since been passed. And he did not doubt that he would hereafter
+be found to have been equally practical in the view that he had
+expressed on the hustings at Tankerville, for he was convinced that
+before long the anomaly of which he had spoken would cease to exist
+under the influence of a Government that would really believe in the
+work it was doing.
+
+There was no doubt as to the success of his speech. The vehemence
+with which his insolence was abused by one after another of those who
+spoke later from the other side was ample evidence of its success.
+But nothing occurred then or at the conclusion of the debate to make
+him think that he had won his way back to Elysium. During the whole
+evening he exchanged not a syllable with Mr. Gresham,--who indeed
+was not much given to converse with those around him in the House.
+Erle said a few good-natured words to him, and Mr. Monk praised him
+highly. But in reading the general barometer of the party as regarded
+himself, he did not find that the mercury went up. He was wretchedly
+anxious, and angry with himself for his own anxiety. He scorned to
+say a word that should sound like an entreaty; and yet he had placed
+his whole heart on a thing which seemed to be slipping from him
+for the want of asking. In a day or two it would be known whether
+the present Ministry would or would not go out. That they must be
+out of office before a month was over seemed to him the opinion
+of everybody. His fate,--and what a fate it was!--would then be
+absolutely in the hands of Mr. Gresham. Yet he could not speak a
+word of his hopes and fears even to Mr. Gresham. He had given up
+everything in the world with the view of getting into office; and now
+that the opportunity had come,--an opportunity which if allowed to
+slip could hardly return again in time to be of service to him,--the
+prize was to elude his grasp!
+
+But yet he did not say a word to any one on the subject that was
+so near his heart, although in the course of the night he spoke to
+Lord Cantrip in the gallery of the House. He told his friend that a
+correspondence had taken place between himself and Mr. Bonteen, in
+which he thought that he had been ill-used, and as to which he was
+quite anxious to ask His Lordship's advice. "I heard that you and he
+had been tilting at each other," said Lord Cantrip, smiling.
+
+"Have you seen the letters?"
+
+"No;--but I was told of them by Lord Fawn, who has seen them."
+
+"I knew he would show them to every newsmonger about the clubs," said
+Phineas angrily.
+
+"You can't quarrel with Bonteen for showing them to Fawn, if you
+intend to show them to me."
+
+"He may publish them at Charing Cross if he likes."
+
+"Exactly. I am sure that there will have been nothing in them
+prejudicial to you. What I mean is that if you think it necessary,
+with a view to your own character, to show them to me or to another
+friend, you cannot complain that he should do the same."
+
+An appointment was made at Lord Cantrip's house for the next morning,
+and Phineas could but acknowledge to himself that the man's manner to
+himself had been kind and constant. Nevertheless, the whole affair
+was going against him. Lord Cantrip had not said a word prejudicial
+to that wretch Bonteen; much less had he hinted at any future
+arrangements which would be comfortable to poor Phineas. They two,
+Lord Cantrip and Phineas, had at one period been on most intimate
+terms together;--had worked in the same office, and had thoroughly
+trusted each other. The elder of the two,--for Lord Cantrip was about
+ten years senior to Phineas,--had frequently expressed the most
+lively interest in the prospects of the other; and Phineas had felt
+that in any emergency he could tell his friend all his hopes and
+fears. But now he did not say a word of his position, nor did Lord
+Cantrip allude to it. They were to meet on the morrow in order that
+Lord Cantrip might read the correspondence;--but Phineas was sure
+that no word would be said about the Government.
+
+At five o'clock in the morning the division took place, and the
+Government was beaten by a majority of 72. This was much higher
+than any man had expected. When the parties were marshalled in the
+opposite lobbies it was found that in the last moment the number of
+those Conservatives who dared to rebel against their Conservative
+leaders was swelled by the course which the debate had taken. There
+were certain men who could not endure to be twitted with having
+deserted the principles of their lives, when it was clear that
+nothing was to be gained by the party by such desertion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+THE CONSPIRACY.
+
+
+On the morning following the great division Phineas was with his
+friend, Lord Cantrip, by eleven o'clock; and Lord Cantrip, when
+he had read the two letters in which were comprised the whole
+correspondence, made to our unhappy hero the following little speech.
+"I do not think that you can do anything. Indeed, I am sure that Mr.
+Monk is quite right. I don't quite see what it is that you wish to
+do. Privately,--between our two selves,--I do not hesitate to say
+that Mr. Bonteen has intended to be ill-natured. I fancy that he is
+an ill-natured--or at any rate a jealous--man; and that he would be
+willing to run down a competitor in the race who had made his running
+after a fashion different from his own. Bonteen has been a useful
+man,--a very useful man; and the more so perhaps because he has not
+entertained any high political theory of his own. You have chosen to
+do so,--and undoubtedly when you and Monk left us, to our very great
+regret, you did scuttle the ship."
+
+"We had no intention of that kind."
+
+"Do not suppose that I blame you. That which was odious to the eyes
+of Mr. Bonteen was to my thinking high and honourable conduct. I
+have known the same thing done by members of a Government perhaps
+half-a-dozen times, and the men by whom it has been done have been
+the best and noblest of our modern statesmen. There has generally
+been a hard contest in the man's breast between loyalty to his
+party and strong personal convictions, the result of which has been
+an inability on the part of the struggler to give even a silent
+support to a measure which he has disapproved. That inability is no
+doubt troublesome at the time to the colleagues of the seceder, and
+constitutes an offence hardly to be pardoned by such gentlemen as Mr.
+Bonteen."
+
+"For Mr. Bonteen personally I care nothing."
+
+"But of course you must endure the ill-effects of his influence,--be
+they what they may. When you seceded from our Government you looked
+for certain adverse consequences. If you did not, where was your
+self-sacrifice? That such men as Mr. Bonteen should feel that you had
+scuttled the ship, and be unable to forgive you for doing so,--that
+is exactly the evil which you knew you must face. You have to
+face it now, and surely you can do so without showing your teeth.
+Hereafter, when men more thoughtful than Mr. Bonteen shall have come
+to acknowledge the high principle by which your conduct has been
+governed, you will receive your reward. I suppose Mr. Daubeny must
+resign now."
+
+"Everybody says so."
+
+"I am by no means sure that he will. Any other Minister since Lord
+North's time would have done so, with such a majority against him on
+a vital measure; but he is a man who delights in striking out some
+wonderful course for himself."
+
+"A prime minister so beaten surely can't go on."
+
+"Not for long, one would think. And yet how are you to turn him out?
+It depends very much on a man's power of endurance."
+
+"His colleagues will resign, I should think."
+
+"Probably;--and then he must go. I should say that that will be the
+way in which the matter will settle itself. Good morning, Finn;--and
+take my word for it, you had better not answer Mr. Bonteen's letter."
+
+Not a word had fallen from Lord Cantrip's friendly lips as to the
+probability of Phineas being invited to join the future Government.
+An attempt had been made to console him with the hazy promise of
+some future reward,--which however was to consist rather of the good
+opinion of good men than of anything tangible and useful. But even
+this would never come to him. What would good men know of him and of
+his self-sacrifice when he should have been driven out of the world
+by poverty, and forced probably to go to some New Zealand or back
+Canadian settlement to look for his bread? How easy, thought Phineas,
+must be the sacrifices of rich men, who can stay their time, and
+wait in perfect security for their rewards! But for such a one as he,
+truth to a principle was political annihilation. Two or three years
+ago he had done what he knew to be a noble thing;--and now, because
+he had done that noble thing, he was to be regarded as unfit for that
+very employment for which he was peculiarly fitted. But Bonteen and
+Co. had not been his only enemies. His luck had been against him
+throughout. Mr. Quintus Slide, with his People's Banner, and the
+story of that wretched affair in Judd Street, had been as strong
+against him probably as Mr. Bonteen's ill-word. Then he thought of
+Lady Laura, and her love for him. His gratitude to Lady Laura was
+boundless. There was nothing he would not do for Lady Laura,--were it
+in his power to do anything. But no circumstance in his career had
+been so unfortunate for him as this affection. A wretched charge had
+been made against him which, though wholly untrue, was as it were
+so strangely connected with the truth, that slanderers might not
+improbably be able almost to substantiate their calumnies. She would
+be in London soon, and he must devote himself to her service. But
+every act of friendship that he might do for her would be used as
+proof of the accusation that had been made against him. As he thought
+of all this he was walking towards Park Lane in order that he might
+call upon Madame Goesler according to his promise. As he went up to
+the drawing-room he met old Mr. Maule coming down, and the two bowed
+to each other on the stairs. In the drawing-room, sitting with Madame
+Goesler, he found Mrs. Bonteen. Now Mrs. Bonteen was almost as odious
+to him as was her husband.
+
+"Did you ever know anything more shameful, Mr. Finn," said Mrs.
+Bonteen, "than the attack made upon Mr. Bonteen the night before
+last?" Phineas could see a smile on Madame Goesler's face as the
+question was asked;--for she knew, and he knew that she knew, how
+great was the antipathy between him and the Bonteens.
+
+"The attack was upon Mr. Gresham, I thought," said Phineas.
+
+"Oh, yes; nominally. But of course everybody knows what was meant.
+Upon my word there is twice more jealousy among men than among women.
+Is there not, Madame Goesler?"
+
+"I don't think any man could be more jealous than I am myself," said
+Madame Goesler.
+
+"Then you're fit to be a member of a Government, that's all. I don't
+suppose that there is a man in England has worked harder for his
+party than Mr. Bonteen."
+
+"I don't think there is," said Phineas.
+
+"Or made himself more useful in Parliament. As for work, only that
+his constitution is so strong, he would have killed himself."
+
+"He should take Thorley's mixture,--twice a day," said Madame
+Goesler.
+
+"Take!--he never has time to take anything. He breakfasts in his
+dressing-room, carries his lunch in his pocket, and dines with the
+division bell ringing him up between his fish and his mutton chop.
+Now he has got their decimal coinage in hand, and has not a moment to
+himself, even on Sundays!"
+
+"He'll be sure to go to Heaven for it,--that's one comfort."
+
+"And because they are absolutely obliged to make him Chancellor of
+the Exchequer,--just as if he had not earned it,--everybody is so
+jealous that they are ready to tear him to pieces!"
+
+"Who is everybody?" asked Phineas.
+
+"Oh! I know. It wasn't only Sir Orlando Drought. Who told Sir
+Orlando? Never mind, Mr. Finn."
+
+"I don't in the least, Mrs. Bonteen."
+
+"I should have thought you would have been so triumphant," said
+Madame Goesler.
+
+"Not in the least, Madame Goesler. Why should I be triumphant? Of
+course the position is very high,--very high indeed. But it's no more
+than what I have always expected. If a man give up his life to a
+pursuit he ought to succeed. As for ambition, I have less of it than
+any woman. Only I do hate jealousy, Mr. Finn." Then Mrs. Bonteen took
+her leave, kissing her dear friend, Madame Goesler, and simply bowing
+to Phineas.
+
+"What a detestable woman!" said Phineas.
+
+"I know of old that you don't love her."
+
+"I don't believe that you love her a bit better than I do, and yet
+you kiss her."
+
+"Hardly that, Mr. Finn. There has come up a fashion for ladies to
+pretend to be very loving, and so they put their faces together. Two
+hundred years ago ladies and gentlemen did the same thing with just
+as little regard for each other. Fashions change, you know."
+
+"That was a change for the worse, certainly, Madame Goesler."
+
+"It wasn't of my doing. So you've had a great victory."
+
+"Yes;--greater than we expected."
+
+"According to Mrs. Bonteen, the chief result to the country will be
+that the taxes will be so very safe in her husband's hands! I am sure
+she believes that all Parliament has been at work in order that he
+might be made a Cabinet Minister. I rather like her for it."
+
+"I don't like her, or her husband."
+
+"I do like a woman that can thoroughly enjoy her husband's success.
+When she is talking of his carrying about his food in his pocket she
+is completely happy. I don't think Lady Glencora ever cared in the
+least about her husband being Chancellor of the Exchequer."
+
+"Because it added nothing to her own standing."
+
+"That's very ill-natured, Mr. Finn; and I find that you are becoming
+generally ill-natured. You used to be the best-humoured of men."
+
+"I hadn't so much to try my temper as I have now, and then you
+must remember, Madame Goesler, that I regard these people as being
+especially my enemies."
+
+"Lady Glencora was never your enemy."
+
+"Nor my friend,--especially."
+
+"Then you wrong her. If I tell you something you must be discreet."
+
+"Am I not always discreet?"
+
+"She does not love Mr. Bonteen. She has had too much of him at
+Matching. And as for his wife, she is quite as unwilling to be kissed
+by her as you can be. Her Grace is determined to fight your battle
+for you."
+
+"I want her to do nothing of the kind, Madame Goesler."
+
+"You will know nothing about it. We have put our heads to work, and
+Mr. Palliser,--that is, the new Duke,--is to be made to tell Mr.
+Gresham that you are to have a place. It is no good you being angry,
+for the thing is done. If you have enemies behind your back, you must
+have friends behind your back also. Lady Cantrip is to do the same
+thing."
+
+"For Heaven's sake, not."
+
+"It's all arranged. You'll be called the ladies' pet, but you mustn't
+mind that. Lady Laura will be here before it's arranged, and she will
+get hold of Mr. Erle."
+
+"You are laughing at me, I know."
+
+"Let them laugh that win. We thought of besieging Lord Fawn through
+Lady Chiltern, but we are not sure that anybody cares for Lord
+Fawn. The man we specially want now is the other Duke. We're afraid
+of attacking him through the Duchess because we think that he is
+inhumanly indifferent to anything that his wife says to him."
+
+"If that kind of thing is done I shall not accept place even if it
+is offered me."
+
+"Why not? Are you going to let a man like Mr. Bonteen bowl you over?
+Did you ever know Lady Glen fail in anything that she attempted?
+She is preparing a secret with the express object of making Mr.
+Ratler her confidant. Lord Mount Thistle is her slave, but then I
+fear Lord Mount Thistle is not of much use. She'll do anything and
+everything,--except flatter Mr. Bonteen."
+
+"Heaven forbid that anybody should do that for my sake."
+
+"The truth is that he made himself so disagreeable at Matching that
+Lady Glen is broken-hearted at finding that he is to seem to owe his
+promotion to her husband's favour. Now you know all about it."
+
+"You have been very wrong to tell me."
+
+"Perhaps I have, Mr. Finn. But I thought it better that you should
+know that you have friends at work for you. We believe,--or rather,
+the Duchess believes,--that falsehoods have been used which are as
+disparaging to Lady Laura Kennedy as they are injurious to you, and
+she is determined to put it right. Some one has told Mr. Gresham that
+you have been the means of breaking the hearts both of Lord Brentford
+and Mr. Kennedy,--two members of the late Cabinet,--and he must be
+made to understand that this is untrue. If only for Lady Laura's sake
+you must submit."
+
+"Lord Brentford and I are the best friends in the world."
+
+"And Mr. Kennedy is a madman,--absolutely in custody of his friends,
+as everybody knows; and yet the story has been made to work."
+
+"And you do not feel that all this is derogatory to me?"
+
+Madame Goesler was silent for a moment, and then she answered boldly,
+"Not a whit. Why should it be derogatory? It is not done with
+the object of obtaining an improper appointment on behalf of an
+unimportant man. When falsehoods of that kind are told you can't meet
+them in a straightforward way. I suppose I know with fair accuracy
+the sort of connection there has been between you and Lady Laura."
+Phineas very much doubted whether she had any such knowledge; but he
+said nothing, though the lady paused a few moments for reply. "You
+can't go and tell Mr. Gresham all that; nor can any friend do so on
+your behalf. It would be absurd."
+
+"Most absurd."
+
+"And yet it is essential to your interests that he should know it.
+When your enemies are undermining you, you must countermine or you'll
+be blown up."
+
+"I'd rather fight above ground."
+
+"That's all very well, but your enemies won't stay above ground.
+Is that newspaper man above ground? And for a little job of clever
+mining, believe me, that there is not a better engineer going than
+Lady Glen;--not but what I've known her to be very nearly 'hoist with
+her own petard,'"--added Madame Goesler, as she remembered a certain
+circumstance in their joint lives.
+
+All that Madame Goesler said was true. A conspiracy had been formed,
+in the first place at the instance of Madame Goesler, but altogether
+by the influence of the young Duchess, for forcing upon the future
+Premier the necessity of admitting Phineas Finn into his Government.
+On the Wednesday following the conclusion of the debate,--the day on
+the morning of which the division was to take place,--there was no
+House. On the Thursday, the last day on which the House was to sit
+before the Easter holidays, Mr. Daubeny announced his intention
+of postponing the declaration of his intentions till after the
+adjournment. The House would meet, he said, on that day week, and
+then he would make his official statement. This communication he made
+very curtly, and in a manner that was thought by some to be almost
+insolent to the House. It was known that he had been grievously
+disappointed by the result of the debate,--not probably having
+expected a majority since his adversary's strategy had been declared,
+but always hoping that the deserters from his own standard would be
+very few. The deserters had been very many, and Mr. Daubeny was
+majestic in his wrath.
+
+Nothing, however, could be done till after Easter. The Ratlers of
+the Liberal party were very angry at the delay, declaring that it
+would have been much to the advantage of the country at large that
+the vacation week should have been used for constructing a Liberal
+Cabinet. This work of construction always takes time, and delays the
+business of the country. No one can have known better than did Mr.
+Daubeny how great was the injury of delay, and how advantageously the
+short holiday might have been used. With a majority of seventy-two
+against him, there could be no reason why he should not have at once
+resigned, and advised the Queen to send for Mr. Gresham. Nothing
+could be worse than his conduct. So said the Liberals, thirsting
+for office. Mr. Gresham himself did not open his mouth when the
+announcement was made;--nor did any man, marked for future office,
+rise to denounce the beaten statesman. But one or two independent
+Members expressed their great regret at the unnecessary delay which
+was to take place before they were informed who was to be the
+Minister of the Crown. But Mr. Daubeny, as soon as he had made his
+statement, stalked out of the House, and no reply whatever was made
+to the independent Members. Some few sublime and hot-headed gentlemen
+muttered the word "impeachment." Others, who were more practical and
+less dignified, suggested that the Prime Minister "ought to have his
+head punched."
+
+It thus happened that all the world went out of town that week,--so
+that the Duchess of Omnium was down at Matching when Phineas called
+at the Duke's house in Carlton Terrace on Friday. With what object he
+had called he hardly knew himself; but he thought that he intended to
+assure the Duchess that he was not a candidate for office, and that
+he must deprecate her interference. Luckily,--or unluckily,--he did
+not see her, and he felt that it would be impossible to convey his
+wishes in a letter. The whole subject was one which would have defied
+him to find words sufficiently discreet for his object.
+
+The Duke and Duchess of St. Bungay were at Matching for the
+Easter,--as also was Barrington Erle, and also that dreadful Mr.
+Bonteen, from whose presence the poor Duchess of Omnium could in
+these days never altogether deliver herself. "Duke," she said, "you
+know Mr. Finn?"
+
+"Certainly. It was not very long ago that I was talking to him."
+
+"He used to be in office, you remember."
+
+"Oh yes;--and a very good beginner he was. Is he a friend of Your
+Grace's?"
+
+"A great friend. I'll tell you what I want you to do. You must have
+some place found for him."
+
+"My dear Duchess, I never interfere."
+
+"Why, Duke, you've made more Cabinets than any man living."
+
+"I fear, indeed, that I have been at the construction of more
+Governments than most men. It's forty years ago since Lord Melbourne
+first did me the honour of consulting me. When asked for advice, my
+dear, I have very often given it. It has occasionally been my duty to
+say that I could not myself give my slender assistance to a Ministry
+unless I were supported by the presence of this or that political
+friend. But never in my life have I asked for an appointment as a
+personal favour; and I am sure you won't be angry with me if I say
+that I cannot begin to do so now."
+
+"But Mr. Finn ought to be there. He did so well before."
+
+"If so, let us presume that he will be there. I can only say, from
+what little I know of him, that I shall be happy to see him in any
+office to which the future Prime Minister may consider it to be
+his duty to appoint him." "To think," said the Duchess of Omnium
+afterwards to her friend Madame Goesler,--"to think that I should
+have had that stupid old woman a week in the house, and all for
+nothing!"
+
+"Upon my word, Duchess," said Barrington Erle, "I don't know why it
+is, but Gresham seems to have taken a dislike to him."
+
+"It's Bonteen's doing."
+
+"Very probably."
+
+"Surely you can get the better of that?"
+
+"I look upon Phineas Finn, Duchess, almost as a child of my own. He
+has come back to Parliament altogether at my instigation."
+
+"Then you ought to help him."
+
+"And so I would if I could. Remember I am not the man I used to be
+when dear old Mr. Mildmay reigned. The truth is, I never interfere
+now unless I'm asked."
+
+"I believe that every one of you is afraid of Mr. Gresham."
+
+"Perhaps we are."
+
+"I'll tell you what. If he's passed over I'll make such a row that
+some of you shall hear it."
+
+"How fond all you women are of Phineas Finn."
+
+"I don't care that for him," said the Duchess, snapping her
+fingers--"more than I do, that is, for any other mere acquaintance.
+The man is very well, as most men are."
+
+"Not all."
+
+"No, not all. Some are as little and jealous as a girl in her tenth
+season. He is a decently good fellow, and he is to be thrown over,
+because--"
+
+"Because of what?"
+
+"I don't choose to name any one. You ought to know all about it, and
+I do not doubt but you do. Lady Laura Kennedy is your own cousin."
+
+"There is not a spark of truth in all that."
+
+"Of course there is not; and yet he is to be punished. I know very
+well, Mr. Erle, that if you choose to put your shoulder to the wheel
+you can manage it; and I shall expect to have it managed."
+
+"Plantagenet," she said the next day to her husband, "I want you to
+do something for me."
+
+"To do something! What am I to do? It's very seldom you want anything
+in my line."
+
+"This isn't in your line at all, and yet I want you to do it."
+
+"Ten to one it's beyond my means."
+
+"No, it isn't. I know you can if you like. I suppose you are all sure
+to be in office within ten days or a fortnight?"
+
+"I can't say, my dear. I have promised Mr. Gresham to be of use to
+him if I can."
+
+"Everybody knows all that. You're going to be Privy Seal, and to work
+just the same as ever at those horrible two farthings."
+
+"And what is it you want, Glencora?"
+
+"I want you to say that you won't take any office unless you are
+allowed to bring in one or two friends with you."
+
+"Why should I do that? I shall not doubt any Cabinet chosen by Mr.
+Gresham."
+
+"I'm not speaking of the Cabinet; I allude to men in lower offices,
+lords, and Under-Secretaries, and Vice-people. You know what I mean."
+
+"I never interfere."
+
+"But you must. Other men do continually. It's quite a common thing
+for a man to insist that one or two others should come in with him."
+
+"Yes. If a man feels that he cannot sustain his own position without
+support, he declines to join the Government without it. But that
+isn't my case. The friends who are necessary to me in the Cabinet are
+the very men who will certainly be there. I would join no Government
+without the Duke; but--"
+
+"Oh, the Duke--the Duke! I hate dukes--and duchesses too. I'm not
+talking about a duke. I want you to oblige me by making a point with
+Mr. Gresham that Mr. Finn shall have an office."
+
+"Mr. Finn!"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Finn. I'll explain it all if you wish it."
+
+"My dear Glencora, I never interfere."
+
+"Who does interfere? Everybody says the same. Somebody interferes,
+I suppose. Mr. Gresham can't know everybody so well as to be able
+to fit all the pegs into all the holes without saying a word to
+anybody."
+
+"He would probably speak to Mr. Bonteen."
+
+"Then he would speak to a very disagreeable man, and one I'm as sick
+of as I ever was of any man I ever knew. If you can't manage this for
+me, Plantagenet, I shall take it very ill. It's a little thing, and
+I'm sure you could have it done. I don't very often trouble you by
+asking for anything."
+
+The Duke in his quiet way was an affectionate man, and an indulgent
+husband. On the following morning he was closeted with Mr. Bonteen,
+two private secretaries, and a leading clerk from the Treasury for
+four hours, during which they were endeavouring to ascertain whether
+the commercial world of Great Britain would be ruined or enriched
+if twelve pennies were declared to contain fifty farthings. The
+discussion had been grievously burdensome to the minds of the Duke's
+assistants in it, but he himself had remembered his wife through it
+all. "By the way," he said, whispering into Mr. Bonteen's private ear
+as he led that gentleman away to lunch, "if we do come in--"
+
+"Oh, we must come in."
+
+"If we do, I suppose something will be done for that Mr. Finn. He
+spoke well the other night."
+
+Mr. Bonteen's face became very long. "He helped to upset the coach
+when he was with us before."
+
+"I don't think that that is much against him."
+
+"Is he--a personal friend of Your Grace's?"
+
+"No--not particularly. I never care about such things for myself; but
+Lady Glencora--"
+
+"I think the Duchess can hardly know what has been his conduct to
+poor Kennedy. There was a most disreputable row at a public-house in
+London, and I am told that he behaved--very badly."
+
+"I never heard a word about it," said the Duke.
+
+"I'll tell you just the truth," said Mr. Bonteen. "I've been asked
+about him, and I've been obliged to say that he would weaken any
+Government that would give him office."
+
+"Oh, indeed!"
+
+That evening the Duke told the Duchess nearly all that he had heard,
+and the Duchess swore that she wasn't going to be beaten by Mr.
+Bonteen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+ONCE AGAIN IN PORTMAN SQUARE.
+
+
+On the Wednesday in Easter week Lord Brentford and Lady Laura Kennedy
+reached Portman Square from Dresden, and Phineas, who had remained in
+town, was summoned thither by a note written at Dover. "We arrived
+here to-day, and shall be in town to-morrow afternoon, between four
+and five. Papa wants to see you especially. Can you manage to be with
+us in the Square at about eight? I know it will be inconvenient, but
+you will put up with inconvenience. I don't like to keep Papa up
+late; and if he is tired he won't speak to you as he would if you
+came early.--L. K." Phineas was engaged to dine with Lord Cantrip;
+but he wrote to excuse himself,--telling the simple truth. He had
+been asked to see Lord Brentford on business, and must obey the
+summons.
+
+He was shown into a sitting-room on the ground floor, which he
+had always known as the Earl's own room, and there he found Lord
+Brentford alone. The last time he had been there he had come to
+plead with the Earl on behalf of Lord Chiltern, and the Earl had then
+been a stern self-willed man, vigorous from a sense of power, and
+very able to maintain and to express his own feelings. Now he was a
+broken-down old man,--whose mind had been, as it were, unbooted and
+put into moral slippers for the remainder of its term of existence
+upon earth. He half shuffled up out of his chair as Phineas came
+up to him, and spoke as though every calamity in the world were
+oppressing him. "Such a passage! Oh, very bad, indeed! I thought it
+would have been the death of me. Laura thought it better to come on."
+The fact, however, had been that the Earl had so many objections to
+staying at Calais, that his daughter had felt herself obliged to
+yield to him.
+
+"You must be glad at any rate to have got home," said Phineas.
+
+"Home! I don't know what you call home. I don't suppose I shall ever
+feel any place to be home again."
+
+"You'll go to Saulsby;--will you not?"
+
+"How can I tell? If Chiltern would have kept the house up, of course
+I should have gone there. But he never would do anything like anybody
+else. Violet wants me to go to that place they've got there, but I
+shan't do that."
+
+"It's a comfortable house."
+
+"I hate horses and dogs, and I won't go."
+
+There was nothing more to be said on that point. "I hope Lady Laura
+is well."
+
+"No, she's not. How should she be well? She's anything but well.
+She'll be in directly, but she thought I ought to see you first. I
+suppose this wretched man is really mad."
+
+"I am told so."
+
+"He never was anything else since I knew him. What are we to do now?
+Forster says it won't look well to ask for a separation only because
+he's insane. He tried to shoot you?"
+
+"And very nearly succeeded."
+
+"Forster says that if we do anything, all that must come out."
+
+"There need not be the slightest hesitation as far as I am concerned,
+Lord Brentford."
+
+"You know he keeps all her money."
+
+"At present I suppose he couldn't give it up."
+
+"Why not? Why shouldn't he give it up? God bless my soul! Forty
+thousand pounds and all for nothing. When he married he declared that
+he didn't care about it! Money was nothing to him! So she lent it to
+Chiltern."
+
+"I remember."
+
+"But they hadn't been together a year before he asked for it. Now
+there it is;--and if she were to die to-morrow it would be lost to
+the family. Something must be done, you know. I can't let her money
+go in that way."
+
+"You'll do what Mr. Forster suggests, no doubt."
+
+"But he won't suggest anything. They never do. He doesn't care what
+becomes of the money. It never ought to have been given up as it
+was."
+
+"It was settled, I suppose."
+
+"Yes;--if there were children. And it will come back to her if he
+dies first. But mad people never do die. That's a well-known fact.
+They've nothing to trouble them, and they live for ever. It'll all go
+to some cousin of his that nobody ever saw."
+
+"Not as long as Lady Laura lives."
+
+"But she does not get a penny of the income;--not a penny. There
+never was anything so cruel. He has published all manner of
+accusations against her."
+
+"Nobody believes a word of that, my lord."
+
+"And then when she is dragged forward by the necessity of vindicating
+her character, he goes mad and keeps all her money! There never was
+anything so cruel since the world began."
+
+This continued for half-an-hour, and then Lady Laura came in. Nothing
+had come, or could have come, from the consultation with the Earl.
+Had it gone on for another hour, he would simply have continued
+to grumble, and have persevered in insisting upon the hardships
+he endured. Lady Laura was in black, and looked sad, and old, and
+careworn; but she did not seem to be ill. Phineas could not but think
+at the moment how entirely her youth had passed away from her. She
+came and sat close by him, and began at once to speak of the late
+debate. "Of course they'll go out," she said.
+
+"I presume they will."
+
+"And our party will come in."
+
+"Oh, yes;--Mr. Gresham, and the two dukes, and Lord Cantrip,--with
+Legge Wilson, Sir Harry Coldfoot, and the rest of them."
+
+"And you?"
+
+Phineas smiled, and tried to smile pleasantly, as he answered, "I
+don't know that they'll put themselves out by doing very much for
+me."
+
+"They'll do something."
+
+"I fancy not. Indeed, Lady Laura, to tell the truth at once, I know
+that they don't mean to offer me anything."
+
+"After making you give up your place in Ireland?"
+
+"They didn't make me give it up. I should never dream of using such
+an argument to any one. Of course I had to judge for myself. There is
+nothing to be said about it;--only it is so." As he told her this he
+strove to look light-hearted, and so to speak that she should not see
+the depth of his disappointment;--but he failed altogether. She knew
+him too well not to read his whole heart in the matter.
+
+"Who has said it?" she asked.
+
+"Nobody says things of that kind, and yet one knows."
+
+"And why is it?"
+
+"How can I say? There are various reasons,--and, perhaps, very good
+reasons. What I did before makes men think that they can't depend on
+me. At any rate it is so."
+
+"Shall you not speak to Mr. Gresham?"
+
+"Certainly not."
+
+"What do you say, Papa?"
+
+"How can I understand it, my dear? There used to be a kind of honour
+in these things, but that's all old-fashioned now. Ministers used to
+think of their political friends; but in these days they only regard
+their political enemies. If you can make a Minister afraid of you,
+then it becomes worth his while to buy you up. Most of the young
+men rise now by making themselves thoroughly disagreeable. Abuse a
+Minister every night for half a session, and you may be sure to be in
+office the other half,--if you care about it."
+
+"May I speak to Barrington Erle?" asked Lady Laura.
+
+"I had rather you did not. Of course I must take it as it comes."
+
+"But, my dear Mr. Finn, people do make efforts in such cases. I don't
+doubt but that at this moment there are a dozen men moving heaven and
+earth to secure something. No one has more friends than you have."
+
+Had not her father been present he would have told her what his
+friends were doing for him, and how unhappy such interferences made
+him; but he could not explain all this before the Earl. "I would so
+much rather hear about yourself," he said, again smiling.
+
+"There is but little to say about us. I suppose Papa has told you?"
+
+But the Earl had told him nothing, and indeed, there was nothing
+to tell. The lawyer had advised that Mr. Kennedy's friends should
+be informed that Lady Laura now intended to live in England, and
+that they should be invited to make to her some statement as to
+Mr. Kennedy's condition. If necessary he, on her behalf, would
+justify her departure from her husband's roof by a reference to the
+outrageous conduct of which Mr. Kennedy had since been guilty. In
+regard to Lady Laura's fortune, Mr. Forster said that she could no
+doubt apply for alimony, and that if the application were pressed at
+law she would probably obtain it;--but he could not recommend such a
+step at the present moment. As to the accusation which had been made
+against her character, and which had become public through the malice
+of the editor of The People's Banner, Mr. Forster thought that the
+best refutation would be found in her return to England. At any
+rate he would advise no further step at the present moment. Should
+any further libel appear in the columns of the newspaper, then the
+question might be again considered. Mr. Forster had already been in
+Portman Square, and this had been the result of the conference.
+
+"There is not much comfort in it all,--is there?" said Lady Laura.
+
+"There is no comfort in anything," said the Earl.
+
+When Phineas took his leave Lady Laura followed him out into
+the hall, and they went together into the large, gloomy
+dining-room,--gloomy and silent now, but which in former days he
+had known to be brilliant with many lights, and cheerful with eager
+voices. "I must have one word with you," she said, standing close
+to him against the table, and putting her hand upon his arm. "Amidst
+all my sorrow, I have been so thankful that he did not--kill you."
+
+
+[Illustration: "I must have one word with you."]
+
+
+"I almost wish he had."
+
+"Oh, Phineas!--how can you say words so wicked! Would you have had
+him a murderer?"
+
+"A madman is responsible for nothing."
+
+"Where should I have been? What should I have done? But of course you
+do not mean it. You have everything in life before you. Say some word
+to me more comfortable than that. You cannot think how I have looked
+forward to meeting you again. It has robbed the last month of half
+its sadness." He put his arm round her waist and pressed her to his
+side, but he said nothing. "It was so good of you to go to him as you
+did. How was he looking?"
+
+"Twenty years older than when you saw him last."
+
+"But how in health?"
+
+"He was thin and haggard."
+
+"Was he pale?"
+
+"No; flushed and red. He had not shaved himself for days; nor, as I
+believe, had he been out of his room since he came up to London. I
+fancy that he will not live long."
+
+"Poor fellow;--unhappy man! I was very wrong to marry him, Phineas."
+
+"I have never said so;--nor, indeed, thought so."
+
+"But I have thought so; and I say it also,--to you. I owe him any
+reparation that I can make him; but I could not have lived with him.
+I had no idea, before, that the nature of two human beings could be
+so unlike. I so often remember what you told me of him,--here; in
+this house, when I first brought you together. Alas, how sad it has
+been!"
+
+"Sad, indeed."
+
+"But can this be true that you tell me of yourself?
+
+"It is quite true. I could not say so before your father, but it is
+Mr. Bonteen's doing. There is no remedy. I am sure of that. I am only
+afraid that people are interfering for me in a manner that will be as
+disagreeable to me as it will be useless."
+
+"What friends?" she asked.
+
+He was still standing with his arm round her waist, and he did not
+like to mention the name of Madame Goesler.
+
+"The Duchess of Omnium,--whom you remember as Lady Glencora
+Palliser."
+
+"Is she a friend of yours?"
+
+"No;--not particularly. But she is an indiscreet woman, and hates
+Bonteen, and has taken it into her stupid head to interest herself in
+my concerns. It is no doing of mine, and yet I cannot help it."
+
+"She will succeed."
+
+"I don't want assistance from such a quarter; and I feel sure that
+she will not succeed."
+
+"What will you do, Phineas?"
+
+"What shall I do? Carry on the battle as long as I can without
+getting into debt, and then--vanish."
+
+"You vanished once before,--did you not,--with a wife?"
+
+"And now I shall vanish alone. My poor little wife! It seems all like
+a dream. She was so good, so pure, so pretty, so loving!"
+
+"Loving! A man's love is so easily transferred;--as easily as a
+woman's hand;--is it not, Phineas? Say the word, for it is what you
+are thinking."
+
+"I was thinking of no such thing."
+
+"You must think it--You need not be afraid to reproach me. I could
+bear it from you. What could I not bear from you? Oh, Phineas;--if I
+had only known myself then, as I do now!"
+
+"It is too late for regrets," he said. There was something in the
+words which grated on her feelings, and induced her at length to
+withdraw herself from his arm. Too late for regrets! She had never
+told herself that it was not too late. She was the wife of another
+man, and therefore, surely it was too late. But still the word coming
+from his mouth was painful to her. It seemed to signify that for him
+at least the game was all over.
+
+"Yes, indeed," she said,--"if our regrets and remorse were at our own
+disposal! You might as well say that it is too late for unhappiness,
+too late for weariness, too late for all the misery that comes from a
+life's disappointment."
+
+"I should have said that indulgence in regrets is vain."
+
+"That is a scrap of philosophy which I have heard so often before!
+But we will not quarrel, will we, on the first day of my return?"
+
+"I hope not."
+
+"And I may speak to Barrington?"
+
+"No; certainly not."
+
+"But I shall. How can I help it? He will be here to-morrow, and will
+be full of the coming changes. How should I not mention your name? He
+knows--not all that has passed, but too much not to be aware of my
+anxiety. Of course your name will come up?"
+
+"What I request,--what I demand is, that you ask no favour for me.
+Your father will miss you,--will he not? I had better go now."
+
+"Good night, Phineas."
+
+"Good night, dear friend."
+
+"Dearest, dearest friend," she said. Then he left her, and without
+assistance, let himself out into the square. In her intercourse with
+him there was a passion the expression of which caused him sorrow and
+almost dismay. He did not say so even to himself, but he felt that a
+time might come in which she would resent the coldness of demeanour
+which it would be imperative upon him to adopt in his intercourse
+with her. He knew how imprudent he had been to stand there with his
+arm round her waist.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+CAGLIOSTRO.
+
+
+It had been settled that Parliament should meet on the Thursday in
+Easter week, and it was known to the world at large that Cabinet
+Councils were held on the Friday previous, on the Monday, and on the
+Tuesday; but nobody knew what took place at those meetings. Cabinet
+Councils are, of course, very secret. What kind of oath the members
+take not to divulge any tittle of the proceedings at these awful
+conferences, the general public does not know; but it is presumed
+that oaths are taken very solemn, and it is known that they are very
+binding. Nevertheless, it is not an uncommon thing to hear openly
+at the clubs an account of what has been settled; and, as we all
+know, not a council is held as to which the editor of The People's
+Banner does not inform its readers next day exactly what took
+place. But as to these three Cabinet Councils there was an increased
+mystery abroad. Statements, indeed, were made, very definite and
+circumstantial, but then they were various,--and directly opposed
+one to another. According to The People's Banner, Mr. Daubeny
+had resolved, with that enduring courage which was his peculiar
+characteristic, that he would not be overcome by faction, but would
+continue to exercise all the functions of Prime Minister until he had
+had an opportunity of learning whether his great measure had been
+opposed by the sense of the country, or only by the tactics of an
+angry and greedy party. Other journals declared that the Ministry as
+a whole had decided on resigning. But the clubs were in a state of
+agonising doubt. At the great stronghold of conservative policy in
+Pall Mall men were silent, embarrassed, and unhappy. The party was
+at heart divorced from its leaders,--and a party without leaders is
+powerless. To these gentlemen there could be no triumph, whether Mr.
+Daubeny went out or remained in office. They had been betrayed;--but
+as a body were unable even to accuse the traitor. As regarded most
+of them they had accepted the treachery and bowed their heads
+beneath it, by means of their votes. And as to the few who had been
+staunch,--they also were cowed by a feeling that they had been
+instrumental in destroying their own power by endeavouring to protect
+a doomed institution. Many a thriving county member in those days
+expressed a wish among his friends that he had never meddled with
+the affairs of public life, and hinted at the Chiltern Hundreds. On
+the other side, there was undoubtedly something of a rabid desire
+for immediate triumph, which almost deserved that epithet of greedy
+which was then commonly used by Conservatives in speaking of their
+opponents. With the Liberal leaders,--such men as Mr. Gresham and
+the two dukes,--the anxiety displayed was, no doubt, on behalf
+of the country. It is right, according to our constitution, that
+the Government should be entrusted to the hands of those whom the
+constituencies of the country have most trusted. And, on behalf of
+the country, it behoves the men in whom the country has placed its
+trust to do battle in season and out of season,--to carry on war
+internecine,--till the demands of the country are obeyed. A sound
+political instinct had induced Mr. Gresham on this occasion to attack
+his opponent simply on the ground of his being the leader only of
+a minority in the House of Commons. But from among Mr. Gresham's
+friends there had arisen a noise which sounded very like a clamour
+for place, and this noise of course became aggravated in the ears
+of those who were to be displaced. Now, during Easter week, the
+clamour became very loud. Could it be possible that the archfiend of
+a Minister would dare to remain in office till the end of a hurried
+Session, and then again dissolve Parliament? Men talked of rows in
+London,--even of revolution, and there were meetings in open places
+both by day and night. Petitions were to be prepared, and the country
+was to be made to express itself.
+
+When, however, Thursday afternoon came, Mr. Daubeny "threw up the
+sponge." Up to the last moment the course which he intended to pursue
+was not known to the country at large. He entered the House very
+slowly,--almost with a languid air, as though indifferent to its
+performances, and took his seat at about half-past four. Every man
+there felt that there was insolence in his demeanour,--and yet
+there was nothing on which it was possible to fasten in the way of
+expressed complaint. There was a faint attempt at a cheer,--for good
+soldiers acknowledge the importance of supporting even an unpopular
+general. But Mr. Daubeny's soldiers on this occasion were not very
+good. When he had been seated about five minutes he rose, still very
+languidly, and began his statement. He and his colleagues, he said,
+in their attempt to legislate for the good of their country had been
+beaten in regard to a very great measure by a large majority, and in
+compliance with what he acknowledged to be the expressed opinion of
+the House, he had considered it to be his duty--as his colleagues had
+considered it to be theirs--to place their joint resignations in the
+hands of Her Majesty. This statement was received with considerable
+surprise, as it was not generally known that Mr. Daubeny had as
+yet even seen the Queen. But the feeling most predominant in the
+House was one almost of dismay at the man's quiescence. He and his
+colleagues had resigned, and he had recommended Her Majesty to
+send for Mr. Gresham. He spoke in so low a voice as to be hardly
+audible to the House at large, and then paused,--ceasing to speak,
+as though his work were done. He even made some gesture, as though
+stepping back to his seat;--deceived by which Mr. Gresham, at the
+other side of the table, rose to his legs. "Perhaps," said Mr.
+Daubeny,--"Perhaps the right honourable gentleman would pardon him,
+and the House would pardon him, if still, for a moment, he interposed
+between the House and the right honourable gentleman. He could well
+understand the impatience of the right honourable gentleman,--who
+no doubt was anxious to reassume that authority among them, the
+temporary loss of which he had not perhaps borne with all the
+equanimity which might have been expected from him. He would promise
+the House and the right honourable gentleman that he would not detain
+them long." Mr. Gresham threw himself back into his seat, evidently
+not without annoyance, and his enemy stood for a moment looking at
+him. Unless they were angels these two men must at that moment have
+hated each other;--and it is supposed that they were no more than
+human. It was afterwards said that the little ruse of pretending to
+resume his seat had been deliberately planned by Mr. Daubeny with the
+view of seducing Mr. Gresham into an act of seeming impatience, and
+that these words about his opponent's failing equanimity had been
+carefully prepared.
+
+Mr. Daubeny stood for a minute silent, and then began to pour forth
+that which was really his speech on the occasion. Those flaccid
+half-pronounced syllables in which he had declared that he had
+resigned,--had been studiously careless, purposely flaccid. It
+was his duty to let the House know the fact, and he did his duty.
+But now he had a word to say in which he himself could take some
+little interest. Mr. Daubeny could be fiery or flaccid as it suited
+himself;--and now it suited him to be fiery. He had a prophecy
+to make, and prophets have ever been energetic men. Mr. Daubeny
+conceived it to be his duty to inform the House, and through the
+House the country, that now, at last, had the day of ruin come upon
+the British Empire, because it had bowed itself to the dominion of an
+unscrupulous and greedy faction. It cannot be said that the language
+which he used was unmeasured, because no word that he uttered would
+have warranted the Speaker in calling him to order; but, within the
+very wide bounds of parliamentary etiquette, there was no limit to
+the reproach and reprobation which he heaped on the House of Commons
+for its late vote. And his audacity equalled his insolence. In
+announcing his resignation, he had condescended to speak of himself
+and his colleagues; but now he dropped his colleagues as though they
+were unworthy of his notice, and spoke only of his own doings,--of
+his own efforts to save the country, which was indeed willing to be
+saved, but unable to select fitting instruments of salvation. "He
+had been twitted," he said, "with inconsistency to his principles
+by men who were simply unable to understand the meaning of the word
+Conservatism. These gentlemen seemed to think that any man who did
+not set himself up as an apostle of constant change must therefore
+be bound always to stand still and see his country perish from
+stagnation. It might be that there were gentlemen in that House whose
+timid natures could not face the dangers of any movement; but for
+himself he would say that no word had ever fallen from his lips which
+justified either his friends or his adversaries in classing him among
+the number. If a man be anxious to keep his fire alight, does he
+refuse to touch the sacred coals as in the course of nature they are
+consumed? Or does he move them with the salutary poker and add fresh
+fuel from the basket? They all knew that enemy to the comfort of the
+domestic hearth, who could not keep his hands for a moment from the
+fire-irons. Perhaps he might be justified if he said that they had
+been very much troubled of late in that House by gentlemen who could
+not keep their fingers from poker and tongs. But there had now fallen
+upon them a trouble of a nature much more serious in its effects than
+any that had come or could come from would-be reformers. A spirit of
+personal ambition, a wretched thirst for office, a hankering after
+the power and privileges of ruling, had not only actuated men,--as,
+alas, had been the case since first the need for men to govern others
+had arisen in the world,--but had been openly avowed and put forward
+as an adequate and sufficient reason for opposing a measure in
+disapprobation of which no single argument had been used! The right
+honourable gentleman's proposition to the House had been simply
+this;--'I shall oppose this measure, be it good or bad, because I
+desire, myself, to be Prime Minister, and I call upon those whom I
+lead in politics to assist me in doing so, in order that they may
+share the good things on which we may thus be enabled to lay our
+hands!'"
+
+Then there arose a great row in the House, and there seemed to be a
+doubt whether the still existing Minister of the day would be allowed
+to continue his statement. Mr. Gresham rose to his feet, but sat down
+again instantly, without having spoken a word that was audible. Two
+or three voices were heard calling upon the Speaker for protection.
+It was, however, asserted afterwards that nothing had been said
+which demanded the Speaker's interference. But all moderate voices
+were soon lost in the enraged clamour of members on each side. The
+insolence showered upon those who generally supported Mr. Daubeny had
+equalled that with which he had exasperated those opposed to him;
+and as the words had fallen from his lips, there had been no purpose
+of cheering him from the conservative benches. But noise creates
+noise, and shouting is a ready and easy mode of contest. For a while
+it seemed as though the right side of the Speaker's chair was only
+beaten by the majority of lungs on the left side;--and in the midst
+of it all Mr. Daubeny still stood, firm on his feet, till gentlemen
+had shouted themselves silent,--and then he resumed his speech.
+
+The remainder of what he said was profound, prophetic, and
+unintelligible. The gist of it, so far as it could be understood
+when the bran was bolted from it, consisted in an assurance that the
+country had now reached that period of its life in which rapid decay
+was inevitable, and that, as the mortal disease had already shown
+itself in its worst form, national decrepitude was imminent, and
+natural death could not long be postponed. They who attempted to
+read the prophecy with accuracy were of opinion that the prophet had
+intimated that had the nation, even in this its crisis, consented
+to take him, the prophet, as its sole physician and to obey his
+prescription with childlike docility, health might not only have been
+re-established, but a new juvenescence absolutely created. The nature
+of the medicine that should have been taken was even supposed to
+have been indicated in some very vague terms. Had he been allowed to
+operate he would have cut the tap-roots of the national cancer, have
+introduced fresh blood into the national veins, and resuscitated
+the national digestion, and he seemed to think that the nation,
+as a nation, was willing enough to undergo the operation, and be
+treated as he should choose to treat it;--but that the incubus of Mr.
+Gresham, backed by an unworthy House of Commons, had prevented, and
+was preventing, the nation from having its own way. Therefore the
+nation must be destroyed. Mr. Daubeny as soon as he had completed his
+speech took up his hat and stalked out of the House.
+
+It was supposed at the time that the retiring Prime Minister had
+intended, when he rose to his legs, not only to denounce his
+opponents, but also to separate himself from his own unworthy
+associates. Men said that he had become disgusted with politics,
+disappointed, and altogether demoralized by defeat, and great
+curiosity existed as to the steps which might be taken at the time by
+the party of which he had hitherto been the leader. On that evening,
+at any rate, nothing was done. When Mr. Daubeny was gone, Mr. Gresham
+rose and said that in the present temper of the House he thought
+it best to postpone any statement from himself. He had received
+Her Majesty's commands only as he had entered that House, and in
+obedience to those commands, he should wait upon Her Majesty early
+to-morrow. He hoped to be able to inform the House at the afternoon
+sitting, what was the nature of the commands with which Her Majesty
+might honour him.
+
+"What do you think of that?" Phineas asked Mr. Monk as they left the
+House together.
+
+"I think that our Chatham of to-day is but a very poor copy of him
+who misbehaved a century ago."
+
+"Does not the whole thing distress you?"
+
+"Not particularly. I have always felt that there has been a mistake
+about Mr. Daubeny. By many he has been accounted as a statesman,
+whereas to me he has always been a political Cagliostro. Now a
+conjuror is I think a very pleasant fellow to have among us, if we
+know that he is a conjuror;--but a conjuror who is believed to do his
+tricks without sleight of hand is a dangerous man. It is essential
+that such a one should be found out and known to be a conjuror,--and
+I hope that such knowledge may have been communicated to some men
+this afternoon."
+
+"He was very great," said Ratler to Bonteen. "Did you not think so?"
+
+"Yes, I did,--very powerful indeed. But the party is broken up to
+atoms."
+
+"Atoms soon come together again in politics," said Ratler. "They
+can't do without him. They haven't got anybody else. I wonder what he
+did when he got home."
+
+"Had some gruel and went to bed," said Bonteen. "They say these
+scenes in the House never disturb him at home." From which
+conversations it may be inferred that Mr. Monk and Messrs. Ratler and
+Bonteen did not agree in their ideas respecting political conjurors.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+THE PRIME MINISTER IS HARD PRESSED.
+
+
+It can never be a very easy thing to form a Ministry. The one chosen
+chief is readily selected. Circumstances, indeed, have probably left
+no choice in the matter. Every man in the country who has at all
+turned his thoughts that way knows very well who will be the next
+Prime Minister when it comes to pass that a change is imminent.
+In these days the occupant of the throne can have no difficulty.
+Mr. Gresham recommends Her Majesty to send for Mr. Daubeny, or Mr.
+Daubeny for Mr. Gresham,--as some ten or a dozen years since Mr.
+Mildmay told her to send for Lord de Terrier, or Lord de Terrier
+for Mr. Mildmay. The Prime Minister is elected by the nation, but
+the nation, except in rare cases, cannot go below that in arranging
+details, and the man for whom the Queen sends is burdened with the
+necessity of selecting his colleagues. It may be,--probably must
+always be the case,--that this, that, and the other colleagues are
+clearly indicated to his mind, but then each of these colleagues
+may want his own inferior coadjutors, and so the difficulty begins,
+increases, and at length culminates. On the present occasion it was
+known at the end of a week that Mr. Gresham had not filled all his
+offices, and that there were difficulties. It was announced that the
+Duke of St. Bungay could not quite agree on certain points with Mr.
+Gresham, and that the Duke of Omnium would do nothing without the
+other Duke. The Duke of St. Bungay was very powerful, as there were
+three or four of the old adherents of Mr. Mildmay who would join
+no Government unless he was with them. Sir Harry Coldfoot and Lord
+Plinlimmon would not accept office without the Duke. The Duke was
+essential, and now, though the Duke's character was essentially
+that of a practical man who never raised unnecessary trouble, men
+said that the Duke was at the bottom of it all. The Duke did not
+approve of Mr. Bonteen. Mr. Gresham, so it was said, insisted on Mr.
+Bonteen,--appealing to the other Duke. But that other Duke, our own
+special Duke, Planty Pall that was, instead of standing up for Mr.
+Bonteen, was cold and unsympathetic. He could not join the Ministry
+without his friend, the Duke of St. Bungay, and as to Mr. Bonteen, he
+thought that perhaps a better selection might be made.
+
+Such were the club rumours which took place as to the difficulties
+of the day, and, as is generally the case, they were not far from
+the truth. Neither of the dukes had absolutely put a veto on poor Mr.
+Bonteen's elevation, but they had expressed themselves dissatisfied
+with the appointment, and the younger duke had found himself
+called upon to explain that although he had been thrown much into
+communication with Mr. Bonteen he had never himself suggested that
+that gentleman should follow him at the Exchequer. This was one of
+the many difficulties which beset the Prime Minister elect in the
+performance of his arduous duty.
+
+Lady Glencora, as people would still persist in calling her, was at
+the bottom of it all. She had sworn an oath inimical to Mr. Bonteen,
+and did not leave a stone unturned in her endeavours to accomplish
+it. If Phineas Finn might find acceptance, then Mr. Bonteen might be
+allowed to enter Elysium. A second Juno, she would allow the Romulus
+she hated to sit in the seats of the blessed, to be fed with nectar,
+and to have his name printed in the lists of unruffled Cabinet
+meetings,--but only on conditions. Phineas Finn must be allowed a
+seat also, and a little nectar,--though it were at the second table
+of the gods. For this she struggled, speaking her mind boldly to this
+and that member of her husband's party, but she struggled in vain.
+She could obtain no assurance on behalf of Phineas Finn. The Duke of
+St. Bungay would do nothing for her. Barrington Erle had declared
+himself powerless. Her husband had condescended to speak to Mr.
+Bonteen himself, and Mr. Bonteen's insolent answer had been reported
+to her. Then she went sedulously to work, and before a couple of days
+were over she did make her husband believe that Mr. Bonteen was not
+fit to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. This took place before Mr.
+Daubeny's statement, while the Duke and Duchess of St. Bungay were
+still at Matching,--while Mr. Bonteen, unconscious of what was being
+done, was still in the House. Before the two days were over, the Duke
+of St. Bungay had a very low opinion of Mr. Bonteen, but was quite
+ignorant of any connection between that low opinion and the fortunes
+of Phineas Finn.
+
+"Plantagenet, of all your men that are coming up, your Mr. Bonteen
+is the worst. I often think that you are going down hill, both in
+character and intellect, but if you go as low as that I shall prefer
+to cross the water, and live in America." This she said in the
+presence of the two dukes.
+
+"What has Mr. Bonteen done?" asked the elder, laughing.
+
+"He was boasting this morning openly of whom he intended to bring
+with him into the Cabinet." Truth demands that the chronicler should
+say that this was a positive fib. Mr. Bonteen, no doubt, had talked
+largely and with indiscretion, but had made no such boast as that of
+which the Duchess accused him. "Mr. Gresham will get astray if he
+doesn't allow some one to tell him the truth."
+
+She did not press the matter any further then, but what she had said
+was not thrown away. "Your wife is almost right about that man," the
+elder Duke said to the younger.
+
+"It's Mr. Gresham's doing,--not mine," said the younger.
+
+"She is right about Gresham, too," said the elder. "With all his
+immense intellect and capacity for business no man wants more looking
+after."
+
+That evening Mr. Bonteen was singled out by the Duchess for her
+special attention, and in the presence of all who were there
+assembled he made himself an ass. He could not save himself from
+talking about himself when he was encouraged. On this occasion he
+offended all those feelings of official discretion and personal
+reticence which had been endeared to the old duke by the lessons
+which he had learned from former statesmen and by the experience of
+his own life. To be quiet, unassuming, almost affectedly modest in
+any mention of himself, low-voiced, reflecting always more than he
+resolved, and resolving always more than he said, had been his aim.
+Conscious of his high rank, and thinking, no doubt, much of the
+advantages in public life which his birth and position had given him,
+still he would never have ventured to speak of his own services as
+necessary to any Government. That he had really been indispensable to
+many he must have known, but not to his closest friend would he have
+said so in plain language. To such a man the arrogance of Mr. Bonteen
+was intolerable.
+
+There is probably more of the flavour of political aristocracy to
+be found still remaining among our liberal leading statesmen than
+among their opponents. A conservative Cabinet is, doubtless, never
+deficient in dukes and lords, and the sons of such; but conservative
+dukes and lords are recruited here and there, and as recruits, are
+new to the business, whereas among the old Whigs a halo of statecraft
+has, for ages past, so strongly pervaded and enveloped certain great
+families, that the power in the world of politics thus produced
+still remains, and is even yet efficacious in creating a feeling of
+exclusiveness. They say that "misfortune makes men acquainted with
+strange bedfellows." The old hereditary Whig Cabinet ministers must,
+no doubt, by this time have learned to feel themselves at home with
+strange neighbours at their elbows. But still with them something of
+the feeling of high blood, of rank, and of living in a park with deer
+about it, remains. They still entertain a pride in their Cabinets,
+and have, at any rate, not as yet submitted themselves to a conjuror.
+The Charles James Fox element of liberality still holds its own, and
+the fragrance of Cavendish is essential. With no man was this feeling
+stronger than with the Duke of St. Bungay, though he well knew
+how to keep it in abeyance,--even to the extent of self-sacrifice.
+Bonteens must creep into the holy places. The faces which he loved to
+see,--born chiefly of other faces he had loved when young,--could not
+cluster around the sacred table without others which were much less
+welcome to him. He was wise enough to know that exclusiveness did not
+suit the nation, though human enough to feel that it must have been
+pleasant to himself. There must be Bonteens;--but when any Bonteen
+came up, who loomed before his eyes as specially disagreeable, it
+seemed to him to be a duty to close the door against such a one, if
+it could be closed without violence. A constant, gentle pressure
+against the door would tend to keep down the number of the Bonteens.
+
+"I am not sure that you are not going a little too quick in regard
+to Mr. Bonteen," said the elder duke to Mr. Gresham before he had
+finally assented to a proposition originated by himself,--that he
+should sit in the Cabinet without a portfolio.
+
+"Palliser wishes it," said Mr. Gresham, shortly.
+
+"He and I think that there has been some mistake about that. You
+suggested the appointment to him, and he felt unwilling to raise an
+objection without giving the matter very mature consideration. You
+can understand that."
+
+"Upon my word I thought that the selection would be peculiarly
+agreeable to him." Then the duke made a suggestion. "Could not some
+special office at the Treasury be constructed for Mr. Bonteen's
+acceptance, having special reference to the question of decimal
+coinage?"
+
+"But how about the salary?" asked Mr. Gresham. "I couldn't propose a
+new office with a salary above L2,000."
+
+"Couldn't we make it permanent," suggested the duke;--"with
+permission to hold a seat if he can get one?"
+
+"I fear not," said Mr. Gresham.
+
+"He got into a very unpleasant scrape when he was Financial
+Secretary," said the Duke.
+
+   But whither would'st thou, Muse? Unmeet
+      For jocund lyre are themes like these.
+   Shalt thou the talk of Gods repeat,
+   Debasing by thy strains effete
+      Such lofty mysteries?
+
+The absolute words of a conversation so lofty shall no longer be
+attempted, but it may be said that Mr. Gresham was too wise to
+treat as of no account the objections of such a one as the Duke
+of St. Bungay. He saw Mr. Bonteen, and he saw the other duke, and
+difficulties arose. Mr. Bonteen made himself very disagreeable
+indeed. As Mr. Bonteen had never absolutely been as yet more than a
+demigod, our Muse, light as she is, may venture to report that he
+told Mr. Ratler that "he'd be d---- if he'd stand it. If he were to
+be thrown over now, he'd make such a row, and would take such care
+that the fat should be in the fire, that his enemies, whoever they
+were, should wish that they had kept their fingers off him. He knew
+who was doing it." If he did not know, his guess was right. In his
+heart he accused the young duchess, though he mentioned her name
+to no one. And it was the young duchess. Then there was made an
+insidious proposition to Mr. Gresham,--which reached him at last
+through Barrington Erle,--that matters would go quieter if Phineas
+Finn were placed in his old office at the Colonies instead of Lord
+Fawn, whose name had been suggested, and for whom,--as Barrington
+Erle declared,--no one cared a brass farthing. Mr. Gresham, when he
+heard this, thought that he began to smell a rat, and was determined
+to be on his guard. Why should the appointment of Mr. Phineas Finn
+make things go easier in regard to Mr. Bonteen? There must be some
+woman's fingers in the pie. Now Mr. Gresham was firmly resolved that
+no woman's fingers should have anything to do with his pie.
+
+How the thing went from bad to worse, it would be bootless here
+to tell. Neither of the two dukes absolutely refused to join the
+Ministry; but they were persistent in their objection to Mr. Bonteen,
+and were joined in it by Lord Plinlimmon and Sir Harry Coldfoot. It
+was in vain that Mr. Gresham urged that he had no other man ready
+and fit to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. That excuse could not be
+accepted. There was Legge Wilson, who twelve years since had been
+at the Treasury, and would do very well. Now Mr. Gresham had always
+personally hated Legge Wilson,--and had, therefore, offered him the
+Board of Trade. Legge Wilson had disgusted him by accepting it, and
+the name had already been published in connection with the office.
+But in the lists which had appeared towards the end of the week, no
+name was connected with the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer,
+and no office was connected with the name of Mr. Bonteen. The editor
+of The People's Banner, however, expressed the gratification of
+that journal that even Mr. Gresham had not dared to propose Mr.
+Phineas Finn for any place under the Crown.
+
+At last Mr. Bonteen was absolutely told that he could not be
+Chancellor of the Exchequer. If he would consent to give his very
+valuable services to the country with the view of carrying through
+Parliament the great measure of decimal coinage he should be
+President of the Board of Trade,--but without a seat in the Cabinet.
+He would thus become the Right Honourable Bonteen, which, no doubt,
+would be a great thing for him,--and, not busy in the Cabinet,
+must be able to devote his time exclusively to the great measure
+above-named. What was to become of "Trade" generally, was not
+specially explained; but, as we all know, there would be a
+Vice-President to attend to details.
+
+The proposition very nearly broke the man's heart. With a voice
+stopped by agitation, with anger flashing from his eyes, almost in a
+convulsion of mixed feelings, he reminded his chief of what had been
+said about his appointment in the House. Mr. Gresham had already
+absolutely defended it. After that did Mr. Gresham mean to withdraw
+a promise that had so formally been made? But Mr. Gresham was not to
+be caught in that way. He had made no promise;--had not even stated
+to the House that such appointment was to be made. A very improper
+question had been asked as to a rumour,--in answering which he
+had been forced to justify himself by explaining that discussions
+respecting the office had been necessary. "Mr. Bonteen," said
+Mr. Gresham, "no one knows better than you the difficulties of a
+Minister. If you can act with us I shall be very grateful to you. If
+you cannot, I shall regret the loss of your services." Mr. Bonteen
+took twenty-four hours to consider, and was then appointed President
+of the Board of Trade without a seat in the Cabinet. Mr. Legge Wilson
+became Chancellor of the Exchequer. When the lists were completed,
+no office whatever was assigned to Phineas Finn. "I haven't done
+with Mr. Bonteen yet," said the young duchess to her friend Madame
+Goesler.
+
+The secrets of the world are very marvellous, but they are not
+themselves half so wonderful as the way in which they become known to
+the world. There could be no doubt that Mr. Bonteen's high ambition
+had foundered, and that he had been degraded through the secret
+enmity of the Duchess of Omnium. It was equally certain that his
+secret enmity to Phineas Finn had brought this punishment on his
+head. But before the Ministry had been a week in office almost
+everybody knew that it was so. The rumours were full of falsehood,
+but yet they contained the truth. The duchess had done it. The
+duchess was the bosom friend of Lady Laura Kennedy, who was in love
+with Phineas Finn. She had gone on her knees to Mr. Gresham to get
+a place for her friend's favourite, and Mr. Gresham had refused.
+Consequently, at her bidding, half-a-dozen embryo Ministers--her
+husband among the number--had refused to be amenable to Mr. Gresham.
+Mr. Gresham had at last consented to sacrifice Mr. Bonteen, who had
+originally instigated him to reject the claims of Phineas Finn. That
+the degradation of the one man had been caused by the exclusion of
+the other all the world knew.
+
+"It shuts the door to me for ever and ever," said Phineas to Madame
+Goesler.
+
+"I don't see that."
+
+"Of course it does. Such an affair places a mark against a man's name
+which will never be forgotten."
+
+"Is your heart set upon holding some trifling appointment under a
+Minister?"
+
+"To tell you the truth, it is;--or rather it was. The prospect of
+office to me was more than perhaps to any other expectant. Even this
+man, Bonteen, has some fortune of his own, and can live if he be
+excluded. I have given up everything for the chance of something in
+this line."
+
+"Other lines are open."
+
+"Not to me, Madame Goesler. I do not mean to defend myself. I have
+been very foolish, very sanguine, and am now very unhappy."
+
+"What shall I say to you?"
+
+"The truth."
+
+"In truth, then, I do not sympathise with you. The thing lost is too
+small, too mean to justify unhappiness."
+
+"But, Madame Goesler, you are a rich woman."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"If you were to lose it all, would you not be unhappy? It has been
+my ambition to live here in London as one of a special set which
+dominates all other sets in our English world. To do so a man
+should have means of his own. I have none; and yet I have tried
+it,--thinking that I could earn my bread at it as men do at other
+professions. I acknowledge that I should not have thought so. No man
+should attempt what I have attempted without means, at any rate to
+live on if he fail; but I am not the less unhappy because I have been
+silly."
+
+"What will you do?"
+
+"Ah,--what? Another friend asked me that the other day, and I told
+her that I should vanish."
+
+"Who was that friend?"
+
+"Lady Laura."
+
+"She is in London again now?"
+
+"Yes; she and her father are in Portman Square."
+
+"She has been an injurious friend to you."
+
+"No, by heaven," exclaimed Phineas. "But for her I should never have
+been here at all, never have had a seat in Parliament, never have
+been in office, never have known you."
+
+"And might have been the better without any of these things."
+
+"No man ever had a better friend than Lady Laura has been to me.
+Malice, wicked and false as the devil, has lately joined our names
+together to the incredible injury of both of us; but it has not been
+her fault."
+
+"You are energetic in defending her."
+
+"And so would she be in defending me. Circumstances threw us together
+and made us friends. Her father and her brother were my friends.
+I happened to be of service to her husband. We belonged to the
+same party. And therefore--because she has been unfortunate in her
+marriage--people tell lies of her."
+
+"It is a pity he should--not die, and leave her," said Madame Goesler
+slowly.
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"Because then you might justify yourself in defending her by making
+her your wife." She paused, but he made no answer to this. "You are
+in love with her," she said.
+
+"It is untrue."
+
+"Mr. Finn!"
+
+"Well, what would you have? I am not in love with her. To me she is
+no more than my sister. Were she as free as air I should not ask her
+to be my wife. Can a man and woman feel no friendship without being
+in love with each other?"
+
+"I hope they may," said Madame Goesler. Had he been lynx-eyed he
+might have seen that she blushed; but it required quick eyes to
+discover a blush on Madame Goesler's face. "You and I are friends."
+
+"Indeed we are," he said, grasping her hand as he took his leave.
+
+
+
+
+VOLUME II.
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+
+"I HOPE I'M NOT DISTRUSTED."
+
+
+Gerard Maule, as the reader has been informed, wrote three lines to
+his dearest Adelaide to inform her that his father would not assent
+to the suggestion respecting Maule Abbey which had been made by
+Lady Chiltern, and then took no further steps in the matter. In the
+fortnight next after the receipt of his letter nothing was heard of
+him at Harrington Hall, and Adelaide, though she made no complaint,
+was unhappy. Then came the letter from Mr. Spooner,--with all its
+rich offers, and Adelaide's mind was for a while occupied with
+wrath against her second suitor. But as the egregious folly of Mr.
+Spooner,--for to her thinking the aspirations of Mr. Spooner were
+egregiously foolish,--died out of her mind, her thoughts reverted to
+her engagement. Why did not the man come to her, or why did he not
+write?
+
+She had received from Lady Chiltern an invitation to remain with
+them,--the Chilterns,--till her marriage. "But, dear Lady Chiltern,
+who knows when it will be?" Adelaide had said. Lady Chiltern had
+good-naturedly replied that the longer it was put off the better
+for herself. "But you'll be going to London or abroad before that
+day comes." Lady Chiltern declared that she looked forward to
+no festivities which could under any circumstances remove her
+four-and-twenty hours travelling distance from the kennels. Probably
+she might go up to London for a couple of months as soon as the
+hunting was over, and the hounds had been drafted, and the horses had
+been coddled, and every covert had been visited. From the month of
+May till the middle of July she might, perhaps, be allowed to be in
+town, as communications by telegram could now be made day and night.
+After that, preparations for cub-hunting would be imminent, and,
+as a matter of course, it would be necessary that she should be at
+Harrington Hall at so important a period of the year. During those
+couple of months she would be very happy to have the companionship of
+her friend, and she hinted that Gerard Maule would certainly be in
+town. "I begin to think it would have been better that I should never
+have seen Gerard Maule," said Adelaide Palliser.
+
+This happened about the middle of March, while hunting was still in
+force. Gerard's horses were standing in the neighbourhood, but Gerard
+himself was not there. Mr. Spooner, since that short, disheartening
+note had been sent to him by Lord Chiltern, had not been seen at
+Harrington. There was a Harrington Lawn Meet on one occasion, but
+he had not appeared till the hounds were at the neighbouring covert
+side. Nevertheless he had declared that he did not intend to give
+up the pursuit, and had even muttered something of the sort to Lord
+Chiltern. "I am one of those fellows who stick to a thing, you know,"
+he said.
+
+"I am afraid you had better give up sticking to her, because she's
+going to marry somebody else."
+
+"I've heard all about that, my lord. He's a very nice sort of young
+man, but I'm told he hasn't got his house ready yet for a family."
+All which Lord Chiltern repeated to his wife. Neither of them spoke
+to Adelaide again about Mr. Spooner; but this did cause a feeling in
+Lady Chiltern's mind that perhaps this engagement with young Maule
+was a foolish thing, and that, if so, she was in a great measure
+responsible for the folly.
+
+"Don't you think you'd better write to him?" she said, one morning.
+
+"Why does he not write to me?"
+
+"But he did,--when he wrote you that his father would not consent to
+give up the house. You did not answer him then."
+
+"It was two lines,--without a date. I don't even know where he
+lives."
+
+"You know his club?"
+
+"Yes,--I know his club. I do feel, Lady Chiltern, that I have become
+engaged to marry a man as to whom I am altogether in the dark. I
+don't like writing to him at his club."
+
+"You have seen more of him here and in Italy than most girls see of
+their future husbands."
+
+"So I have,--but I have seen no one belonging to him. Don't you
+understand what I mean? I feel all at sea about him. I am sure he
+does not mean any harm."
+
+"Certainly he does not."
+
+"But then he hardly means any good."
+
+"I never saw a man more earnestly in love," said Lady Chiltern.
+
+"Oh yes,--he's quite enough in love. But--"
+
+"But what?"
+
+"He'll just remain up in London thinking about it, and never tell
+himself that there's anything to be done. And then, down here, what
+is my best hope? Not that he'll come to see me, but that he'll come
+to see his horse, and that so, perhaps, I may get a word with him."
+Then Lady Chiltern suggested, with a laugh, that perhaps it might
+have been better that she should have accepted Mr. Spooner. There
+would have been no doubt as to Mr. Spooner's energy and purpose.
+"Only that if there was not another man in the world I wouldn't marry
+him, and that I never saw any other man except Gerard Maule whom I
+even fancied I could marry."
+
+About a fortnight after this, when the hunting was all over, in the
+beginning of April, she did write to him as follows, and did direct
+her letter to his club. In the meantime Lord Chiltern had intimated
+to his wife that if Gerard Maule behaved badly he should consider
+himself to be standing in the place of Adelaide's father or brother.
+His wife pointed out to him that were he her father or her brother he
+could do nothing,--that in these days let a man behave ever so badly,
+no means of punishing was within reach of the lady's friends. But
+Lord Chiltern would not assent to this. He muttered something about
+a horsewhip, and seemed to suggest that one man could, if he were so
+minded, always have it out with another, if not in this way, then in
+that. Lady Chiltern protested, and declared that horsewhips could not
+under any circumstances be efficacious. "He had better mind what he
+is about," said Lord Chiltern. It was after this that Adelaide wrote
+her letter:--
+
+
+   Harrington Hall, 5th April.
+
+   DEAR GERARD,--
+
+   I have been thinking that I should hear from you, and have
+   been surprised,--I may say unhappy,--because I have not
+   done so. Perhaps you thought I ought to have answered the
+   three words which you wrote to me about your father; if
+   so, I will apologise; only they did not seem to give me
+   anything to say. I was very sorry that your father should
+   have "cut up rough," as you call it, but you must remember
+   that we both expected that he would refuse, and that
+   we are only therefore where we thought we should be.
+   I suppose we shall have to wait till Providence does
+   something for us,--only, if so, it would be pleasanter to
+   me to hear your own opinion about it.
+
+   The Chilterns are surprised that you shouldn't have come
+   back, and seen the end of the season. There were some very
+   good runs just at last;--particularly one on last Monday.
+   But on Wednesday Trumpeton Wood was again blank, and there
+   was some row about wires. I can't explain it all; but you
+   must come, and Lord Chiltern will tell you. I have gone
+   down to see the horses ever so often;--but I don't care to
+   go now as you never write to me. They are all three quite
+   well, and Fan looks as silken and as soft as any lady need
+   do.
+
+   Lady Chiltern has been kinder than I can tell you. I go
+   up to town with her in May, and shall remain with her
+   while she is there. So far I have decided. After that
+   my future home must, sir, depend on the resolution and
+   determination, or perhaps on the vagaries and caprices, of
+   him who is to be my future master. Joking apart, I must
+   know to what I am to look forward before I can make up my
+   mind whether I will or will not go back to Italy towards
+   the end of the summer. If I do, I fear I must do so just
+   in the hottest time of the year; but I shall not like
+   to come down here again after leaving London,--unless
+   something by that time has been settled.
+
+   I shall send this to your club, and I hope that it will
+   reach you. I suppose that you are in London.
+
+   Good-bye, dearest Gerard.
+
+   Yours most affectionately,
+
+   ADELAIDE.
+
+   If there is anything that troubles you, pray tell me. I
+   ask you because I think it would be better for you that I
+   should know. I sometimes think that you would have written
+   if there had not been some misfortune. God bless you.
+
+
+Gerard was in London, and sent the following note by return of
+post:--
+
+
+   ---- Club, Tuesday.
+
+   DEAREST ADELAIDE,
+
+   All right. If Chiltern can take me for a couple of nights,
+   I'll come down next week, and settle about the horses, and
+   will arrange everything.
+
+   Ever your own, with all my heart,
+
+   G. M.
+
+
+"He will settle about his horses, and arrange everything," said
+Adelaide, as she showed the letter to Lady Chiltern. "The horses
+first, and everything afterwards. The everything, of course, includes
+all my future happiness, the day of my marriage, whether to-morrow or
+in ten years' time, and the place where we shall live."
+
+"At any rate, he's coming."
+
+"Yes;--but when? He says next week, but he does not name any day. Did
+you ever hear or see anything so unsatisfactory?"
+
+"I thought you would be glad to see him."
+
+"So I should be,--if there was any sense in him. I shall be glad, and
+shall kiss him."
+
+"I dare say you will."
+
+"And let him put his arm round my waist and be happy. He will be
+happy because he will think of nothing beyond. But what is to be the
+end of it?"
+
+"He says that he will settle everything."
+
+"But he will have thought of nothing. What must I settle? That is
+the question. When he was told to go to his father, he went to his
+father. When he failed there the work was done, and the trouble was
+off his mind. I know him so well."
+
+"If you think so ill of him why did you consent to get into his
+boat?" said Lady Chiltern, seriously.
+
+"I don't think ill of him. Why do you say that I think ill of him?
+I think better of him than of anybody else in the world;--but I know
+his fault, and, as it happens, it is a fault so very prejudicial to
+my happiness. You ask me why I got into his boat. Why does any girl
+get into a man's boat? Why did you get into Lord Chiltern's?"
+
+"I promised to marry him when I was seven years old;--so he says."
+
+"But you wouldn't have done it, if you hadn't had a sort of feeling
+that you were born to be his wife. I haven't got into this man's boat
+yet; but I never can be happy unless I do, simply because--"
+
+"You love him."
+
+"Yes;--just that. I have a feeling that I should like to be in his
+boat, and I shouldn't like to be anywhere else. After you have come
+to feel like that about a man I don't suppose it makes any difference
+whether you think him perfect or imperfect. He's just my own,--at
+least I hope so;--the one thing that I've got. If I wear a stuff
+frock, I'm not going to despise it because it's not silk."
+
+"Mr. Spooner would be the stuff frock."
+
+"No;--Mr. Spooner is shoddy, and very bad shoddy, too."
+
+On the Saturday in the following week Gerard Maule did arrive at
+Harrington Hall,--and was welcomed as only accepted lovers are
+welcomed. Not a word of reproach was uttered as to his delinquencies.
+No doubt he got the kiss with which Adelaide had herself suggested
+that his coming would be rewarded. He was allowed to stand on the rug
+before the fire with his arm round her waist. Lady Chiltern smiled on
+him. His horses had been specially visited that morning, and a lively
+report as to their condition was made to him. Not a word was said on
+that occasion which could distress him. Even Lord Chiltern when he
+came in was gracious to him. "Well, old fellow," he said, "you've
+missed your hunting."
+
+"Yes; indeed. Things kept me in town."
+
+"We had some uncommonly good runs."
+
+"Have the horses stood pretty well?" asked Gerard.
+
+"I felt uncommonly tempted to borrow yours; and should have done so
+once or twice if I hadn't known that I should have been betrayed."
+
+"I wish you had, with all my heart," said Gerard. And then they went
+to dress for dinner.
+
+In the evening, when the ladies had gone to bed, Lord Chiltern took
+his friend off to the smoking-room. At Harrington Hall it was not
+unusual for the ladies and gentlemen to descend together into the
+very comfortable Pandemonium which was so called, when,--as was the
+case at present,--the terms of intimacy between them were sufficient
+to warrant such a proceeding. But on this occasion Lady Chiltern
+went very discreetly upstairs, and Adelaide, with equal discretion,
+followed her. It had been arranged beforehand that Lord Chiltern
+should say a salutary word or two to the young man. Maule began about
+the hunting, asking questions about this and that, but his host
+stopped him at once. Lord Chiltern, when he had a task on hand, was
+always inclined to get through it at once,--perhaps with an energy
+that was too sudden in its effects. "Maule," he said, "you ought to
+make up your mind what you mean to do about that girl."
+
+"Do about her! How?"
+
+"You and she are engaged, I suppose?"
+
+"Of course we are. There isn't any doubt about it."
+
+"Just so. But when things come to be like that, all delays are good
+fun to the man, but they're the very devil to the girl."
+
+"I thought it was always the other way up, and that girls wanted
+delay?"
+
+"That's only a theoretical delicacy which never means much. When a
+girl is engaged she likes to have the day fixed. When there's a long
+interval the man can do pretty much as he pleases, while the girl can
+do nothing except think about him. Then it sometimes turns out that
+when he's wanted, he's not there."
+
+"I hope I'm not distrusted," said Gerard, with an air that showed
+that he was almost disposed to be offended.
+
+"Not in the least. The women here think you the finest paladin in the
+world, and Miss Palliser would fly at my throat if she thought that
+I said a word against you. But she's in my house, you see; and I'm
+bound to do exactly as I should if she were my sister."
+
+"And if she were your sister?"
+
+"I should tell you that I couldn't approve of the engagement unless
+you were prepared to fix the time of your marriage. And I should ask
+you where you intended to live."
+
+"Wherever she pleases. I can't go to Maule Abbey while my father
+lives, without his sanction."
+
+"And he may live for the next twenty years."
+
+"Or thirty."
+
+"Then you are bound to decide upon something else. It's no use saying
+that you leave it to her. You can't leave it to her. What I mean
+is this, that now you are here, I think you are bound to settle
+something with her. Good-night, old fellow."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+
+BOULOGNE.
+
+
+Gerard Maule, as he sat upstairs half undressed in his bedroom that
+night didn't like it. He hardly knew what it was that he did not
+like,--but he felt that there was something wrong. He thought that
+Lord Chiltern had not been warranted in speaking to him with a tone
+of authority, and in talking of a brother's position,--and the rest
+of it. He had lacked the presence of mind for saying anything at the
+moment; but he must say something sooner or later. He wasn't going to
+be driven by Lord Chiltern. When he looked back at his own conduct he
+thought that it had been more than noble,--almost romantic. He had
+fallen in love with Miss Palliser, and spoken his love out freely,
+without any reference to money. He didn't know what more any fellow
+could have done. As to his marrying out of hand, the day after his
+engagement, as a man of fortune can do, everybody must have known
+that that was out of the question. Adelaide of course had known it.
+It had been suggested to him that he should consult his father as to
+living at Maule Abbey. Now if there was one thing he hated more than
+another, it was consulting his father; and yet he had done it. He had
+asked for a loan of the old house in perfect faith, and it was not
+his fault that it had been refused. He could not make a house to live
+in, nor could he coin a fortune. He had L800 a-year of his own, but
+of course he owed a little money. Men with such incomes always do
+owe a little money. It was almost impossible that he should marry
+quite at once. It was not his fault that Adelaide had no fortune of
+her own. When he fell in love with her he had been a great deal too
+generous to think of fortune, and that ought to be remembered now to
+his credit. Such was the sum of his thoughts, and his anger spread
+itself from Lord Chiltern even on to Adelaide herself. Chiltern would
+hardly have spoken in that way unless she had complained. She, no
+doubt, had been speaking to Lady Chiltern, and Lady Chiltern had
+passed it on to her husband. He would have it out with Adelaide on
+the next morning,--quite decidedly. And he would make Lord Chiltern
+understand that he would not endure interference. He was quite ready
+to leave Harrington Hall at a moment's notice if he were ill-treated.
+This was the humour in which Gerard Maule put himself to bed that
+night.
+
+On the following morning he was very late at breakfast,--so late that
+Lord Chiltern had gone over to the kennels. As he was dressing he had
+resolved that it would be fitting that he should speak again to his
+host before he said anything to Adelaide that might appear to impute
+blame to her. He would ask Chiltern whether anything was meant by
+what had been said over-night. But, as it happened, Adelaide had been
+left alone to pour out his tea for him, and,--as the reader will
+understand to have been certain on such an occasion,--they were left
+together for an hour in the breakfast parlour. It was impossible that
+such an hour should be passed without some reference to the grievance
+which was lying heavy on his heart. "Late; I should think you are,"
+said Adelaide laughing. "It is nearly eleven. Lord Chiltern has been
+out an hour. I suppose you never get up early except for hunting."
+
+"People always think it is so wonderfully virtuous to get up. What's
+the use of it?"
+
+"Your breakfast is so cold."
+
+"I don't care about that. I suppose they can boil me an egg. I was
+very seedy when I went to bed."
+
+"You smoked too many cigars, sir."
+
+"No, I didn't; but Chiltern was saying things that I didn't like."
+Adelaide's face at once became very serious. "Yes, a good deal of
+sugar, please. I don't care about toast, and anything does for me. He
+has gone to the kennels, has he?"
+
+"He said he should. What was he saying last night?"
+
+"Nothing particular. He has a way of blowing up, you know; and he
+looks at one just as if he expected that everybody was to do just
+what he chooses."
+
+"You didn't quarrel?"
+
+"Not at all; I went off to bed without saying a word. I hate jaws.
+I shall just put it right this morning; that's all."
+
+"Was it about me, Gerard?"
+
+"It doesn't signify the least."
+
+"But it does signify. If you and he were to quarrel would it not
+signify to me very much? How could I stay here with them, or go up
+to London with them, if you and he had really quarrelled? You must
+tell me. I know that it was about me." Then she came and sat close to
+him. "Gerard," she continued, "I don't think you understand how much
+everything is to me that concerns you."
+
+When he began to reflect, he could not quite recollect what it was
+that Lord Chiltern had said to him. He did remember that something
+had been suggested about a brother and sister which had implied that
+Adelaide might want protection, but there was nothing unnatural or
+other than kind in the position which Lord Chiltern had declared
+that he would assume. "He seemed to think that I wasn't treating you
+well," said he, turning round from the breakfast-table to the fire,
+"and that is a sort of thing I can't stand."
+
+"I have never said so, Gerard."
+
+"I don't know what it is that he expects, or why he should interfere
+at all. I can't bear to be interfered with. What does he know about
+it? He has had somebody to pay everything for him half-a-dozen times,
+but I have to look out for myself."
+
+"What does all this mean?"
+
+"You would ask me, you know. I am bothered out of my life by ever so
+many things, and now he comes and adds his botheration."
+
+"What bothers you, Gerard? If anything bothers you, surely you will
+tell me. If there has been anything to trouble you since you saw your
+father why have you not written and told me? Is your trouble about
+me?"
+
+"Well, of course it is, in a sort of way."
+
+"I will not be a trouble to you."
+
+"Now you are going to misunderstand me! Of course, you are not a
+trouble to me. You know that I love you better than anything in the
+world."
+
+"I hope so."
+
+"Of course I do." Then he put his arm round her waist and pressed her
+to his bosom. "But what can a man do? When Lady Chiltern recommended
+that I should go to my father and tell him, I did it. I knew that no
+good could come of it. He wouldn't lift his hand to do anything for
+me."
+
+"How horrid that is!"
+
+"He thinks it a shame that I should have my uncle's money, though he
+never had any more right to it than that man out there. He is always
+saying that I am better off than he is."
+
+"I suppose you are."
+
+"I am very badly off, I know that. People seem to think that L800 is
+ever so much, but I find it to be very little."
+
+"And it will be much less if you are married," said Adelaide gravely.
+
+"Of course, everything must be changed. I must sell my horses, and we
+must cut and run, and go and live at Boulogne, I suppose. But a man
+can't do that kind of thing all in a moment. Then Chiltern comes and
+talks as though he were Virtue personified. What business is it of
+his?"
+
+Then Adelaide became still more grave. She had now removed herself
+from his embrace, and was standing a little apart from him on the
+rug. She did not answer him at first; and when she did so, she spoke
+very slowly. "We have been rash, I fear; and have done what we have
+done without sufficient thought."
+
+"I don't say that at all."
+
+"But I do. It does seem now that we have been imprudent." Then she
+smiled as she completed her speech. "There had better be no
+engagement between us."
+
+"Why do you say that?"
+
+"Because it is quite clear that it has been a trouble to you rather
+than a happiness."
+
+"I wouldn't give it up for all the world."
+
+"But it will be better. I had not thought about it as I should have
+done. I did not understand that the prospect of marrying would make
+you--so very poor. I see it now. You had better tell Lord Chiltern
+that it is--done with, and I will tell her the same. It will be
+better; and I will go back to Italy at once."
+
+"Certainly not. It is not done with, and it shall not be done with."
+
+"Do you think I will marry the man I love when he tells me that
+by--marrying--me, he will be--banished to--Bou--logne? You had better
+see Lord Chiltern; indeed you had." And then she walked out of the
+room.
+
+Then came upon him at once a feeling that he had behaved badly; and
+yet he had been so generous, so full of intentions to be devoted and
+true! He had never for a moment thought of breaking off the match,
+and would not think of it now. He loved her better than ever, and
+would live only with the intention of making her his wife. But he
+certainly should not have talked to her of his poverty, nor should he
+have mentioned Boulogne. And yet what should he have done? She would
+cross-question him about Lord Chiltern, and it was so essentially
+necessary that he should make her understand his real condition. It
+had all come from that man's unjustifiable interference,--as he would
+at once go and tell him. Of course he would marry Adelaide, but the
+marriage must be delayed. Everybody waits twelve months before they
+are married; and why should she not wait? He was miserable because he
+knew that he had made her unhappy;--but the fault had been with Lord
+Chiltern. He would speak his mind frankly to Chiltern, and then would
+explain with loving tenderness to his Adelaide that they would still
+be all in all to each other, but that a short year must elapse before
+he could put his house in order for her. After that he would sell his
+horses. That resolve was in itself so great that he did not think
+it necessary at the present moment to invent any more plans for the
+future. So he went out into the hall, took his hat, and marched off
+to the kennels.
+
+At the kennels he found Lord Chiltern surrounded by the denizens of
+the hunt. His huntsman, with the kennelman and feeder, and two whips,
+and old Doggett were all there, and the Master of the Hounds was in
+the middle of his business. The dogs were divided by ages, as well
+as by sex, and were being brought out and examined. Old Doggett was
+giving advice,--differing almost always from Cox, the huntsman, as
+to the propriety of keeping this hound or of cashiering that. Nose,
+pace, strength, and docility were all questioned with an eagerness
+hardly known in any other business; and on each question Lord
+Chiltern listened to everybody, and then decided with a single word.
+When he had once resolved, nothing further urged by any man then
+could avail anything. Jove never was so autocratic, and certainly
+never so much in earnest. From the look of Lord Chiltern's brow it
+almost seemed as though this weight of empire must be too much for
+any mere man. Very little notice was taken of Gerard Maule when he
+joined the conclave, though it was felt in reference to him that he
+was sufficiently staunch a friend to the hunt to be trusted with
+the secrets of the kennel. Lord Chiltern merely muttered some words
+of greeting, and Cox lifted the old hunting-cap which he wore. For
+another hour the conference was held. Those who have attended such
+meetings know well that a morning on the flags is apt to be a long
+affair. Old Doggett, who had privileges, smoked a pipe, and Gerard
+Maule lit one cigar after another. But Lord Chiltern had become too
+thorough a man of business to smoke when so employed. At last the
+last order was given,--Doggett snarled his last snarl,--and Cox
+uttered his last "My lord." Then Gerard Maule and the Master left the
+hounds and walked home together.
+
+The affair had been so long that Gerard had almost forgotten his
+grievance. But now as they got out together upon the park, he
+remembered the tone of Adelaide's voice as she left him, and
+remembered also that, as matters stood at present, it was essentially
+necessary that something should be said. "I suppose I shall have to
+go and see that woman," said Lord Chiltern.
+
+"Do you mean Adelaide?" asked Maule, in a tone of infinite surprise.
+
+"I mean this new Duchess, who I'm told is to manage everything
+herself. That man Fothergill is going on with just the old game at
+Trumpeton."
+
+"Is he, indeed? I was thinking of something else just at that moment.
+You remember what you were saying about Miss Palliser last night."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well;--I don't think, you know, you had a right to speak as you
+did."
+
+Lord Chiltern almost flew at his companion, as he replied, "I said
+nothing. I do say that when a man becomes engaged to a girl, he
+should let her hear from him, so that they may know what each other
+is about."
+
+"You hinted something about being her brother."
+
+"Of course I did. If you mean well by her, as I hope you do, it can't
+fret you to think that she has got somebody to look after her till
+you come in and take possession. It is the commonest thing in the
+world when a girl is left all alone as she is."
+
+"You seemed to make out that I wasn't treating her well."
+
+"I said nothing of the kind, Maule; but if you ask me--"
+
+"I don't ask you anything."
+
+"Yes, you do. You come and find fault with me for speaking last night
+in the most good-natured way in the world. And, therefore, I tell you
+now that you will be behaving very badly indeed, unless you make some
+arrangement at once as to what you mean to do."
+
+"That's your opinion," said Gerard Maule.
+
+"Yes, it is; and you'll find it to be the opinion of any man or woman
+that you may ask who knows anything about such things. And I'll tell
+you what, Master Maule, if you think you're going to face me down
+you'll find yourself mistaken. Stop a moment, and just listen to me.
+You haven't a much better friend than I am, and I'm sure she hasn't a
+better friend than my wife. All this has taken place under our roof,
+and I mean to speak my mind plainly. What do you propose to do about
+your marriage?"
+
+"I don't propose to tell you what I mean to do."
+
+"Will you tell Miss Palliser,--or my wife?"
+
+"That is just as I may think fit."
+
+"Then I must tell you that you cannot meet her at my house."
+
+"I'll leave it to-day."
+
+"You needn't do that either. You sleep on it, and then make up your
+mind. You can't suppose that I have any curiosity about it. The girl
+is fond of you, and I suppose that you are fond of her. Don't quarrel
+for nothing. If I have offended you, speak to Lady Chiltern about
+it."
+
+"Very well;--I will speak to Lady Chiltern."
+
+When they reached the house it was clear that something was wrong.
+Miss Palliser was not seen again before dinner, and Lady Chiltern was
+grave and very cold in her manner to Gerard Maule. He was left alone
+all the afternoon, which he passed with his horses and groom, smoking
+more cigars,--but thinking all the time of Adelaide Palliser's last
+words, of Lord Chiltern's frown, and of Lady Chiltern's manner to
+him. When he came into the drawing-room before dinner, Lady Chiltern
+and Adelaide were both there, and Adelaide immediately began to ask
+questions about the kennel and the huntsmen. But she studiously
+kept at a distance from him, and he himself felt that it would be
+impossible to resume at present the footing on which he stood with
+them both on the previous evening. Presently Lord Chiltern came in,
+and another man and his wife who had come to stay at Harrington.
+Nothing could be more dull than the whole evening. At least so Gerard
+found it. He did take Adelaide in to dinner, but he did not sit next
+to her at table, for which, however, there was an excuse, as, had
+he done so, the new-comer must have been placed by his wife. He was
+cross, and would not make an attempt to speak to his neighbour, and,
+though he tried once or twice to talk to Lady Chiltern--than whom,
+as a rule, no woman was ever more easy in conversation--he failed
+altogether. Now and again he strove to catch Adelaide's eye, but even
+in that he could not succeed. When the ladies left the room Chiltern
+and the new-comer--who was not a sporting man, and therefore did not
+understand the question--became lost in the mazes of Trumpeton Wood.
+But Gerard Maule did not put in a word; nor was a word addressed to
+him by Lord Chiltern. As he sat there sipping his wine, he made up
+his mind that he would leave Harrington Hall the next morning. When
+he was again in the drawing-room, things were conducted in just the
+same way. He spoke to Adelaide, and she answered him; but there
+was no word of encouragement--not a tone of comfort in her voice.
+He found himself driven to attempt conversation with the strange
+lady, and at last was made to play whist with Lady Chiltern and the
+two new-comers. Later on in the evening, when Adelaide had gone
+to her own chamber, he was invited by Lady Chiltern into her own
+sitting-room upstairs, and there the whole thing was explained to
+him. Miss Palliser had declared that the match should be broken off.
+
+"Do you mean altogether, Lady Chiltern?"
+
+"Certainly I do. Such a resolve cannot be a half-and-half
+arrangement."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"I think you must know why, Mr. Maule."
+
+"I don't in the least. I won't have it broken off. I have as much
+right to have a voice in the matter as she has, and I don't in the
+least believe it's her doing."
+
+"Mr. Maule!"
+
+"I do not care; I must speak out. Why does she not tell me so
+herself?"
+
+"She did tell you so."
+
+"No, she didn't. She said something, but not that. I don't suppose
+a man was ever so used before; and it's all Lord Chiltern;--just
+because I told him that he had no right to interfere with me. And he
+has no right."
+
+"You and Oswald were away together when she told me that she had made
+up her mind. Oswald has hardly spoken to her since you have been in
+the house. He certainly has not spoken to her about you since you
+came to us."
+
+"What is the meaning of it, then?"
+
+"You told her that your engagement had overwhelmed you with
+troubles."
+
+"Of course; there must be troubles."
+
+"And that--you would have to be banished to Boulogne when you were
+married."
+
+"I didn't mean her to take that literally."
+
+"It wasn't a nice way, Mr. Maule, to speak of your future life to the
+girl to whom you were engaged. Of course it was her hope to make your
+life happier, not less happy. And when you made her understand--as
+you did very plainly--that your married prospects filled you with
+dismay, of course she had no other alternative but to retreat from
+her engagement."
+
+"I wasn't dismayed."
+
+"It is not my doing, Mr. Maule."
+
+"I suppose she'll see me?"
+
+"If you insist upon it she will; but she would rather not."
+
+Gerard, however, did insist, and Adelaide was brought to him there
+into that room before he went to bed. She was very gentle with him,
+and spoke to him in a tone very different from that which Lady
+Chiltern had used; but he found himself utterly powerless to change
+her. That unfortunate allusion to a miserable exile at Boulogne had
+completed the work which the former plaints had commenced, and had
+driven her to a resolution to separate herself from him altogether.
+
+"Mr. Maule," she said, "when I perceived that our proposed marriage
+was looked upon by you as a misfortune, I could do nothing but put
+an end to our engagement."
+
+"But I didn't think it a misfortune."
+
+"You made me think that it would be unfortunate for you, and that is
+quite as strong a reason. I hope we shall part as friends."
+
+"I won't part at all," he said, standing his ground with his back to
+the fire. "I don't understand it, by heaven I don't. Because I said
+some stupid thing about Boulogne, all in joke--"
+
+"It was not in joke when you said that troubles had come heavy on you
+since you were engaged."
+
+"A man may be allowed to know, himself, whether he was in joke or
+not. I suppose the truth is you don't care about me?"
+
+"I hope, Mr. Maule, that in time it may come--not quite to that."
+
+"I think that you are--using me very badly. I think that you
+are--behaving--falsely to me. I think that I am--very--shamefully
+treated--among you. Of course I shall go. Of course I shall not stay
+in this house. A man can't make a girl keep her promise. No--I won't
+shake hands. I won't even say good-bye to you. Of course I shall go."
+So saying he slammed the door behind him.
+
+"If he cares for you he'll come back to you," Lady Chiltern said to
+Adelaide that night, who at the moment was lying on her bed in a sad
+condition, frantic with headache.
+
+"I don't want him to come back; I will never make him go to
+Boulogne."
+
+"Don't think of it, dear."
+
+"Not think of it! how can I help thinking of it? I shall always think
+of it. But I never want to see him again--never! How can I want to
+marry a man who tells me that I shall be a trouble to him? He shall
+never,--never have to go to Boulogne for me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII.
+
+THE SECOND THUNDERBOLT.
+
+
+The quarrel between Phineas Finn and Mr. Bonteen had now become the
+talk of the town, and had taken many various phases. The political
+phase, though it was perhaps the best understood, was not the most
+engrossing. There was the personal phase,--which had reference to the
+direct altercation that had taken place between the two gentlemen,
+and to the correspondence between them which had followed, as to
+which phase it may be said that though there were many rumours
+abroad, very little was known. It was reported in some circles that
+the two aspirants for office had been within an ace of striking
+each other; in some, again, that a blow had passed,--and in others,
+further removed probably from the House of Commons and the Universe
+Club, that the Irishman had struck the Englishman, and that the
+Englishman had given the Irishman a thrashing. This was a phase
+that was very disagreeable to Phineas Finn. And there was a third,
+--which may perhaps be called the general social phase, and which
+unfortunately dealt with the name of Lady Laura Kennedy. They all,
+of course, worked into each other, and were enlivened and made
+interesting with the names of a great many big persons. Mr. Gresham,
+the Prime Minister, was supposed to be very much concerned in this
+matter. He, it was said, had found himself compelled to exclude
+Phineas Finn from the Government, because of the unfortunate alliance
+between him and the wife of one of his late colleagues, and had also
+thought it expedient to dismiss Mr. Bonteen from his Cabinet,--for
+it had amounted almost to dismissal,--because Mr. Bonteen had made
+indiscreet official allusion to that alliance. In consequence of this
+working in of the first and third phase, Mr. Gresham encountered
+hard usage from some friends and from many enemies. Then, of course,
+the scene at Macpherson's Hotel was commented on very generally. An
+idea prevailed that Mr. Kennedy, driven to madness by his wife's
+infidelity, which had become known to him through the quarrel between
+Phineas and Mr. Bonteen,--had endeavoured to murder his wife's lover,
+who had with the utmost effrontery invaded the injured husband's
+presence with a view of deterring him by threats from a publication
+of his wrongs. This murder had been nearly accomplished in the centre
+of the metropolis,--by daylight, as if that made it worse,--on a
+Sunday, which added infinitely to the delightful horror of the
+catastrophe; and yet no public notice had been taken of it! The
+would-be murderer had been a Cabinet Minister, and the lover who was
+so nearly murdered had been an Under-Secretary of State, and was even
+now a member of Parliament. And then it was positively known that the
+lady's father, who had always been held in the highest respect as
+a nobleman, favoured his daughter's lover, and not his daughter's
+husband. All which things together filled the public with dismay, and
+caused a delightful excitement, giving quite a feature of its own to
+the season.
+
+No doubt general opinion was adverse to poor Phineas Finn, but he was
+not without his party in the matter. To oblige a friend by inflicting
+an injury on his enemy is often more easy than to confer a benefit on
+the friend himself. We have already seen how the young Duchess failed
+in her attempt to obtain an appointment for Phineas, and also how
+she succeeded in destroying the high hopes of Mr. Bonteen. Having
+done so much, of course she clung heartily to the side which she
+had adopted;--and, equally of course, Madame Goesler did the same.
+Between these two ladies there was a slight difference of opinion as
+to the nature of the alliance between Lady Laura and their hero. The
+Duchess was of opinion that young men are upon the whole averse to
+innocent alliances, and that, as Lady Laura and her husband certainly
+had long been separated, there was probably--something in it. "Lord
+bless you, my dear," the Duchess said, "they were known to be
+lovers when they were at Loughlinter together before she married Mr.
+Kennedy. It has been the most romantic affair! She made her father
+give him a seat for his borough."
+
+"He saved Mr. Kennedy's life," said Madame Goesler.
+
+"That was one of the most singular things that ever happened.
+Laurence Fitzgibbon says that it was all planned,--that the garotters
+were hired, but unfortunately two policemen turned up at the moment,
+so the men were taken. I believe there is no doubt they were pardoned
+by Sir Henry Coldfoot, who was at the Home Office, and was Lord
+Brentford's great friend. I don't quite believe it all,--it would be
+too delicious; but a great many do." Madame Goesler, however, was
+strong in her opinion that the report in reference to Lady Laura was
+scandalous. She did not believe a word of it, and was almost angry
+with the Duchess for her credulity.
+
+It is probable that very many ladies shared the opinion of the
+Duchess; but not the less on that account did they take part with
+Phineas Finn. They could not understand why he should be shut out
+of office because a lady had been in love with him, and by no means
+seemed to approve the stern virtue of the Prime Minister. It was
+an interference with things which did not belong to him. And many
+asserted that Mr. Gresham was much given to such interference. Lady
+Cantrip, though her husband was Mr. Gresham's most intimate friend,
+was altogether of this party, as was also the Duchess of St. Bungay,
+who understood nothing at all about it, but who had once fancied
+herself to be rudely treated by Mrs. Bonteen. The young Duchess was
+a woman very strong in getting up a party; and the old Duchess, with
+many other matrons of high rank, was made to believe that it was
+incumbent on her to be a Phineas Finnite. One result of this was,
+that though Phineas was excluded from the Liberal Government, all
+Liberal drawing-rooms were open to him, and that he was a lion.
+
+Additional zest was given to all this by the very indiscreet conduct
+of Mr. Bonteen. He did accept the inferior office of President of
+the Board of Trade, an office inferior at least to that for which
+he had been designated, and agreed to fill it without a seat in the
+Cabinet. But having done so he could not bring himself to bear his
+disappointment quietly. He could not work and wait and make himself
+agreeable to those around him, holding his vexation within his own
+bosom. He was dark and sullen to his chief, and almost insolent to
+the Duke of Omnium. Our old friend Plantagenet Palliser was a man who
+hardly knew insolence when he met it. There was such an absence about
+him of all self-consciousness, he was so little given to think of his
+own personal demeanour and outward trappings,--that he never brought
+himself to question the manners of others to him. Contradiction he
+would take for simple argument. Strong difference of opinion even on
+the part of subordinates recommended itself to him. He could put up
+with apparent rudeness without seeing it, and always gave men credit
+for good intentions. And with it all he had an assurance in his own
+position,--a knowledge of the strength derived from his intellect,
+his industry, his rank, and his wealth,--which made him altogether
+fearless of others. When the little dog snarls, the big dog does
+not connect the snarl with himself, simply fancying that the little
+dog must be uncomfortable. Mr. Bonteen snarled a good deal, and the
+new Lord Privy Seal thought that the new President of the Board of
+Trade was not comfortable within himself. But at last the little
+dog took the big dog by the ear, and then the big dog put out his
+paw and knocked the little dog over. Mr. Bonteen was told that he
+had--forgotten himself; and there arose new rumours. It was soon
+reported that the Lord Privy Seal had refused to work out decimal
+coinage under the management, in the House of Commons, of the
+President of the Board of Trade.
+
+Mr. Bonteen, in his troubled spirit, certainly did misbehave himself.
+Among his closer friends he declared very loudly that he didn't mean
+to stand it. He had not chosen to throw Mr. Gresham over at once, or
+to make difficulties at the moment;--but he would not continue to
+hold his present position or to support the Government without a seat
+in the Cabinet. Palliser had become quite useless,--so Mr. Bonteen
+said,--since his accession to the dukedom, and was quite unfit to
+deal with decimal coinage. It was a burden to kill any man, and he
+was not going to kill himself,--at any rate without the reward for
+which he had been working all his life, and to which he was fully
+entitled, namely, a seat in the Cabinet. Now there were Bonteenites
+in those days as well as Phineas Finnites. The latter tribe was for
+the most part feminine; but the former consisted of some half-dozen
+members of Parliament, who thought they saw their way in encouraging
+the forlorn hope of the unhappy financier.
+
+A leader of a party is nothing without an organ, and an organ came
+forward to support Mr. Bonteen,--not very creditable to him as a
+Liberal, being a Conservative organ,--but not the less gratifying to
+his spirit, inasmuch as the organ not only supported him, but exerted
+its very loudest pipes in abusing the man whom of all men he hated
+the most. The People's Banner was the organ, and Mr. Quintus Slide
+was, of course, the organist. The following was one of the tunes he
+played, and was supposed by himself to be a second thunderbolt, and
+probably a conclusively crushing missile. This thunderbolt fell on
+Monday, the 3rd of May:--
+
+
+   Early in last March we found it to be our duty to bring
+   under public notice the conduct of the member for
+   Tankerville in reference to a transaction which took place
+   at a small hotel in Judd Street, and as to which we then
+   ventured to call for the interference of the police. An
+   attempt to murder the member for Tankerville had been made
+   by a gentleman once well known in the political world,
+   who,--as it is supposed,--had been driven to madness by
+   wrongs inflicted on him in his dearest and nearest family
+   relations. That the unfortunate gentleman is now insane we
+   believe we may state as a fact. It had become our special
+   duty to refer to this most discreditable transaction,
+   from the fact that a paper, still in our hands, had been
+   confided to us for publication by the wretched husband
+   before his senses had become impaired,--which, however, we
+   were debarred from giving to the public by an injunction
+   served upon us in sudden haste by the Vice-Chancellor. We
+   are far from imputing evil motives, or even indiscretion,
+   to that functionary; but we are of opinion that the moral
+   feeling of the country would have been served by the
+   publication, and we are sure that undue steps were taken
+   by the member for Tankerville to procure that injunction.
+
+   No inquiries whatever were made by the police in reference
+   to that attempt at murder, and we do expect that some
+   member will ask a question on the subject in the House.
+   Would such culpable quiescence have been allowed had
+   not the unfortunate lady whose name we are unwilling to
+   mention been the daughter of one of the colleagues of our
+   present Prime Minister, the gentleman who fired the pistol
+   another of them, and the presumed lover, who was fired at,
+   also another? We think that we need hardly answer that
+   question.
+
+   One piece of advice which we ventured to give Mr. Gresham
+   in our former article he has been wise enough to follow.
+   We took upon ourselves to tell him that if, after what has
+   occurred, he ventured to place the member for Tankerville
+   again in office, the country would not stand it;--and he
+   has abstained. The jaunty footsteps of Mr. Phineas Finn
+   are not heard ascending the stairs of any office at about
+   two in the afternoon, as used to be the case in one of
+   those blessed Downing Street abodes about three years
+   since. That scandal is, we think, over,--and for ever. The
+   good-looking Irish member of Parliament who had been put
+   in possession of a handsome salary by feminine influences,
+   will not, we think, after what we have already said, again
+   become a burden on the public purse. But we cannot say
+   that we are as yet satisfied in this matter, or that we
+   believe that the public has got to the bottom of it,--as
+   it has a right to do in reference to all matters affecting
+   the public service. We have never yet learned why it is
+   that Mr. Bonteen, after having been nominated Chancellor
+   of the Exchequer,--for the appointment to that office
+   was declared in the House of Commons by the head of his
+   party,--was afterwards excluded from the Cabinet, and
+   placed in an office made peculiarly subordinate by the
+   fact of that exclusion. We have never yet been told why
+   this was done;--but we believe that we are justified in
+   saying that it was managed through the influence of the
+   member for Tankerville; and we are quite sure that the
+   public service of the country has thereby been subjected
+   to grievous injury.
+
+   It is hardly our duty to praise any of that very awkward
+   team of horses which Mr. Gresham drives with an audacity
+   which may atone for his incapacity if no fearful accident
+   should be the consequence; but if there be one among them
+   whom we could trust for steady work up hill, it is Mr.
+   Bonteen. We were astounded at Mr. Gresham's indiscretion
+   in announcing the appointment of his new Chancellor of the
+   Exchequer some weeks before he had succeeded in driving
+   Mr. Daubeny from office;--but we were not the less glad to
+   find that the finances of the country were to be entrusted
+   to the hands of the most competent gentleman whom
+   Mr. Gresham has induced to follow his fortunes. But
+   Mr. Phineas Finn, with his female forces, has again
+   interfered, and Mr. Bonteen has been relegated to the
+   Board of Trade, without a seat in the Cabinet. We should
+   not be at all surprised if, as the result of this
+   disgraceful manoeuvring, Mr. Bonteen found himself at
+   the head of the Liberal party before the Session be over.
+   If so, evil would have worked to good. But, be that as
+   it may, we cannot but feel that it is a disgrace to the
+   Government, a disgrace to Parliament, and a disgrace to
+   the country that such results should come from the private
+   scandals of two or three people among us by no means of
+   the best class.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV.
+
+THE BROWBOROUGH TRIAL.
+
+
+There was another matter of public interest going on at this time
+which created a great excitement. And this, too, added to the
+importance of Phineas Finn, though Phineas was not the hero of the
+piece. Mr. Browborough, the late member for Tankerville, was tried
+for bribery. It will be remembered that when Phineas contested the
+borough in the autumn, this gentleman was returned. He was afterwards
+unseated, as the result of a petition before the judge, and Phineas
+was declared to be the true member. The judge who had so decided had
+reported to the Speaker that further inquiry before a commission into
+the practices of the late and former elections at Tankerville would
+be expedient, and such commission had sat in the months of January
+and February. Half the voters in Tankerville had been examined, and
+many who were not voters. The commissioners swept very clean, being
+new brooms, and in their report recommended that Mr. Browborough,
+whom they had themselves declined to examine, should be prosecuted.
+That report was made about the end of March, when Mr. Daubeny's
+great bill was impending. Then there arose a double feeling about
+Mr. Browborough, who had been regarded by many as a model member of
+Parliament, a man who never spoke, constant in his attendance, who
+wanted nothing, who had plenty of money, who gave dinners, to whom a
+seat in Parliament was the be-all and the end-all of life. It could
+not be the wish of any gentleman, who had been accustomed to his slow
+step in the lobbies, and his burly form always quiescent on one of
+the upper seats just below the gangway on the Conservative side of
+the House, that such a man should really be punished. When the new
+laws regarding bribery came to take that shape the hearts of members
+revolted from the cruelty,--the hearts even of members on the other
+side of the House. As long as a seat was in question the battle
+should of course be fought to the nail. Every kind of accusation
+might then be lavished without restraint, and every evil practice
+imputed. It had been known to all the world,--known as a thing that
+was a matter of course,--that at every election Mr. Browborough had
+bought his seat. How should a Browborough get a seat without buying
+it,--a man who could not say ten words, of no family, with no natural
+following in any constituency, distinguished by no zeal in politics,
+entertaining no special convictions of his own? How should such a
+one recommend himself to any borough unless he went there with money
+in his hand? Of course, he had gone to Tankerville with money in
+his hand, with plenty of money, and had spent it--like a gentleman.
+Collectively the House of Commons had determined to put down
+bribery with a very strong hand. Nobody had spoken against bribery
+with more fervour than Sir Gregory Grogram, who had himself, as
+Attorney-General, forged the chains for fettering future bribers. He
+was now again Attorney-General, much to his disgust, as Mr. Gresham
+had at the last moment found it wise to restore Lord Weazeling to the
+woolsack; and to his hands was to be entrusted the prosecution of Mr.
+Browborough. But it was observed by many that the job was not much to
+his taste. The House had been very hot against bribery,--and certain
+members of the existing Government, when the late Bill had been
+passed, had expressed themselves with almost burning indignation
+against the crime. But, through it all, there had been a slight
+undercurrent of ridicule attaching itself to the question of which
+only they who were behind the scenes were conscious. The House was
+bound to let the outside world know that all corrupt practices at
+elections were held to be abominable by the House; but Members of the
+House, as individuals, knew very well what had taken place at their
+own elections, and were aware of the cheques which they had drawn.
+Public-houses had been kept open as a matter of course, and nowhere
+perhaps had more beer been drunk than at Clovelly, the borough
+for which Sir Gregory Grogram sat. When it came to be a matter of
+individual prosecution against one whom they had all known, and
+who, as a member, had been inconspicuous and therefore inoffensive,
+against a heavy, rich, useful man who had been in nobody's way, many
+thought that it would amount to persecution. The idea of putting
+old Browborough into prison for conduct which habit had made second
+nature to a large proportion of the House was distressing to Members
+of Parliament generally. The recommendation for this prosecution was
+made to the House when Mr. Daubeny was in the first agonies of his
+great Bill, and he at once resolved to ignore the matter altogether,
+at any rate for the present. If he was to be driven out of power
+there could be no reason why his Attorney-General should prosecute
+his own ally and follower,--a poor, faithful creature, who had never
+in his life voted against his party, and who had always been willing
+to accept as his natural leader any one whom his party might select.
+But there were many who had felt that as Mr. Browborough must
+certainly now be prosecuted sooner or later,--for there could be no
+final neglecting of the Commissioners' report,--it would be better
+that he should be dealt with by natural friends than by natural
+enemies. The newspapers, therefore, had endeavoured to hurry the
+matter on, and it had been decided that the trial should take place
+at the Durham Spring Assizes, in the first week of May. Sir Gregory
+Grogram became Attorney-General in the middle of April, and he
+undertook the task upon compulsion. Mr. Browborough's own friends,
+and Mr. Browborough himself, declared very loudly that there would
+be the greatest possible cruelty in postponing the trial. His
+lawyers thought that his best chance lay in bustling the thing on,
+and were therefore able to show that the cruelty of delay would
+be extreme,--nay, that any postponement in such a matter would be
+unconstitutional, if not illegal. It would, of course, have been just
+as easy to show that hurry on the part of the prosecutor was cruel,
+and illegal, and unconstitutional, had it been considered that the
+best chance of acquittal lay in postponement.
+
+And so the trial was forced forward, and Sir Gregory himself was to
+appear on behalf of the prosecuting House of Commons. There could be
+no doubt that the sympathies of the public generally were with Mr.
+Browborough, though there was as little doubt that he was guilty.
+When the evidence taken by the Commissioners had just appeared in
+the newspapers,--when first the facts of this and other elections at
+Tankerville were made public, and the world was shown how common it
+had been for Mr. Browborough to buy votes,--how clearly the knowledge
+of the corruption had been brought home to himself,--there had for
+a short week or so been a feeling against him. Two or three London
+papers had printed leading articles, giving in detail the salient
+points of the old sinner's criminality, and expressing a conviction
+that now, at least, would the real criminal be punished. But this
+had died away, and the anger against Mr. Browborough, even on
+the part of the most virtuous of the public press, had become no
+more than lukewarm. Some papers boldly defended him, ridiculed
+the Commissioners, and declared that the trial was altogether
+an absurdity. The People's Banner, setting at defiance with an
+admirable audacity all the facts as given in the Commissioners'
+report, declared that there was not one tittle of evidence against
+Mr. Browborough, and hinted that the trial had been got up by
+the malign influence of that doer of all evil, Phineas Finn. But
+men who knew better what was going on in the world than did Mr.
+Quintus Slide, were well aware that such assertions as these were
+both unavailing and unnecessary. Mr. Browborough was believed
+to be quite safe; but his safety lay in the indifference of his
+prosecutors,--certainly not in his innocence. Any one prominent in
+affairs can always see when a man may steal a horse and when a man
+may not look over a hedge. Mr. Browborough had stolen his horse, and
+had repeated the theft over and over again. The evidence of it all
+was forthcoming,--had, indeed, been already sifted. But Sir Gregory
+Grogram, who was prominent in affairs, knew that the theft might be
+condoned.
+
+Nevertheless, the case came on at the Durham Assizes. Within the
+last two months Browborough had become quite a hero at Tankerville.
+The Church party had forgotten his broken pledges, and the Radicals
+remembered only his generosity. Could he have stood for the seat
+again on the day on which the judges entered Durham, he might have
+been returned without bribery. Throughout the whole county the
+prosecution was unpopular. During no portion of his Parliamentary
+career had Mr. Browborough's name been treated with so much respect
+in the grandly ecclesiastical city as now. He dined with the Dean on
+the day before the trial, and on the Sunday was shown by the head
+verger into the stall next to the Chancellor of the Diocese, with a
+reverence which seemed to imply that he was almost as graceful as
+a martyr. When he took his seat in the Court next to his attorney,
+everybody shook hands with him. When Sir Gregory got up to open his
+case, not one of the listeners then supposed that Mr. Browborough
+was about to suffer any punishment. He was arraigned before Mr.
+Baron Boultby, who had himself sat for a borough in his younger
+days, and who knew well how things were done. We are all aware how
+impassionately grand are the minds of judges, when men accused of
+crimes are brought before them for trial; but judges after all are
+men, and Mr. Baron Boultby, as he looked at Mr. Browborough, could
+not but have thought of the old days.
+
+It was nevertheless necessary that the prosecution should be
+conducted in a properly formal manner, and that all the evidence
+should be given. There was a cloud of witnesses over from
+Tankerville,--miners, colliers, and the like,--having a very good
+turn of it at the expense of the poor borough. All these men must be
+examined, and their evidence would no doubt be the same now as when
+it was given with so damnable an effect before those clean-sweeping
+Commissioners. Sir Gregory's opening speech was quite worthy of Sir
+Gregory. It was essentially necessary, he said, that the atmosphere
+of our boroughs should be cleansed and purified from the taint of
+corruption. The voice of the country had spoken very plainly on the
+subject, and a verdict had gone forth that there should be no more
+bribery at elections. At the last election at Tankerville, and, as he
+feared, at some former elections, there had been manifest bribery. It
+would be for the jury to decide whether Mr. Browborough himself had
+been so connected with the acts of his agents as to be himself within
+the reach of the law. If it were found that he had brought himself
+within the reach of the law, the jury would no doubt say so, and in
+such case would do great service to the cause of purity; but if Mr.
+Browborough had not been personally cognisant of what his agents
+had done, then the jury would be bound to acquit him. A man was not
+necessarily guilty of bribery in the eye of the law because bribery
+had been committed, even though the bribery so committed had been
+sufficiently proved to deprive him of the seat which he would
+otherwise have enjoyed. Nothing could be clearer than the manner in
+which Sir Gregory explained it all to the jury; nothing more eloquent
+than his denunciations against bribery in general; nothing more mild
+than his allegations against Mr. Browborough individually.
+
+In regard to the evidence Sir Gregory, with his two assistants, went
+through his work manfully. The evidence was given,--not to the same
+length as at Tankerville before the Commissioners,--but really to
+the same effect. But yet the record of the evidence as given in the
+newspapers seemed to be altogether different. At Tankerville there
+had been an indignant and sometimes an indiscreet zeal which had
+communicated itself to the whole proceedings. The general flavour
+of the trial at Durham was one of good-humoured raillery. Mr.
+Browborough's counsel in cross-examining the witnesses for the
+prosecution displayed none of that righteous wrath,--wrath righteous
+on behalf of injured innocence,--which is so common with gentlemen
+employed in the defence of criminals; but bowed and simpered, and
+nodded at Sir Gregory in a manner that was quite pleasant to behold.
+Nobody scolded anybody. There was no roaring of barristers, no
+clenching of fists and kicking up of dust, no threats, no allusions
+to witnesses' oaths. A considerable amount of gentle fun was poked
+at the witnesses by the defending counsel, but not in a manner to
+give any pain. Gentlemen who acknowledged to have received seventeen
+shillings and sixpence for their votes at the last election were
+asked how they had invested their money. Allusions were made to their
+wives, and a large amount of good-humoured sparring was allowed, in
+which the witnesses thought that they had the best of it. The men
+of Tankerville long remembered this trial, and hoped anxiously that
+there might soon be another. The only man treated with severity was
+poor Phineas Finn, and luckily for himself he was not present. His
+qualifications as member of Parliament for Tankerville were somewhat
+roughly treated. Each witness there, when he was asked what candidate
+would probably be returned for Tankerville at the next election,
+readily answered that Mr. Browborough would certainly carry the seat.
+Mr. Browborough sat in the Court throughout it all, and was the hero
+of the day.
+
+The judge's summing up was very short, and seemed to have been given
+almost with indolence. The one point on which he insisted was the
+difference between such evidence of bribery as would deprive a man
+of his seat, and that which would make him subject to the criminal
+law. By the criminal law a man could not be punished for the acts
+of another. Punishment must follow a man's own act. If a man were
+to instigate another to murder he would be punished, not for the
+murder, but for the instigation. They were now administering the
+criminal law, and they were bound to give their verdict for an
+acquittal unless they were convinced that the man on his trial had
+himself,--wilfully and wittingly,--been guilty of the crime imputed.
+He went through the evidence, which was in itself clear against the
+old sinner, and which had been in no instance validly contradicted,
+and then left the matter to the jury. The men in the box put their
+heads together, and returned a verdict of acquittal without one
+moment's delay. Sir Gregory Grogram and his assistants collected
+their papers together. The judge addressed three or four words almost
+of compliment to Mr. Browborough, and the affair was over, to the
+manifest contentment of every one there present. Sir Gregory Grogram
+was by no means disappointed, and everybody, on his own side in
+Parliament and on the other, thought that he had done his duty very
+well. The clean-sweeping Commissioners, who had been animated with
+wonderful zeal by the nature and novelty of their work, probably felt
+that they had been betrayed, but it may be doubted whether any one
+else was disconcerted by the result of the trial, unless it might be
+some poor innocents here and there about the country who had been
+induced to believe that bribery and corruption were in truth to be
+banished from the purlieus of Westminster.
+
+Mr. Roby and Mr. Ratler, who filled the same office each for his own
+party, in and out, were both acquainted with each other, and apt to
+discuss parliamentary questions in the library and smoking-room of
+the House, where such discussions could be held on most matters.
+"I was very glad that the case went as it did at Durham," said Mr.
+Ratler.
+
+"And so am I," said Mr. Roby. "Browborough was always a good fellow."
+
+"Not a doubt about it; and no good could have come from a conviction.
+I suppose there has been a little money spent at Tankerville."
+
+"And at other places one could mention," said Mr. Roby.
+
+"Of course there has;--and money will be spent again. Nobody dislikes
+bribery more than I do. The House, of course, dislikes it. But if a
+man loses his seat, surely that is punishment enough."
+
+"It's better to have to draw a cheque sometimes than to be out in the
+cold."
+
+"Nevertheless, members would prefer that their seats should not cost
+them so much," continued Mr. Ratler. "But the thing can't be done all
+at once. That idea of pouncing upon one man and making a victim of
+him is very disagreeable to me. I should have been sorry to have seen
+a verdict against Browborough. You must acknowledge that there was no
+bitterness in the way in which Grogram did it."
+
+"We all feel that," said Mr. Roby,--who was, perhaps, by nature a
+little more candid than his rival,--"and when the time comes no doubt
+we shall return the compliment."
+
+The matter was discussed in quite a different spirit between two
+other politicians. "So Sir Gregory has failed at Durham," said Lord
+Cantrip to his friend, Mr. Gresham.
+
+"I was sure he would."
+
+"And why?"
+
+"Ah;--why? How am I to answer such a question? Did you think that Mr.
+Browborough would be convicted of bribery by a jury?"
+
+"No, indeed," answered Lord Cantrip.
+
+"And can you tell me why?"
+
+"Because there was no earnestness in the matter,--either with the
+Attorney-General or with any one else."
+
+"And yet," said Mr. Gresham, "Grogram is a very earnest man when he
+believes in his case. No member of Parliament will ever be punished
+for bribery as for a crime till members of Parliament generally look
+upon bribery as a crime. We are very far from that as yet. I should
+have thought a conviction to be a great misfortune."
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"Because it would have created ill blood, and our own hands in this
+matter are not a bit cleaner than those of our adversaries. We
+can't afford to pull their houses to pieces before we have put our
+own in order. The thing will be done; but it must, I fear, be done
+slowly,--as is the case with all reforms from within."
+
+Phineas Finn, who was very sore and unhappy at this time, and who
+consequently was much in love with purity and anxious for severity,
+felt himself personally aggrieved by the acquittal. It was almost
+tantamount to a verdict against himself. And then he knew so well
+that bribery had been committed, and was so confident that such a one
+as Mr. Browborough could have been returned to Parliament by none
+other than corrupt means! In his present mood he would have been
+almost glad to see Mr. Browborough at the treadmill, and would have
+thought six months' solitary confinement quite inadequate to the
+offence. "I never read anything in my life that disgusted me so
+much," he said to his friend, Mr. Monk.
+
+"I can't go along with you there."
+
+"If any man ever was guilty of bribery, he was guilty!"
+
+"I don't doubt it for a moment."
+
+"And yet Grogram did not try to get a verdict."
+
+"Had he tried ever so much he would have failed. In a matter such as
+that,--political and not social in its nature,--a jury is sure to
+be guided by what it has, perhaps unconsciously, learned to be the
+feeling of the country. No disgrace is attached to their verdict, and
+yet everybody knows that Mr. Browborough had bribed, and all those
+who have looked into it know, too, that the evidence was conclusive."
+
+"Then are the jury all perjured," said Phineas.
+
+"I have nothing to say to that. No stain of perjury clings to them.
+They are better received in Durham to-day than they would have been
+had they found Mr. Browborough guilty. In business, as in private
+life, they will be held to be as trustworthy as before;--and they
+will be, for aught that we know, quite trustworthy. There are still
+circumstances in which a man, though on his oath, may be untrue with
+no more stain of falsehood than falls upon him when he denies himself
+at his front door though he happen to be at home."
+
+"What must we think of such a condition of things, Mr. Monk?"
+
+"That it's capable of improvement. I do not know that we can think
+anything else. As for Sir Gregory Grogram and Baron Boultby and the
+jury, it would be waste of power to execrate them. In political
+matters it is very hard for a man in office to be purer than his
+neighbours,--and, when he is so, he becomes troublesome. I have found
+that out before to-day."
+
+With Lady Laura Kennedy, Phineas did find some sympathy;--but then
+she would have sympathised with him on any subject under the sun. If
+he would only come to her and sit with her she would fool him to the
+top of his bent. He had resolved that he would go to Portman Square
+as little as possible, and had been confirmed in that resolution
+by the scandal which had now spread everywhere about the town in
+reference to himself and herself. But still he went. He never left
+her till some promise of returning at some stated time had been
+extracted from him. He had even told her of his own scruples and of
+her danger,--and they had discussed together that last thunderbolt
+which had fallen from the Jove of The People's Banner. But she had
+laughed his caution to scorn. Did she not know herself and her own
+innocence? Was she not living in her father's house, and with her
+father? Should she quail beneath the stings and venom of such a
+reptile as Quintus Slide? "Oh, Phineas," she said, "let us be braver
+than that." He would much prefer to have stayed away,--but still he
+went to her. He was conscious of her dangerous love for him. He knew
+well that it was not returned. He was aware that it would be best for
+both that he should be apart. But yet he could not bring himself to
+wound her by his absence. "I do not see why you should feel it so
+much," she said, speaking of the trial at Durham.
+
+"We were both on our trial,--he and I."
+
+"Everybody knows that he bribed and that you did not."
+
+"Yes;--and everybody despises me and pats him on the back. I am sick
+of the whole thing. There is no honesty in the life we lead."
+
+"You got your seat at any rate."
+
+"I wish with all my heart that I had never seen the dirty wretched
+place," said he.
+
+"Oh, Phineas, do not say that."
+
+"But I do say it. Of what use is the seat to me? If I could only feel
+that any one knew--"
+
+"Knew what, Phineas?"
+
+"It doesn't matter."
+
+"I understand. I know that you have meant to be honest, while this
+man has always meant to be dishonest. I know that you have intended
+to serve your country, and have wished to work for it. But you cannot
+expect that it should all be roses."
+
+"Roses! The nosegays which are worn down at Westminster are made of
+garlick and dandelions!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV.
+
+SOME PASSAGES IN THE LIFE OF MR. EMILIUS.
+
+
+The writer of this chronicle is not allowed to imagine that any of
+his readers have read the wonderful and vexatious adventures of Lady
+Eustace, a lady of good birth, of high rank, and of large fortune,
+who, but a year or two since, became almost a martyr to a diamond
+necklace which was stolen from her. With her history the present
+reader has but small concern, but it may be necessary that he should
+know that the lady in question, who had been a widow with many
+suitors, at last gave her hand and her fortune to a clergyman whose
+name was Joseph Emilius. Mr. Emilius, though not an Englishman by
+birth,--and, as was supposed, a Bohemian Jew in the earlier days of
+his career,--had obtained some reputation as a preacher in London,
+and had moved,--if not in fashionable circles,--at any rate in
+circles so near to fashion as to be brought within the reach of Lady
+Eustace's charms. They were married, and for some few months Mr.
+Emilius enjoyed a halcyon existence, the delights of which were,
+perhaps, not materially marred by the necessity which he felt of
+subjecting his young wife to marital authority. "My dear," he would
+say, "you will know me better soon, and then things will be smooth."
+In the meantime he drew more largely upon her money than was pleasing
+to her and to her friends, and appeared to have requirements for
+cash which were both secret and unlimited. At the end of twelve
+months Lady Eustace had run away from him, and Mr. Emilius had made
+overtures, by accepting which his wife would be enabled to purchase
+his absence at the cost of half her income. The arrangement was not
+regarded as being in every respect satisfactory, but Lady Eustace
+declared passionately that any possible sacrifice would be preferable
+to the company of Mr. Emilius. There had, however, been a rumour
+before her marriage that there was still living in his old country a
+Mrs. Emilius when he married Lady Eustace; and, though it had been
+supposed by those who were most nearly concerned with Lady Eustace
+that this report had been unfounded and malicious, nevertheless, when
+the man's claims became so exorbitant, reference was again made to
+the charge of bigamy. If it could be proved that Mr. Emilius had a
+wife living in Bohemia, a cheaper mode of escape would be found for
+the persecuted lady than that which he himself had suggested.
+
+It had happened that, since her marriage with Mr. Emilius, Lady
+Eustace had become intimate with our Mr. Bonteen and his wife. She
+had been at one time engaged to marry Lord Fawn, one of Mr. Bonteen's
+colleagues, and during the various circumstances which had led to the
+disruption of that engagement, this friendship had been formed. It
+must be understood that Lady Eustace had a most desirable residence
+of her own in the country,--Portray Castle in Scotland,--and that
+it was thought expedient by many to cultivate her acquaintance.
+She was rich, beautiful, and clever; and, though her marriage with
+Mr. Emilius had never been looked upon as a success, still, in the
+estimation of some people, it added an interest to her career. The
+Bonteens had taken her up, and now both Mr. and Mrs. Bonteen were
+hot in pursuit of evidence which might prove Mr. Emilius to be a
+bigamist.
+
+When the disruption of conjugal relations was commenced, Lady Eustace
+succeeded in obtaining refuge at Portray Castle without the presence
+of her husband. She fled from London during a visit he made to
+Brighton with the object of preaching to a congregation by which his
+eloquence was held in great esteem. He left London in one direction
+by the 5 P.M. express train on Saturday, and she in the other by the
+limited mail at 8.45. A telegram, informing him of what had taken
+place, reached him the next morning at Brighton while he was at
+breakfast. He preached his sermon, charming the congregation by the
+graces of his extempore eloquence,--moving every woman there to
+tears,--and then was after his wife before the ladies had taken their
+first glass of sherry at luncheon. But her ladyship had twenty-four
+hours' start of him,--although he did his best; and when he reached
+Portray Castle the door was shut in his face. He endeavoured to
+obtain the aid of blacksmiths to open, as he said, his own hall
+door,--to obtain the aid of constables to compel the blacksmiths, of
+magistrates to compel the constables,--and even of a judge to compel
+the magistrates; but he was met on every side by a statement that
+the lady of the castle declared that she was not his wife, and that
+therefore he had no right whatever to demand that the door should
+be opened. Some other woman,--so he was informed that the lady
+said,--out in a strange country was really his wife. It was her
+intention to prove him to be a bigamist, and to have him locked up.
+In the meantime she chose to lock herself up in her own mansion. Such
+was the nature of the message that was delivered to him through the
+bars of the lady's castle.
+
+How poor Lady Eustace was protected, and, at the same time, made
+miserable by the energy and unrestrained language of one of her
+own servants, Andrew Gowran by name, it hardly concerns us now to
+inquire. Mr. Emilius did not succeed in effecting an entrance; but he
+remained for some time in the neighbourhood, and had notices served
+on the tenants in regard to the rents, which puzzled the poor folk
+round Portray Castle very much. After a while Lady Eustace, finding
+that her peace and comfort imperatively demanded that she should
+prove the allegations which she had made, fled again from Portray
+Castle to London, and threw herself into the hands of the Bonteens.
+This took place just as Mr. Bonteen's hopes in regard to the
+Chancellorship of the Exchequer were beginning to soar high, and when
+his hands were very full of business. But with that energy for which
+he was so conspicuous, Mr. Bonteen had made a visit to Bohemia during
+his short Christmas holidays, and had there set people to work. When
+at Prague he had, he thought, very nearly unravelled the secret
+himself. He had found the woman whom he believed to be Mrs. Emilius,
+and who was now living somewhat merrily in Prague under another name.
+She acknowledged that in old days, when they were both young, she
+had been acquainted with a certain Yosef Mealyus, at a time in
+which he had been in the employment of a Jewish moneylender in the
+city; but,--as she declared,--she had never been married to him.
+Mr. Bonteen learned also that the gentleman now known as Mr. Joseph
+Emilius of the London Chapel had been known in his own country as
+Yosef Mealyus, the name which had been borne by the very respectable
+Jew who was his father. Then Mr. Bonteen had returned home, and, as
+we all know, had become engaged in matters of deeper import than even
+the deliverance of Lady Eustace from her thraldom.
+
+Mr. Emilius made no attempt to obtain the person of his wife while
+she was under Mr. Bonteen's custody, but he did renew his offer
+to compromise. If the estate could not afford to give him the two
+thousand a year which he had first demanded, he would take fifteen
+hundred. He explained all this personally to Mr. Bonteen, who
+condescended to see him. He was very eager to make Mr. Bonteen
+understand how bad even then would be his condition. Mr. Bonteen was,
+of course, aware that he would have to pay very heavily for insuring
+his wife's life. He was piteous, argumentative, and at first gentle;
+but when Mr. Bonteen somewhat rashly told him that the evidence
+of a former marriage and of the present existence of the former
+wife would certainly be forthcoming, he defied Mr. Bonteen and his
+evidence,--and swore that if his claims were not satisfied, he would
+make use of the power which the English law gave him for the recovery
+of his wife's person. And as to her property,--it was his, not hers.
+From this time forward if she wanted to separate herself from him she
+must ask him for an allowance. Now, it certainly was the case that
+Lady Eustace had married the man without any sufficient precaution as
+to keeping her money in her own hands, and Mr. Emilius had insisted
+that the rents of the property which was hers for her life should
+be paid to him, and on his receipt only. The poor tenants had been
+noticed this way and noticed that till they had begun to doubt
+whether their safest course would not be to keep their rents in their
+own hands. But lately the lawyers of the Eustace family,--who were
+not, indeed, very fond of Lady Eustace personally,--came forward for
+the sake of the property, and guaranteed the tenants against all
+proceedings until the question of the legality of the marriage should
+be settled. So Mr. Emilius,--or the Reverend Mealyus, as everybody
+now called him,--went to law; and Lady Eustace went to law; and the
+Eustace family went to law;--but still, as yet, no evidence was
+forthcoming sufficient to enable Mr. Bonteen, as the lady's friend,
+to put the gentleman into prison.
+
+It was said for a while that Mealyus had absconded. After his
+interview with Mr. Bonteen he certainly did leave England and made
+a journey to Prague. It was thought that he would not return, and
+that Lady Eustace would be obliged to carry on the trial, which was
+to liberate her and her property, in his absence. She was told that
+the very fact of his absence would go far with a jury, and she was
+glad to be freed from his presence in England. But he did return,
+declaring aloud that he would have his rights. His wife should be
+made to put herself into his hands, and he would obtain possession
+of the income which was his own. People then began to doubt. It was
+known that a very clever lawyer's clerk had been sent to Prague to
+complete the work there which Mr. Bonteen had commenced. But the
+clerk did not come back as soon as was expected, and news arrived
+that he had been taken ill. There was a rumour that he had been
+poisoned at his hotel; but, as the man was not said to be dead,
+people hardly believed the rumour. It became necessary, however, to
+send another lawyer's clerk, and the matter was gradually progressing
+to a very interesting complication.
+
+Mr. Bonteen, to tell the truth, was becoming sick of it. When
+Emilius, or Mealyus, was supposed to have absconded, Lady Eustace
+left Mr. Bonteen's house, and located herself at one of the large
+London hotels; but when the man came back, bolder than ever, she
+again betook herself to the shelter of Mr. Bonteen's roof. She
+expressed the most lavish affection for Mrs. Bonteen, and professed
+to regard Mr. Bonteen as almost a political god, declaring her
+conviction that he, and he alone, as Prime Minister, could save the
+country, and became very loud in her wrath when he was robbed of his
+seat in the Cabinet. Lizzie Eustace, as her ladyship had always been
+called, was a clever, pretty, coaxing little woman, who knew how to
+make the most of her advantages. She had not been very wise in her
+life, having lost the friends who would have been truest to her, and
+confided in persons who had greatly injured her. She was neither
+true of heart or tongue, nor affectionate, nor even honest. But she
+was engaging; she could flatter; and could assume a reverential
+admiration which was very foreign to her real character. In these
+days she almost worshipped Mr. Bonteen, and could never be happy
+except in the presence of her dearest darling friend Mrs. Bonteen.
+Mr. Bonteen was tired of her, and Mrs. Bonteen was becoming almost
+sick of the constant kisses with which she was greeted; but Lizzie
+Eustace had got hold of them, and they could not turn her off.
+
+"You saw The People's Banner, Mrs. Bonteen, on Monday?" Lady
+Eustace had been reading the paper in her friend's drawing-room.
+"They seem to think that Mr. Bonteen must be Prime Minister before
+long."
+
+
+[Illustration: "They seem to think that Mr. Bonteen must be
+Prime Minister."]
+
+
+"I don't think he expects that, my dear."
+
+"Why not? Everybody says The People's Banner is the cleverest paper
+we have now. I always hated the very name of that Phineas Finn."
+
+"Did you know him?"
+
+"Not exactly. He was gone before my time; but poor Lord Fawn used to
+talk of him. He was one of those conceited Irish upstarts that are
+never good for anything."
+
+"Very handsome, you know," said Mrs. Bonteen.
+
+"Was he? I have heard it said that a good many ladies admired him."
+
+"It was quite absurd; with Lady Laura Kennedy it was worse than
+absurd. And there was Lady Glencora, and Violet Effingham, who
+married Lady Laura's brother, and that Madame Goesler, whom I
+hate,--and ever so many others."
+
+"And is it true that it was he who got Mr. Bonteen so shamefully
+used?"
+
+"It was his faction."
+
+"I do so hate that kind of thing," said Lady Eustace, with righteous
+indignation; "I used to hear a great deal about Government and all
+that when the affair was on between me and poor Lord Fawn, and that
+kind of dishonesty always disgusted me. I don't know that I think so
+much of Mr. Gresham after all."
+
+"He is a very weak man."
+
+"His conduct to Mr. Bonteen has been outrageous; and if he has done
+it just because that Duchess of Omnium has told him, I really do
+think that he is not fit to rule the nation. As for Mr. Phineas Finn,
+it is dreadful to think that a creature like that should be able to
+interfere with such a man as Mr. Bonteen."
+
+This was on Wednesday afternoon,--the day on which members of
+Parliament dine out,--and at that moment Mr. Bonteen entered the
+drawing-room, having left the House for his half-holiday at six
+o'clock. Lady Eustace got up, and gave him her hand, and smiled upon
+him as though he were indeed her god. "You look so tired and so
+worried, Mr. Bonteen."
+
+"Worried;--I should think so."
+
+"Is there anything fresh?" asked his wife.
+
+"That fellow Finn is spreading all manner of lies about me."
+
+"What lies, Mr. Bonteen?" asked Lady Eustace. "Not new lies, I hope."
+
+"It all comes from Carlton Terrace." The reader may perhaps remember
+that the young Duchess of Omnium lived in Carlton Terrace. "I can
+trace it all there. I won't stand it if it goes on like this. A
+clique of stupid women to take up the cudgels for a coal-heaving
+sort of fellow like that, and sting one like a lot of hornets! Would
+you believe it?--the Duke almost refused to speak to me just now--a
+man for whom I have been working like a slave for the last twelve
+months!"
+
+"I would not stand it," said Lady Eustace.
+
+"By the bye, Lady Eustace, we have had news from Prague."
+
+"What news?" said she, clasping her hands.
+
+"That fellow Pratt we sent out is dead."
+
+"No!"
+
+"Not a doubt but what he was poisoned; but they seem to think that
+nothing can be proved. Coulson is on his way out, and I shouldn't
+wonder if they served him the same."
+
+"And it might have been you!" said Lady Eustace, taking hold of her
+friend's arm with almost frantic affection.
+
+Yes, indeed. It might have been the lot of Mr. Bonteen to have died
+at Prague--to have been poisoned by the machinations of the former
+Mrs. Mealyus, if such really had been the fortune of the unfortunate
+Mr. Pratt. For he had been quite as busy at Prague as his successor
+in the work. He had found out much, though not everything. It
+certainly had been believed that Yosef Mealyus was a married man,
+but he had brought the woman with him to Prague, and had certainly
+not married her in the city. She was believed to have come from
+Cracow, and Mr. Bonteen's zeal on behalf of his friend had not been
+sufficient to carry him so far East. But he had learned from various
+sources that the man and woman had been supposed to be married,--that
+she had borne the man's name, and that he had taken upon himself
+authority as her husband. There had been written communications with
+Cracow, and information was received that a man of the name of Yosef
+Mealyus had been married to a Jewess in that town. But this had
+been twenty years ago, and Mr. Emilius professed himself to be only
+thirty-five years old, and had in his possession a document from his
+synagogue professing to give a record of his birth, proving such to
+be his age. It was also ascertained that Mealyus was a name common
+at Cracow, and that there were very many of the family in Galicia.
+Altogether the case was full of difficulty, but it was thought that
+Mr. Bonteen's evidence would be sufficient to save the property from
+the hands of the cormorant, at any rate till such time as better
+evidence of the first marriage could be obtained. It had been hoped
+that when the man went away he would not return; but he had returned,
+and it was now resolved that no terms should be kept with him and no
+payment offered to him. The house at Portray was kept barred, and the
+servants were ordered not to admit him. No money was to be paid to
+him, and he was to be left to take any proceedings at law which he
+might please,--while his adversaries were proceeding against him with
+all the weapons at their disposal. In the meantime his chapel was of
+course deserted, and the unfortunate man was left penniless in the
+world.
+
+Various opinions prevailed as to Mr. Bonteen's conduct in the matter.
+Some people remembered that during the last autumn he and his wife
+had stayed three months at Portray Castle, and declared that the
+friendship between them and Lady Eustace had been very useful. Of
+these malicious people it seemed to be, moreover, the opinion that
+the connection might become even more useful if Mr. Emilius could be
+discharged. It was true that Mrs. Bonteen had borrowed a little money
+from Lady Eustace, but of this her husband knew nothing till the Jew
+in his wrath made the thing public. After all it had only been a
+poor L25, and the money had been repaid before Mr. Bonteen took his
+journey to Prague. Mr. Bonteen was, however, unable to deny that the
+cost of that journey was defrayed by Lady Eustace, and it was thought
+mean in a man aspiring to be Chancellor of the Exchequer to have his
+travelling expenses paid for him by a lady. Many, however, were of
+opinion that Mr. Bonteen had been almost romantic in his friendship,
+and that the bright eyes of Lady Eustace had produced upon this
+dragon of business the wonderful effect that was noticed. Be that as
+it may, now, in the terrible distress of his mind at the political
+aspect of the times, he had become almost sick of Lady Eustace, and
+would gladly have sent her away from his house had he known how to do
+so without incurring censure.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI.
+
+THE QUARREL.
+
+
+On that Wednesday evening Phineas Finn was at The Universe. He dined
+at the house of Madame Goesler, and went from thence to the club in
+better spirits than he had known for some weeks past. The Duke and
+Duchess had been at Madame Goesler's, and Lord and Lady Chiltern,
+who were now up in town, with Barrington Erle, and,--as it had
+happened,--old Mr. Maule. The dinner had been very pleasant, and two
+or three words had been spoken which had tended to raise the heart of
+our hero. In the first place Barrington Erle had expressed a regret
+that Phineas was not at his old post at the Colonies, and the young
+Duke had re-echoed it. Phineas thought that the manner of his old
+friend Erle was more cordial to him than it had been lately, and
+even that comforted him. Then it was a delight to him to meet the
+Chilterns, who were always gracious to him. But perhaps his greatest
+pleasure came from the reception which was accorded by his hostess to
+Mr. Maule, which was of a nature not easy to describe. It had become
+evident to Phineas that Mr. Maule was constant in his attentions to
+Madame Goesler; and, though he had no purpose of his own in reference
+to the lady,--though he was aware that former circumstances,
+circumstances of that previous life to which he was accustomed to
+look back as to another existence, made it impossible that he should
+have any such purpose,--still he viewed Mr. Maule with dislike. He
+had once ventured to ask her whether she really liked "that old
+padded dandy." She had answered that she did like the old dandy. Old
+dandies, she thought, were preferable to old men who did not care how
+they looked;--and as for the padding, that was his affair, not hers.
+She did not know why a man should not have a pad in his coat, as well
+as a woman one at the back of her head. But Phineas had known that
+this was her gentle raillery, and now he was delighted to find that
+she continued it, after a still more gentle fashion, before the man's
+face. Mr. Maule's manner was certainly peculiar. He was more than
+ordinarily polite,--and was afterwards declared by the Duchess to
+have made love like an old gander. But Madame Goesler, who knew
+exactly how to receive such attentions, turned a glance now and then
+upon Phineas Finn, which he could now read with absolute precision.
+"You see how I can dispose of a padded old dandy directly he goes an
+inch too far." No words could have said that to him more plainly than
+did these one or two glances;--and, as he had learned to dislike Mr.
+Maule, he was gratified.
+
+Of course they all talked about Lady Eustace and Mr. Emilius. "Do
+you remember how intensely interested the dear old Duke used to be
+when we none of us knew what had become of the diamonds?" said the
+Duchess.
+
+"And how you took her part," said Madame Goesler.
+
+"So did you,--just as much as I; and why not? She was a most
+interesting young woman, and I sincerely hope we have not got to the
+end of her yet. The worst of it is that she has got into such--very
+bad hands. The Bonteens have taken her up altogether. Do you know
+her, Mr. Finn?"
+
+"No, Duchess;--and am hardly likely to make her acquaintance while
+she remains where she is now." The Duchess laughed and nodded her
+head. All the world knew by this time that she had declared herself
+to be the sworn enemy of the Bonteens.
+
+And there had been some conversation on that terribly difficult
+question respecting the foxes in Trumpeton Wood. "The fact is, Lord
+Chiltern," said the Duke, "I'm as ignorant as a child. I would do
+right if I knew how. What ought I to do? Shall I import some foxes?"
+
+"I don't suppose, Duke, that in all England there is a spot in which
+foxes are more prone to breed."
+
+"Indeed. I'm very glad of that. But something goes wrong afterwards,
+I fear."
+
+"The nurseries are not well managed, perhaps," said the Duchess.
+
+"Gipsy kidnappers are allowed about the place," said Madame Goesler.
+
+"Gipsies!" exclaimed the Duke.
+
+"Poachers!" said Lord Chiltern. "But it isn't that we mind. We could
+deal with that ourselves if the woods were properly managed. A head
+of game and foxes can be reared together very well, if--"
+
+"I don't care a straw for a head of game, Lord Chiltern. As far as
+my own tastes go, I would wish that there was neither a pheasant
+nor a partridge nor a hare on any property that I own. I think that
+sheep and barn-door fowls do better for everybody in the long run,
+and that men who cannot live without shooting should go beyond
+thickly-populated regions to find it. And, indeed, for myself, I must
+say the same about foxes. They do not interest me, and I fancy that
+they will gradually be exterminated."
+
+"God forbid!" exclaimed Lord Chiltern.
+
+"But I do not find myself called upon to exterminate them myself,"
+continued the Duke. "The number of men who amuse themselves by riding
+after one fox is too great for me to wish to interfere with them. And
+I know that my neighbours in the country conceive it to be my duty to
+have foxes for them. I will oblige them, Lord Chiltern, as far as I
+can without detriment to other duties."
+
+"You leave it to me," said the Duchess to her neighbour, Lord
+Chiltern. "I'll speak to Mr. Fothergill myself, and have it put
+right." It unfortunately happened, however, that Lord Chiltern got
+a letter the very next morning from old Doggett telling him that a
+litter of young cubs had been destroyed that week in Trumpeton Wood.
+
+Barrington Erle and Phineas went off to The Universe together, and
+as they went the old terms of intimacy seemed to be re-established
+between them. "Nobody can be so sorry as I am," said Barrington, "at
+the manner in which things have gone. When I wrote to you, of course,
+I thought it certain that, if we came in, you would come with us."
+
+"Do not let that fret you."
+
+"But it does fret me,--very much. There are so many slips that of
+course no one can answer for anything."
+
+"Of course not. I know who has been my friend."
+
+"The joke of it is, that he himself is at present so utterly
+friendless. The Duke will hardly speak to him. I know that as a fact.
+And Gresham has begun to find something is wrong. We all hoped that
+he would refuse to come in without a seat in the Cabinet;--but that
+was too good to be true. They say he talks of resigning. I shall
+believe it when I see it. He'd better not play any tricks, for if he
+did resign, it would be accepted at once." Phineas, when he heard
+this, could not help thinking how glorious it would be if Mr. Bonteen
+were to resign, and if the place so vacated, or some vacancy so
+occasioned, were to be filled by him!
+
+They reached the club together, and as they went up the stairs, they
+heard the hum of many voices in the room. "All the world and his wife
+are here to-night," said Phineas. They overtook a couple of men at
+the door, so that there was something of the bustle of a crowd as
+they entered. There was a difficulty in finding places in which to
+put their coats and hats,--for the accommodation of The Universe is
+not great. There was a knot of men talking not far from them, and
+among the voices Phineas could clearly hear that of Mr. Bonteen.
+Ratler's he had heard before, and also Fitzgibbon's, though he
+had not distinguished any words from them. But those spoken by Mr.
+Bonteen he did distinguish very plainly. "Mr. Phineas Finn, or some
+such fellow as that, would be after her at once," said Mr. Bonteen.
+Then Phineas walked immediately among the knot of men and showed
+himself. As soon as he heard his name mentioned, he doubted for a
+moment what he would do. Mr. Bonteen when speaking had not known of
+his presence, and it might be his duty not to seem to have listened.
+But the speech had been made aloud, in the open room,--so that those
+who chose might listen;--and Phineas could not but have heard it. In
+that moment he resolved that he was bound to take notice of what he
+had heard. "What is it, Mr. Bonteen, that Phineas Finn will do?" he
+asked.
+
+Mr. Bonteen had been--dining. He was not a man by any means
+habitually intemperate, and now any one saying that he was tipsy
+would have maligned him. But he was flushed with much wine, and
+he was a man whose arrogance in that condition was apt to become
+extreme. _"In vino veritas!"_ The sober devil can hide his cloven
+hoof; but when the devil drinks he loses his cunning and grows
+honest. Mr. Bonteen looked Phineas full in the face a second or two
+before he answered, and then said,--quite aloud--"You have crept upon
+us unawares, sir."
+
+"What do you mean by that, sir?" said Phineas. "I have come in as any
+other man comes."
+
+"Listeners at any rate never hear any good of themselves."
+
+Then there were present among those assembled clear indications of
+disapproval of Bonteen's conduct. In these days,--when no palpable
+and immediate punishment is at hand for personal insolence from man
+to man,--personal insolence to one man in a company seems almost
+to constitute an insult to every one present. When men could fight
+readily, an arrogant word or two between two known to be hostile to
+each other was only an invitation to a duel, and the angry man was
+doing that for which it was known that he could be made to pay. There
+was, or it was often thought that there was, a real spirit in the
+angry man's conduct, and they who were his friends before became
+perhaps more his friends when he had thus shown that he had an enemy.
+But a different feeling prevails at present;--a feeling so different,
+that we may almost say that a man in general society cannot speak
+even roughly to any but his intimate comrades without giving offence
+to all around him. Men have learned to hate the nuisance of a row,
+and to feel that their comfort is endangered if a man prone to rows
+gets among them. Of all candidates at a club a known quarreller is
+more sure of blackballs now than even in the times when such a one
+provoked duels. Of all bores he is the worst; and there is always
+an unexpressed feeling that such a one exacts more from his company
+than his share of attention. This is so strong, that too often the
+man quarrelled with, though he be as innocent as was Phineas on the
+present occasion, is made subject to the general aversion which is
+felt for men who misbehave themselves.
+
+"I wish to hear no good of myself from you," said Phineas, following
+him to his seat. "Who is it that you said,--I should be after?" The
+room was full, and every one there, even they who had come in with
+Phineas, knew that Lady Eustace was the woman. Everybody at present
+was talking about Lady Eustace.
+
+"Never mind," said Barrington Erle, taking him by the arm. "What's
+the use of a row?"
+
+"No use at all;--but if you heard your name mentioned in such a
+manner you would find it impossible to pass it over. There is Mr.
+Monk;--ask him."
+
+Mr. Monk was sitting very quietly in a corner of the room with
+another gentleman of his own age by him,--one devoted to literary
+pursuits and a constant attendant at The Universe. As he said
+afterwards, he had never known any unpleasantness of that sort in
+the club before. There were many men of note in the room. There was
+a foreign minister, a member of the Cabinet, two ex-members of the
+Cabinet, a great poet, an exceedingly able editor, two earls, two
+members of the Royal Academy, the president of a learned society, a
+celebrated professor,--and it was expected that Royalty might come
+in at any minute, speak a few benign words, and blow a few clouds of
+smoke. It was abominable that the harmony of such a meeting should be
+interrupted by the vinous insolence of Mr. Bonteen, and the useless
+wrath of Phineas Finn. "Really, Mr. Finn, if I were you I would let
+it drop," said the gentleman devoted to literary pursuits.
+
+Phineas did not much affect the literary gentleman, but in such a
+matter would prefer the advice of Mr. Monk to that of any man living.
+He again appealed to his friend. "You heard what was said?"
+
+"I heard Mr. Bonteen remark that you or somebody like you would in
+certain circumstances be after a certain lady. I thought it to be
+an ill-judged speech, and as your particular friend I heard it with
+great regret."
+
+"What a row about nothing!" said Mr. Bonteen, rising from his seat.
+"We were speaking of a very pretty woman, and I was saying that some
+young fellow generally supposed to be fond of pretty women would soon
+be after her. If that offends your morals you must have become very
+strict of late."
+
+There was something in the explanation which, though very bad and
+vulgar, it was almost impossible not to accept. Such at least was the
+feeling of those who stood around Phineas Finn. He himself knew that
+Mr. Bonteen had intended to assert that he would be after the woman's
+money and not her beauty; but he had taste enough to perceive that he
+could not descend to any such detail as that. "There are reasons, Mr.
+Bonteen," he said, "why I think you should abstain from mentioning
+my name in public. Your playful references should be made to your
+friends, and not to those who, to say the least of it, are not your
+friends."
+
+When the matter was discussed afterwards it was thought that Phineas
+Finn should have abstained from making the last speech. It was
+certainly evidence of great anger on his part. And he was very angry.
+He knew that he had been insulted,--and insulted by the man whom of
+all men he would feel most disposed to punish for any offence. He
+could not allow Mr. Bonteen to have the last word, especially as a
+certain amount of success had seemed to attend them. Fate at the
+moment was so far propitious to Phineas that outward circumstances
+saved him from any immediate reply, and thus left him in some degree
+triumphant. Expected Royalty arrived, and cast its salutary oil
+upon the troubled waters. The Prince, with some well-known popular
+attendant, entered the room, and for a moment every gentleman rose
+from his chair. It was but for a moment, and then the Prince became
+as any other gentleman, talking to his friends. One or two there
+present, who had perhaps peculiarly royal instincts, had crept up
+towards him so as to make him the centre of a little knot, but,
+otherwise, conversation went on much as it had done before the
+unfortunate arrival of Phineas. That quarrel, however, had been very
+distinctly trodden under foot by the Prince, for Mr. Bonteen had
+found himself quite incapacitated from throwing back any missile in
+reply to the last that had been hurled at him.
+
+Phineas took a vacant seat next to Mr. Monk,--who was deficient
+perhaps in royal instincts,--and asked him in a whisper his opinion
+of what had taken place. "Do not think any more of it," said Mr.
+Monk.
+
+"That is so much more easily said than done. How am I not to think of
+it?"
+
+"Of course I mean that you are to act as though you had forgotten
+it."
+
+"Did you ever know a more gratuitous insult? Of course he was talking
+of that Lady Eustace."
+
+"I had not been listening to him before, but no doubt he was. I
+need not tell you now what I think of Mr. Bonteen. He is not more
+gracious in my eyes than he is in yours. To-night I fancy he has
+been drinking, which has not improved him. You may be sure of this,
+Phineas,--that the less of resentful anger you show in such a
+wretched affair as took place just now, the more will be the blame
+attached to him and the less to you."
+
+"Why should any blame be attached to me?"
+
+"I don't say that any will unless you allow yourself to become loud
+and resentful. The thing is not worth your anger."
+
+"I am angry."
+
+"Then go to bed at once, and sleep it off. Come with me, and we'll
+walk home together."
+
+"It isn't the proper thing, I fancy, to leave the room while the
+Prince is here."
+
+"Then I must do the improper thing," said Mr. Monk. "I haven't a key,
+and I musn't keep my servant up any longer. A quiet man like me can
+creep out without notice. Good night, Phineas, and take my advice
+about this. If you can't forget it, act and speak and look as though
+you had forgotten it." Then Mr. Monk, without much creeping, left the
+room.
+
+The club was very full, and there was a clatter of voices, and the
+clatter round the Prince was the noisiest and merriest. Mr. Bonteen
+was there, of course, and Phineas as he sat alone could hear him as
+he edged his words in upon the royal ears. Every now and again there
+was a royal joke, and then Mr. Bonteen's laughter was conspicuous. As
+far as Phineas could distinguish the sounds no special amount of the
+royal attention was devoted to Mr. Bonteen. That very able editor,
+and one of the Academicians, and the poet, seemed to be the most
+honoured, and when the Prince went,--which he did when his cigar was
+finished,--Phineas observed with inward satisfaction that the royal
+hand, which was given to the poet, to the editor, and to the painter,
+was not extended to the President of the Board of Trade. And then,
+having taken delight in this, he accused himself of meanness in
+having even observed a matter so trivial. Soon after this a ruck of
+men left the club, and then Phineas rose to go. As he went down the
+stairs Barrington Erle followed him with Laurence Fitzgibbon, and the
+three stood for a moment at the door in the street talking to each
+other. Finn's way lay eastward from the club, whereas both Erle and
+Fitzgibbon would go westwards towards their homes. "How well the
+Prince behaves at these sort of places!" said Erle.
+
+"Princes ought to behave well," said Phineas.
+
+"Somebody else didn't behave very well,--eh, Finn, my boy?" said
+Laurence.
+
+"Somebody else, as you call him," replied Phineas, "is very unlike a
+Prince, and never does behave well. To-night, however, he surpassed
+himself."
+
+"Don't bother your mind about it, old fellow," said Barrington.
+
+"I tell you what it is, Erle," said Phineas. "I don't think that I'm
+a vindictive man by nature, but with that man I mean to make it even
+some of these days. You know as well as I do what it is he has done
+to me, and you know also whether I have deserved it. Wretched reptile
+that he is! He has pretty nearly been able to ruin me,--and all from
+some petty feeling of jealousy."
+
+"Finn, me boy, don't talk like that," said Laurence.
+
+"You shouldn't show your hand," said Barrington.
+
+"I know what you mean, and it's all very well. After your different
+fashions you two have been true to me, and I don't care how much you
+see of my hand. That man's insolence angers me to such an extent that
+I cannot refrain from speaking out. He hasn't spirit enough to go out
+with me, or I would shoot him."
+
+"Blankenberg, eh!" said Laurence, alluding to the now notorious duel
+which had once been fought in that place between Phineas and Lord
+Chiltern.
+
+"I would," continued the angry man. "There are times in which one is
+driven to regret that there has come an end to duelling, and there is
+left to one no immediate means of resenting an injury."
+
+As they were speaking Mr. Bonteen came out from the front door
+alone, and seeing the three men standing, passed on towards the left,
+eastwards. "Good night, Erle," he said. "Good night, Fitzgibbon."
+The two men answered him, and Phineas stood back in the gloom. It
+was about one o'clock and the night was very dark. "By George, I
+do dislike that man," said Phineas. Then, with a laugh, he took a
+life-preserver out of his pocket, and made an action with it as
+though he were striking some enemy over the head. In those days there
+had been much garotting in the streets, and writers in the Press had
+advised those who walked about at night to go armed with sticks.
+Phineas Finn had himself been once engaged with garotters,--as has
+been told in a former chronicle,--and had since armed himself,
+thinking more probably of the thing which he had happened to see
+than men do who had only heard of it. As soon as he had spoken, he
+followed Mr. Bonteen down the street, at the distance of perhaps a
+couple of hundred yards.
+
+"They won't have a row,--will they?" said Erle.
+
+"Oh, dear, no; Finn won't think of speaking to him; and you may be
+sure that Bonteen won't say a word to Finn. Between you and me,
+Barrington, I wish Master Phineas would give him a thorough good
+hiding."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII.
+
+WHAT CAME OF THE QUARREL.
+
+
+On the next morning at seven o'clock a superintendent of police
+called at the house of Mr. Gresham and informed the Prime Minister
+that Mr. Bonteen, the President of the Board of Trade, had been
+murdered during the night. There was no doubt of the fact. The
+body had been recognised, and information had been taken to the
+unfortunate widow at the house Mr. Bonteen had occupied in St.
+James's Place. The superintendent had already found out that Mr.
+Bonteen had been attacked as he was returning from his club late at
+night,--or rather, early in the morning, and expressed no doubt that
+he had been murdered close to the spot on which his body was found.
+There is a dark, uncanny-looking passage running from the end of
+Bolton Row, in May Fair, between the gardens of two great noblemen,
+coming out among the mews in Berkeley Street, at the corner of
+Berkeley Square, just opposite to the bottom of Hay Hill. It was on
+the steps leading up from the passage to the level of the ground
+above that the body was found. The passage was almost as near a way
+as any from the club to Mr. Bonteen's house in St. James's Place;
+but the superintendent declared that gentlemen but seldom used the
+passage after dark, and he was disposed to think that the unfortunate
+man must have been forced down the steps by the ruffian who had
+attacked him from the level above. The murderer, so thought the
+superintendent, must have been cognizant of the way usually taken
+by Mr. Bonteen, and must have lain in wait for him in the darkness
+of the mouth of the passage. The superintendent had been at work on
+his inquiries since four in the morning, and had heard from Lady
+Eustace,--and from Mrs. Bonteen, as far as that poor distracted
+woman had been able to tell her story,--some account of the cause
+of quarrel between the respective husbands of those two ladies. The
+officer, who had not as yet heard a word of the late disturbance
+between Mr. Bonteen and Phineas Finn, was strongly of opinion that
+the Reverend Mr. Emilius had been the murderer. Mr. Gresham, of
+course, coincided in that opinion. What steps had been taken as to
+the arrest of Mr. Emilius? The superintendent was of opinion that Mr.
+Emilius was already in custody. He was known to be lodging close to
+the Marylebone Workhouse, in Northumberland Street, having removed to
+that somewhat obscure neighbourhood as soon as his house in Lowndes
+Square had been broken up by the running away of his wife and his
+consequent want of means. Such was the story as told to the Prime
+Minister at seven o'clock in the morning.
+
+At eleven o'clock, at his private room at the Treasury Chambers, Mr.
+Gresham heard much more. At that time there were present with him two
+officers of the police force, his colleagues in the Cabinet, Lord
+Cantrip and the Duke of Omnium, three of his junior colleagues in the
+Government, Lord Fawn, Barrington Erle, and Laurence Fitzgibbon,--and
+Major Mackintosh, the chief of the London police. It was not exactly
+part of the duty of Mr. Gresham to investigate the circumstances of
+this murder; but there was so much in it that brought it closely home
+to him and his Government, that it became impossible for him not to
+concern himself in the business. There had been so much talk about
+Mr. Bonteen lately, his name had been so common in the newspapers,
+the ill-usage which he had been supposed by some to have suffered
+had been so freely discussed, and his quarrel, not only with Phineas
+Finn, but subsequently with the Duke of Omnium, had been so widely
+known,--that his sudden death created more momentary excitement than
+might probably have followed that of a greater man. And now, too, the
+facts of the past night, as they became known, seemed to make the
+crime more wonderful, more exciting, more momentous than it would
+have been had it been brought clearly home to such a wretch as the
+Bohemian Jew, Yosef Mealyus, who had contrived to cheat that wretched
+Lizzie Eustace into marrying him.
+
+As regarded Yosef Mealyus the story now told respecting him was this.
+He was already in custody. He had been found in bed at his lodgings
+between seven and eight, and had, of course, given himself up without
+difficulty. He had seemed to be horror-struck when he heard of the
+man's death,--but had openly expressed his joy. "He has endeavoured
+to ruin me, and has done me a world of harm. Why should I sorrow for
+him?"--he said to the policeman when rebuked for his inhumanity. But
+nothing had been found tending to implicate him in the crime. The
+servant declared that he had gone to bed before eleven o'clock, to
+her knowledge,--for she had seen him there,--and that he had not
+left the house afterwards. Was he in possession of a latch-key? It
+appeared that he did usually carry a latch-key, but that it was often
+borrowed from him by members of the family when it was known that
+he would not want it himself,--and that it had been so lent on this
+night. It was considered certain by those in the house that he had
+not gone out after he went to bed. Nobody in fact had left the house
+after ten; but in accordance with his usual custom Mr. Emilius had
+sent down the key as soon as he had found that he would not want
+it, and it had been all night in the custody of the mistress of the
+establishment. Nevertheless his clothes were examined minutely, but
+without affording any evidence against him. That Mr. Bonteen had been
+killed with some blunt weapon, such as a life-preserver, was assumed
+by the police, but no such weapon was in the possession of Mr.
+Emilius, nor had any such weapon yet been found. He was, however, in
+custody, with no evidence against him except that which was afforded
+by his known and acknowledged enmity to Mr. Bonteen.
+
+So far, Major Mackintosh and the two officers had told their story.
+Then came the united story of the other gentlemen assembled,--from
+hearing which, however, the two police officers were debarred. The
+Duke and Barrington Erle had both dined in company with Phineas
+Finn at Madame Goesler's, and the Duke was undoubtedly aware that
+ill blood had existed between Finn and Mr. Bonteen. Both Erle and
+Fitzgibbon described the quarrel at the club, and described also the
+anger which Finn had expressed against the wretched man as he stood
+talking at the club door. His gesture of vengeance was remembered and
+repeated, though both the men who heard it expressed their strongest
+conviction that the murder had not been committed by him. As Erle
+remarked, the very expression of such a threat was almost proof that
+he had not at that moment any intention on his mind of doing such a
+deed as had been done. But they told also of the life-preserver which
+Finn had shown them, as he took it from the pocket of his outside
+coat, and they marvelled at the coincidences of the night. Then Lord
+Fawn gave further evidence, which seemed to tell very hardly upon
+Phineas Finn. He also had been at the club, and had left it just
+before Finn and the two other men had clustered at the door. He had
+walked very slowly, having turned down to Curzon Street and Bolton
+Row, from whence he made his way into Piccadilly by Clarges Street.
+He had seen nothing of Mr. Bonteen; but as he crossed over to Clarges
+Street he was passed at a very rapid pace by a man muffled in a top
+coat, who made his way straight along Bolton Row towards the passage
+which has been described. At the moment he had not connected the
+person of the man who passed him with any acquaintance of his own;
+but he now felt sure,--after what he had heard,--that the man was Mr.
+Finn. As he passed out of the club Finn was putting on his overcoat,
+and Lord Fawn had observed the peculiarity of the grey colour. It was
+exactly a similar coat, only with its collar raised, that had passed
+him in the street. The man, too, was of Mr. Finn's height and build.
+He had known Mr. Finn well, and the man stepped with Mr. Finn's
+step. Major Mackintosh thought that Lord Fawn's evidence was--"very
+unfortunate as regarded Mr. Finn."
+
+"I'm d---- if that idiot won't hang poor Phinny," said Fitzgibbon
+afterwards to Erle. "And yet I don't believe a word of it."
+
+"Fawn wouldn't lie for the sake of hanging Phineas Finn," said Erle.
+
+"No;--I don't suppose he's given to lying at all. He believes it
+all. But he's such a muddle-headed fellow that he can get himself
+to believe anything. He's one of those men who always unconsciously
+exaggerate what they have to say for the sake of the importance it
+gives them." It might be possible that a jury would look at Lord
+Fawn's evidence in this light; otherwise it would bear very heavily,
+indeed, against Phineas Finn.
+
+Then a question arose as to the road which Mr. Bonteen usually took
+from the club. All the members who were there present had walked
+home with him at various times,--and by various routes, but never by
+the way through the passage. It was supposed that on this occasion
+he must have gone by Berkeley Square, because he had certainly not
+turned down by the first street to the right, which he would have
+taken had he intended to avoid the square. He had been seen by
+Barrington Erle and Fitzgibbon to pass that turning. Otherwise they
+would have made no remark as to the possibility of a renewed quarrel
+between him and Phineas, should Phineas chance to overtake him;--for
+Phineas would certainly go by the square unless taken out of his way
+by some special purpose. The most direct way of all for Mr. Bonteen
+would have been that followed by Lord Fawn; but as he had not turned
+down this street, and had not been seen by Lord Fawn, who was known
+to walk very slowly, and had often been seen to go by Berkeley
+Square,--it was presumed that he had now taken that road. In this
+case he would certainly pass the end of the passage towards which
+Lord Fawn declared that he had seen the man hurrying whom he now
+supposed to have been Phineas Finn. Finn's direct road home would,
+as has been already said, have been through the square, cutting
+off the corner of the square, towards Bruton Street, and thence
+across Bond Street by Conduit Street to Regent Street, and so to
+Great Marlborough Street, where he lived. But it had been, no doubt,
+possible for him to have been on the spot on which Lord Fawn had seen
+the man; for, although in his natural course thither from the club he
+would have at once gone down the street to the right,--a course which
+both Erle and Fitzgibbon were able to say that he did not take, as
+they had seen him go beyond the turning,--nevertheless there had been
+ample time for him to have retraced his steps to it in time to have
+caught Lord Fawn, and thus to have deceived Fitzgibbon and Erle as to
+the route he had taken.
+
+When they had got thus far Lord Cantrip was standing close to the
+window of the room at Mr. Gresham's elbow. "Don't allow yourself to
+be hurried into believing it," said Lord Cantrip.
+
+"I do not know that we need believe it, or the reverse. It is a case
+for the police."
+
+"Of course it is;--but your belief and mine will have a weight.
+Nothing that I have heard makes me for a moment think it possible.
+I know the man."
+
+"He was very angry."
+
+"Had he struck him in the club I should not have been much surprised;
+but he never attacked his enemy with a bludgeon in a dark alley. I
+know him well."
+
+"What do you think of Fawn's story?"
+
+"He was mistaken in his man. Remember;--it was a dark night."
+
+"I do not see that you and I can do anything," said Mr. Gresham. "I
+shall have to say something in the House as to the poor fellow's
+death, but I certainly shall not express a suspicion. Why should I?"
+
+Up to this moment nothing had been done as to Phineas Finn. It was
+known that he would in his natural course of business be in his place
+in Parliament at four, and Major Mackintosh was of opinion that he
+certainly should be taken before a magistrate in time to prevent the
+necessity of arresting him in the House. It was decided that Lord
+Fawn, with Fitzgibbon and Erle, should accompany the police officer
+to Bow Street, and that a magistrate should be applied to for a
+warrant if he thought the evidence was sufficient. Major Mackintosh
+was of opinion that, although by no possibility could the two
+men suspected have been jointly guilty of the murder, still the
+circumstances were such as to justify the immediate arrest of both.
+Were Yosef Mealyus really guilty and to be allowed to slip from
+their hands, no doubt it might be very difficult to catch him. Facts
+did not at present seem to prevail against him; but, as the Major
+observed, facts are apt to alter considerably when they are minutely
+sifted. His character was half sufficient to condemn him;--and then
+with him there was an adequate motive, and what Lord Cantrip regarded
+as "a possibility." It was not to be conceived that from mere rage
+Phineas Finn would lay a plot for murdering a man in the street. "It
+is on the cards, my lord," said the Major, "that he may have chosen
+to attack Mr. Bonteen without intending to murder him. The murder may
+afterwards have been an accident."
+
+It was impossible after this for even a Prime Minister and two
+Cabinet Ministers to go about their work calmly. The men concerned
+had been too well known to them to allow their minds to become clear
+of the subject. When Major Mackintosh went off to Bow Street with
+Erle and Laurence, it was certainly the opinion of the majority of
+those who had been present that the blow had been struck by the hand
+of Phineas Finn. And perhaps the worst aspect of it all was that
+there had been not simply a blow,--but blows. The constables had
+declared that the murdered man had been struck thrice about the head,
+and that the fatal stroke had been given on the side of his head
+after the man's hat had been knocked off. That Finn should have
+followed his enemy through the street, after such words as he had
+spoken, with the view of having the quarrel out in some shape,
+did not seem to be very improbable to any of them except Lord
+Cantrip;--and then had there been a scuffle, out in the open path, at
+the spot at which the angry man might have overtaken his adversary,
+it was not incredible to them that he should have drawn even such a
+weapon as a life-preserver from his pocket. But, in the case as it
+had occurred, a spot peculiarly traitorous had been selected, and the
+attack had too probably been made from behind. As yet there was no
+evidence that the murderer had himself encountered any ill-usage. And
+Finn, if he was the murderer, must, from the time he was standing
+at the club door, have contemplated a traitorous, dastardly attack.
+He must have counted his moments;--have returned slyly in the dark
+to the corner of the street which he had once passed;--have muffled
+his face in his coat;--and have then laid wait in a spot to which an
+honest man at night would hardly trust himself with honest purposes.
+"I look upon it as quite out of the question," said Lord Cantrip,
+when the three Ministers were left alone. Now Lord Cantrip had served
+for many months in the same office as Phineas Finn.
+
+"You are simply putting your own opinion of the man against the
+facts," said Mr. Gresham. "But facts always convince, and another
+man's opinion rarely convinces."
+
+"I'm not sure that we know the facts yet," said the Duke.
+
+"Of course we are speaking of them as far as they have been told to
+us. As far as they go,--unless they can be upset and shown not to be
+facts,--I fear they would be conclusive to me on a jury."
+
+"Do you mean that you have heard enough to condemn him?" asked Lord
+Cantrip.
+
+"Remember what we have heard. The murdered man had two enemies."
+
+"He may have had a third."
+
+"Or ten; but we have heard of but two."
+
+"He may have been attacked for his money," said the Duke.
+
+"But neither his money nor his watch were touched," continued Mr.
+Gresham. "Anger, or the desire of putting the man out of the way, has
+caused the murder. Of the two enemies one,--according to the facts as
+we now have them,--could not have been there. Nor is it probable that
+he could have known that his enemy would be on that spot. The other
+not only could have been there, but was certainly near the place
+at the moment,--so near that did he not do the deed himself, it
+is almost wonderful that it should not have been interrupted in
+its doing by his nearness. He certainly knew that the victim would
+be there. He was burning with anger against him at the moment. He
+had just threatened him. He had with him such an instrument as was
+afterwards used. A man believed to be him is seen hurrying to the
+spot by a witness whose credibility is beyond doubt. These are the
+facts such as we have them at present. Unless they can be upset, I
+fear they would convince a jury,--as they have already convinced
+those officers of the police."
+
+"Officers of the police always believe men to be guilty," said Lord
+Cantrip.
+
+"They don't believe the Jew clergyman to be guilty," said Mr.
+Gresham.
+
+"I fear that there will be enough to send Mr. Finn to a trial," said
+the Duke.
+
+"Not a doubt of it," said Mr. Gresham.
+
+"And yet I feel as convinced of his innocence as I do of my own,"
+said Lord Cantrip.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII.
+
+MR. MAULE'S ATTEMPT.
+
+
+About three o'clock in the day the first tidings of what had taken
+place reached Madame Goesler in the following perturbed note from her
+friend the Duchess:--"Have you heard what took place last night? Good
+God! Mr. Bonteen was murdered as he came home from his club, and they
+say that it was done by Phineas Finn. Plantagenet has just come in
+from Downing Street, where everybody is talking about it. I can't get
+from him what he believes. One never can get anything from him. But
+I never will believe it;--nor will you, I'm sure. I vote we stick to
+him to the last. He is to be put in prison and tried. I can hardly
+believe that Mr. Bonteen has been murdered, though I don't know why
+he shouldn't as well as anybody else. Plantagenet talks about the
+great loss; I know which would be the greatest loss, and so do you.
+I'm going out now to try and find out something. Barrington Erle was
+there, and if I can find him he will tell me. I shall be home by
+half-past five. Do come, there's a dear woman; there is no one else
+I can talk to about it. If I'm not back, go in all the same, and tell
+them to bring you tea.
+
+"Only think of Lady Laura,--with one mad and the other in Newgate!
+G. P."
+
+This letter gave Madame Goesler such a blow that for a few minutes
+it altogether knocked her down. After reading it once she hardly
+knew what it contained beyond a statement that Phineas Finn was in
+Newgate. She sat for a while with it in her hands, almost swooning;
+and then with an effort she recovered herself, and read the letter
+again. Mr. Bonteen murdered, and Phineas Finn,--who had dined with
+her only yesterday evening, with whom she had been talking of all the
+sins of the murdered man, who was her special friend, of whom she
+thought more than of any other human being, of whom she could not
+bring herself to cease to think,--accused of the murder! Believe
+it! The Duchess had declared with that sort of enthusiasm which was
+common to her, that she never would believe it. No, indeed! What
+judge of character would any one be who could believe that Phineas
+Finn could be guilty of a midnight murder? "I vote we stick to him."
+"Stick to him!" Madame Goesler said, repeating the words to herself.
+"What is the use of sticking to a man who does not want you?" How
+can a woman cling to a man who, having said that he did not want her,
+yet comes again within her influence, but does not unsay what he had
+said before? Nevertheless, if it should be that the man was in real
+distress,--in absolutely dire sorrow,--she would cling to him with a
+constancy which, as she thought, her friend the Duchess would hardly
+understand. Though they should hang him, she would bathe his body
+with her tears, and live as a woman should live who had loved a
+murderer to the last.
+
+
+[Illustration: "What is the use of sticking to a man who
+does not want you?"]
+
+
+But she swore to herself that she would not believe it. Nay, she did
+not believe it. Believe it, indeed! It was simply impossible. That he
+might have killed the wretch in some struggle brought on by the man's
+own fault was possible. Had the man attacked Phineas Finn it was only
+too probable that there might have been such result. But murder,
+secret midnight murder, could not have been committed by the man
+she had chosen as her friend. And yet, through it all, there was a
+resolve that even though he should have committed murder she would
+be true to him. If it should come to the very worst, then would she
+declare the intensity of the affection with which she regarded the
+murderer. As to Mr. Bonteen, what the Duchess said was true enough;
+why should not he be killed as well as another? In her present frame
+of mind she felt very little pity for Mr. Bonteen. After a fashion a
+verdict of "served him right" crossed her mind, as it had doubtless
+crossed that of the Duchess when she was writing her letter. The man
+had made himself so obnoxious that it was well that he should be out
+of the way. But not on that account would she believe that Phineas
+Finn had murdered him.
+
+Could it be true that the man after all was dead? Marvellous reports,
+and reports marvellously false, do spread themselves about the world
+every day. But this report had come from the Duke, and he was not
+a man given to absurd rumours. He had heard the story in Downing
+Street, and if so it must be true. Of course she would go down to the
+Duchess at the hour fixed. It was now a little after three, and she
+ordered the carriage to be ready for her at a quarter past five. Then
+she told the servant, at first to admit no one who might call, and
+then to come up and let her know, if any one should come, without
+sending the visitor away. It might be that some one would come to her
+expressly from Phineas, or at least with tidings about this affair.
+
+Then she read the letter again, and those few last words in it stuck
+to her thoughts like a burr. "Think of Lady Laura, with one mad and
+the other in Newgate." Was this man,--the only man whom she had ever
+loved,--more to Lady Laura Kennedy than to her; or rather, was Lady
+Laura more to him than was she herself? If so, why should she fret
+herself for his sake? She was ready enough to own that she could
+sacrifice everything for him, even though he should be standing as a
+murderer in the dock, if such sacrifice would be valued by him. He
+had himself told her that his feelings towards Lady Laura were simply
+those of an affectionate friend; but how could she believe that
+statement when all the world were saying the reverse? Lady Laura was
+a married woman,--a woman whose husband was still living,--and of
+course he was bound to make such an assertion when he and she were
+named together. And then it was certain,--Madame Goesler believed it
+to be certain,--that there had been a time in which Phineas had asked
+for the love of Lady Laura Standish. But he had never asked for her
+love. It had been tendered to him, and he had rejected it! And now
+the Duchess,--who, with all her inaccuracies, had that sharpness of
+vision which enables some men and women to see into facts,--spoke as
+though Lady Laura were to be pitied more than all others, because of
+the evil that had befallen Phineas Finn! Had not Lady Laura chosen
+her own husband; and was not the man, let him be ever so mad, still
+her husband? Madame Goesler was sore of heart, as well as broken down
+with sorrow, till at last, hiding her face on the pillow of the sofa,
+still holding the Duchess's letter in her hand, she burst into a fit
+of hysteric sobs.
+
+Few of those who knew Madame Max Goesler well, as she lived in town
+and in country, would have believed that such could have been the
+effect upon her of the news which she had heard. Credit was given to
+her everywhere for good nature, discretion, affability, and a certain
+grace of demeanour which always made her charming. She was known to
+be generous, wise, and of high spirit. Something of her conduct to
+the old Duke had crept into general notice, and had been told, here
+and there, to her honour. She had conquered the good opinion of many,
+and was a popular woman. But there was not one among her friends
+who supposed her capable of becoming a victim to a strong passion,
+or would have suspected her of reckless weeping for any sorrow.
+The Duchess, who thought that she knew Madame Goesler well, would
+not have believed it to be true, even if she had seen it. "You like
+people, but I don't think you ever love any one," the Duchess had
+once said to her. Madame Goesler had smiled, and had seemed to
+assent. To enjoy the world,--and to know that the best enjoyment must
+come from witnessing the satisfaction of others, had apparently been
+her philosophy. But now she was prostrate because this man was in
+trouble, and because she had been told that his trouble was more than
+another woman could bear!
+
+She was still sobbing and crushing the letter in her hand when the
+servant came up to tell her that Mr. Maule had called. He was below,
+waiting to know whether she would see him. She remembered at once
+that Mr. Maule had met Phineas at her table on the previous evening,
+and, thinking that he must have come with tidings respecting this
+great event, desired that he might be shown up to her. But, as it
+happened, Mr. Maule had not yet heard of the death of Mr. Bonteen. He
+had remained at home till nearly four, having a great object in view,
+which made him deem it expedient that he should go direct from his
+own rooms to Madame Goesler's house, and had not even looked in at
+his club. The reader will, perhaps, divine the great object. On this
+day he proposed to ask Madame Goesler to make him the happiest of
+men,--as he certainly would have thought himself for a time, had
+she consented to put him in possession of her large income. He had
+therefore padded himself with more than ordinary care,--reduced but
+not obliterated the greyness of his locks,--looked carefully to the
+fitting of his trousers, and spared himself those ordinary labours of
+the morning which might have robbed him of any remaining spark of his
+juvenility.
+
+Madame Goesler met him more than half across the room as he entered
+it. "What have you heard?" said she. Mr. Maule wore his sweetest
+smile, but he had heard nothing. He could only press her hand, and
+look blank,--understanding that there was something which he ought to
+have heard. She thought nothing of the pressure of her hand. Apt as
+she was to be conscious at an instant of all that was going on around
+her, she thought of nothing now but that man's peril, and of the
+truth or falsehood of the story that had been sent to her. "You have
+heard nothing of Mr. Finn?"
+
+"Not a word," said Mr. Maule, withdrawing his hand. "What has
+happened to Mr. Finn?" Had Mr. Finn broken his neck it would have
+been nothing to Mr. Maule. But the lady's solicitude was something to
+him.
+
+"Mr. Bonteen has been--murdered!"
+
+"Mr. Bonteen!"
+
+"So I hear. I thought you had come to tell me of it."
+
+"Mr. Bonteen murdered! No;--I have heard nothing. I do not know the
+gentleman. I thought you said--Mr. Finn."
+
+"It is not known about London, then?"
+
+"I cannot say, Madame Goesler. I have just come from home, and have
+not been out all the morning. Who has--murdered him?"
+
+"Ah! I do not know. That is what I wanted you to tell me."
+
+"But what of Mr. Finn?"
+
+"I also have not been out, Mr. Maule, and can give you no
+information. I thought you had called because you knew that Mr. Finn
+had dined here."
+
+"Has Mr. Finn been murdered?"
+
+"Mr. Bonteen! I said that the report was that Mr. Bonteen had been
+murdered." Madame Goesler was now waxing angry,--most unreasonably.
+"But I know nothing about it, and am just going out to make inquiry.
+The carriage is ordered." Then she stood, expecting him to go; and
+he knew that he was expected to go. It was at any rate clear to him
+that he could not carry out his great design on the present occasion.
+"This has so upset me that I can think of nothing else at present,
+and you must, if you please, excuse me. I would not have let you take
+the trouble of coming up, had not I thought that you were the bearer
+of some news." Then she bowed, and Mr. Maule bowed; and as he left
+the room she forgot to ring the bell.
+
+"What the deuce can she have meant about that fellow Finn?" he said
+to himself. "They cannot both have been murdered." He went to his
+club, and there he soon learned the truth. The information was given
+to him with clear and undoubting words. Phineas Finn and Mr. Bonteen
+had quarrelled at The Universe. Mr. Bonteen, as far as words went,
+had got the best of his adversary. This had taken place in the
+presence of the Prince, who had expressed himself as greatly annoyed
+by Mr. Finn's conduct. And afterwards Phineas Finn had waylaid Mr.
+Bonteen in the passage between Bolton Row and Berkeley Street, and
+had there--murdered him. As it happened, no one who had been at The
+Universe was at that moment present; but the whole affair was now
+quite well known, and was spoken of without a doubt.
+
+"I hope he'll be hung, with all my heart," said Mr. Maule, who
+thought that he could read the riddle which had been so
+unintelligible in Park Lane.
+
+When Madame Goesler reached Carlton Terrace, which she did before the
+time named by the Duchess, her friend had not yet returned. But she
+went upstairs, as she had been desired, and they brought her tea. But
+the teapot remained untouched till past six o'clock, and then the
+Duchess returned. "Oh, my dear, I am so sorry for being late. Why
+haven't you had tea?"
+
+"What is the truth of it all?" said Madame Goesler, standing up with
+her fists clenched as they hung by her side.
+
+"I don't seem to know nearly as much as I did when I wrote to you."
+
+"Has the man been--murdered?"
+
+"Oh dear, yes. There's no doubt about that. I was quite sure of that
+when I sent the letter. I have had such a hunt. But at last I went up
+to the door of the House of Commons, and got Barrington Erle to come
+out to me."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Two men have been arrested."
+
+"Not Phineas Finn?"
+
+"Yes; Mr. Finn is one of them. Is it not awful? So much more dreadful
+to me than the other poor man's death! One oughtn't to say so, of
+course."
+
+"And who is the other man? Of course he did it."
+
+"That horrid Jew preaching man that married Lizzie Eustace. Mr.
+Bonteen had been persecuting him, and making out that he had another
+wife at home in Hungary, or Bohemia, or somewhere."
+
+"Of course he did it."
+
+"That's what I say. Of course the Jew did it. But then all the
+evidence goes to show that he didn't do it. He was in bed at the
+time; and the door of the house was locked up so that he couldn't get
+out; and the man who did the murder hadn't got on his coat, but had
+got on Phineas Finn's coat."
+
+"Was there--blood?" asked Madame Goesler, shaking from head to foot.
+
+"Not that I know. I don't suppose they've looked yet. But Lord Fawn
+saw the man, and swears to the coat."
+
+"Lord Fawn! How I have always hated that man! I wouldn't believe a
+word he would say."
+
+"Barrington doesn't think so much of the coat. But Phineas had a club
+in his pocket, and the man was killed by a club. There hasn't been
+any other club found, but Phineas Finn took his home with him."
+
+"A murderer would not have done that."
+
+"Barrington says that the head policeman says that it is just what a
+very clever murderer would do."
+
+"Do you believe it, Duchess?"
+
+"Certainly not;--not though Lord Fawn swore that he had seen it. I
+never will believe what I don't like to believe, and nothing shall
+ever make me."
+
+"He couldn't have done it."
+
+"Well;--for the matter of that, I suppose he could."
+
+"No, Duchess, he could not have done it."
+
+"He is strong enough,--and brave enough."
+
+"But not enough of a coward. There is nothing cowardly about him.
+If Phineas Finn could have struck an enemy with a club, in a dark
+passage, behind his back, I will never care to speak to any man
+again. Nothing shall make me believe it. If I did, I could never
+again believe in any one. If they told you that your husband had
+murdered a man, what would you say?"
+
+"But he isn't your husband, Madame Max."
+
+"No;--certainly not. I cannot fly at them, when they say so, as you
+would do. But I can be just as sure. If twenty Lord Fawns swore that
+they had seen it, I would not believe them. Oh, God, what will they
+do with him!"
+
+The Duchess behaved very well to her friend, saying not a single word
+to twit her with the love which she betrayed. She seemed to take
+it as a matter of course that Madame Goesler's interest in Phineas
+Finn should be as it was. The Duke, she said, could not come home
+to dinner, and Madame Goesler should stay with her. Both Houses
+were in such a ferment about the murder, that nobody liked to be
+away. Everybody had been struck with amazement, not simply,--not
+chiefly,--by the fact of the murder, but by the double destruction of
+the two men whose ill-will to each other had been of late so often
+the subject of conversation. So Madame Goesler remained at Carlton
+Terrace till late in the evening, and during the whole visit there
+was nothing mentioned but the murder of Mr. Bonteen and the peril of
+Phineas Finn. "Some one will go and see him, I suppose," said Madame
+Goesler.
+
+"Lord Cantrip has been already,--and Mr. Monk."
+
+"Could not I go?"
+
+"Well, it would be rather strong."
+
+"If we both went together?" suggested Madame Goesler. And before she
+left Carlton Terrace she had almost extracted a promise from the
+Duchess that they would together proceed to the prison and endeavour
+to see Phineas Finn.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX.
+
+SHOWING WHAT MRS. BUNCE SAID TO THE POLICEMAN.
+
+
+"We have left Adelaide Palliser down at the Hall. We are up here
+only for a couple of days to see Laura, and try to find out what had
+better be done about Kennedy." This was said to Phineas Finn in his
+own room in Great Marlborough Street by Lord Chiltern, on the morning
+after the murder, between ten and eleven o'clock. Phineas had not
+as yet heard of the death of the man with whom he had quarrelled.
+Lord Chiltern had now come to him with some proposition which he as
+yet did not understand, and which Lord Chiltern certainly did not
+know how to explain. Looked at simply, the proposition was one for
+providing Phineas Finn with an income out of the wealth belonging,
+or that would belong, to the Standish family. Lady Laura's fortune
+would, it was thought, soon be at her own disposal. They who acted
+for her husband had assured the Earl that the yearly interest of the
+money should be at her ladyship's command as soon as the law would
+allow them so to plan it. Of Robert Kennedy's inability to act for
+himself there was no longer any doubt whatever, and there was, they
+said, no desire to embarrass the estate with so small a disputed
+matter as the income derived from L40,000. There was great pride
+of purse in the manner in which the information was conveyed;--but
+not the less on that account was it satisfactory to the Earl. Lady
+Laura's first thought about it referred to the imminent wants of
+Phineas Finn. How might it be possible for her to place a portion of
+her income at the command of the man she loved so that he should not
+feel disgraced by receiving it from her hand? She conceived some plan
+as to a loan to be made nominally by her brother,--a plan as to which
+it may at once be said that it could not be made to hold water for a
+minute. But she did succeed in inducing her brother to undertake the
+embassy, with the view of explaining to Phineas that there would be
+money for him when he wanted it. "If I make it over to Papa, Papa can
+leave it him in his will; and if he wants it at once there can be no
+harm in your advancing to him what he must have at Papa's death."
+Her brother had frowned angrily and had shaken his head. "Think how
+he has been thrown over by all the party," said Lady Laura. Lord
+Chiltern had disliked the whole affair,--had felt with dismay that
+his sister's name would become subject to reproach if it should be
+known that this young man was supported by her bounty. She, however,
+had persisted, and he had consented to see the young man, feeling
+sure that Phineas would refuse to bear the burden of the obligation.
+
+But he had not touched the disagreeable subject when they were
+interrupted. A knocking of the door had been heard, and now Mrs.
+Bunce came upstairs, bringing Mr. Low with her. Mrs. Bunce had
+not heard of the tragedy, but she had at once perceived from the
+barrister's manner that there was some serious matter forward,--some
+matter that was probably not only serious, but also calamitous. The
+expression of her countenance announced as much to the two men, and
+the countenance of Mr. Low when he followed her into the room told
+the same story still more plainly. "Is anything the matter?" said
+Phineas, jumping up.
+
+"Indeed, yes," said Mr. Low, who then looked at Lord Chiltern and was
+silent.
+
+"Shall I go?" said Lord Chiltern. Mr. Low did not know him, and of
+course was still silent.
+
+"This is my friend, Mr. Low. This is my friend, Lord Chiltern," said
+Phineas, aware that each was well acquainted with the other's name.
+"I do not know of any reason why you should go. What is it, Low?"
+
+Lord Chiltern had come there about money, and it occurred to him
+that the impecunious young barrister might already be in some scrape
+on that head. In nineteen cases out of twenty, when a man is in a
+scrape, he simply wants money. "Perhaps I can be of help," he said.
+
+"Have you heard, my Lord, what happened last night?" said Mr. Low,
+with his eyes fixed on Phineas Finn.
+
+"I have heard nothing," said Lord Chiltern.
+
+"What has happened?" asked Phineas, looking aghast. He knew Mr. Low
+well enough to be sure that the thing referred to was of great and
+distressing moment.
+
+"You, too, have heard nothing?"
+
+"Not a word--that I know of."
+
+"You were at The Universe last night?"
+
+"Certainly I was."
+
+"Did anything occur?"
+
+"The Prince was there."
+
+"Nothing has happened to the Prince?" said Chiltern.
+
+"His name has not been mentioned to me," said Mr. Low. "Was there not
+a quarrel?"
+
+"Yes;"--said Phineas. "I quarrelled with Mr. Bonteen."
+
+"What then?"
+
+"He behaved like a brute;--as he always does. Thrashing a brute
+hardly answers nowadays, but if ever a man deserved a thrashing he
+does."
+
+"He has been murdered," said Mr. Low.
+
+
+[Illustration: "He has been murdered," said Mr. Low.]
+
+
+The reader need hardly be told that, as regards this great offence,
+Phineas Finn was as white as snow. The maintenance of any doubt on
+that matter,--were it even desirable to maintain a doubt,--would be
+altogether beyond the power of the present writer. The reader has
+probably perceived, from the first moment of the discovery of the
+body on the steps at the end of the passage, that Mr. Bonteen had
+been killed by that ingenious gentleman, the Rev. Mr. Emilius, who
+found it to be worth his while to take the step with the view of
+suppressing his enemy's evidence as to his former marriage. But Mr.
+Low, when he entered the room, had been inclined to think that his
+friend had done the deed. Laurence Fitzgibbon, who had been one of
+the first to hear the story, and who had summoned Erle to go with him
+and Major Mackintosh to Downing Street, had, in the first place, gone
+to the house in Carey Street, in which Bunce was wont to work, and
+had sent him to Mr. Low. He, Fitzgibbon, had not thought it safe that
+he himself should warn his countryman, but he could not bear to think
+that the hare should be knocked over on its form, or that his friend
+should be taken by policemen without notice. So he had sent Bunce to
+Mr. Low, and Mr. Low had now come with his tidings.
+
+"Murdered!" exclaimed Phineas.
+
+"Who has murdered him?" said Lord Chiltern, looking first at Mr. Low
+and then at Phineas.
+
+"That is what the police are now endeavouring to find out." Then
+there was a pause, and Phineas stood up with his hand on his
+forehead, looking savagely from one to the other. A glimmer of an
+idea of the truth was beginning to cross his brain. Mr. Low was there
+with the object of asking him whether he had murdered the man! "Mr.
+Fitzgibbon was with you last night," continued Mr. Low.
+
+"Of course he was."
+
+"It was he who has sent me to you."
+
+"What does it all mean?" asked Lord Chiltern. "I suppose they do not
+intend to say that--our friend, here--murdered the man."
+
+"I begin to suppose that is what they intend to say," rejoined
+Phineas, scornfully.
+
+Mr. Low had entered the room, doubting indeed, but still inclined
+to believe,--as Bunce had very clearly believed,--that the hands of
+Phineas Finn were red with the blood of this man who had been killed.
+And, had he been questioned on such a matter, when no special case
+was before his mind, he would have declared of himself that a few
+tones from the voice, or a few glances from the eye, of a suspected
+man would certainly not suffice to eradicate suspicion. But now he
+was quite sure,--almost quite sure,--that Phineas was as innocent as
+himself. To Lord Chiltern, who had heard none of the details, the
+suspicion was so monstrous as to fill him with wrath. "You don't mean
+to tell us, Mr. Low, that any one says that Finn killed the man?"
+
+"I have come as his friend," said Low, "to put him on his guard. The
+accusation will be made against him."
+
+To Phineas, not clearly looking at it, not knowing very accurately
+what had happened, not being in truth quite sure that Mr. Bonteen was
+actually dead, this seemed to be a continuation of the persecution
+which he believed himself to have suffered from that man's hand. "I
+can believe anything from that quarter," he said.
+
+"From what quarter?" asked Lord Chiltern. "We had better let Mr. Low
+tell us what really has happened."
+
+Then Mr. Low told the story, as well as he knew it, describing the
+spot on which the body had been found. "Often as I go to the club,"
+said Phineas, "I never was through that passage in my life." Mr. Low
+went on with his tale, telling how the man had been killed with some
+short bludgeon. "I had that in my pocket," said Finn, producing the
+life-preserver. "I have almost always had something of the kind when
+I have been in London, since that affair of Kennedy's." Mr. Low cast
+one glance at it,--to see whether it had been washed or scraped, or
+in any way cleansed. Phineas saw the glance, and was angry. "There it
+is, as it is. You can make the most of it. I shall not touch it again
+till the policeman comes. Don't put your hand on it, Chiltern. Leave
+it there." And the instrument was left lying on the table, untouched.
+Mr. Low went on with his story. He had heard nothing of Yosef Mealyus
+as connected with the murder, but some indistinct reference to Lord
+Fawn and the top-coat had been made to him. "There is the coat, too,"
+said Phineas, taking it from the sofa on which he had flung it when
+he came home the previous night. It was a very light coat,--fitted
+for May use,--lined with silk, and by no means suited for enveloping
+the face or person. But it had a collar which might be made to stand
+up. "That at any rate was the coat I wore," said Finn, in answer to
+some observation from the barrister. "The man that Lord Fawn saw,"
+said Mr. Low, "was, as I understand, enveloped in a heavy great
+coat." "So Fawn has got his finger in the pie!" said Lord Chiltern.
+
+Mr. Low had been there an hour, Lord Chiltern remaining also in
+the room, when there came three men belonging to the police,--a
+superintendent and with him two constables. When the men were shown
+up into the room neither the bludgeon or the coat had been moved
+from the small table as Phineas had himself placed them there. Both
+Phineas and Chiltern had lit cigars, and they were all there sitting
+in silence. Phineas had entertained the idea that Mr. Low believed
+the charge, and that the barrister was therefore an enemy. Mr. Low
+had perceived this, but had not felt it to be his duty to declare his
+opinion of his friend's innocence. What he could do for his friend
+he would do; but, as he thought, he could serve him better now by
+silent observation than by protestation. Lord Chiltern, who had
+been implored by Phineas not to leave him, continued to pour forth
+unabating execrations on the monstrous malignity of the accusers.
+"I do not know that there are any accusers," said Mr. Low, "except
+the circumstances which the police must, of course, investigate."
+Then the men came, and the nature of their duty was soon explained.
+They must request Mr. Finn to go with them to Bow Street. They took
+possession of many articles besides the two which had been prepared
+for them,--the dress coat and shirt which Phineas had worn, and the
+boots. He had gone out to dinner with a Gibus hat, and they took
+that. They took his umbrella and his latch-key. They asked, even, as
+to his purse and money;--but abstained from taking the purse when
+Mr. Low suggested that they could have no concern with that. As it
+happened, Phineas was at the moment wearing the shirt in which he
+had dined out on the previous day, and the men asked him whether
+he had any objection to change it in their presence,--as it might
+be necessary, after the examination, that it should be detained
+as evidence. He did so, in the presence of all the men assembled;
+but the humiliation of doing it almost broke his heart. Then they
+searched among his linen, clean and dirty, and asked questions of
+Mrs. Bunce in audible whispers behind the door. Whatever Mrs. Bunce
+could do to injure the cause of her favourite lodger by severity
+of manner, snubbing the policeman, and determination to give no
+information, she did do. "Had a shirt washed? How do you suppose a
+gentleman's shirts are washed? You were brought up near enough to
+a washtub yourself to know more than I can tell you!" But the very
+respectable constable did not seem to be in the least annoyed by the
+landlady's amenities.
+
+He was taken to Bow Street, going thither in a cab with the two
+policemen, and the superintendent followed them with Lord Chiltern
+and Mr. Low. "You don't mean to say that you believe it?" said Lord
+Chiltern to the officer. "We never believe and we never disbelieve
+anything, my Lord," replied the man. Nevertheless, the superintendent
+did most firmly believe that Phineas Finn had murdered Mr. Bonteen.
+
+At the police-office Phineas was met by Lord Cantrip and Barrington
+Erle, and soon became aware that both Lord Fawn and Fitzgibbon were
+present. It seemed that everything else was made to give way to this
+inquiry, as he was at once confronted by the magistrate. Everybody
+was personally very civil to him, and he was asked whether he would
+not wish to have professional advice while the charge was being made
+against him. But this he declined. He would tell the magistrate,
+he said, all he knew, but, at any rate for the present, he would
+have no need of advice. He was, at last, allowed to tell his own
+story,--after repeated cautions. There had been some words between
+him and Mr. Bonteen in the club; after which, standing at the door of
+the club with his friends, Mr. Erle and Mr. Fitzgibbon, who were now
+in court, he had seen Mr. Bonteen walk away towards Berkeley Square.
+He had soon followed, but had never overtaken Mr. Bonteen. When
+reaching the Square he had crossed over to the fountain standing
+there on the south side, and from thence had taken the shortest way
+up Bruton Street. He had seen Mr. Bonteen for the last time dimly,
+by the gaslight, at the corner of the Square. As far as he could
+remember, he himself had at the moment passed the fountain. He had
+not heard the sound of any struggle, or of words, round the corner
+towards Piccadilly. By the time that Mr. Bonteen would have reached
+the head of the steps leading into the passage, he would have been
+near Bruton Street, with his back completely turned to the scene of
+the murder. He had walked faster than Mr. Bonteen, having gradually
+drawn near to him; but he had determined in his own mind that he
+would not pass the man, or get so near him as to attract attention.
+Nor had he done so. He had certainly worn the grey coat which was
+now produced. The collar of it had not been turned up. The coat was
+nearly new, and to the best of his belief the collar had never been
+turned up. He had carried the life-preserver now produced with him
+because it had once before been necessary for him to attack garotters
+in the street. The life-preserver had never been used, and, as it
+happened, was quite new. It had been bought about a month since,--in
+consequence of some commotion about garotters which had just then
+taken place. But before the purchase of the life-preserver he had
+been accustomed to carry some stick or bludgeon at night. Undoubtedly
+he had quarrelled with Mr. Bonteen before this occasion, and had
+bought this instrument since the commencement of the quarrel. He had
+not seen any one on his way from the Square to his own house with
+sufficient observation to enable him to describe such person. He
+could not remember that he had passed a policeman on his way home.
+
+This took place after the hearing of such evidence as was then given.
+The statements made both by Erle and Fitzgibbon as to what had taken
+place in the club, and afterwards at the door, tallied exactly with
+that afterwards given by Phineas. An accurate measurement of the
+streets and ways concerned was already furnished. Taking the duration
+of time as surmised by Erle and Fitzgibbon to have passed after they
+had turned their back upon Phineas, a constable proved that the
+prisoner would have had time to hurry back to the corner of the
+street he had passed, and to be in the place where Lord Fawn saw the
+man,--supposing that Lord Fawn had walked at the rate of three miles
+an hour, and that Phineas had walked or run at twice that pace. Lord
+Fawn stated that he was walking very slow,--less he thought than
+three miles an hour, and that the man was hurrying very fast,--not
+absolutely running, but going as he thought at quite double his own
+pace. The two coats were shown to his lordship. Finn knew nothing
+of the other coat,--which had, in truth, been taken from the Rev.
+Mr. Emilius,--a rough, thick, brown coat, which had belonged to the
+preacher for the last two years. Finn's coat was grey in colour. Lord
+Fawn looked at the coats very attentively, and then said that the man
+he had seen had certainly not worn the brown coat. The night had been
+dark, but still he was sure that the coat had been grey. The collar
+had certainly been turned up. Then a tailor was produced who gave it
+as his opinion that Finn's coat had been lately worn with the collar
+raised.
+
+It was considered that the evidence given was sufficient to make a
+remand imperative, and Phineas Finn was committed to Newgate. He was
+assured that every attention should be paid to his comfort, and was
+treated with great consideration. Lord Cantrip, who still believed in
+him, discussed the subject both with the magistrate and with Major
+Mackintosh. Of course the strictest search would be made for a second
+life-preserver, or any such weapon as might have been used. Search
+had already been made, and no such weapon had been as yet found.
+Emilius had never been seen with any such weapon. No one about Curzon
+Street or Mayfair could be found who had seen the man with the
+quick step and raised collar, who doubtless had been the murderer,
+except Lord Fawn,--so that no evidence was forthcoming tending to
+show that Phineas Finn could not have been that man. The evidence
+adduced to prove that Mr. Emilius,--or Mealyus, as he was henceforth
+called,--could not have been on the spot was so very strong, that the
+magistrate told the constables that that man must be released on the
+next examination unless something could be adduced against him.
+
+The magistrate, with the profoundest regret, was unable to agree
+with Lord Cantrip in his opinion that the evidence adduced was not
+sufficient to demand the temporary committal of Mr. Finn.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER L.
+
+WHAT THE LORDS AND COMMONS SAID ABOUT THE MURDER.
+
+
+When the House met on that Thursday at four o'clock everybody was
+talking about the murder, and certainly four-fifths of the members
+had made up their minds that Phineas Finn was the murderer. To have
+known a murdered man is something, but to have been intimate with
+a murderer is certainly much more. There were many there who were
+really sorry for poor Bonteen,--of whom without a doubt the end had
+come in a very horrible manner; and there were more there who were
+personally fond of Phineas Finn,--to whom the future of the young
+member was very sad, and the fact that he should have become a
+murderer very awful. But, nevertheless, the occasion was not without
+its consolations. The business of the House is not always exciting,
+or even interesting. On this afternoon there was not a member who
+did not feel that something had occurred which added an interest to
+Parliamentary life.
+
+Very soon after prayers Mr. Gresham entered the House, and men who
+had hitherto been behaving themselves after a most unparliamentary
+fashion, standing about in knots, talking by no means in whispers,
+moving in and out of the House rapidly, all crowded into their
+places. Whatever pretence of business had been going on was stopped
+in a moment, and Mr. Gresham rose to make his statement. "It was with
+the deepest regret,--nay, with the most profound sorrow,--that he was
+called upon to inform the House that his right honourable friend and
+colleague, Mr. Bonteen, had been basely and cruelly murdered during
+the past night." It was odd then to see how the name of the man, who,
+while he was alive and a member of that House, could not have been
+pronounced in that assembly without disorder, struck the members
+almost with dismay. "Yes, his friend Mr. Bonteen, who had so lately
+filled the office of President of the Board of Trade, and whose
+loss the country and that House could so ill bear, had been beaten
+to death in one of the streets of the metropolis by the arm of a
+dastardly ruffian during the silent watches of the night." Then Mr.
+Gresham paused, and every one expected that some further statement
+would be made. "He did not know that he had any further communication
+to make on the subject. Some little time must elapse before he could
+fill the office. As for adequately supplying the loss, that would
+be impossible. Mr. Bonteen's services to the country, especially in
+reference to decimal coinage, were too well known to the House to
+allow of his holding out any such hope." Then he sat down without
+having as yet made an allusion to Phineas Finn.
+
+But the allusion was soon made. Mr. Daubeny rose, and with much
+graceful and mysterious circumlocution asked the Prime Minister
+whether it was true that a member of the House had been arrested, and
+was now in confinement on the charge of having been concerned in the
+murder of the late much-lamented President of the Board of Trade.
+He--Mr. Daubeny--had been given to understand that such a charge had
+been made against an honourable member of that House, who had once
+been a colleague of Mr. Bonteen's, and who had always supported the
+right honourable gentleman opposite. Then Mr. Gresham rose again.
+"He regretted to say that the honourable member for Tankerville was
+in custody on that charge. The House would of course understand that
+he only made that statement as a fact, and that he was offering no
+opinion as to who was the perpetrator of the murder. The case seemed
+to be shrouded in great mystery. The two gentlemen had unfortunately
+differed, but he did not at all think that the House would on that
+account be disposed to attribute guilt so black and damning to
+a gentleman they had all known so well as the honourable member
+for Tankerville." So much and no more was spoken publicly, to the
+reporters; but members continued to talk about the affair the whole
+evening.
+
+There was nothing, perhaps, more astonishing than the absence of
+rancour or abhorrence with which the name of Phineas was mentioned,
+even by those who felt most certain of his guilt. All those who had
+been present at the club acknowledged that Bonteen had been the
+sinner in reference to the transaction there; and it was acknowledged
+to have been almost a public misfortune that such a man as Bonteen
+should have been able to prevail against such a one as Phineas Finn
+in regard to the presence of the latter in the Government. Stories
+which were exaggerated, accounts worse even than the truth, were
+bandied about as to the perseverance with which the murdered man
+had destroyed the prospects of the supposed murderer, and robbed
+the country of the services of a good workman. Mr. Gresham, in the
+official statement which he had made, had, as a matter of course,
+said many fine things about Mr. Bonteen. A man can always have fine
+things said about him for a few hours after his death. But in the
+small private conferences which were held the fine things said all
+referred to Phineas Finn. Mr. Gresham had spoken of a "dastardly
+ruffian in the silent watches," but one would have almost thought
+from overhearing what was said by various gentlemen in different
+parts of the House that upon the whole Phineas Finn was thought to
+have done rather a good thing in putting poor Mr. Bonteen out of the
+way.
+
+And another pleasant feature of excitement was added by the prevalent
+idea that the Prince had seen and heard the row. Those who had been
+at the club at the time of course knew that this was not the case;
+but the presence of the Prince at The Universe between the row and
+the murder had really been a fact, and therefore it was only natural
+that men should allow themselves the delight of mixing the Prince
+with the whole concern. In remote circles the Prince was undoubtedly
+supposed to have had a great deal to do with the matter, though
+whether as abettor of the murdered or of the murderer was never
+plainly declared. A great deal was said about the Prince that evening
+in the House, so that many members were able to enjoy themselves
+thoroughly.
+
+"What a godsend for Gresham," said one gentleman to Mr. Ratler very
+shortly after the strong eulogium which had been uttered on poor Mr.
+Bonteen by the Prime Minister.
+
+"Well,--yes; I was afraid that the poor fellow would never have got
+on with us."
+
+"Got on! He'd have been a thorn in Gresham's side as long as he
+held office. If Finn should be acquitted, you ought to do something
+handsome for him." Whereupon Mr. Ratler laughed heartily.
+
+"It will pretty nearly break them up," said Sir Orlando Drought, one
+of Mr. Daubeny's late Secretaries of State to Mr. Roby, Mr. Daubeny's
+late patronage secretary.
+
+"I don't quite see that. They'll be able to drop their decimal
+coinage with a good excuse, and that will be a great comfort. They
+are talking of getting Monk to go back to the Board of Trade."
+
+"Will that strengthen them?"
+
+"Bonteen would have weakened them. The man had got beyond himself,
+and lost his head. They are better without him."
+
+"I suppose Finn did it?" asked Sir Orlando.
+
+"Not a doubt about it, I'm told. The queer thing is that he should
+have declared his purpose beforehand to Erle. Gresham says that
+all that must have been part of his plan,--so as to make men think
+afterwards that he couldn't have done it. Grogram's idea is that he
+had planned the murder before he went to the club."
+
+"Will the Prince have to give evidence?"
+
+"No, no," said Mr. Roby. "That's all wrong. The Prince had left the
+club before the row commenced. Confucius Putt says that the Prince
+didn't hear a word of it. He was talking to the Prince all the time."
+Confucius Putt was the distinguished artist with whom the Prince had
+shaken hands on leaving the club.
+
+Lord Drummond was in the Peers' Gallery, and Mr. Boffin was talking
+to him over the railings. It may be remembered that those two
+gentlemen had conscientiously left Mr. Daubeny's Cabinet because they
+had been unable to support him in his views about the Church. After
+such sacrifice on their parts their minds were of course intent on
+Church matters. "There doesn't seem to be a doubt about it," said Mr.
+Boffin.
+
+"Cantrip won't believe it," said the peer.
+
+"He was at the Colonies with Cantrip, and Cantrip found him very
+agreeable. Everybody says that he was one of the pleasantest fellows
+going. This makes it out of the question that they should bring in
+any Church bill this Session."
+
+"Do you think so?"
+
+"Oh yes;--certainly. There will be nothing else thought of now till
+the trial."
+
+"So much the better," said his Lordship. "It's an ill wind that blows
+no one any good. Will they have evidence for a conviction?"
+
+"Oh dear yes; not a doubt about it. Fawn can swear to him," said Mr.
+Boffin.
+
+Barrington Erle was telling his story for the tenth time when he was
+summoned out of the Library to the Duchess of Omnium, who had made
+her way up into the lobby. "Oh, Mr. Erle, do tell me what you really
+think," said the Duchess.
+
+"That is just what I can't do."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because I don't know what to think."
+
+"He can't have done it, Mr. Erle."
+
+"That's just what I say to myself, Duchess."
+
+"But they do say that the evidence is so very strong against him."
+
+"Very strong."
+
+"I wish we could get that Lord Fawn out of the way."
+
+"Ah;--but we can't."
+
+"And will they--hang him?"
+
+"If they convict him, they will."
+
+"A man we all knew so well! And just when we had made up our minds to
+do everything for him. Do you know I'm not a bit surprised. I've felt
+before now as though I should like to have done it myself."
+
+"He could be very nasty, Duchess!"
+
+"I did so hate that man. But I'd give,--oh, I don't know what I'd
+give to bring him to life again this minute. What will Lady Laura
+do?" In answer to this, Barrington Erle only shrugged his shoulders.
+Lady Laura was his cousin. "We mustn't give him up, you know, Mr.
+Erle."
+
+"What can we do?"
+
+"Surely we can do something. Can't we get it in the papers that he
+must be innocent,--so that everybody should be made to think so? And
+if we could get hold of the lawyers, and make them not want to--to
+destroy him! There's nothing I wouldn't do. There's no getting hold
+of a judge, I know."
+
+"No, Duchess. The judges are stone."
+
+"Not that they are a bit better than anybody else,--only they like to
+be safe."
+
+"They do like to be safe."
+
+"I'm sure we could do it if we put our shoulders to the wheel. I
+don't believe, you know, for a moment that he murdered him. It was
+done by Lizzie Eustace's Jew."
+
+"It will be sifted, of course."
+
+"But what's the use of sifting if Mr. Finn is to be hung while it's
+being done? I don't think anything of the police. Do you remember how
+they bungled about that woman's necklace? I don't mean to give him
+up, Mr. Erle; and I expect you to help me." Then the Duchess returned
+home, and, as we know, found Madame Goesler at her house.
+
+Nothing whatever was done that night, either in the Lords or Commons.
+A "statement" about Mr. Bonteen was made in the Upper as well as
+in the Lower House, and after that statement any real work was out
+of the question. Had Mr. Bonteen absolutely been Chancellor of the
+Exchequer, and in the Cabinet when he was murdered, and had Phineas
+Finn been once more an Under-Secretary of State, the commotion
+and excitement could hardly have been greater. Even the Duke of
+St. Bungay had visited the spot,--well known to him, as there the
+urban domains meet of two great Whig peers, with whom and whose
+predecessors he had long been familiar. He also had known Phineas
+Finn, and not long since had said civil words to him and of him. He,
+too, had, of late days, especially disliked Mr. Bonteen, and had
+almost insisted that the man now murdered should not be admitted into
+the Cabinet. He had heard what was the nature of the evidence;--had
+heard of the quarrel, the life-preserver, and the grey coat. "I
+suppose he must have done it," said the Duke of St. Bungay to himself
+as he walked away up Hay Hill.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LI.
+
+"YOU THINK IT SHAMEFUL."
+
+
+The tidings of what had taken place first reached Lady Laura Kennedy
+from her brother on his return to Portman Square after the scene in
+the police court. The object of his visit to Finn's lodgings has
+been explained, but the nature of Lady Laura's vehemence in urging
+upon her brother the performance of a very disagreeable task has not
+been sufficiently described. No brother would willingly go on such a
+mission from a married sister to a man who had been publicly named
+as that sister's lover;--and no brother could be less likely to do
+so than Lord Chiltern. But Lady Laura had been very stout in her
+arguments, and very strong-willed in her purpose. The income arising
+from this money,--which had been absolutely her own,--would again be
+exclusively her own should the claim to it on behalf of her husband's
+estate be abandoned. Surely she might do what she liked with her own.
+If her brother would not assist her in making this arrangement, it
+must be done by other means. She was quite willing that it should
+appear to come to Mr. Finn from her father and not from herself. Did
+her brother think any ill of her? Did he believe in the calumnies of
+the newspapers? Did he or his wife for a moment conceive that she
+had a lover? When he looked at her, worn out, withered, an old woman
+before her time, was it possible that he should so believe? She
+herself asked him these questions. Lord Chiltern of course declared
+that he had no suspicion of the kind. "No;--indeed," said Lady Laura.
+"I defy any one to suspect me who knows me. And if so, why am not
+I as much entitled to help a friend as you might be? You need not
+even mention my name." He endeavoured to make her understand that her
+name would be mentioned, and others would believe and would say evil
+things. "They cannot say worse than they have said," she continued.
+"And yet what harm have they done to me,--or you?" Then he demanded
+why she desired to go so far out of her way with the view of spending
+her money upon one who was in no way connected with her. "Because
+I like him better than any one else," she answered, boldly. "There
+is very little left for which I care at all;--but I do care for his
+prosperity. He was once in love with me and told me so,--but I had
+chosen to give my hand to Mr. Kennedy. He is not in love with me
+now,--nor I with him; but I choose to regard him as my friend." He
+assured her over and over again that Phineas Finn would certainly
+refuse to touch her money;--but this she declined to believe. At any
+rate the trial might be made. He would not refuse money left to him
+by will, and why should he not now enjoy that which was intended for
+him? Then she explained how certain it was that he must speedily
+vanish out of the world altogether, unless some assurance of an
+income were made to him. So Lord Chiltern went on his mission, hardly
+meaning to make the offer, and confident that it would be refused
+if made. We know the nature of the new trouble in which he found
+Phineas Finn enveloped. It was such that Lord Chiltern did not open
+his mouth about money, and now, having witnessed the scene at the
+police-office, he had come back to tell his tale to his sister. She
+was sitting with his wife when he entered the room.
+
+"Have you heard anything?" he asked at once.
+
+"Heard what?" said his wife.
+
+"Then you have not heard it. A man has been murdered."
+
+"What man?" said Lady Laura, jumping suddenly from her seat. "Not
+Robert!" Lord Chiltern shook his head. "You do not mean that Mr. Finn
+has been--killed!" Again he shook his head; and then she sat down as
+though the asking of the two questions had exhausted her.
+
+"Speak, Oswald," said his wife. "Why do you not tell us? Is it one
+whom we knew?"
+
+"I think that Laura used to know him. Mr. Bonteen was murdered last
+night in the streets."
+
+"Mr. Bonteen! The man who was Mr. Finn's enemy," said Lady Chiltern.
+
+"Mr. Bonteen!" said Lady Laura, as though the murder of twenty Mr.
+Bonteens were nothing to her.
+
+"Yes;--the man whom you talk of as Finn's enemy. It would be better
+if there were no such talk."
+
+"And who killed him?" said Lady Laura, again getting up and coming
+close to her brother.
+
+"Who was it, Oswald?" asked his wife; and she also was now too deeply
+interested to keep her seat.
+
+"They have arrested two men," said Lord Chiltern;--"that Jew who
+married Lady Eustace, and--" But there he paused. He had determined
+beforehand that he would tell his sister the double arrest that the
+doubt this implied might lessen the weight of the blow; but now he
+found it almost impossible to mention the name.
+
+"Who is the other, Oswald?" said his wife.
+
+"Not Phineas," screamed Lady Laura.
+
+"Yes, indeed; they have arrested him, and I have just come from
+the court." He had no time to go on, for his sister was crouching
+prostrate on the floor before him. She had not fainted. Women do
+not faint under such shocks. But in her agony she had crouched down
+rather than fallen, as though it were vain to attempt to stand
+upright with so crushing a weight of sorrow on her back. She uttered
+one loud shriek, and then covering her face with her hands burst out
+into a wail of sobs. Lady Chiltern and her brother both tried to
+raise her, but she would not be lifted. "Why will you not hear me
+through, Laura?" said he.
+
+"You do not think he did it?" said his wife.
+
+"I'm sure he did not," replied Lord Chiltern.
+
+The poor woman, half-lying, half-seated, on the floor, still hiding
+her face with her hands, still bursting with half suppressed sobs,
+heard and understood both the question and the answer. But the fact
+was not altered to her,--nor the condition of the man she loved.
+She had not yet begun to think whether it were possible that he
+should have been guilty of such a crime. She had heard none of the
+circumstances, and knew nothing of the manner of the man's death. It
+might be that Phineas had killed the man, bringing himself within the
+reach of the law, and that yet he should have done nothing to merit
+her reproaches;--hardly even her reprobation! Hitherto she felt only
+the sorrow, the annihilation of the blow;--but not the shame with
+which it would overwhelm the man for whom she so much coveted the
+good opinion of the world.
+
+"You hear what he says, Laura."
+
+"They are determined to destroy him," she sobbed out, through her
+tears.
+
+"They are not determined to destroy him at all," said Lord Chiltern.
+"It will have to go by evidence. You had better sit up and let me
+tell you all. I will tell you nothing till you are seated again. You
+disgrace yourself by sprawling there."
+
+"Do not be hard to her, Oswald."
+
+"I am disgraced," said Lady Laura, slowly rising and placing herself
+again on the sofa. "If there is anything more to tell, you can tell
+it. I do not care what happens to me now, or who knows it. They
+cannot make my life worse than it is."
+
+Then he told all the story,--of the quarrel, and the position of the
+streets, of the coat, and the bludgeon, and the three blows, each on
+the head, by which the man had been killed. And he told them also how
+the Jew was said never to have been out of his bed, and how the Jew's
+coat was not the coat Lord Fawn had seen, and how no stain of blood
+had been found about the raiment of either of the men. "It was the
+Jew who did it, Oswald, surely," said Lady Chiltern.
+
+"It was not Phineas Finn who did it," he replied.
+
+"And they will let him go again?"
+
+"They will let him go when they find out the truth, I suppose. But
+those fellows blunder so, I would never trust them. He will get some
+sharp lawyer to look into it; and then perhaps everything will come
+out. I shall go and see him to-morrow. But there is nothing further
+to be done."
+
+"And I must see him," said Lady Laura slowly.
+
+Lady Chiltern looked at her husband, and his face became redder than
+usual with an angry flush. When his sister had pressed him to take
+her message about the money, he had assured her that he suspected her
+of no evil. Nor had he ever thought evil of her. Since her marriage
+with Mr. Kennedy, he had seen but little of her or of her ways of
+life. When she had separated herself from her husband he had approved
+of the separation, and had even offered to assist her should she
+be in difficulty. While she had been living a sad lonely life at
+Dresden, he had simply pitied her, declaring to himself and his wife
+that her lot in life had been very hard. When these calumnies about
+her and Phineas Finn had reached his ears,--or his eyes,--as such
+calumnies always will reach the ears and eyes of those whom they
+are most capable of hurting, he had simply felt a desire to crush
+some Quintus Slide, or the like, into powder for the offence. He had
+received Phineas in his own house with all his old friendship. He had
+even this morning been with the accused man as almost his closest
+friend. But, nevertheless, there was creeping into his heart a sense
+of the shame with which he would be afflicted, should the world
+really be taught to believe that the man had been his sister's lover.
+Lady Laura's distress on the present occasion was such as a wife
+might show, or a girl weeping for her lover, or a mother for her son,
+or a sister for a brother; but was extravagant and exaggerated in
+regard to such friendship as might be presumed to exist between the
+wife of Mr. Robert Kennedy and the member for Tankerville. He could
+see that his wife felt this as he did, and he thought it necessary
+to say something at once, that might force his sister to moderate at
+any rate her language, if not her feelings. Two expressions of face
+were natural to him; one eloquent of good humour, in which the reader
+of countenances would find some promise of coming frolic;--and
+the other, replete with anger, sometimes to the extent almost of
+savagery. All those who were dependent on him were wont to watch
+his face with care and sometimes with fear. When he was angry it
+would almost seem that he was about to use personal violence on the
+object of his wrath. At the present moment he was rather grieved than
+enraged; but there came over his face that look of wrath with which
+all who knew him were so well acquainted. "You cannot see him," he
+said.
+
+"Why not I, as well as you?"
+
+"If you do not understand, I cannot tell you. But you must not see
+him;--and you shall not."
+
+"Who will hinder me?"
+
+"If you put me to it, I will see that you are hindered. What is the
+man to you that you should run the risk of evil tongues, for the sake
+of visiting him in gaol? You cannot save his life,--though it may be
+that you might endanger it."
+
+"Oswald," she said very slowly, "I do not know that I am in any way
+under your charge, or bound to submit to your orders."
+
+"You are my sister."
+
+"And I have loved you as a sister. How should it be possible that my
+seeing him should endanger his life?"
+
+"It will make people think that the things are true which have been
+said."
+
+"And will they hang him because I love him? I do love him. Violet
+knows how well I have always loved him." Lord Chiltern turned his
+angry face upon his wife. Lady Chiltern put her arm round her
+sister-in-law's waist, and whispered some words into her ear. "What
+is that to me?" continued the half-frantic woman. "I do love him. I
+have always loved him. I shall love him to the end. He is all my life
+to me."
+
+"Shame should prevent your telling it," said Lord Chiltern.
+
+"I feel no shame. There is no disgrace in love. I did disgrace
+myself when I gave the hand for which he asked to another man,
+because,--because--" But she was too noble to tell her brother even
+then that at the moment of her life to which she was alluding she had
+married the rich man, rejecting the poor man's hand, because she had
+given up all her fortune to the payment of her brother's debts. And
+he, though he had well known what he had owed to her, and had never
+been easy till he had paid the debt, remembered nothing of all this
+now. No lending and paying back of money could alter the nature
+either of his feelings or his duty in such an emergency as this.
+"And, mind you," she continued, turning to her sister-in-law, "there
+is no place for the shame of which he is thinking," and she pointed
+her finger out at her brother. "I love him,--as a mother might love
+her child, I fancy; but he has no love for me; none;--none. When I am
+with him, I am only a trouble to him. He comes to me, because he is
+good; but he would sooner be with you. He did love me once;--but then
+I could not afford to be so loved."
+
+"You can do no good by seeing him," said her brother.
+
+"But I will see him. You need not scowl at me as though you wished
+to strike me. I have gone through that which makes me different from
+other women, and I care not what they say of me. Violet understands
+it all;--but you understand nothing."
+
+"Be calm, Laura," said her sister-in-law, "and Oswald will do all
+that can be done."
+
+"But they will hang him."
+
+"Nonsense!" said her brother. "He has not been as yet committed for
+his trial. Heaven knows how much has to be done. It is as likely as
+not that in three days' time he will be out at large, and all the
+world will be running after him just because he has been in Newgate."
+
+"But who will look after him?"
+
+"He has plenty of friends. I will see that he is not left without
+everything that he wants."
+
+"But he will want money."
+
+"He has plenty of money for that. Do you take it quietly, and not
+make a fool of yourself. If the worst comes to the worst--"
+
+"Oh, heavens!"
+
+"Listen to me, if you can listen. Should the worst come to the worst,
+which I believe to be altogether impossible,--mind, I think it next
+to impossible, for I have never for a moment believed him to be
+guilty,--we will,--visit him,--together. Good-bye now. I am going
+to see that friend of his, Mr. Low." So saying Lord Chiltern went,
+leaving the two women together.
+
+"Why should he be so savage with me?" said Lady Laura.
+
+"He does not mean to be savage."
+
+"Does he speak to you like that? What right has he to tell me of
+shame? Has my life been so bad, and his so good? Do you think it
+shameful that I should love this man?" She sat looking into her
+friend's face, but her friend for a while hesitated to answer. "You
+shall tell me, Violet. We have known each other so well that I can
+bear to be told by you. Do not you love him?"
+
+"I love him!--certainly not."
+
+"But you did."
+
+"Not as you mean. Who can define love, and say what it is? There are
+so many kinds of love. We say that we love the Queen."
+
+"Psha!"
+
+"And we are to love all our neighbours. But as men and women talk of
+love, I never at any moment of my life loved any man but my husband.
+Mr. Finn was a great favourite with me,--always."
+
+"Indeed he was."
+
+"As any other man might be,--or any woman. He is so still, and with
+all my heart I hope that this may be untrue."
+
+"It is false as the Devil. It must be false. Can you think of the
+man,--his sweetness, the gentle nature of him, his open, free speech,
+and courage, and believe that he would go behind his enemy and knock
+his brains out in the dark? I can conceive it of myself, that I
+should do it, much easier than of him."
+
+"Oswald says it is false."
+
+"But he says it as partly believing that it is true. If it be true I
+will hang myself. There will be nothing left among men or women fit
+to live for. You think it shameful that I should love him."
+
+"I have not said so."
+
+"But you do."
+
+"I think there is cause for shame in your confessing it."
+
+"I do confess it."
+
+"You ask me, and press me, and because we have loved one another so
+well I must answer you. If a woman,--a married woman,--be oppressed
+by such a feeling, she should lay it down at the bottom of her heart,
+out of sight, never mentioning it, even to herself."
+
+"You talk of the heart as though we could control it."
+
+"The heart will follow the thoughts, and they may be controlled. I
+am not passionate, perhaps, as you are, and I think I can control
+my heart. But my fortune has been kind to me, and I have never been
+tempted. Laura, do not think I am preaching to you."
+
+"Oh no;--but your husband; think of him, and think of mine! You have
+babies."
+
+"May God make me thankful. I have every good thing on earth that God
+can give."
+
+"And what have I? To see that man prosper in life, who they tell me
+is a murderer; that man who is now in a felon's gaol,--whom they
+will hang for ought we know,--to see him go forward and justify
+my thoughts of him! that yesterday was all I had. To-day I have
+nothing,--except the shame with which you and Oswald say that I have
+covered myself."
+
+"Laura, I have never said so."
+
+"I saw it in your eye when he accused me. And I know that it is
+shameful. I do know that I am covered with shame. But I can bear my
+own disgrace better than his danger." After a long pause,--a silence
+of probably some fifteen minutes,--she spoke again. "If Robert should
+die,--what would happen then?"
+
+"It would be--a release, I suppose," said Lady Chiltern in a voice so
+low, that it was almost a whisper.
+
+"A release indeed;--and I would become that man's wife the next day,
+at the foot of the gallows;--if he would have me. But he would not
+have me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LII.
+
+MR. KENNEDY'S WILL.
+
+
+Mr. Kennedy had fired a pistol at Phineas Finn in Macpherson's Hotel
+with the manifest intention of blowing out the brains of his presumed
+enemy, and no public notice had been taken of the occurrence. Phineas
+himself had been only too willing to pass the thing by as a trifling
+accident, if he might be allowed to do so, and the Macphersons had
+been by far too true to their great friend to think of giving him in
+charge to the police. The affair had been talked about, and had come
+to the knowledge of reporters and editors. Most of the newspapers had
+contained paragraphs giving various accounts of the matter; and one
+or two had followed the example of The People's Banner in demanding
+that the police should investigate the matter. But the matter had not
+been investigated. The police were supposed to know nothing about
+it,--as how should they, no one having seen or heard the shot but
+they who were determined to be silent? Mr. Quintus Slide had been
+indignant all in vain, so far as Mr. Kennedy and his offence had
+been concerned. As soon as the pistol had been fired and Phineas
+had escaped from the room, the unfortunate man had sunk back in
+his chair, conscious of what he had done, knowing that he had
+made himself subject to the law, and expecting every minute that
+constables would enter the room to seize him. He had seen his enemy's
+hat lying on the floor, and, when nobody would come to fetch it, had
+thrown it down the stairs. After that he had sat waiting for the
+police, with the pistol, still loaded in every barrel but one, lying
+by his side,--hardly repenting the attempt, but trembling for the
+result,--till Macpherson, the landlord, who had been brought home
+from chapel, knocked at his door. There was very little said between
+them; and no positive allusion was made to the shot that had been
+fired; but Macpherson succeeded in getting the pistol into his
+possession,--as to which the unfortunate man put no impediment in
+his way, and he managed to have it understood that Mr. Kennedy's
+cousin should be summoned on the following morning. "Is anybody else
+coming?" Robert Kennedy asked, when the landlord was about to leave
+the room. "Naebody as I ken o', yet, laird," said Macpherson, "but
+likes they will." Nobody, however, did come, and the "laird" had
+spent the evening by himself in very wretched solitude.
+
+On the following day the cousin had come, and to him the whole story
+was told. After that, no difficulty was found in taking the miserable
+man back to Loughlinter, and there he had been for the last two
+months in the custody of his more wretched mother and of his cousin.
+No legal steps had been taken to deprive him of the management either
+of himself or of his property,--so that he was in truth his own
+master. And he exercised his mastery in acts of petty tyranny about
+his domain, becoming more and more close-fisted in regard to money,
+and desirous, as it appeared, of starving all living things about the
+place,--cattle, sheep, and horses, so that the value of their food
+might be saved. But every member of the establishment knew that the
+laird was "nae just himself," and consequently his orders were not
+obeyed. And the laird knew the same of himself, and, though he would
+give the orders not only resolutely, but with imperious threats of
+penalties to follow disobedience, still he did not seem to expect
+compliance. While he was in this state, letters addressed to him came
+for a while into his own hands, and thus more than one reached him
+from Lord Brentford's lawyer, demanding that restitution should be
+made of the interest arising from Lady Laura's fortune. Then he would
+fly out into bitter wrath, calling his wife foul names, and swearing
+that she should never have a farthing of his money to spend upon her
+paramour. Of course it was his money, and his only. All the world
+knew that. Had she not left his roof, breaking her marriage vows,
+throwing aside every duty, and bringing him down to his present state
+of abject misery? Her own fortune! If she wanted the interest of her
+wretched money, let her come to Loughlinter and receive it there. In
+spite of all her wickedness, her cruelty, her misconduct, which had
+brought him,--as he now said,--to the verge of the grave, he would
+still give her shelter and room for repentance. He recognised his
+vows, though she did not. She should still be his wife, though she
+had utterly disgraced both herself and him. She should still be his
+wife, though she had so lived as to make it impossible that there
+should be any happiness in their household.
+
+It was thus he spoke when first one and then another letter came
+from the Earl's lawyer, pointing out to him the injustice to which
+Lady Laura was subjected by the loss of her fortune. No doubt these
+letters would not have been written in the line assumed had not Mr.
+Kennedy proved himself to be unfit to have the custody of his wife
+by attempting to shoot the man whom he accused of being his wife's
+lover. An act had been done, said the lawyer, which made it quite
+out of the question that Lady Laura should return to her husband.
+To this, when speaking of the matter to those around him,--which he
+did with an energy which seemed to be foreign to his character,--Mr.
+Kennedy made no direct allusion; but he swore most positively that
+not a shilling should be given up. The fear of policemen coming down
+to Loughlinter to take account of that angry shot had passed away;
+and, though he knew, with an uncertain knowledge, that he was not in
+all respects obeyed as he used to be,--that his orders were disobeyed
+by stewards and servants, in spite of his threats of dismissal,--he
+still felt that he was sufficiently his own master to defy the Earl's
+attorney and to maintain his claim upon his wife's person. Let her
+return to him first of all!
+
+But after a while the cousin interfered still further; and Robert
+Kennedy, who so short a time since had been a member of the
+Government, graced by permission to sit in the Cabinet, was not
+allowed to open his own post-bag. He had written a letter to one
+person, and then again to another, which had induced those who
+received them to return answers to the cousin. To Lord Brentford's
+lawyer he had used a few very strong words. Mr. Forster had replied
+to the cousin, stating how grieved Lord Brentford would be, how much
+grieved would be Lady Laura, to find themselves driven to take steps
+in reference to what they conceived to be the unfortunate condition
+of Mr. Robert Kennedy; but that such steps must be taken unless some
+arrangement could be made which should be at any rate reasonable.
+Then Mr. Kennedy's post-bag was taken from him; the letters which
+he wrote were not sent;--and he took to his bed. It was during this
+condition of affairs that the cousin took upon himself to intimate
+to Mr. Forster that the managers of Mr. Kennedy's estate were by
+no means anxious of embarrassing their charge by so trumpery an
+additional matter as the income derived from Lady Laura's forty
+thousand pounds.
+
+But things were in a terrible confusion at Loughlinter. Rents were
+paid as heretofore on receipts given by Robert Kennedy's agent; but
+the agent could only pay the money to Robert Kennedy's credit at his
+bank. Robert Kennedy's cheques would, no doubt, have drawn the money
+out again;--but it was almost impossible to induce Robert Kennedy
+to sign a cheque. Even in bed he inquired daily about his money,
+and knew accurately the sum lying at his banker's; but he could be
+persuaded to disgorge nothing. He postponed from day to day the
+signing of certain cheques that were brought to him, and alleged very
+freely that an attempt was being made to rob him. During all his life
+he had been very generous in subscribing to public charities; but
+now he stopped all his subscriptions. The cousin had to provide even
+for the payment of wages, and things went very badly at Loughlinter.
+Then there arose the question whether legal steps should be taken for
+placing the management of the estate in other hands, on the ground
+of the owner's insanity. But the wretched old mother begged that
+this might not be done;--and Dr. Macnuthrie, from Callender, was of
+opinion that no steps should be taken at present. Mr. Kennedy was
+very ill,--very ill indeed; would take no nourishment, and seemed to
+be sinking under the pressure of his misfortunes. Any steps such as
+those suggested would probably send their friend out of the world at
+once.
+
+In fact Robert Kennedy was dying;--and in the first week of May, when
+the beauty of the spring was beginning to show itself on the braes of
+Loughlinter, he did die. The old woman, his mother, was seated by his
+bedside, and into her ears he murmured his last wailing complaint.
+"If she had the fear of God before her eyes, she would come back
+to me." "Let us pray that He may soften her heart," said the old
+lady. "Eh, mother;--nothing can soften the heart Satan has hardened,
+till it be hard as the nether millstone." And in that faith he died
+believing, as he had ever believed, that the spirit of evil was
+stronger than the spirit of good.
+
+
+[Illustration: "He may soften her heart."]
+
+
+For some time past there had been perturbation in the mind of that
+cousin, and of all other Kennedys of that ilk, as to the nature of
+the will of the head of the family. It was feared lest he should have
+been generous to the wife who was believed by them all to have been
+so wicked and treacherous to her husband;--and so it was found to be
+when the will was read. During the last few months no one near him
+had dared to speak to him of his will, for it had been known that
+his condition of mind rendered him unfit to alter it; nor had he
+ever alluded to it himself. As a matter of course there had been a
+settlement, and it was supposed that Lady Laura's own money would
+revert to her; but when it was found that in addition to this the
+Loughlinter estate became hers for life, in the event of Mr. Kennedy
+dying without a child, there was great consternation among the
+Kennedys generally. There were but two or three of them concerned,
+and for those there was money enough; but it seemed to them now that
+the bad wife, who had utterly refused to acclimatise herself to the
+soil to which she had been transplanted, was to be rewarded for her
+wicked stubbornness. Lady Laura would become mistress of her own
+fortune and of all Loughlinter, and would be once more a free woman,
+with all the power that wealth and fashion can give. Alas, alas! it
+was too late now for the taking of any steps to sever her from her
+rich inheritance! "And the false harlot will come and play havoc
+here, in my son's mansion," said the old woman with extremest
+bitterness.
+
+The tidings were conveyed to Lady Laura through her lawyer, but did
+not reach her in full till some eight or ten days after the news of
+her husband's death. The telegram announcing that event had come to
+her at her father's house in Portman Square, on the day after that
+on which Phineas had been arrested, and the Earl had of course known
+that his great longing for the recovery of his wife's fortune had
+been now realised. To him there was no sorrow in the news. He had
+only known Robert Kennedy as one who had been thoroughly disagreeable
+to himself, and who had persecuted his daughter throughout
+their married life. There had come no happiness,--not even
+prosperity,--through the marriage. His daughter had been forced to
+leave the man's house,--and had been forced also to leave her money
+behind her. Then she had been driven abroad, fearing persecution, and
+had only dared to return when the man's madness became so notorious
+as to annul his power of annoying her. Now by his death, a portion
+of the injury which he had inflicted on the great family of Standish
+would be remedied. The money would come back,--together with the
+stipulated jointure,--and there could no longer be any question of
+return. The news delighted the old Lord,--and he was almost angry
+with his daughter because she also would not confess her delight.
+
+"Oh, Papa, he was my husband."
+
+"Yes, yes, no doubt. I was always against it, you will remember."
+
+"Pray do not talk in that way now, Papa. I know that I was not to him
+what I should have been."
+
+"You used to say it was all his fault."
+
+"We will not talk of it now, Papa. He is gone, and I remember his
+past goodness to me."
+
+She clothed herself in the deepest of mourning, and made herself a
+thing of sorrow by the sacrificial uncouthness of her garments. And
+she tried to think of him;--to think of him, and not to think of
+Phineas Finn. She remembered with real sorrow the words she had
+spoken to her sister-in-law, in which she had declared, while still
+the wife of another man, that she would willingly marry Phineas at
+the foot even of the gallows if she were free. She was free now; but
+she did not repeat her assertion. It was impossible not to think of
+Phineas in his present strait, but she abstained from speaking of him
+as far as she could, and for the present never alluded to her former
+purpose of visiting him in his prison.
+
+From day to day, for the first few days of her widowhood, she heard
+what was going on. The evidence against him became stronger and
+stronger, whereas the other man, Yosef Mealyus, had been already
+liberated. There were still many who felt sure that Mealyus had been
+the murderer, among whom were all those who had been ranked among
+the staunch friends of our hero. The Chilterns so believed, and Lady
+Laura; the Duchess so believed, and Madame Goesler. Mr. Low felt sure
+of it, and Mr. Monk and Lord Cantrip; and nobody was more sure than
+Mrs. Bunce. There were many who professed that they doubted; men such
+as Barrington Erle, Laurence Fitzgibbon, the two Dukes,--though the
+younger Duke never expressed such doubt at home,--and Mr. Gresham
+himself. Indeed, the feeling of Parliament in general was one of
+great doubt. Mr. Daubeny never expressed an opinion one way or the
+other, feeling that the fate of two second-class Liberals could
+not be matter of concern to him;--but Sir Orlando Drought, and Mr.
+Roby, and Mr. Boffin, were as eager as though they had not been
+Conservatives, and were full of doubt. Surely, if Phineas Finn were
+not the murderer, he had been more ill-used by Fate than had been any
+man since Fate first began to be unjust. But there was also a very
+strong party by whom no doubt whatever was entertained as to his
+guilt,--at the head of which, as in duty bound, was the poor widow,
+Mrs. Bonteen. She had no doubt as to the hand by which her husband
+had fallen, and clamoured loudly for the vengeance of the law. All
+the world, she said, knew how bitter against her husband had been
+this wretch, whose villainy had been exposed by her dear, gracious
+lord; and now the evidence against him was, to her thinking,
+complete. She was supported strongly by Lady Eustace, who, much as
+she wished not to be the wife of the Bohemian Jew, thought even that
+preferable to being known as the widow of a murderer who had been
+hung. Mr. Ratler, with one or two others in the House, was certain
+of Finn's guilt. The People's Banner, though it prefaced each
+one of its daily paragraphs on the subject with a statement as to
+the manifest duty of an influential newspaper to abstain from the
+expression of any opinion on such a subject till the question had
+been decided by a jury, nevertheless from day to day recapitulated
+the evidence against the Member for Tankerville, and showed how
+strong were the motives which had existed for such a deed. But, among
+those who were sure of Finn's guilt, there was no one more sure than
+Lord Fawn, who had seen the coat and the height of the man,--and the
+step. He declared among his intimate friends that of course he could
+not swear to the person. He could not venture, when upon his oath,
+to give an opinion. But the man who had passed him at so quick a
+pace had been half a foot higher than Mealyus;--of that there could
+be no doubt. Nor could there be any doubt as to the grey coat. Of
+course there might be other men with grey coats besides Mr. Phineas
+Finn,--and other men half a foot taller than Yosef Mealyus. And there
+might be other men with that peculiarly energetic step. And the man
+who hurried by him might not have been the man who murdered Mr.
+Bonteen. Of all that Lord Fawn could say nothing. But what he did
+say,--of that he was sure. And all those who knew him were well aware
+that in his own mind he was convinced of the guilt of Phineas Finn.
+And there was another man equally convinced. Mr. Maule, Senior,
+remembered well the manner in which Madame Goesler spoke of Phineas
+Finn in reference to the murder, and was quite sure that Phineas was
+the murderer.
+
+For a couple of days Lord Chiltern was constantly with the poor
+prisoner, but after that he was obliged to return to Harrington
+Hall. This he did a day after the news arrived of the death of his
+brother-in-law. Both he and Lady Chiltern had promised to return
+home, having left Adelaide Palliser alone in the house, and already
+they had overstayed their time. "Of course I will remain with you,"
+Lady Chiltern had said to her sister-in-law; but the widow had
+preferred to be left alone. For these first few days,--when she must
+make pretence of sorrow because her husband had died; and had such
+real cause for sorrow in the miserable condition of the man she
+loved,--she preferred to be alone. Who could sympathise with her now,
+or with whom could she speak of her grief? Her father was talking to
+her always of her money;--but from him she could endure it. She was
+used to him, and could remember when he spoke to her of her forty
+thousand pounds, and of her twelve hundred a year of jointure, that
+it had not always been with him like that. As yet nothing had been
+heard of the will, and the Earl did not in the least anticipate any
+further accession of wealth from the estate of the man whom they had
+all hated. But his daughter would now be a rich woman; and was yet
+young, and there might still be splendour. "I suppose you won't care
+to buy land," he said.
+
+"Oh, Papa, do not talk of buying anything yet."
+
+"But, my dear Laura, you must put your money into something. You can
+get very nearly 5 per cent. from Indian Stock."
+
+"Not yet, Papa," she said. But he proceeded to explain to her how
+very important an affair money is, and that persons who have got
+money cannot be excused for not considering what they had better do
+with it. No doubt she could get 4 per cent. on her money by buying up
+certain existing mortgages on the Saulsby property,--which would no
+doubt be very convenient if, hereafter, the money should go to her
+brother's child. "Not yet, Papa," she said again, having, however,
+already made up her mind that her money should have a different
+destination.
+
+She could not interest her father at all in the fate of Phineas Finn.
+When the story of the murder had first been told to him, he had been
+amazed,--and, no doubt, somewhat gratified, as we all are, at tragic
+occurrences which do not concern ourselves. But he could not be made
+to tremble for the fate of Phineas Finn. And yet he had known the man
+during the last few years most intimately, and had had much in common
+with him. He had trusted Phineas in respect to his son, and had
+trusted him also in respect to his daughter. Phineas had been his
+guest at Dresden; and, on his return to London, had been the first
+friend he had seen, with the exception of his lawyer. And yet he
+could hardly be induced to express the slightest interest as to
+the fate of this friend who was to be tried for murder. "Oh;--he's
+committed, is he? I think I remember that Protheroe once told me
+that, in thirty-nine cases out of forty, men committed for serious
+offences have been guilty of them." The Protheroe here spoken of as
+an authority in criminal matters was at present Lord Weazeling, the
+Lord Chancellor.
+
+"But Mr. Finn has not been guilty, Papa."
+
+"There is always the one chance out of forty. But, as I was saying,
+if you like to take up the Saulsby mortgages, Mr. Forster can't be
+told too soon."
+
+"Papa, I shall do nothing of the kind," said Lady Laura. And then she
+rose and walked out of the room.
+
+At the end of ten days from the death of Mr. Kennedy, there came the
+tidings of the will. Lady Laura had written to Mrs. Kennedy a letter
+which had taken her much time in composition, expressing her deep
+sorrow, and condoling with the old woman. And the old woman had
+answered. "Madam, I am too old now to express either grief or anger.
+My dear son's death, caused by domestic wrong, has robbed me of any
+remaining comfort which the undeserved sorrows of his latter years
+had not already dispelled. Your obedient servant, Sarah Kennedy."
+From which it may be inferred that she had also taken considerable
+trouble in the composition of her letter. Other communications
+between Loughlinter and Portman Square there were none, but there
+came through the lawyers a statement of Mr. Kennedy's will, as far as
+the interests of Lady Laura were concerned. This reached Mr. Forster
+first, and he brought it personally to Portman Square. He asked for
+Lady Laura, and saw her alone. "He has bequeathed to you the use of
+Loughlinter for your life, Lady Laura."
+
+"To me!"
+
+"Yes, Lady Laura. The will is dated in the first year of his
+marriage, and has not been altered since."
+
+"What can I do with Loughlinter? I will give it back to them." Then
+Mr. Forster explained that the legacy referred not only to the house
+and immediate grounds,--but to the whole estate known as the domain
+of Loughlinter. There could be no reason why she should give it up,
+but very many why she should not do so. Circumstanced as Mr. Kennedy
+had been, with no one nearer to him than a first cousin, with a
+property purchased with money saved by his father,--a property to
+which no cousin could by inheritance have any claim,--he could not
+have done better with it than to leave it to his widow in fault of
+any issue of his own. Then the lawyer explained that were she to give
+it up, the world would of course say that she had done so from a
+feeling of her own unworthiness. "Why should I feel myself to be
+unworthy?" she asked. The lawyer smiled, and told her that of course
+she would retain Loughlinter.
+
+Then, at her request, he was taken to the Earl's room and there
+repeated the good news. Lady Laura preferred not to hear her father's
+first exultations. But while this was being done she also exulted.
+Might it not still be possible that there should be before her a
+happy evening to her days; and that she might stand once more beside
+the falls of Linter, contented, hopeful, nay, almost glorious, with
+her hand in his to whom she had once refused her own on that very
+spot?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIII.
+
+NONE BUT THE BRAVE DESERVE THE FAIR.
+
+
+Though Mr. Robert Kennedy was lying dead at Loughlinter, and though
+Phineas Finn, a member of Parliament, was in prison, accused of
+murdering another member of Parliament, still the world went on with
+its old ways, down in the neighbourhood of Harrington Hall and Spoon
+Hall as at other places. The hunting with the Brake hounds was now
+over for the season,--had indeed been brought to an auspicious end
+three weeks since,--and such gentlemen as Thomas Spooner had time on
+their hands to look about their other concerns. When a man hunts five
+days a week, regardless of distances, and devotes a due proportion
+of his energies to the necessary circumstances of hunting, the
+preservation of foxes, the maintenance of good humour with the
+farmers, the proper compensation for poultry really killed by
+four-legged favourites, the growth and arrangement of coverts, the
+lying-in of vixens, and the subsequent guardianship of nurseries, the
+persecution of enemies, and the warm protection of friends,--when
+he follows the sport, accomplishing all the concomitant duties of a
+true sportsman, he has not much time left for anything. Such a one
+as Mr. Spooner of Spoon Hall finds that his off day is occupied from
+breakfast to dinner with grooms, keepers, old women with turkeys'
+heads, and gentlemen in velveteens with information about wires and
+unknown earths. His letters fall naturally to the Sunday afternoon,
+and are hardly written before sleep overpowers him. Many a large
+fortune has been made with less of true devotion to the work than is
+given to hunting by so genuine a sportsman as Mr. Spooner.
+
+Our friend had some inkling of this himself, and felt that many of
+the less important affairs of his life were neglected because he
+was so true to the one great object of his existence. He had wisely
+endeavoured to prevent wrack and ruin among the affairs of Spoon
+Hall,--and had thoroughly succeeded by joining his cousin Ned with
+himself in the administration of his estate,--but there were things
+which Ned with all his zeal and all his cleverness could not do for
+him. He was conscious that had he been as remiss in the matter of
+hunting, as that hard-riding but otherwise idle young scamp, Gerard
+Maule, he might have succeeded much better than he had hitherto done
+with Adelaide Palliser. "Hanging about and philandering, that's what
+they want," he said to his cousin Ned.
+
+"I suppose it is," said Ned. "I was fond of a girl once myself, and
+I hung about a good deal. But we hadn't sixpence between us."
+
+"That was Polly Maxwell. I remember. You behaved very badly then."
+
+"Very badly, Tom; about as bad as a man could behave,--and she was
+as bad. I loved her with all my heart, and I told her so. And she
+told me the same. There never was anything worse. We had just nothing
+between us, and nobody to give us anything."
+
+"It doesn't pay; does it, Ned, that kind of thing?"
+
+"It doesn't pay at all. I wouldn't give her up,--nor she me. She was
+about as pretty a girl as I remember to have seen."
+
+"I suppose you were a decent-looking fellow in those days yourself.
+They say so, but I never quite believed it."
+
+"There wasn't much in that," said Ned. "Girls don't want a man to be
+good-looking, but that he should speak up and not be afraid of them.
+There were lots of fellows came after her. You remember Blinks, of
+the Carabineers. He was full of money, and he asked her three times.
+She is an old maid to this day, and is living as companion to some
+crusty crochetty countess."
+
+"I think you did behave badly, Ned. Why didn't you set her free?"
+
+"Of course, I behaved badly. And why didn't she set me free, if you
+come to that? I might have found a female Blinks of my own,--only
+for her. I wonder whether it will come against us when we die, and
+whether we shall be brought up together to receive punishment."
+
+"Not if you repent, I suppose," said Tom Spooner, very seriously.
+
+"I sometimes ask myself whether she has repented. I made her swear
+that she'd never give me up. She might have broken her word a score
+of times, and I wish she had."
+
+"I think she was a fool, Ned."
+
+"Of course she was a fool. She knows that now, I dare say. And
+perhaps she has repented. Do you mean to try it again with that girl
+at Harrington Hall?"
+
+Mr. Thomas Spooner did mean to try it again with the girl at
+Harrington Hall. He had never quite trusted the note which he had
+got from his friend Chiltern, and had made up his mind that, to say
+the least of it, there had been very little friendship shown in the
+letter. Had Chiltern meant to have stood to him "like a brick," as he
+ought to have stood by his right hand man in the Brake country, at
+any rate a fair chance might have been given him. "Where the devil
+would he be in such a country as this without me,"--Tom had said
+to his cousin,--"not knowing a soul, and with all the shooting men
+against him? I might have had the hounds myself,--and might have 'em
+now if I cared to take them. It's not standing by a fellow as he
+ought to do. He writes to me, by George, just as he might do to some
+fellow who never had a fox about his place."
+
+"I suppose he didn't put the two things together," said Ned Spooner.
+
+"I hate a fellow that can't put two things together. If I stand to
+you you've a right to stand to me. That's what you mean by putting
+two things together. I mean to have another shy at her. She has
+quarrelled with that fellow Maule altogether. I've learned that from
+the gardener's girl at Harrington."
+
+Yes,--he would make another attempt. All history, all romance, all
+poetry and all prose, taught him that perseverance in love was
+generally crowned with success,--that true love rarely was crowned
+with success except by perseverance. Such a simple little tale of
+boy's passion as that told him by his cousin had no attraction for
+him. A wife would hardly be worth having, and worth keeping, so won.
+And all proverbs were on his side. "None but the brave deserve the
+fair," said his cousin. "I shall stick to it," said Tom Spooner.
+"Labor omnia vincit," said his cousin. But what should be his next
+step? Gerard Maule had been sent away with a flea in his ear,--so, at
+least, Mr. Spooner asserted, and expressed an undoubting opinion that
+this imperative dismissal had come from the fact that Gerard Maule,
+when "put through his facings" about income was not able to "show the
+money." "She's not one of your Polly Maxwells, Ned." Ned said that he
+supposed she was not one of that sort. "Heaven knows I couldn't show
+the money," said Ned, "but that didn't make her any wiser." Then Tom
+gave it as his opinion that Miss Palliser was one of those young
+women who won't go anywhere without having everything about them.
+"She could have her own carriage with me, and her own horses, and her
+own maid, and everything."
+
+"Her own way into the bargain," said Ned. Whereupon Tom Spooner
+winked, and suggested that that might be as things turned out after
+the marriage. He was quite willing to run his chance for that.
+
+But how was he to get at her to prosecute his suit? As to writing to
+her direct,--he didn't much believe in that. "It looks as though one
+were afraid of her, you know;--which I ain't the least. I stood up to
+her before, and I wasn't a bit more nervous than I am at this moment.
+Were you nervous in that affair with Miss Maxwell?"
+
+"Ah;--it's a long time ago. There wasn't much nervousness there."
+
+"A sort of milkmaid affair?"
+
+"Just that."
+
+"That is different, you know. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll just
+drive slap over to Harrington and chance it. I'll take the two bays
+in the phaeton. Who's afraid?"
+
+"There's nothing to be afraid of," said Ned.
+
+"Old Chiltern is such a d---- cantankerous fellow, and perhaps Lady
+C. may say that I oughtn't to have taken advantage of her absence.
+But, what's the odds? If she takes me there'll be an end of it. If
+she don't, they can't eat me."
+
+"The only thing is whether they'll let you in."
+
+"I'll try at any rate," said Tom, "and you shall go over with me.
+You won't mind trotting about the grounds while I'm carrying on the
+war inside? I'll take the two bays, and Dick Farren behind, and I
+don't think there's a prettier got-up trap in the county. We'll go
+to-morrow."
+
+And on the morrow they did start, having heard on that very morning
+of the arrest of Phineas Finn. "By George, don't it feel odd," said
+Tom just as they started,--"a fellow that we used to know down here,
+having him out hunting and all that, and now he's--a murderer! Isn't
+it a coincidence?"
+
+"It startles one," said Ned.
+
+"That's what I mean. It's such a strange thing that it should be the
+man we know ourselves. These things always are happening to me. Do
+you remember when poor Fred Fellows got his bad fall and died the
+next year? You weren't here then."
+
+"I've heard you speak of it."
+
+"I was in the very same field, and should have been the man to pick
+him up, only the hounds had just turned to the left. It's very odd
+that these coincidences always are happening to some men and never do
+happen to others. It makes one feel that he's marked out, you know."
+
+"I hope you'll be marked out by victory to-day."
+
+"Well;--yes. That's more important just now than Mr. Bonteen's
+murder. Do you know, I wish you'd drive. These horses are pulling,
+and I don't want to be all in a flurry when I get to Harrington."
+Now it was a fact very well known to all concerned with Spoon Hall,
+that there was nothing as to which the Squire was so jealous as
+the driving of his own horses. He would never trust the reins to a
+friend, and even Ned had hardly ever been allowed the honour of the
+whip when sitting with his cousin. "I'm apt to get red in the face
+when I'm overheated," said Tom as he made himself comfortable and
+easy in the left hand seat.
+
+There were not many more words spoken during the journey. The lover
+was probably justified in feeling some trepidation. He had been quite
+correct in suggesting that the matter between him and Miss Palliser
+bore no resemblance at all to that old affair between his cousin Ned
+and Polly Maxwell. There had been as little trepidation as money in
+that case,--simply love and kisses, parting, despair, and a broken
+heart. Here things were more august. There was plenty of money, and,
+let affairs go as they might, there would be no broken heart. But
+that perseverance in love of which Mr. Spooner intended to make
+himself so bright an example does require some courage. The Adelaide
+Pallisers of the world have a way of making themselves uncommonly
+unpleasant to a man when they refuse him for the third or fourth
+time. They allow themselves sometimes to express a contempt which is
+almost akin to disgust, and to speak to a lover as though he were no
+better than a footman. And then the lover is bound to bear it all,
+and when he has borne it, finds it so very difficult to get out of
+the room. Mr. Spooner had some idea of all this as his cousin drove
+him up to the door, at what he then thought a very fast pace. "D----
+it all," he said, "you needn't have brought them up so confoundedly
+hot." But it was not of the horses that he was really thinking, but
+of the colour of his own nose. There was something working within
+him which had flurried him, in spite of the tranquillity of his idle
+seat.
+
+Not the less did he spring out of the phaeton with a quite youthful
+jump. It was well that every one about Harrington Hall should know
+how alert he was on his legs; a little weather-beaten about the face
+he might be; but he could get in and out of his saddle as quickly
+as Gerard Maule even yet; and for a short distance would run Gerard
+Maule for a ten-pound note. He dashed briskly up to the door, and
+rang the bell as though he feared neither Adelaide nor Lord Chiltern
+any more than he did his own servants at Spoon Hall. "Was Miss
+Palliser at home?" The maid-servant who opened the door told him that
+Miss Palliser was at home, with a celerity which he certainly had
+not expected. The male members of the establishment were probably
+disporting themselves in the absence of their master and mistress,
+and Adelaide Palliser was thus left to the insufficient guardianship
+of young women who were altogether without discretion. "Yes, sir;
+Miss Palliser is at home." So said the indiscreet female, and Mr.
+Spooner was for the moment confounded by his own success. He had
+hardly told himself what reception he had expected, or whether, in
+the event of the servant informing him at the front door that the
+young lady was not at home he would make any further immediate effort
+to prolong the siege so as to force an entry; but now, when he had
+carried the very fortress by surprise, his heart almost misgave him.
+He certainly had not thought, when he descended from his chariot like
+a young Bacchus in quest of his Ariadne, that he should so soon be
+enabled to repeat the tale of his love. But there he was, confronted
+with Ariadne before he had had a moment to shake his godlike locks or
+arrange the divinity of his thoughts. "Mr. Spooner," said the maid,
+opening the door.
+
+"Oh dear!" exclaimed Ariadne, feeling the vainness of her wish to fly
+from the god. "You know, Mary, that Lady Chiltern is up in London."
+
+"But he didn't ask for Lady Chiltern, Miss." Then there was a pause,
+during which the maid-servant managed to shut the door and to escape.
+
+"Lord Chiltern is up in London," said Miss Palliser, rising from her
+chair, "and Lady Chiltern is with him. They will be at home, I think,
+to-morrow, but I am not quite sure." She looked at him rather as
+Diana might have looked at poor Orion than as any Ariadne at any
+Bacchus; and for a moment Mr. Spooner felt that the pale chillness of
+the moon was entering in upon his very heart and freezing the blood
+in his veins.
+
+"Miss Palliser--" he began.
+
+But Adelaide was for the moment an unmitigated Diana. "Mr. Spooner,"
+she said, "I cannot for an instant suppose that you wish to say
+anything to me."
+
+"But I do," said he, laying his hand upon his heart.
+
+"Then I must declare that--that--that you ought not to. And I hope
+you won't. Lady Chiltern is not in the house, and I think that--that
+you ought to go away. I do, indeed."
+
+But Mr. Spooner, though the interview had been commenced with
+unexpected and almost painful suddenness, was too much a man to be
+driven off by the first angry word. He remembered that this Diana was
+but mortal; and he remembered, too, that though he had entered in
+upon her privacy he had done so in a manner recognised by the world
+as lawful. There was no reason why he should allow himself to be
+congealed,--or even banished out of the grotto of the nymph,--without
+speaking a word on his own behalf. Were he to fly now, he must
+fly for ever; whereas, if he fought now,--fought well, even though
+not successfully at the moment,--he might fight again. While Miss
+Palliser was scowling at him he resolved upon fighting. "Miss
+Palliser," he said, "I did not come to see Lady Chiltern; I came to
+see you. And now that I have been happy enough to find you I hope you
+will listen to me for a minute. I shan't do you any harm."
+
+"I'm not afraid of any harm, but I cannot think that you have
+anything to say that can do anybody any good." She sat down, however,
+and so far yielded. "Of course I cannot make you go away, Mr.
+Spooner; but I should have thought, when I asked you--"
+
+Mr. Spooner also seated himself, and uttered a sigh. Making love to
+a sweet, soft, blushing, willing, though silent girl is a pleasant
+employment; but the task of declaring love to a stony-hearted,
+obdurate, ill-conditioned Diana is very disagreeable for any
+gentleman. And it is the more so when the gentleman really loves,--or
+thinks that he loves,--his Diana. Mr. Spooner did believe himself
+to be verily in love. Having sighed, he began: "Miss Palliser, this
+opportunity of declaring to you the state of my heart is too valuable
+to allow me to give it up without--without using it."
+
+"It can't be of any use."
+
+"Oh, Miss Palliser,--if you knew my feelings!"
+
+"But I know my own."
+
+"They may change, Miss Palliser."
+
+"No, they can't."
+
+"Don't say that, Miss Palliser."
+
+"But I do say it. I say it over and over again. I don't know what any
+gentleman can gain by persecuting a lady. You oughtn't to have been
+shown up here at all."
+
+Mr. Spooner knew well that women have been won even at the tenth time
+of asking, and this with him was only the third. "I think if you knew
+my heart--" he commenced.
+
+"I don't want to know your heart."
+
+"You might listen to a man, at any rate."
+
+"I don't want to listen. It can't do any good. I only want you to
+leave me alone, and go away."
+
+"I don't know what you take me for," said Mr. Spooner, beginning to
+wax angry.
+
+"I haven't taken you for anything at all. This is very disagreeable
+and very foolish. A lady has a right to know her own mind, and she
+has a right not to be persecuted." She would have referred to Lord
+Chiltern's letter had not all the hopes of her heart been so terribly
+crushed since that letter had been written. In it he had openly
+declared that she was already engaged to be married to Mr. Maule,
+thinking that he would thus put an end to Mr. Spooner's little
+adventure. But since the writing of Lord Chiltern's letter that
+unfortunate reference had been made to Boulogne, and every particle
+of her happiness had been destroyed. She was a miserable, blighted
+young woman, who had quarrelled irretrievably with her lover, feeling
+greatly angry with herself because she had made the quarrel, and yet
+conscious that her own self-respect had demanded the quarrel. She was
+full of regret, declaring to herself from morning to night that, in
+spite of all his manifest wickedness in having talked of Boulogne,
+she never could care at all for any other man. And now there was this
+aggravation to her misery,--this horrid suitor, who disgraced her by
+making those around her suppose it to be possible that she should
+ever accept him; who had probably heard of her quarrel, and had been
+mean enough to suppose that therefore there might be a chance for
+himself! She did despise him, and wanted him to understand that she
+despised him.
+
+"I believe I am in a condition to offer my hand and fortune to any
+young lady without impropriety," said Mr. Spooner.
+
+"I don't know anything about your condition."
+
+"But I will tell you everything."
+
+"I don't want to know anything about it."
+
+"I have an estate of--"
+
+"I don't want to know about your estate. I won't hear about your
+estate. It can be nothing to me."
+
+"It is generally considered to be a matter of some importance."
+
+"It is of no importance to me, at all, Mr. Spooner; and I won't hear
+anything about it. If all the parish belonged to you, it would not
+make any difference."
+
+"All the parish does belong to me, and nearly all the next," replied
+Mr. Spooner, with great dignity.
+
+"Then you'd better find some lady who would like to have two
+parishes. They haven't any weight with me at all." At that moment
+she told herself how much she would prefer even Bou--logne, to Mr.
+Spooner's two parishes.
+
+"What is it that you find so wrong about me?" asked the unhappy
+suitor.
+
+Adelaide looked at him, and longed to tell him that his nose was red.
+And, though she would not quite do that, she could not bring herself
+to spare him. What right had he to come to her,--a nasty, red-nosed
+old man, who knew nothing about anything but foxes and horses,--to
+her, who had never given him the encouragement of a single smile? She
+could not allude to his nose, but in regard to his other defects she
+would not spare him. "Our tastes are not the same, Mr. Spooner."
+
+"You are very fond of hunting."
+
+"And our ages are not the same."
+
+"I always thought that there should be a difference of age," said Mr.
+Spooner, becoming very red.
+
+"And,--and,--and,--it's altogether quite preposterous. I don't
+believe that you can really think it yourself."
+
+"But I do."
+
+"Then you must unthink it. And, indeed, Mr. Spooner, since you drive
+me to say so,--I consider it to be very unmanly of you, after what
+Lord Chiltern told you in his letter."
+
+"But I believe that is all over."
+
+Then her anger flashed up very high. "And if you do believe it, what
+a mean man you must be to come to me when you must know how miserable
+I am, and to think that I should be driven to accept you after losing
+him! You never could have been anything to me. If you wanted to get
+married at all, you should have done it before I was born." This
+was hard upon the man, as at that time he could not have been much
+more than twenty. "But you don't know anything of the difference in
+people if you think that any girl would look at you, after having
+been--loved by Mr. Maule. Now, as you do not seem inclined to go
+away, I shall leave you." So saying, she walked off with stately
+step, out of the room, leaving the door open behind her to facilitate
+her escape.
+
+She had certainly been very rude to him, and had treated him very
+badly. Of that he was sure. He had conferred upon her what is
+commonly called the highest compliment which a gentleman can pay
+to a lady, and she had insulted him;--had doubly insulted him. She
+had referred to his age, greatly exaggerating his misfortune in
+that respect; and she had compared him to that poor beggar Maule in
+language most offensive. When she left him, he put his hand beneath
+his waistcoat, and turned with an air almost majestic towards the
+window. But in an instant he remembered that there was nobody there
+to see how he bore his punishment, and he sank down into human
+nature. "Damnation!" he said, as he put his hands into his trousers
+pockets.
+
+Slowly he made his way down into the hall, and slowly he opened for
+himself the front door, and escaped from the house on to the gravel
+drive. There he found his cousin Ned still seated in the phaeton, and
+slowly driving round the circle in front of the hall door. The squire
+succeeded in gaining such command over his own gait and countenance
+that his cousin divined nothing of the truth as he clambered up into
+his seat. But he soon showed his temper. "What the devil have you got
+the reins in this way for?"
+
+"The reins are all right," said Ned.
+
+"No they ain't;--they're all wrong." And then he drove down the
+avenue to Spoon Hall as quickly as he could make the horses trot.
+
+"Did you see her?" said Ned, as soon as they were beyond the gates.
+
+"See your grandmother."
+
+"Do you mean to say that I'm not to ask?"
+
+"There's nothing I hate so much as a fellow that's always asking
+questions," said Tom Spooner. "There are some men so d----d
+thick-headed that they never know when they ought to hold their
+tongue."
+
+For a minute or two Ned bore the reproof in silence, and then he
+spoke. "If you are unhappy, Tom, I can bear a good deal; but don't
+overdo it,--unless you want me to leave you."
+
+"She's the d----t vixen that ever had a tongue in her head," said
+Tom Spooner, lifting his whip and striking the poor off-horse in his
+agony. Then Ned forgave him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIV.
+
+THE DUCHESS TAKES COUNSEL.
+
+
+Phineas Finn, when he had been thrice remanded before the Bow Street
+magistrate, and four times examined, was at last committed to be
+tried for the murder of Mr. Bonteen. This took place on Wednesday,
+May 19th, a fortnight after the murder. But during those fourteen
+days little was learned, or even surmised, by the police, in addition
+to the circumstances which had transpired at once. Indeed the delay,
+slight as it was, had arisen from a desire to find evidence that
+might affect Mr. Emilius, rather than with a view to strengthen that
+which did affect Phineas Finn. But no circumstance could be found
+tending in any way to add to the suspicion to which the converted Jew
+was made subject by his own character, and by the supposition that
+he would have been glad to get rid of Mr. Bonteen. He did not even
+attempt to run away,--for which attempt certain pseudo-facilities
+were put in his way by police ingenuity. But Mr. Emilius stood his
+ground and courted inquiry. Mr. Bonteen had been to him, he said, a
+very bitter, unjust, and cruel enemy. Mr. Bonteen had endeavoured to
+rob him of his dearest wife;--had charged him with bigamy;--had got
+up false evidence in the hope of ruining him. He had undoubtedly
+hated Mr. Bonteen, and might probably have said so. But, as it
+happened, through God's mercy, he was enabled to prove that he could
+not possibly have been at the scene of the murder when the murder was
+committed. During that hour of the night he had been in his own bed;
+and, had he been out, could not have re-entered the house without
+calling up the inmates. But, independently of his alibi, Mealyus was
+able to rely on the absolute absence of any evidence against him.
+No grey coat could be traced to his hands, even for an hour. His
+height was very much less than that attributed by Lord Fawn to the
+man whom he had seen hurrying to the spot. No weapon was found in his
+possession by which the deed could have been done. Inquiry was made
+as to the purchase of life-preservers, and the reverend gentleman was
+taken to half-a-dozen shops at which such instruments had lately been
+sold. But there had been a run upon life-preservers, in consequence
+of recommendations as to their use given by certain newspapers;--and
+it was found as impossible to trace one particular purchase as it
+would be that of a loaf of bread. At none of the half-dozen shops to
+which he was taken was Mr. Emilius remembered; and then all further
+inquiry in that direction was abandoned, and Mr. Emilius was set at
+liberty. "I forgive my persecutors from the bottom of my heart," he
+said,--"but God will requite it to them."
+
+In the meantime Phineas was taken to Newgate, and was there confined,
+almost with the glory and attendance of a State prisoner. This was no
+common murder, and no common murderer. Nor were they who interested
+themselves in the matter the ordinary rag, tag, and bobtail of the
+people,--the mere wives and children, or perhaps fathers and mothers,
+or brothers and sisters of the slayer or the slain. Dukes and Earls,
+Duchesses and Countesses, Members of the Cabinet, great statesmen,
+Judges, Bishops, and Queen's Counsellors, beautiful women, and
+women of highest fashion, seemed for a while to think of but little
+else than the fate of Mr. Bonteen and the fate of Phineas Finn.
+People became intimately acquainted with each other through similar
+sympathies in this matter, who had never before spoken to or seen
+each other. On the day after the full committal of the man, Mr. Low
+received a most courteous letter from the Duchess of Omnium, begging
+him to call in Carlton Terrace if his engagements would permit him
+to do so. The Duchess had heard that Mr. Low was devoting all his
+energies to the protection of Phineas Finn; and, as a certain friend
+of hers,--a lady,--was doing the same, she was anxious to bring them
+together. Indeed, she herself was equally prepared to devote her
+energies for the present to the same object. She had declared to
+all her friends,--especially to her husband and to the Duke of St.
+Bungay,--her absolute conviction of the innocence of the accused man,
+and had called upon them to defend him. "My dear," said the elder
+Duke, "I do not think that in my time any innocent man has ever lost
+his life upon the scaffold."
+
+"Is that a reason why our friend should be the first instance?" said
+the Duchess.
+
+"He must be tried according to the laws of his country," said the
+younger Duke.
+
+"Plantagenet, you always speak as if everything were perfect, whereas
+you know very well that everything is imperfect. If that man is--is
+hung, I--"
+
+"Glencora," said her husband, "do not connect yourself with the fate
+of a stranger from any misdirected enthusiasm."
+
+"I do connect myself. If that man be hung--I shall go into mourning
+for him. You had better look to it."
+
+Mr. Low obeyed the summons, and called on the Duchess. But, in truth,
+the invitation had been planned by Madame Goesler, who was present
+when the lawyer, about five o'clock in the afternoon, was shown into
+the presence of the Duchess. Tea was immediately ordered, and Mr. Low
+was almost embraced. He was introduced to Madame Goesler, of whom he
+did not before remember that he had heard the name, and was at once
+given to understand that the fate of Phineas was now in question. "We
+know so well," said the Duchess, "how true you are to him."
+
+"He is an old friend of mine," said the lawyer, "and I cannot believe
+him to have been guilty of a murder."
+
+"Guilty!--he is no more guilty than I am. We are as sure of that as
+we are of the sun. We know that he is innocent;--do we not, Madame
+Goesler? And we, too, are very dear friends of his;--that is, I am."
+
+"And so am I," said Madame Goesler, in a voice very low and sweet,
+but yet so energetic as to make Mr. Low almost rivet his attention
+upon her.
+
+"You must understand, Mr. Low, that Mr. Finn is a man horribly hated
+by certain enemies. That wretched Mr. Bonteen hated his very name.
+But there are other people who think very differently of him. He must
+be saved."
+
+"Indeed I hope he may," said Mr. Low.
+
+"We wanted to see you for ever so many reasons. Of course you
+understand that--that any sum of money can be spent that the case may
+want."
+
+"Nothing will be spared on that account certainly," said the lawyer.
+
+"But money will do a great many things. We would send all round
+the world if we could get evidence against that other man,--Lady
+Eustace's husband, you know."
+
+"Can any good be done by sending all round the world?"
+
+"He went back to his own home not long ago,--in Poland, I think,"
+said Madame Goesler. "Perhaps he got the instrument there, and
+brought it with him." Mr. Low shook his head. "Of course we are very
+ignorant;--but it would be a pity that everything should not be
+tried."
+
+"He might have got in and out of the window, you know," said the
+Duchess. Still Mr. Low shook his head. "I believe things can always
+be found out, if only you take trouble enough. And trouble means
+money;--does it not? We wouldn't mind how many thousand pounds it
+cost; would we, Marie?"
+
+"I fear that the spending of thousands can do no good," said Mr. Low.
+
+"But something must be done. You don't mean to say that Mr. Finn is
+to be hung because Lord Fawn says that he saw a man running along the
+street in a grey coat."
+
+"Certainly not."
+
+"There is nothing else against him;--nobody else saw him."
+
+"If there be nothing else against him he will be acquitted."
+
+"You think then," said Madame Goesler, "that there will be no use in
+tracing what the man Mealyus did when he was out of England. He might
+have bought a grey coat then, and have hidden it till this night,
+and then have thrown it away." Mr. Low listened to her with close
+attention, but again shook his head. "If it could be shown that the
+man had a grey coat at that time it would certainly weaken the effect
+of Mr. Finn's grey coat."
+
+"And if he bought a bludgeon there, it would weaken the effect of
+Mr. Finn's bludgeon. And if he bought rope to make a ladder it would
+show that he had got out. It was a dark night, you know, and nobody
+would have seen it. We have been talking it all over, Mr. Low, and we
+really think you ought to send somebody."
+
+"I will mention what you say to the gentlemen who are employed on Mr.
+Finn's defence."
+
+"But will not you be employed?" Then Mr. Low explained that the
+gentlemen to whom he referred were the attorneys who would get up the
+case on their friend's behalf, and that as he himself practised in
+the Courts of Equity only, he could not defend Mr. Finn on his trial.
+
+"He must have the very best men," said the Duchess.
+
+"He must have good men, certainly."
+
+"And a great many. Couldn't we get Sir Gregory Grogram?" Mr. Low
+shook his head. "I know very well that if you get men who are
+really,--really swells, for that is what it is, Mr. Low,--and pay
+them well enough, and so make it really an important thing, they
+can browbeat any judge and hoodwink any jury. I daresay it is very
+dreadful to say so, Mr. Low; but, nevertheless, I believe it, and as
+this man is certainly innocent it ought to be done. I daresay it's
+very shocking, but I do think that twenty thousand pounds spent among
+the lawyers would get him off."
+
+"I hope we can get him off without expending twenty thousand pounds,
+Duchess."
+
+"But you can have the money and welcome;--cannot he, Madame Goesler?"
+
+"He could have double that, if double were necessary."
+
+"I would fill the court with lawyers for him," continued the Duchess.
+"I would cross-examine the witnesses off their legs. I would rake
+up every wicked thing that horrid Jew has done since he was born.
+I would make witnesses speak. I would give a carriage and pair of
+horses to every one of the jurors' wives, if that would do any good.
+You may shake your head, Mr. Low; but I would. And I'd carry Lord
+Fawn off to the Antipodes, too;--and I shouldn't care if you left him
+there. I know that this man is innocent, and I'd do anything to save
+him. A woman, I know, can't do much;--but she has this privilege,
+that she can speak out what men only think. I'd give them two
+carriages and two pairs of horses a-piece if I could do it that way."
+
+Mr. Low did his best to explain to the Duchess that the desired
+object could hardly be effected after the fashion she proposed, and
+he endeavoured to persuade her that justice was sure to be done in
+an English court of law. "Then why are people so very anxious to get
+this lawyer or that to bamboozle the witnesses?" said the Duchess.
+Mr. Low declared it to be his opinion that the poorest man in England
+was not more likely to be hung for a murder he had not committed than
+the richest. "Then why would you, if you were accused, have ever so
+many lawyers to defend you?" Mr. Low went on to explain. "The more
+money you spend," said the Duchess, "the more fuss you make. And the
+longer a trial is about and the greater the interest, the more chance
+a man has to escape. If a man is tried for three days you always
+think he'll get off, but if it lasts ten minutes he is sure to be
+convicted and hung. I'd have Mr. Finn's trial made so long that they
+never could convict him. I'd tire out all the judges and juries in
+London. If you get lawyers enough they may speak for ever." Mr.
+Low endeavoured to explain that this might prejudice the prisoner.
+"And I'd examine every member of the House of Commons, and all the
+Cabinet, and all their wives. I'd ask them all what Mr. Bonteen
+had been saying. I'd do it in such a way as a trial was never done
+before;--and I'd take care that they should know what was coming."
+
+"And if he were convicted afterwards?"
+
+"I'd buy up the Home Secretary. It's very horrid to say so, of
+course, Mr. Low; and I dare say there is nothing wrong ever done in
+Chancery. But I know what Cabinet Ministers are. If they could get a
+majority by granting a pardon they'd do it quick enough."
+
+"You are speaking of a liberal Government, of course, Duchess."
+
+"There isn't twopence to choose between them in that respect. Just
+at this moment I believe Mr. Finn is the most popular member of the
+House of Commons; and I'd bring all that to bear. You can't but know
+that if everything of that kind is done it will have an effect. I
+believe you could make him so popular that the people would pull down
+the prison rather than have him hung;--so that a jury would not dare
+to say he was guilty."
+
+"Would that be justice, ladies?" asked the just man.
+
+"It would be success, Mr. Low,--which is a great deal the better
+thing of the two."
+
+"If Mr. Finn were found guilty, I could not in my heart believe that
+that would be justice," said Madame Goesler.
+
+Mr. Low did his best to make them understand that the plan of pulling
+down Newgate by the instrumentality of Phineas Finn's popularity,
+or of buying up the Home Secretary by threats of Parliamentary
+defection, would hardly answer their purpose. He would, he assured
+them, suggest to the attorneys employed the idea of searching for
+evidence against the man Mealyus in his own country, and would
+certainly take care that nothing was omitted from want of means. "You
+had better let us put a cheque in your hands," said the Duchess. But
+to this he would not assent. He did admit that it would be well to
+leave no stone unturned, and that the turning of such stones must
+cost money;--but the money, he said, would be forthcoming. "He's not
+a rich man himself," said the Duchess. Mr. Low assured her that if
+money were really wanting he would ask for it. "And now," said the
+Duchess, "there is one other thing that we want. Can we see him?"
+
+"You, yourself?"
+
+"Yes;--I myself, and Madame Goesler. You look as if it would be very
+wicked." Mr. Low thought that it would be wicked;--that the Duke
+would not like it; and that such a visit would occasion ill-natured
+remarks. "People do visit him, I suppose. He's not locked up like a
+criminal."
+
+"I visit him," said Mr. Low, "and one or two other friends have done
+so. Lord Chiltern has been with him, and Mr. Erle."
+
+"Has no lady seen him?" asked the Duchess.
+
+"Not to my knowledge."
+
+"Then it's time some lady should do so. I suppose we could be
+admitted. If we were his sisters they'd let us in."
+
+"You must excuse me, Duchess, but--"
+
+"Of course I will excuse you. But what?"
+
+"You are not his sisters."
+
+"If I were engaged to him, to be his wife?--" said Madame Goesler,
+standing up. "I am not so. There is nothing of that kind. You must
+not misunderstand me. But if I were?"
+
+"On that plea I presume you could be admitted."
+
+"Why not as a friend? Lord Chiltern is admitted as his friend."
+
+"Because of the prudery of a prison," said the Duchess. "All things
+are wrong to the lookers after wickedness, my dear. If it would
+comfort him to see us, why should he not have that comfort?"
+
+"Would you have gone to him in his own lodgings?" asked Mr. Low.
+
+"I would,--if he'd been ill," said Madame Goesler.
+
+"Madam," said Mr. Low, speaking with a gravity which for a moment had
+its effect even upon the Duchess of Omnium, "I think, at any rate,
+that if you visit Mr. Finn in prison, you should do so through the
+instrumentality of his Grace, your husband."
+
+"Of course you suspect me of all manner of evil."
+
+"I suspect nothing;--but I am sure that it should be so."
+
+"It shall be so," said the Duchess. "Thank you, sir. We are much
+obliged to you for your wise counsel."
+
+"I am obliged to you," said Madame Goesler, "because I know that you
+have his safety at heart."
+
+"And so am I," said the Duchess, relenting, and giving him her
+hand. "We are really ever so much obliged to you. You don't quite
+understand about the Duke; and how should you? I never do anything
+without telling him, but he hasn't time to attend to things."
+
+"I hope I have not offended you."
+
+"Oh dear, no. You can't offend me unless you mean it. Good-bye,--and
+remember to have a great many lawyers, and all with new wigs; and let
+them all get in a great rage that anybody should suppose it possible
+that Mr. Finn is a murderer. I'm sure I am. Good-bye, Mr. Low."
+
+"You'll never be able to get to him," said the Duchess, as soon as
+they were alone.
+
+"I suppose not."
+
+"And what good could you do? Of course I'd go with you if we could
+get in;--but what would be the use?"
+
+"To let him know that people do not think him guilty."
+
+"Mr. Low will tell him that. I suppose, too, we can write to him.
+Would you mind writing?"
+
+"I would rather go."
+
+"You might as well tell the truth when you are about it. You are
+breaking your heart for him."
+
+"If he were to be condemned, and--executed, I should break my heart.
+I could never appear bright before the world again."
+
+"That is just what I told Plantagenet. I said I would go into
+mourning."
+
+"And I should really mourn. And yet were he free to-morrow he would
+be no more to me than any other friend."
+
+"Do you mean you would not marry him?"
+
+"No;--I would not. Nor would he ask me. I will tell you what will be
+his lot in life,--if he escapes from the present danger."
+
+"Of course he will escape. They don't really hang innocent men."
+
+"Then he will become the husband of Lady Laura Kennedy."
+
+"Poor fellow! If I believed that, I should think it cruel to help him
+escape from Newgate."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LV.
+
+PHINEAS IN PRISON.
+
+
+Phineas Finn himself, during the fortnight in which he was carried
+backwards and forwards between his prison and the Bow Street
+Police-office, was able to maintain some outward show of manly
+dignity,--as though he felt that the terrible accusation and great
+material inconvenience to which he was subjected were only, and
+could only be, temporary in their nature, and that the truth would
+soon prevail. During this period he had friends constantly with
+him,--either Mr. Low, or Lord Chiltern, or Barrington Erle, or his
+landlord, Mr. Bunce, who, in these days, was very true to him. And he
+was very frequently visited by the attorney, Mr. Wickerby, who had
+been expressly recommended to him for this occasion. If anybody could
+be counted upon to see him through his difficulty it was Wickerby.
+But the company of Mr. Wickerby was not pleasant to him, because, as
+far as he could judge, Mr. Wickerby did not believe in his innocence.
+Mr. Wickerby was willing to do his best for him; was, so to speak,
+moving heaven and earth on his behalf; was fully conscious that this
+case was a great affair, and in no respect similar to those which
+were constantly placed in his hands; but there never fell from him a
+sympathetic expression of assurance of his client's absolute freedom
+from all taint of guilt in the matter. From day to day, and ten times
+a day, Phineas would express his indignant surprise that any one
+should think it possible that he had done this deed, but to all these
+expressions Mr. Wickerby would make no answer whatever. At last
+Phineas asked him the direct question. "I never suspect anybody of
+anything," said Mr. Wickerby. "Do you believe in my innocence?"
+demanded Phineas. "Everybody is entitled to be believed innocent till
+he has been proved to be guilty," said Mr. Wickerby. Then Phineas
+appealed to his friend Mr. Low, asking whether he might not be
+allowed to employ some lawyer whose feelings would be more in unison
+with his own. But Mr. Low adjured him to make no change. Mr. Wickerby
+understood the work and was a most zealous man. His client was
+entitled to his services, but to nothing more than his services. And
+so Mr. Wickerby carried on the work, fully believing that Phineas
+Finn had in truth murdered Mr. Bonteen.
+
+But the prisoner was not without sympathy and confidence. Mr. Low,
+Lord Chiltern, and Lady Chiltern, who, on one occasion, came to
+visit him with her husband, entertained no doubts prejudicial to his
+honour. They told him perhaps almost more than was quite true of the
+feelings of the world in his favour. He heard of the friendship and
+faith of the Duchess of Omnium, of Madame Goesler, and of Lady Laura
+Kennedy,--hearing also that Lady Laura was now a widow. And then at
+length his two sisters came over to him from Ireland, and wept and
+sobbed, and fell into hysterics in his presence. They were sure that
+he was innocent, as was every one, they said, throughout the length
+and breadth of Ireland. And Mrs. Bunce, who came to see Phineas in
+his prison, swore that she would tear the judge from his bench if he
+did not at once pronounce a verdict in favour of her darling without
+waiting for any nonsense of a jury. And Bunce, her husband, having
+convinced himself that his lodger had not committed the murder, was
+zealous in another way, taking delight in the case, and proving that
+no jury could find a verdict of guilty.
+
+During that week Phineas, buoyed up by the sympathy of his friends,
+and in some measure supported by the excitement of the occasion,
+carried himself well, and bore bravely the terrible misfortune to
+which he had been subjected by untoward circumstances. But when the
+magistrate fully committed him, giving the first public decision
+on the matter from the bench, declaring to the world at large that
+on the evidence as given, prima facie, he, Phineas Finn, must be
+regarded as the murderer of Mr. Bonteen, our hero's courage almost
+gave way. If such was now the judicial opinion of the magistrate,
+how could he expect a different verdict from a jury in two months'
+time, when he would be tried before a final court? As far as he could
+understand, nothing more could be learned on the matter. All the
+facts were known that could be known,--as far as he, or rather his
+friends on his behalf, were able to search for facts. It seemed to
+him that there was no tittle whatever of evidence against him. He had
+walked straight home from his club with the life-preserver in his
+pocket, and had never turned to the right or to the left. Till he
+found himself committed, he would not believe that any serious and
+prolonged impediment could be thrown in the way of his liberty. He
+would not believe that a man altogether innocent could be in danger
+of the gallows on a false accusation. It had seemed to him that the
+police had kept their hold on him with a rabid ferocity, straining
+every point with the view of showing that it was possible that he
+should have been the murderer. Every policeman who had been near him,
+carrying him backward and forward from his prison, or giving evidence
+as to the circumstances of the locality and of his walk home on that
+fatal night, had seemed to him to be an enemy. But he had looked for
+impartiality from the magistrate,--and now the magistrate had failed
+him. He had seen in court the faces of men well known to him,--men
+known in the world,--with whom he had been on pleasant terms in
+Parliament, who had sat upon the bench while he was standing as a
+culprit between two constables; and they who had been his familiar
+friends had appeared at once to have been removed from him by some
+unmeasurable distance. But all that he had, as it were, discounted,
+believing that a few hours,--at the very longest a few days,--would
+remove the distance; but now he was sent back to his prison, there to
+await his trial for the murder.
+
+And it seemed to him that his committal startled no one but himself.
+Could it be that even his dearest friends thought it possible that he
+had been guilty? When that day came, and he was taken back to Newgate
+on his last journey there from Bow Street, Lord Chiltern had returned
+for a while to Harrington Hall, having promised that he would be back
+in London as soon as his business would permit; but Mr. Low came to
+him almost immediately to his prison room. "This is a pleasant state
+of things," said Phineas, with a forced laugh. But as he laughed he
+also sobbed, with a low, irrepressible, convulsive movement in his
+throat.
+
+"Phineas, the time has come in which you must show yourself to be a
+man."
+
+"A man! Oh, yes, I can be a man. A murderer you mean. I shall have to
+be--hung, I suppose."
+
+"May God, in His mercy, forbid."
+
+"No;--not in His mercy; in His justice. There can be no need for
+mercy here,--not even from Heaven. When they take my life may He
+forgive my sins through the merits of my Saviour. But for this there
+can be no mercy. Why do you not speak? Do you mean to say that I am
+guilty?"
+
+"I am sure that you are innocent."
+
+"And yet, look here. What more can be done to prove it than has been
+done? That blundering fool will swear my life away." Then he threw
+himself on his bed, and gave way to his sobs.
+
+That evening he was alone,--as, indeed, most of his evenings had been
+spent, and the minutes were minutes of agony to him. The external
+circumstances of his position were as comfortable as circumstances
+would allow. He had a room to himself looking out through heavy iron
+bars into one of the courts of the prison. The chamber was carpeted,
+and was furnished with bed and chairs and two tables. Books were
+allowed him as he pleased, and pen and ink. It was May, and no fire
+was necessary. At certain periods of the day he could walk alone
+in the court below,--the restriction on such liberty being that at
+other certain hours the place was wanted for other prisoners. As far
+as he knew no friend who called was denied to him, though he was
+by no means certain that his privilege in that respect would not be
+curtailed now that he had been committed for trial. His food had been
+plentiful and well cooked, and even luxuries, such as fish and wine
+and fruit, had been supplied to him. That the fruit had come from
+the hot-houses of the Duchess of Omnium, and the wine from Mr. Low's
+cellar, and the fish and lamb and spring vegetables, the cream and
+coffee and fresh butter from the unrestricted orders of another
+friend, that Lord Chiltern had sent him champagne and cigars,
+and that Lady Chiltern had given directions about the books and
+stationery, he did not know. But as far as he could be consoled by
+such comforts, there had been the consolation. If lamb and salad
+could make him happy he might have enjoyed his sojourn in Newgate.
+Now, this evening, he was past all enjoyment. It was impossible that
+he should read. How could a man fix his attention on any book, with a
+charge of murder against himself affirmed by the deliberate decision
+of a judge? And he knew himself to be as innocent as the magistrate
+himself. Every now and then he would rise from his bed, and almost
+rush across the room as though he would dash his head against the
+wall. Murder! They really believed that he had deliberately murdered
+the man;--he, Phineas Finn, who had served his country with repute,
+who had sat in Parliament, who had prided himself on living with the
+best of his fellow-creatures, who had been the friend of Mr. Monk and
+of Lord Cantrip, the trusted intimate of such women as Lady Laura
+and Lady Chiltern, who had never put his hand to a mean action, or
+allowed his tongue to speak a mean word! He laughed in his wrath,
+and then almost howled in his agony. He thought of the young loving
+wife who had lived with him little more than for one fleeting year,
+and wondered whether she was looking down upon him from Heaven, and
+how her spirit would bear this accusation against the man upon whose
+bosom she had slept, and in whose arms she had gone to her long rest.
+"They can't believe it," he said aloud. "It is impossible. Why should
+I have murdered him?" And then he remembered an example in Latin
+from some rule of grammar, and repeated it to himself over and over
+again.--"No one at an instant,--of a sudden,--becomes most base." It
+seemed to him that there was such a want of knowledge of human nature
+in the supposition that it was possible that he should have committed
+such a crime. And yet--there he was, committed to take his trial for
+the murder of Mr. Bonteen.
+
+The days were long, and it was daylight till nearly nine. Indeed the
+twilight lingered, even through those iron bars, till after nine. He
+had once asked for candles, but had been told that they could not be
+allowed him without an attendant in the room,--and he had dispensed
+with them. He had been treated doubtless with great respect, but
+nevertheless he had been treated as a prisoner. They hardly denied
+him anything that he asked, but when he asked for that which they did
+not choose to grant they would annex conditions which induced him to
+withdraw his request. He understood their ways now, and did not rebel
+against them.
+
+On a sudden he heard the key in the door, and the man who attended
+him entered the room with a candle in his hand. A lady had come to
+call, and the governor had given permission for her entrance. He
+would return for the light,--and for the lady, in half an hour. He
+had said all this before Phineas could see who the lady was. And when
+he did see the form of her who followed the gaoler, and who stood
+with hesitating steps behind him in the doorway, he knew her by her
+sombre solemn raiment, and not by her countenance. She was dressed
+from head to foot in the deepest weeds of widowhood, and a heavy veil
+fell from her bonnet over her face. "Lady Laura, is it you?" said
+Phineas, putting out his hand. Of course it was Lady Laura. While the
+Duchess of Omnium and Madame Goesler were talking about such a visit,
+allowing themselves to be deterred by the wisdom of Mr. Low, she had
+made her way through bolts and bars, and was now with him in his
+prison.
+
+
+[Illustration: Of course it was Lady Laura.]
+
+
+"Oh, Phineas!" She slowly raised her veil, and stood gazing at him.
+"Of all my troubles this,--to see you here,--is the heaviest."
+
+"And of all my consolations to see you here is the greatest." He
+should not have so spoken. Could he have thought of things as they
+were, and have restrained himself, he should not have uttered words
+to her which were pleasant but not true. There came a gleam of
+sunshine across her face as she listened to him, and then she threw
+herself into his arms, and wept upon his shoulder. "I did not expect
+that you would have found me," he said.
+
+She took the chair opposite to that on which he usually sat, and
+then began her tale. Her cousin, Barrington Erle, had brought her
+there, and was below, waiting for her in the Governor's house. He
+had procured an order for her admission that evening, direct from Sir
+Harry Coldfoot, the Home Secretary,--which, however, as she admitted,
+had been given under the idea that she and Erle were to see him
+together. "But I would not let him come with me," she said. "I could
+not have spoken to you, had he been here;--could I?"
+
+"It would not have been the same, Lady Laura." He had thought much of
+his mode of addressing her on occasions before this, at Dresden and
+at Portman Square, and had determined that he would always give her
+her title. Once or twice he had lacked the courage to be so hard to
+her. Now as she heard the name the gleam of sunshine passed from her
+altogether. "We hardly expected that we should ever meet in such a
+place as this?" he said.
+
+"I cannot understand it. They cannot really think you killed him." He
+smiled, and shook his head. Then she spoke of her own condition. "You
+have heard what has happened? You know that I am--a widow?"
+
+"Yes;--I had heard." And then he smiled again. "You will have
+understood why I could not come to you,--as I should have done but
+for this little accident."
+
+"He died on the day that they arrested you. Was it not strange that
+such a double blow should fall together? Oswald, no doubt, told you
+all."
+
+"He told me of your husband's death."
+
+"But not of his will? Perhaps he has not seen you since he heard it."
+Lord Chiltern had heard of the will before his last visit to Phineas
+in Newgate, but had not chosen then to speak of his sister's wealth.
+
+"I have heard nothing of Mr. Kennedy's will."
+
+"It was made immediately after our marriage,--and he never changed
+it, though he had so much cause of anger against me."
+
+"He has not injured you, then,--as regards money."
+
+"Injured me! No, indeed. I am a rich woman,--very rich. All
+Loughlinter is my own,--for life. But of what use can it be to
+me?" He in his present state could tell her of no uses for such a
+property. "I suppose, Phineas, it cannot be that you are really in
+danger?"
+
+"In the greatest danger, I fancy."
+
+"Do you mean that they will say--you are guilty?"
+
+"The magistrates have said so already."
+
+"But surely that is nothing. If I thought so, I should die. If I
+believed it, they should never take me out of the prison while you
+are here. Barrington says that it cannot be. Oswald and Violet are
+sure that such a thing can never happen. It was that Jew who did it."
+
+"I cannot say who did it. I did not."
+
+"You! Oh, Phineas! The world must be mad when any can believe it!"
+
+"But they do believe it?" This, he said, meaning to ask a question as
+to that outside world.
+
+"We do not. Barrington says--"
+
+"What does Barrington say?"
+
+"That there are some who do;--just a few, who were Mr. Bonteen's
+special friends."
+
+"The police believe it. That is what I cannot understand;--men who
+ought to be keen-eyed and quick-witted. That magistrate believes it.
+I saw men in the Court who used to know me well, and I could see that
+they believed it. Mr. Monk was here yesterday."
+
+"Does he believe it?"
+
+"I asked him, and he told me--no. But I did not quite trust him as he
+told me. There are two or three who believe me innocent."
+
+"Who are they?"
+
+"Low, and Chiltern, and his wife;--and that man Bunce, and his wife.
+If I escape from this,--if they do not hang me,--I will remember
+them. And there are two other women who know me well enough not to
+think me a murderer."
+
+"Who are they, Phineas?"
+
+"Madame Goesler, and the Duchess of Omnium."
+
+"Have they been here?" she asked, with jealous eagerness.
+
+"Oh, no. But I hear that it is so,--and I know it. One learns to feel
+even from hearsay what is in the minds of people."
+
+"And what do I believe, Phineas? Can you read my thoughts?"
+
+"I know them of old, without reading them now." Then he put forth his
+hand and took hers. "Had I murdered him in real truth, you would not
+have believed it."
+
+"Because I love you, Phineas."
+
+Then the key was again heard in the door, and Barrington Erle
+appeared with the gaolers. The time was up, he said, and he had come
+to redeem his promise. He spoke cordially to his old friend, and
+grasped the prisoner's hand cordially,--but not the less did he
+believe that there was blood on it, and Phineas knew that such was
+his belief. It appeared on his arrival that Lady Laura had not at
+all accomplished the chief object of her visit. She had brought
+with her various cheques, all drawn by Barrington Erle on his
+banker,--amounting altogether to many hundreds of pounds,--which
+it was intended that Phineas should use from time to time for the
+necessities of his trial. Barrington Erle explained that the money
+was in fact to be a loan from Lady Laura's father, and was simply
+passed through his banker's account. But Phineas knew that the loan
+must come from Lady Laura, and he positively refused to touch it.
+His friend, Mr. Low, was managing all that for him, and he would not
+embarrass the matter by a fresh account. He was very obstinate, and
+at last the cheques were taken away in Barrington Erle's pocket.
+
+"Good-night, old fellow," said Erle, affectionately. "I'll see you
+again before long. May God send you through it all."
+
+"Good-night, Barrington. It was kind of you to come to me." Then Lady
+Laura, watching to see whether her cousin would leave her alone for
+a moment with the object of her idolatry, paused before she gave him
+her hand. "Good-night, Lady Laura," he said.
+
+"Good-night!" Barrington Erle was now just outside the door.
+
+"I shall not forget your coming here to me."
+
+"How should we, either of us, forget it?"
+
+"Come, Laura," said Barrington Erle, "we had better make an end of
+it."
+
+"But if I should never see him again!"
+
+"Of course you will see him again."
+
+"When! and where! Oh, God,--if they should murder him!" Then she
+threw herself into his arms, and covered him with kisses, though her
+cousin had returned into the room and stood over her as she embraced
+him.
+
+"Laura," said he, "you are doing him an injury. How should he support
+himself if you behave like this! Come away."
+
+"Oh, my God, if they should kill him!" she exclaimed. But she allowed
+her cousin to take her in his arms, and Phineas Finn was left alone
+without having spoken another word to either of them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVI.
+
+THE MEAGER FAMILY.
+
+
+On the day after the committal a lady, who had got out of a cab at
+the corner of Northumberland Street, in the Marylebone Road, walked
+up that very uninviting street, and knocked at a door just opposite
+to the deadest part of the dead wall of the Marylebone Workhouse.
+Here lived Mrs. and Miss Meager,--and also on occasions Mr. Meager,
+who, however, was simply a trouble and annoyance in the world,
+going about to race-courses, and occasionally, perhaps, to worse
+places, and being of no slightest use to the two poor hard-worked
+women,--mother and daughter,--who endeavoured to get their living by
+letting lodgings. The task was difficult, for it is not everybody who
+likes to look out upon the dead wall of a workhouse, and they who
+do are disposed to think that their willingness that way should be
+considered in the rent. But Mr. Emilius, when the cruelty of his
+wife's friends deprived him of the short-lived luxury of his mansion
+in Lowndes Square, had found in Northumberland Street a congenial
+retreat, and had for a while trusted to Mrs. and Miss Meager for
+all his domestic comforts. Mr. Emilius was always a favourite with
+new friends, and had not as yet had his Northumberland Street gloss
+rubbed altogether off him when Mr. Bonteen was murdered. As it
+happened, on that night,--or rather early in the day, for Meager
+had returned to the bosom of his family after a somewhat prolonged
+absence in the provinces, and therefore the date had become specially
+remarkable in the Meager family from the double event,--Mr. Meager
+had declared that unless his wife could supply him with a five-pound
+note he must cut his throat instantly. His wife and daughter had
+regretted the necessity, but had declared the alternative to be out
+of the question. Whereupon Mr. Meager had endeavoured to force the
+lock of an old bureau with a carving-knife, and there had been some
+slight personal encounter,--after which he had had some gin and had
+gone to bed. Mrs. Meager remembered the day very well indeed, and
+Miss Meager, when the police came the next morning, had accounted
+for her black eye by a tragical account of a fall she had had
+against the bed-post in the dark. Up to that period Mr. Emilius had
+been everything that was sweet and good,--an excellent, eloquent
+clergyman, who was being ill-treated by his wife's wealthy relations,
+who was soft in his manners and civil in his words, and never gave
+more trouble than was necessary. The period, too, would have been
+one of comparative prosperity to the Meager ladies,--but for that
+inopportune return of the head of the family,--as two other lodgers
+had been inclined to look out upon the dead wall, or else into the
+cheerful back-yard; which circumstance came to have some bearing
+upon our story, as Mrs. Meager had been driven by the press of her
+increased household to let that good-natured Mr. Emilius know that
+if "he didn't mind it" the latch-key might be an accommodation on
+occasions. To give him his due, indeed, he had, when first taking the
+rooms, offered to give up the key when not intending to be out at
+night.
+
+After the murder Mr. Emilius had been arrested, and had been kept in
+durance for a week. Miss Meager had been sure that he was innocent;
+Mrs. Meager had trusted the policemen, who evidently thought that
+the clergyman was guilty. Of the policemen who were concerned on the
+occasion, it may be said in a general way that they believed that
+both the gentlemen had committed the murder,--so anxious were they
+not to be foiled in the attempts at discovery which their duty called
+upon them to make. Mr. Meager had left the house on the morning of
+the arrest, having arranged that little matter of the five-pound
+note by a compromise. When the policeman came for Mr. Emilius, Mr.
+Meager was gone. For a day or two the lodger's rooms were kept vacant
+for the clergyman till Mrs. Meager became quite convinced that he
+had committed the murder, and then all his things were packed up
+and placed in the passage. When he was liberated he returned to the
+house, and expressed unbounded anger at what had been done. He took
+his two boxes away in a cab, and was seen no more by the ladies of
+Northumberland Street.
+
+But a further gleam of prosperity fell upon them in consequence of
+the tragedy which had been so interesting to them. Hitherto the
+inquiries made at their house had had reference solely to the habits
+and doings of their lodger during the last few days; but now there
+came to them a visitor who made a more extended investigation; and
+this was one of their own sex. It was Madame Goesler who got out
+of the cab at the workhouse corner, and walked from thence to Mrs.
+Meager's house. This was her third appearance in Northumberland
+Street, and at each coming she had spoken kind words, and had left
+behind her liberal recompense for the trouble which she gave. She
+had no scruples as to paying for the evidence which she desired to
+obtain,--no fear of any questions which might afterwards be asked
+in cross-examination. She dealt out sovereigns--womanfully, and had
+had Mrs. and Miss Meager at her feet. Before the second visit was
+completed they were both certain that the Bohemian converted Jew had
+murdered Mr. Bonteen, and were quite willing to assist in hanging
+him.
+
+"Yes, Ma'am," said Mrs. Meager, "he did take the key with him. Amelia
+remembers we were a key short at the time he was away." The absence
+here alluded to was that occasioned by the journey which Mr. Emilius
+took to Prague, when he heard that evidence of his former marriage
+was being sought against him in his own country.
+
+"That he did," said Amelia, "because we were put out ever so. And he
+had no business, for he was not paying for the room."
+
+"You have only one key."
+
+"There is three, Ma'am. The front attic has one regular because he's
+on a daily paper, and of course he doesn't get to bed till morning.
+Meager always takes another, and we can't get it from him ever so."
+
+"And Mr. Emilius took the other away with him?" asked Madame Goesler.
+
+"That he did, Ma'am. When he came back he said it had been in a
+drawer,--but it wasn't in the drawer. We always knows what's in the
+drawers."
+
+"The drawer wasn't left locked, then?"
+
+"Yes, it was, Ma'am, and he took that key--unbeknownst to us," said
+Mrs. Meager. "But there is other keys that open the drawers. We are
+obliged in our line to know about the lodgers, Ma'am."
+
+This was certainly no time for Madame Goesler to express
+disapprobation of the practices which were thus divulged. She smiled,
+and nodded her head, and was quite sympathetic with Mrs. Meager. She
+had learned that Mr. Emilius had taken the latch-key with him to
+Bohemia, and was convinced that a dozen other latch-keys might have
+been made after the pattern without any apparent detection by the
+London police. "And now about the coat, Mrs. Meager."
+
+"Well, Ma'am?"
+
+"Mr. Meager has not been here since?"
+
+"No, Ma'am. Mr. Meager, Ma'am, isn't what he ought to be. I never do
+own it up, only when I'm driven. He hasn't been home."
+
+"I suppose he still has the coat."
+
+"Well, Ma'am, no. We sent a young man after him, as you said, and the
+young man found him at the Newmarket Spring."
+
+"Some water cure?" asked Madame Goesler.
+
+"No, Ma'am. It ain't a water cure, but the races. He hadn't got the
+coat. He does always manage a tidy great coat when November is coming
+on, because it covers everything, and is respectable, but he mostly
+parts with it in April. He gets short, and then he--just pawns it."
+
+"But he had it the night of the murder?"
+
+"Yes, Ma'am, he had. Amelia and I remembered it especial. When we
+went to bed, which we did soon after ten, it was left in this room,
+lying there on the sofa." They were now sitting in the little back
+parlour, in which Mrs. and Miss Meager were accustomed to live.
+
+"And it was there in the morning?"
+
+"Father had it on when he went out," said Amelia.
+
+"If we paid him he would get it out of the pawnshop, and bring it to
+us, would he not?" asked the lady.
+
+To this Mrs. Meager suggested that it was quite on the cards that Mr.
+Meager might have been able to do better with his coat by selling it,
+and if so, it certainly would have been sold, as no prudent idea of
+redeeming his garment for the next winter's wear would ever enter his
+mind. And Mrs. Meager seemed to think that such a sale would not have
+taken place between her husband and any old friend. "He wouldn't know
+where he sold it," said Mrs. Meager.
+
+"Anyways he'd tell us so," said Amelia.
+
+"But if we paid him to be more accurate?" said Madame Goesler.
+
+"They is so afraid of being took up themselves," said Mrs. Meager.
+There was, however, ample evidence that Mr. Meager had possessed a
+grey great coat, which during the night of the murder had been left
+in the little sitting-room, and which they had supposed to have lain
+there all night. To this coat Mr. Emilius might have had easy access.
+"But then it was a big man that was seen, and Emilius isn't no ways a
+big man. Meager's coat would be too long for him, ever so much."
+
+"Nevertheless we must try and get the coat," said Madame Goesler.
+"I'll speak to a friend about it. I suppose we can find your husband
+when we want him?"
+
+"I don't know, Ma'am. We never can find him; but then we never do
+want him,--not now. The police know him at the races, no doubt. You
+won't go and get him into trouble, Ma'am, worse than he is? He's
+always been in trouble, but I wouldn't like to be means of making it
+worse on him than it is."
+
+Madame Goesler, as she again paid the woman for her services, assured
+her that she would do no injury to Mr. Meager. All that she wanted of
+Mr. Meager was his grey coat, and that not with any view that could
+be detrimental either to his honour or to his safety, and she was
+willing to pay any reasonable price,--or almost any unreasonable
+price,--for the coat. But the coat must be made to be forthcoming if
+it were still in existence, and had not been as yet torn to pieces by
+the shoddy makers.
+
+"It ain't near come to that yet," said Amelia. "I don't know that
+I ever see father more respectable,--that is, in the way of a great
+coat."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVII.
+
+THE BEGINNING OF THE SEARCH FOR THE KEY AND THE COAT.
+
+
+When Madame Goesler revealed her plans and ideas to Mr. Wickerby,
+the attorney, who had been employed to bring Phineas Finn through
+his troubles, that gentleman evidently did not think much of the
+unprofessional assistance which the lady proposed to give him. "I'm
+afraid it is far-fetched, Ma'am,--if you understand what I mean,"
+said Mr. Wickerby. Madame Goesler declared that she understood very
+well what Mr. Wickerby meant, but that she could hardly agree with
+him. "According to that the gentleman must have plotted the murder
+more than a month before he committed it," said Mr. Wickerby.
+
+"And why not?"
+
+"Murder plots are generally the work of a few hours at the
+longest, Madame Goesler. Anger, combined with an indifference to
+self-sacrifice, does not endure the wear of many days. And the object
+here was insufficient. I don't think we can ask to have the trial put
+off in order to find out whether a false key may have been made in
+Prague."
+
+"And you will not look for the coat?"
+
+"We can look for it, and probably get it, if the woman has not lied
+to you; but I don't think it will do us any good. The woman probably
+is lying. You have been paying her very liberally, so that she has
+been making an excellent livelihood out of the murder. No jury would
+believe her. And a grey coat is a very common thing. After all, it
+would prove nothing. It would only let the jury know that Mr. Meager
+had a grey coat as well as Mr. Finn. That Mr. Finn wore a grey coat
+on that night is a fact which we can't upset. If you got hold of
+Meager's coat you wouldn't be a bit nearer to proof that Emilius had
+worn it."
+
+"There would be the fact that he might have worn it."
+
+"Madame Goesler, indeed it would not help our client. You see what
+are the difficulties in our way. Mr. Finn was on the spot at the
+moment, or so near it as to make it certainly possible that he might
+have been there. There is no such evidence as to Emilius, even if he
+could be shown to have had a latch-key. The man was killed by such an
+instrument as Mr. Finn had about him. There is no evidence that Mr.
+Emilius had such an instrument in his hand. A tall man in a grey coat
+was seen hurrying to the spot at the exact hour. Mr. Finn is a tall
+man and wore a grey coat at the time. Emilius is not a tall man, and,
+even though Meager had a grey coat, there is no evidence to show
+that Emilius ever wore it. Mr. Finn had quarrelled violently with
+Mr. Bonteen within the hour. It does not appear that Emilius ever
+quarrelled with Mr. Bonteen, though Mr. Bonteen had exerted himself
+in opposition to Emilius."
+
+"Is there to be no defence, then?"
+
+"Certainly there will be a defence, and such a defence as I think
+will prevent any jury from being unanimous in convicting my client.
+Though there is a great deal of evidence against him, it is all--what
+we call circumstantial."
+
+"I understand, Mr. Wickerby."
+
+"Nobody saw him commit the murder."
+
+"Indeed no," said Madame Goesler.
+
+"Although there is personal similarity, there is no personal
+identity. There is no positive proof of anything illegal on his
+part, or of anything that would have been suspicious had no murder
+been committed,--such as the purchase of poison, or carrying
+of a revolver. The life-preserver, had no such instrument been
+unfortunately used, might have been regarded as a thing of custom."
+
+"But I am sure that that Bohemian did murder Mr. Bonteen," said
+Madame Goesler, with enthusiasm.
+
+"Madame," said Mr. Wickerby, holding up both his hands, "I can only
+wish that you could be upon the jury."
+
+"And you won't try to show that the other man might have done it?"
+
+"I think not. Next to an alibi that breaks down;--you know what an
+alibi is, Madame Goesler?"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Wickerby; I know what an alibi is."
+
+"Next to an alibi that breaks down, an unsuccessful attempt to affix
+the fault on another party is the most fatal blow which a prisoner's
+counsel can inflict upon him. It is always taken by the jury as so
+much evidence against him. We must depend altogether on a different
+line of defence."
+
+"What line, Mr. Wickerby?"
+
+"Juries are always unwilling to hang,"--Madame Goesler shuddered
+as the horrid word was broadly pronounced,--"and are apt to think
+that simply circumstantial evidence cannot be suffered to demand
+so disagreeable a duty. They are peculiarly averse to hanging a
+gentleman, and will hardly be induced to hang a member of Parliament.
+Then Mr. Finn is very good-looking, and has been popular,--which
+is all in his favour. And we shall have such evidence on the score
+of character as was never before brought into one of our courts.
+We shall have half the Cabinet. There will be two dukes." Madame
+Goesler, as she listened to the admiring enthusiasm of the attorney
+while he went on with his list, acknowledged to herself that her
+dear friend, the Duchess, had not been idle. "There will be three
+Secretaries of State. The Secretary of State for the Home Department
+himself will be examined. I am not quite sure that we mayn't get the
+Lord Chancellor. There will be Mr. Monk,--about the most popular man
+in England,--who will speak of the prisoner as his particular friend.
+I don't think any jury would hang a particular friend of Mr. Monk's.
+And there will be ever so many ladies. That has never been done
+before, but we mean to try it." Madame Goesler had heard all this,
+and had herself assisted in the work. "I rather think we shall get
+four or five leading members of the Opposition, for they all disliked
+Mr. Bonteen. If we could manage Mr. Daubeny and Mr. Gresham, I think
+we might reckon ourselves quite safe. I forgot to say that the Bishop
+of Barchester has promised."
+
+"All that won't prove his innocence, Mr. Wickerby." Mr. Wickerby
+shrugged his shoulders. "If he be acquitted after that fashion men
+then will say--that he was guilty."
+
+"We must think of his life first, Madame Goesler," said the attorney.
+
+Madame Goesler when she left the attorney's room was very
+ill-satisfied with him. She desired some adherent to her cause who
+would with affectionate zeal resolve upon washing Phineas Finn white
+as snow in reference to the charge now made against him. But no man
+would so resolve who did not believe in his innocence,--as Madame
+Goesler believed herself. She herself knew that her own belief was
+romantic and unpractical. Nevertheless, the conviction of the guilt
+of that other man, towards which she still thought that much could
+be done if that coat were found and the making of a secret key were
+proved, was so strong upon her that she would not allow herself
+to drop it. It would not be sufficient for her that Phineas Finn
+should be acquitted. She desired that the real murderer should be
+hung for the murder, so that all the world might be sure,--as she
+was sure,--that her hero had been wrongfully accused.
+
+"Do you mean that you are going to start yourself?" the Duchess said
+to her that same afternoon.
+
+"Yes, I am."
+
+"Then you must be very far gone in love, indeed."
+
+"You would do as much, Duchess, if you were free as I am. It isn't a
+matter of love at all. It's womanly enthusiasm for the cause one has
+taken up."
+
+"I'm quite as enthusiastic,--only I shouldn't like to go to Prague in
+June."
+
+"I'd go to Siberia in January if I could find out that that horrid
+man really committed the murder."
+
+"Who are going with you?"
+
+"We shall be quite a company. We have got a detective policeman, and
+an interpreter who understands Czech and German to go about with the
+policeman, and a lawyer's clerk, and there will be my own maid."
+
+"Everybody will know all about it before you get there."
+
+"We are not to go quite together. The policeman and the interpreter
+are to form one party, and I and my maid another. The poor clerk is
+to be alone. If they get the coat, of course you'll telegraph to me."
+
+"Who is to have the coat?"
+
+"I suppose they'll take it to Mr. Wickerby. He says he doesn't want
+it,--that it would do no good. But I think that if we could show that
+the man might very easily have been out of the house,--that he had
+certainly provided himself with means of getting out of the house
+secretly,--the coat would be of service. I am going at any rate; and
+shall be in Paris to-morrow morning."
+
+"I think it very grand of you, my dear; and for your sake I hope
+he may live to be Prime Minister. Perhaps, after all, he may give
+Plantagenet his 'Garter.'"
+
+When the old Duke died, a Garter became vacant, and had of course
+fallen to the gift of Mr. Gresham. The Duchess had expected that
+it would be continued in the family, as had been the Lieutenancy
+of Barsetshire, which also had been held by the old Duke. But the
+Garter had been given to Lord Cantrip, and the Duchess was sore. With
+all her Radical propensities and inclination to laugh at dukes and
+marquises, she thought very much of Garters and Lieutenancies;--but
+her husband would not think of them at all, and hence there were
+words between them. The Duchess had declared that the Duke should
+insist on having the Garter. "These are things that men do not ask
+for," the Duke had said.
+
+"Don't tell me, Plantagenet, about not asking. Everybody asks for
+everything nowadays."
+
+"Your everybody is not correct, Glencora. I never yet asked for
+anything,--and never shall. No honour has any value in my eyes unless
+it comes unasked." Thereupon it was that the Duchess now suggested
+that Phineas Finn, when Prime Minister, might perhaps bestow a Garter
+upon her husband.
+
+And so Madame Goesler started for Prague with the determination
+of being back, if possible, before the trial began. It was to be
+commenced at the Old Bailey towards the end of June, and people
+already began to foretell that it would extend over a very long
+period. The circumstances seemed to be simple; but they who
+understood such matters declared that the duration of a trial
+depended a great deal more on the public interest felt in the matter
+than upon its own nature. Now it was already perceived that no
+trial of modern days had ever been so interesting as would be this
+trial. It was already known that the Attorney-General, Sir Gregory
+Grogram, was to lead the case for the prosecution, and that the
+Solicitor-General, Sir Simon Slope, was to act with him. It had been
+thought to be due to the memory and character of Mr. Bonteen, who
+when he was murdered had held the office of President of the Board of
+Trade, and who had very nearly been Chancellor of the Exchequer, that
+so unusual a task should be imposed on these two high legal officers
+of the Government. No doubt there would be a crowd of juniors with
+them, but it was understood that Sir Gregory Grogram would himself
+take the burden of the task upon his own shoulders. It was declared
+everywhere that Sir Gregory did believe Phineas Finn to be guilty,
+but it was also declared that Sir Simon Slope was convinced he was
+innocent. The defence was to be entrusted to the well-practised
+but now aged hands of that most experienced practitioner Mr.
+Chaffanbrass, than whom no barrister living or dead ever rescued more
+culprits from the fangs of the law. With Mr. Chaffanbrass, who quite
+late in life had consented to take a silk gown, was to be associated
+Mr. Serjeant Birdbolt,--who was said to be employed in order that the
+case might be in safe hands should the strength of Mr. Chaffanbrass
+fail him at the last moment; and Mr. Snow, who was supposed to handle
+a witness more judiciously than any of the rising men, and that
+subtle, courageous, eloquent, and painstaking youth, Mr. Golightly,
+who now, with no more than ten or fifteen years' practice, was
+already known to be earning his bread and supporting a wife and
+family.
+
+But the glory of this trial would not depend chiefly on the array of
+counsel, nor on the fact that the Lord Chief Justice himself would be
+the judge, so much as on the social position of the murdered man and
+of the murderer. Noble lords and great statesmen would throng the
+bench of the court to see Phineas Finn tried, and all the world who
+could find an entrance would do the same to see the great statesmen
+and the noble lords. The importance of such an affair increases
+like a snowball as it is rolled on. Many people talk much, and then
+very many people talk very much more. The under-sheriffs of the
+City, praiseworthy gentlemen not hitherto widely known to fame,
+became suddenly conspicuous and popular, as being the dispensers of
+admissions to seats in the court. It had been already admitted by
+judges and counsel that sundry other cases must be postponed, because
+it was known that the Bonteen murder would occupy at least a week. It
+was supposed that Mr. Chaffanbrass would consume a whole day at the
+beginning of the trial in getting a jury to his mind,--a matter on
+which he was known to be very particular,--and another whole day at
+the end of the trial in submitting to the jury the particulars of all
+the great cases on record in which circumstantial evidence was known
+to have led to improper verdicts. It was therefore understood that
+the last week in June would be devoted to the trial, to the exclusion
+of all other matters of interest. When Mr. Gresham, hard pressed by
+Mr. Turnbull for a convenient day, offered that gentleman Thursday,
+the 24th of June, for suggesting to the House a little proposition
+of his own with reference to the English Church establishment, Mr.
+Turnbull openly repudiated the offer, because on that day the trial
+of Phineas Finn would be commenced. "I hope," said Mr. Gresham, "that
+the work of the country will not be impeded by that unfortunate
+affair." "I am afraid," said Mr. Turnbull, "that the right honourable
+gentleman will find that the member for Tankerville will on that
+day monopolise the attention of this House." The remark was thought
+to have been made in very bad taste, but nobody doubted its truth.
+Perhaps the interest was enhanced among politicians by the existence
+very generally of an opinion that though Phineas Finn had murdered
+Mr. Bonteen, he would certainly be acquitted. Nothing could then
+prevent the acquitted murderer from resuming his seat in the House,
+and gentlemen were already beginning to ask themselves after what
+fashion it would become them to treat him. Would the Speaker catch
+his eye when he rose to speak? Would he still be "Phineas" to the
+very large number of men with whom his general popularity had made
+him intimate? Would he be cold-shouldered at the clubs, and treated
+as one whose hands were red with blood? or would he become more
+popular than ever, and receive an ovation after his acquittal?
+
+In the meantime Madame Goesler started on her journey for Prague.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVIII.
+
+THE TWO DUKES.
+
+
+It was necessary that the country should be governed, even though
+Mr. Bonteen had been murdered;--and in order that it should be duly
+governed it was necessary that Mr. Bonteen's late place at the Board
+of Trade should be filled. There was some hesitation as to the
+filling it, and when the arrangement was completed people were very
+much surprised indeed. Mr. Bonteen had been appointed chiefly because
+it was thought that he might in that office act as a quasi House of
+Commons deputy to the Duke of Omnium in carrying out his great scheme
+of a five-farthinged penny and a ten-pennied shilling. The Duke, in
+spite of his wealth and rank and honour, was determined to go on with
+his great task. Life would be nothing to him now unless he could at
+least hope to arrange the five farthings. When his wife had bullied
+him about the Garter he had declared to her, and with perfect truth,
+that he had never asked for anything. He had gone on to say that he
+never would ask for anything; and he certainly did not think that
+he was betraying himself with reference to that assurance when he
+suggested to Mr. Gresham that he would himself take the place left
+vacant by Mr. Bonteen--of course retaining his seat in the Cabinet.
+
+"I should hardly have ventured to suggest such an arrangement to your
+Grace," said the Prime Minister.
+
+"Feeling that it might be so, I thought that I would venture to
+ask," said the Duke. "I am sure you know that I am the last man to
+interfere as to place or the disposition of power."
+
+"Quite the last man," said Mr. Gresham.
+
+"But it has always been held that the Board of Trade is not
+incompatible with the Peerage."
+
+"Oh dear, yes."
+
+"And I can feel myself nearer to this affair of mine there than I can
+elsewhere."
+
+Mr. Gresham of course had no objection to urge. This great nobleman,
+who was now asking for Mr. Bonteen's shoes, had been Chancellor of
+the Exchequer, and would have remained Chancellor of the Exchequer
+had not the mantle of his nobility fallen upon him. At the present
+moment he held an office in which peers are often temporarily
+shelved, or put away, perhaps, out of harm's way for the time, so
+that they may be brought down and used when wanted, without having
+received crack or detriment from that independent action into which a
+politician is likely to fall when his party is "in" but he is still
+"out". He was Lord Privy Seal,--a Lordship of State which does carry
+with it a status and a seat in the Cabinet, but does not necessarily
+entail any work. But the present Lord, who cared nothing for status,
+and who was much more intent on his work than he was even on his seat
+in the Cabinet, was possessed by what many of his brother politicians
+regarded as a morbid dislike to pretences. He had not been happy
+during his few weeks of the Privy Seal, and had almost envied Mr.
+Bonteen the realities of the Board of Trade. "I think upon the whole
+it will be best to make the change," he said to Mr. Gresham. And Mr.
+Gresham was delighted.
+
+But there were one or two men of mark,--one or two who were older
+than Mr. Gresham probably, and less perfect in their Liberal
+sympathies,--who thought that the Duke of Omnium was derogating from
+his proper position in the step which he was now taking. Chief among
+these was his friend the Duke of St. Bungay, who alone perhaps could
+venture to argue the matter with him. "I almost wish that you had
+spoken to me first," said the elder Duke.
+
+"I feared that I should find you so strongly opposed to my
+resolution."
+
+"If it was a resolution."
+
+"I think it was," said the younger. "It was a great misfortune to me
+that I should have been obliged to leave the House of Commons."
+
+"You should not feel it so."
+
+"My whole life was there," said he who, as Plantagenet Palliser, had
+been so good a commoner.
+
+"But your whole life should certainly not be there now,--nor your
+whole heart. On you the circumstances of your birth have imposed
+duties quite as high, and I will say quite as useful, as any which a
+career in the House of Commons can put within the reach of a man."
+
+"Do you think so, Duke?"
+
+"Certainly I do. I do think that the England which we know could not
+be the England that she is but for the maintenance of a high-minded,
+proud, and self-denying nobility. And though with us there is no
+line dividing our very broad aristocracy into two parts, a higher
+and a lower, or a greater and a smaller, or a richer and a poorer,
+nevertheless we all feel that the success of our order depends
+chiefly on the conduct of those whose rank is the highest and whose
+means are the greatest. To some few, among whom you are conspicuously
+one, wealth has been given so great and rank so high that much of
+the welfare of your country depends on the manner in which you bear
+yourself as the Duke of Omnium."
+
+"I would not wish to think so."
+
+"Your uncle so thought. And, though he was a man very different from
+you, not inured to work in his early life, with fewer attainments,
+probably a slower intellect, and whose general conduct was inferior
+to your own,--I speak freely because the subject is important,--he
+was a man who understood his position and the requirements of his
+order very thoroughly. A retinue almost Royal, together with an
+expenditure which Royalty could not rival, secured for him the
+respect of the nation."
+
+"Your life has not been as was his, and you have won a higher
+respect."
+
+"I think not. The greater part of my life was spent in the House of
+Commons, and my fortune was never much more than the tenth of his.
+But I wish to make no such comparison."
+
+"I must make it, if I am to judge which I would follow."
+
+"Pray understand me, my friend," said the old man, energetically. "I
+am not advising you to abandon public life in order that you may live
+in repose as a great nobleman. It would not be in your nature to do
+so, nor could the country afford to lose your services. But you need
+not therefore take your place in the arena of politics as though you
+were still Plantagenet Palliser, with no other duties than those of a
+politician,--as you might so well have done had your uncle's titles
+and wealth descended to a son."
+
+"I wish they had," said the regretful Duke.
+
+"It cannot be so. Your brother perhaps wishes that he were a Duke,
+but it has been arranged otherwise. It is vain to repine. Your wife
+is unhappy because your uncle's Garter was not at once given to you."
+
+"Glencora is like other women,--of course."
+
+"I share her feelings. Had Mr. Gresham consulted me, I should not
+have scrupled to tell him that it would have been for the welfare of
+his party that the Duke of Omnium should be graced with any and every
+honour in his power to bestow. Lord Cantrip is my friend, almost as
+warmly as are you; but the country would not have missed the ribbon
+from the breast of Lord Cantrip. Had you been more the Duke, and less
+the slave of your country, it would have been sent to you. Do I make
+you angry by speaking so?"
+
+"Not in the least. I have but one ambition."
+
+"And that is--?"
+
+"To be the serviceable slave of my country."
+
+"A master is more serviceable than a slave," said the old man.
+
+"No; no; I deny it. I can admit much from you, but I cannot admit
+that. The politician who becomes the master of his country sinks from
+the statesman to the tyrant."
+
+"We misunderstand each other, my friend. Pitt, and Peel, and
+Palmerston were not tyrants, though each assumed and held for
+himself to the last the mastery of which I speak. Smaller men who
+have been slaves, have been as patriotic as they, but less useful.
+I regret that you should follow Mr. Bonteen in his office."
+
+"Because he was Mr. Bonteen."
+
+"All the circumstances of the transfer of office occasioned by your
+uncle's death seem to me to make it undesirable. I would not have
+you make yourself too common. This very murder adds to the feeling.
+Because Mr. Bonteen has been lost to us, the Minister has recourse to
+you."
+
+"It was my own suggestion."
+
+"But who knows that it was so? You, and I, and Mr. Gresham--and
+perhaps one or two others."
+
+"It is too late now, Duke; and, to tell the truth of myself, not even
+you can make me other than I am. My uncle's life to me was always a
+problem which I could not understand. Were I to attempt to walk in
+his ways I should fail utterly, and become absurd. I do not feel the
+disgrace of following Mr. Bonteen."
+
+"I trust you may at least be less unfortunate."
+
+"Well;--yes. I need not expect to be murdered in the streets because
+I am going to the Board of Trade. I shall have made no enemy by my
+political success."
+
+"You think that--Mr. Finn--did do that deed?" asked the elder Duke.
+
+"I hardly know what I think. My wife is sure that he is innocent."
+
+"The Duchess is enthusiastic always."
+
+"Many others think the same. Lord and Lady Chiltern are sure of
+that."
+
+"They were always his best friends."
+
+"I am told that many of the lawyers are sure that it will be
+impossible to convict him. If he be acquitted I shall strive to think
+him innocent. He will come back to the House, of course."
+
+"I should think he would apply for the Hundreds," said the Duke of
+St. Bungay.
+
+"I do not see why he should. I would not in his place. If he be
+innocent, why should he admit himself unfit for a seat in Parliament?
+I tell you what he might do;--resign, and then throw himself again
+upon his constituency." The other Duke shook his head, thereby
+declaring his opinion that Phineas Finn was in truth the man who had
+murdered Mr. Bonteen.
+
+When it was publicly known that the Duke of Omnium had stepped into
+Mr. Bonteen's shoes, the general opinion certainly coincided with
+that given by the Duke of St. Bungay. It was not only that the
+late Chancellor of the Exchequer should not have consented to fill
+so low an office, or that the Duke of Omnium should have better
+known his own place, or that he should not have succeeded a man so
+insignificant as Mr. Bonteen. These things, no doubt, were said,--but
+more was said also. It was thought that he should not have gone to
+an office which had been rendered vacant by the murder of a man
+who had been placed there merely to assist himself. If the present
+arrangement was good, why should it not have been made independently
+of Mr. Bonteen? Questions were asked about it in both Houses, and
+the transfer no doubt did have the effect of lowering the man in the
+estimation of the political world. He himself felt that he did not
+stand so high with his colleagues as when he was Chancellor of the
+Exchequer; not even so high as when he held the Privy Seal. In the
+printed lists of those who attended the Cabinets his name generally
+was placed last, and an opponent on one occasion thought, or
+pretended to think, that he was no more than Postmaster-General. He
+determined to bear all this without wincing,--but he did wince. He
+would not own to himself that he had been wrong, but he was sore,--as
+a man is sore who doubts about his own conduct; and he was not the
+less so because he strove to bear his wife's sarcasms without showing
+that they pained him.
+
+"They say that poor Lord Fawn is losing his mind," she said to him.
+
+"Lord Fawn! I haven't heard anything about it."
+
+"He was engaged to Lady Eustace once, you remember. They say that
+he'll be made to declare why he didn't marry her if this bigamy case
+goes on. And then it's so unfortunate that he should have seen the
+man in the grey coat; I hope he won't have to resign."
+
+"I hope not, indeed."
+
+"Because, of course, you'd have to take his place as
+Under-Secretary." This was very awkward;--but the husband only
+smiled, and expressed a hope that if he did so he might himself be
+equal to his new duties. "By the bye, Plantagenet, what do you mean
+to do about the jewels?"
+
+"I haven't thought about them. Madame Goesler had better take them."
+
+"But she won't."
+
+"I suppose they had better be sold."
+
+"By auction?"
+
+"That would be the proper way."
+
+"I shouldn't like that at all. Couldn't we buy them ourselves, and
+let the money stand till she choose to take it? It's an affair of
+trade, I suppose, and you're at the head of all that now." Then
+again she asked him some question about the Home Secretary, with
+reference to Phineas Finn; and when he told her that it would be
+highly improper for him to speak to that officer on such a subject,
+she pretended to suppose that the impropriety would consist in the
+interference of a man holding so low a position as he was. "Of course
+it is not the same now," she said, "as it used to be when you were at
+the Exchequer." All which he took without uttering a word of anger,
+or showing a sign of annoyance. "You only get two thousand a year, do
+you, at the Board of Trade, Plantagenet?"
+
+"Upon my word, I forget. I think it's two thousand five hundred."
+
+"How nice! It was five at the Exchequer, wasn't it?"
+
+"Yes; five thousand at the Exchequer."
+
+"When you're a Lord of the Treasury it will only be one;--will it?"
+
+"What a goose you are, Glencora. If it suited me to be a Lord of the
+Treasury, what difference would the salary make?"
+
+"Not the least;--nor yet the rank, or the influence, or the prestige,
+or the general fitness of things. You are above all such sublunary
+ideas. You would clean Mr. Gresham's shoes for him, if--the service
+of your country required it." These last words she added in a tone
+of voice very similar to that which her husband himself used on
+occasions.
+
+"I would even allow you to clean them,--if the service of the country
+required it," said the Duke.
+
+But, though he was magnanimous, he was not happy, and perhaps the
+intense anxiety which his wife displayed as to the fate of Phineas
+Finn added to his discomfort. The Duchess, as the Duke of St. Bungay
+had said, was enthusiastic, and he never for a moment dreamed of
+teaching her to change her nature; but it would have been as well
+if her enthusiasm at the present moment could have been brought to
+display itself on some other subject. He had been brought to feel
+that Phineas Finn had been treated badly when the good things of
+Government were being given away, and that this had been caused by
+the jealous prejudices of the man who had been since murdered. But an
+expectant Under-Secretary of State, let him have been ever so cruelly
+left out in the cold, should not murder the man by whom he has been
+ill-treated. Looking at all the evidence as best he could, and
+listening to the opinions of others, the Duke did think that Phineas
+had been guilty. The murder had clearly been committed by a personal
+enemy, not by a robber. Two men were known to have entertained
+feelings of enmity against Mr. Bonteen; as to one of whom he was
+assured that it was impossible that he should have been on the
+spot. As to the other it seemed equally manifest that he must have
+been there. If it were so, it would have been much better that his
+wife should not display her interest publicly in the murderer's
+favour. But the Duchess, wherever she went, spoke of the trial as a
+persecution; and seemed to think that the prisoner should already be
+treated as a hero and a martyr. "Glencora," he said to her, "I wish
+that you could drop the subject of this trial till it be over."
+
+"But I can't."
+
+"Surely you can avoid speaking of it."
+
+"No more than you can avoid your decimals. Out of the full heart the
+mouth speaks, and my heart is very full. What harm do I do?"
+
+"You set people talking of you."
+
+"They have been doing that ever since we were married;--but I do not
+know that they have made out much against me. We must go after our
+nature, Plantagenet. Your nature is decimals. I run after units." He
+did not deem it wise to say anything further,--knowing that to this
+evil also of Phineas Finn the gods would at last vouchsafe an ending.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIX.
+
+MRS. BONTEEN.
+
+
+At the time of the murder, Lady Eustace, whom we must regard as the
+wife of Mr. Emilius till it be proved that he had another wife when
+he married her, was living as the guest of Mr. Bonteen. Mr. Bonteen
+had pledged himself to prove the bigamy, and Mrs. Bonteen had opened
+her house and her heart to the injured lady. Lizzie Eustace, as
+she had always been called, was clever, rich, and pretty, and knew
+well how to ingratiate herself with the friend of the hour. She was
+a greedy, grasping little woman, but, when she had before her a
+sufficient object, she could appear to pour all that she had into
+her friend's lap with all the prodigality of a child. Perhaps Mrs.
+Bonteen had liked to have things poured into her lap. Perhaps Mr.
+Bonteen had enjoyed the confidential tears of a pretty woman. It may
+be that the wrongs of a woman doomed to live with Mr. Emilius as his
+wife had touched their hearts. Be that as it might, they had become
+the acknowledged friends and supporters of Lady Eustace, and she was
+living with them in their little house in St. James's Place on that
+fatal night.
+
+
+[Illustration: Lizzie Eustace.]
+
+
+Lizzie behaved herself very well when the terrible tidings were
+brought home. Mr. Bonteen was so often late at the House or at his
+club that his wife rarely sat up for him; and when the servants were
+disturbed between six and seven o'clock in the morning, no surprise
+had as yet been felt at his absence. The sergeant of police who had
+brought the news sent for the maid of the unfortunate lady, and the
+maid, in her panic, told her story to Lady Eustace before daring to
+communicate it to her mistress. Lizzie Eustace, who in former days
+had known something of policemen, saw the man, and learned from him
+all that there was to learn. Then, while the sergeant remained on the
+landing place, outside, to support her, if necessary, with the maid
+by her side to help her, kneeling by the bed, she told the wretched
+woman what had happened. We need not witness the paroxysms of the
+widow's misery, but we may understand that Lizzie Eustace was from
+that moment more strongly fixed than ever in her friendship with Mrs.
+Bonteen.
+
+When the first three or four days of agony and despair had passed
+by, and the mind of the bereaved woman was able to turn itself from
+the loss to the cause of the loss, Mrs. Bonteen became fixed in her
+certainty that Phineas Finn had murdered her husband, and seemed
+to think that it was the first and paramount duty of the present
+Government to have the murderer hung,--almost without a trial.
+When she found that, at the best, the execution of the man she so
+vehemently hated could not take place for two months after the doing
+of the deed, even if then, she became almost frantic in her anger.
+Surely they would not let him escape! What more proof could be
+needed? Had not the miscreant quarrelled with her husband, and
+behaved abominably to him but a few minutes before the murder? Had he
+not been on the spot with the murderous instrument in his pocket? Had
+he not been seen by Lord Fawn hastening on the steps of her dear and
+doomed husband? Mrs. Bonteen, as she sat enveloped in her new weeds,
+thirsting for blood, could not understand that further evidence
+should be needed, or that a rational doubt should remain in the mind
+of any one who knew the circumstances. It was to her as though she
+had seen the dastard blow struck, and with such conviction as this on
+her mind did she insist on talking of the coming trial to her inmate,
+Lady Eustace. But Lizzie had her own opinion, though she was forced
+to leave it unexpressed in the presence of Mrs. Bonteen. She knew
+the man who claimed her as his wife, and did not think that Phineas
+Finn was guilty of the murder. Her Emilius,--her Yosef Mealyus, as
+she had delighted to call him, since she had separated herself from
+him,--was, as she thought, the very man to commit a murder. He was
+by no means degraded in her opinion by the feeling. To commit great
+crimes is the line of life that comes naturally to some men, and was,
+as she thought, a line less objectionable than that which confines
+itself to small crimes. She almost felt that the audacity of her
+husband in doing such a deed redeemed her from some of the ignominy
+to which she had subjected herself by her marriage with a runaway
+who had another wife living. There was a dash of adventure about
+it which was almost gratifying. But these feelings she was obliged,
+at any rate for the present, to keep to herself. Not only must she
+acknowledge the undoubted guilt of Phineas Finn for the sake of her
+friend, Mrs. Bonteen; but she must consider carefully whether she
+would gain or lose more by having a murderer for her husband. She
+did not relish the idea of being made a widow by the gallows. She
+was still urgent as to the charge of bigamy, and should she succeed
+in proving that the man had never been her husband, then she did
+not care how soon they might hang him. But for the present it was
+better for all reasons that she should cling to the Phineas Finn
+theory,--feeling certain that it was the bold hand of her own Emilius
+who had struck the blow.
+
+She was by no means free from the solicitations of her husband, who
+knew well where she was, and who still adhered to his purpose of
+reclaiming his wife and his wife's property. When he was released by
+the magistrate's order, and had recovered his goods from Mr. Meager's
+house, and was once more established in lodgings, humbler, indeed,
+than those in Northumberland Street, he wrote the following letter to
+her who had been for one blessed year the partner of his joys, and
+his bosom's mistress:--
+
+
+   3, Jellybag Street, Edgware Road,
+   May 26, 18--.
+
+   DEAREST WIFE,--
+
+   You will have heard to what additional sorrow and disgrace
+   I have been subjected through the malice of my enemies.
+   But all in vain! Though princes and potentates have been
+   arrayed against me [the princes and potentates had no
+   doubt been Lord Chiltern and Mr. Low], innocence has
+   prevailed, and I have come out from the ordeal white as
+   bleached linen or unsullied snow. The murderer is in the
+   hands of justice, and though he be the friend of kings and
+   princes [Mr. Emilius had probably heard that the Prince
+   had been at the club with Phineas], yet shall justice
+   be done upon him, and the truth of the Lord shall be
+   made to prevail. Mr. Bonteen has been very hostile to
+   me, believing evil things of me, and instigating you, my
+   beloved, to believe evil of me. Nevertheless, I grieve
+   for his death. I lament bitterly that he should have been
+   cut off in his sins, and hurried before the judgment
+   seat of the great Judge without an hour given to him for
+   repentance. Let us pray that the mercy of the Lord may
+   be extended even to him. I beg that you will express my
+   deepest commiseration to his widow, and assure her that
+   she has my prayers.
+
+   And now, my dearest wife, let me approach my own affairs.
+   As I have come out unscorched from the last fiery furnace
+   which has been heated for me by my enemies seven times
+   hot, so shall I escape from that other fire with which the
+   poor man who has gone from us endeavoured to envelop me.
+   If they have made you believe that I have any wife but
+   yourself they have made you believe a falsehood. You, and
+   you only, have my hand. You, and you only, have my heart.
+   I know well what attempts are being made to suborn false
+   evidence in my old country, and how the follies of my
+   youth are being pressed against me,--how anxious are proud
+   Englishmen that the poor Bohemian should be robbed of the
+   beauty and wit and wealth which he had won for himself.
+   But the Lord fights on my side, and I shall certainly
+   prevail.
+
+   If you will come back to me all shall be forgiven. My
+   heart is as it ever was. Come, and let us leave this cold
+   and ungenial country and go to the sunny south; to the
+   islands of the blest,--
+
+
+Mr. Emilius during his married life had not quite fathomed the depths
+of his wife's character, though, no doubt, he had caught some points
+of it with sufficient accuracy.
+
+
+   --where we may forget these blood-stained sorrows, and
+   mutually forgive each other. What happiness, what joys
+   can you expect in your present mode of life? Even your
+   income,--which in truth is my income,--you cannot obtain,
+   because the tenants will not dare to pay it in opposition
+   to my legal claims. But of what use is gold? What can
+   purple do for us, and fine linen, and rich jewels, without
+   love and a contented heart? Come, dearest, once more to
+   your own one, who will never remember aught of the sad
+   rupture which enemies have made, and we will hurry to the
+   setting sun, and recline on mossy banks, and give up our
+   souls to Elysium.
+
+
+As Lizzie read this she uttered an exclamation of disgust. Did the
+man after all know so little of her as to suppose that she, with all
+her experiences, did not know how to keep her own life and her own
+pocket separate from her romance? She despised him for this, almost
+as much as she respected him for the murder.
+
+
+   If you will only say that you will see me, I will be at
+   your feet in a moment. Till the solemnity with which the
+   late tragical event must have filled you shall have left
+   you leisure to think of all this, I will not force myself
+   into your presence, or seek to secure by law rights which
+   will be much dearer to me if they are accorded by your own
+   sweet goodwill. And in the meantime, I will agree that
+   the income shall be drawn, provided that it be equally
+   divided between us. I have been sorely straitened in
+   my circumstances by these last events. My congregation
+   is of course dispersed. Though my innocence has been
+   triumphantly displayed, my name has been tarnished. It is
+   with difficulty that I find a spot where to lay my weary
+   head. I am ahungered and athirst;--and my very garments
+   are parting from me in my need. Can it be that you
+   willingly doom me to such misery because of my love for
+   you? Had I been less true to you, it might have been
+   otherwise.
+
+   Let me have an answer at once, and I will instantly take
+   steps about the money if you will agree.
+
+   Your truly most loving husband,
+
+   JOSEPH EMILIUS.
+
+   To Lady Eustace, wife of the Rev. Joseph Emilius.
+
+
+When Lizzie had read the letter twice through she resolved that she
+would show it to her friend. "I know it will reopen the floodgates of
+your grief," she said; "but unless you see it, how can I ask from you
+the advice which is so necessary to me?" But Mrs. Bonteen was a woman
+sincere at any rate in this,--that the loss of her husband had been
+to her so crushing a calamity that there could be no reopening of the
+floodgates. The grief that cannot bear allusion to its causes has
+generally something of affectation in its composition. The floodgates
+with this widowed one had never yet been for a moment closed. It was
+not that her tears were ever flowing, but that her heart had never
+yet for a moment ceased to feel that its misery was incapable of
+alleviation. No utterances concerning her husband could make her more
+wretched than she was. She took the letter and read it through. "I
+daresay he is a bad man," said Mrs. Bonteen.
+
+"Indeed he is," said the bad man's wife.
+
+"But he was not guilty of this crime."
+
+"Oh, no;--I am sure of that," said Lady Eustace, feeling certain at
+the same time that Mr. Bonteen had fallen by her husband's hands.
+
+"And therefore I am glad they have given him up. There can be no
+doubt now about it."
+
+"Everybody knows who did it now," said Lady Eustace.
+
+"Infamous ruffian! My poor dear lost one always knew what he was. Oh
+that such a creature should have been allowed to come among us."
+
+"Of course he'll be hung, Mrs. Bonteen."
+
+"Hung! I should think so! What other end would be fit for him? Oh,
+yes; they must hang him. But it makes one think that the world is too
+hard a place to live in, when such a one as he can cause so great a
+ruin."
+
+"It has been very terrible."
+
+"Think what the country has lost! They tell me that the Duke of
+Omnium is to take my husband's place; but the Duke cannot do what
+he did. Every one knows that for real work there was no one like
+him. Nothing was more certain than that he would have been Prime
+Minister,--oh, very soon. They ought to pinch him to death with
+red-hot tweezers."
+
+But Lady Eustace was anxious at the present moment to talk about her
+own troubles. "Of course, Mr. Emilius did not commit the murder."
+
+"Phineas Finn committed it," said the half-maddened woman, rising
+from her chair. "And Phineas Finn shall hang by his neck till he is
+dead."
+
+"But Emilius has certainly got another wife in Prague."
+
+"I suppose you know. He said it was so, and he was always right."
+
+"I am sure of it,--just as you are sure of this horrid Mr. Finn."
+
+"The two things can't be named together, Lady Eustace."
+
+"Certainly not. I wouldn't think of being so unfeeling. But he has
+written me this letter, and what must I do? It is very dreadful about
+the money, you know."
+
+"He cannot touch your money. My dear one always said that he could
+not touch it."
+
+"But he prevents me from touching it. What they give me only comes
+by a sort of favour from the lawyer. I almost wish that I had
+compromised."
+
+"You would not be rid of him that way."
+
+"No;--not quite rid of him. You see I never had to take that horrid
+name because of the title. I suppose I'd better send the letter to
+the lawyer."
+
+"Send it to the lawyer, of course. That is what he would have done.
+They tell me that the trial is to be on the 24th of June. Why should
+they postpone it so long? They know all about it. They always
+postpone everything. If he had lived, there would be an end of that
+before long."
+
+Lady Eustace was tired of the virtues of her friend's martyred lord,
+and was very anxious to talk of her own affairs. She was still
+holding her husband's letter open in her hand, and was thinking how
+she could force her friend's dead lion to give place for a while
+to her own live dog, when a servant announced that Mr. Camperdown,
+the attorney, was below. In former days there had been an old Mr.
+Camperdown, who was vehemently hostile to poor Lizzie Eustace; but
+now, in her new troubles, the firm that had ever been true to her
+first husband had taken up her case for the sake of the family and
+her property--and for the sake of the heir, Lizzie Eustace's little
+boy; and Mr. Camperdown's firm had, next to Mr. Bonteen, been the
+depository of her trust. He had sent clerks out to Prague,--one who
+had returned ill,--as some had said poisoned, though the poison had
+probably been nothing more than the diet natural to Bohemians. And
+then another had been sent. This, of course, had all been previous
+to Madame Goesler's self-imposed mission,--which, though it was
+occasioned altogether by the suspected wickednesses of Mr. Emilius,
+had no special reference to his matrimonial escapades. And now Mr.
+Camperdown was down stairs. "Shall I go down to him, dear Mrs.
+Bonteen?"
+
+"He may come here if you please."
+
+"Perhaps I had better go down. He will disturb you."
+
+"My darling lost one always thought that there should be two present
+to hear such matters. He said it was safer." Mr. Camperdown, junior,
+was therefore shown upstairs to Mrs. Bonteen's drawing-room.
+
+"We have found it all out, Lady Eustace," said Mr. Camperdown.
+
+"Found out what?"
+
+"We've got Madame Mealyus over here."
+
+"No!" said Mrs. Bonteen, with her hands raised. Lady Eustace sat
+silent, with her mouth open.
+
+"Yes, indeed;--and photographs of the registry of the marriage
+from the books of the synagogue at Cracow. His signature was Yosef
+Mealyus, and his handwriting isn't a bit altered. I think we could
+have proved it without the lady; but of course it was better to bring
+her if possible."
+
+"Where is she?" asked Lizzie, thinking that she would like to see her
+own predecessor.
+
+"We have her safe, Lady Eustace. She's not in custody; but as
+she can't speak a word of English or French, she finds it more
+comfortable to be kept in private. We're afraid it will cost a little
+money."
+
+"Will she swear that she is his wife?" asked Mrs. Bonteen.
+
+"Oh, yes; there'll be no difficulty about that. But her swearing
+alone mightn't be enough."
+
+"Surely that settles it all," said Lady Eustace.
+
+"For the money that we shall have to pay," said Mr. Camperdown, "we
+might probably have got a dozen Bohemian ladies to come and swear
+that they were married to Yosef Mealyus at Cracow. The difficulty has
+been to bring over documentary evidence which will satisfy a jury
+that this is the woman she says she is. But I think we've got it."
+
+"And I shall be free!" said Lady Eustace, clasping her hands
+together.
+
+"It will cost a good deal, I fear," said Mr. Camperdown.
+
+"But I shall be free! Oh, Mr. Camperdown, there is not a woman in all
+the world who cares so little for money as I do. But I shall be free
+from the power of that horrid man who has entangled me in the meshes
+of his sinful life." Mr. Camperdown told her that he thought that
+she would be free, and went on to say that Yosef Mealyus had already
+been arrested, and was again in prison. The unfortunate man had not
+therefore long enjoyed that humbler apartment which he had found for
+himself in Jellybag Street.
+
+When Mr. Camperdown went, Mrs. Bonteen followed him out to the top
+of the stairs. "You have heard about the trial, Mr. Camperdown?" He
+said that he knew that it was to take place at the Central Criminal
+Court in June. "Yes; I don't know why they have put it off so long.
+People know that he did it--eh?" Mr. Camperdown, with funereal
+sadness, declared that he had never looked into the matter. "I cannot
+understand that everybody should not know it," said Mrs. Bonteen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LX.
+
+TWO DAYS BEFORE THE TRIAL.
+
+
+There was a scene in the private room of Mr. Wickerby, the attorney
+in Hatton Garden, which was very distressing indeed to the feelings
+of Lord Fawn, and which induced his lordship to think that he was
+being treated without that respect which was due to him as a peer
+and a member of the Government. There were present at this scene Mr.
+Chaffanbrass, the old barrister, Mr. Wickerby himself, Mr. Wickerby's
+confidential clerk, Lord Fawn, Lord Fawn's solicitor,--that same
+Mr. Camperdown whom we saw in the last chapter calling upon Lady
+Eustace,--and a policeman. Lord Fawn had been invited to attend, with
+many protestations of regret as to the trouble thus imposed upon him,
+because the very important nature of the evidence about to be given
+by him at the forthcoming trial seemed to render it expedient that
+some questions should be asked. This was on Tuesday, the 22nd June,
+and the trial was to be commenced on the following Thursday. And
+there was present in the room, very conspicuously, an old heavy grey
+great coat, as to which Mr. Wickerby had instructed Mr. Chaffanbrass
+that evidence was forthcoming, if needed, to prove that that coat was
+lying on the night of the murder in a downstairs room in the house
+in which Yosef Mealyus was then lodging. The reader will remember
+the history of the coat. Instigated by Madame Goesler, who was
+still absent from England, Mr. Wickerby had traced the coat, and
+had purchased the coat, and was in a position to prove that this
+very coat was the coat which Mr. Meager had brought home with him to
+Northumberland Street on that day. But Mr. Wickerby was of opinion
+that the coat had better not be used. "It does not go far enough,"
+said Mr. Wickerby. "It don't go very far, certainly," said Mr.
+Chaffanbrass. "And if you try to show that another man has done it,
+and he hasn't," said Mr. Wickerby, "it always tells against you
+with a jury." To this Mr. Chaffanbrass made no reply, preferring to
+form his own opinion, and to keep it to himself when formed. But in
+obedience to his instructions, Lord Fawn was asked to attend at Mr.
+Wickerby's chambers, in the cause of truth, and the coat was brought
+out on the occasion. "Was that the sort of coat the man wore, my
+lord?" said Mr. Chaffanbrass as Mr. Wickerby held up the coat to
+view. Lord Fawn walked round and round the coat, and looked at it
+very carefully before he would vouchsafe a reply. "You see it is a
+grey coat," said Mr. Chaffanbrass, not speaking at all in the tone
+which Mr. Wickerby's note had induced Lord Fawn to expect.
+
+"It is grey," said Lord Fawn.
+
+"Perhaps it's not the same shade of grey, Lord Fawn. You see, my
+lord, we are most anxious not to impute guilt where guilt doesn't
+lie. You are a witness for the Crown, and, of course, you will tell
+the Crown lawyers all that passes here. Were it possible, we would
+make this little preliminary inquiry in their presence;--but we can
+hardly do that. Mr. Finn's coat was a very much smaller coat."
+
+"I should think it was," said his lordship, who did not like being
+questioned about coats.
+
+"You don't think the coat the man wore when you saw him was a big
+coat like that? You think he wore a little coat?"
+
+"He wore a grey coat," said Lord Fawn.
+
+"This is grey;--a coat shouldn't be greyer than that."
+
+"I don't think Lord Fawn should be asked any more questions on the
+matter till he gives his evidence in court," said Mr. Camperdown.
+
+"A man's life depends on it, Mr. Camperdown," said the barrister. "It
+isn't a matter of cross-examination. If I bring that coat into court
+I must make a charge against another man by the very act of doing so.
+And I will not do so unless I believe that other man to be guilty.
+It's an inquiry I can't postpone till we are before the jury. It
+isn't that I want to trump up a case against another man for the sake
+of extricating my client on a false issue. Lord Fawn doesn't want to
+hang Mr. Finn if Mr. Finn be not guilty."
+
+"God forbid!" said his lordship.
+
+"Mr. Finn couldn't have worn that coat, or a coat at all like it."
+
+"What is it you do want to learn, Mr. Chaffanbrass?" asked Mr.
+Camperdown.
+
+"Just put on the coat, Mr. Scruby." Then at the order of the
+barrister, Mr. Scruby, the attorney's clerk, did put on Mr. Meager's
+old great coat, and walked about the room in it. "Walk quick," said
+Mr. Chaffanbrass;--and the clerk did "walk quick." He was a stout,
+thick-set little man, nearly half a foot shorter than Phineas Finn.
+"Is that at all like the figure?" asked Mr. Chaffanbrass.
+
+"I think it is like the figure," said Lord Fawn.
+
+"And like the coat?"
+
+"It's the same colour as the coat."
+
+"You wouldn't swear it was not the coat?"
+
+"I am not on my oath at all, Mr. Chaffanbrass."
+
+"No, my lord;--but to me your word is as good as your oath. If you
+think it possible that was the coat--"
+
+"I don't think anything about it at all. When Mr. Scruby hurries down
+the room in that way he looks as the man looked when he was hurrying
+under the lamp-post. I am not disposed to say any more at present."
+
+"It's a matter of regret to me that Lord Fawn should have come here
+at all," said Mr. Camperdown, who had been summoned to meet his
+client at the chambers, but had come with him.
+
+"I suppose his lordship wishes us to know all that he knew, seeing
+that it's a question of hanging the right man or the wrong one. I
+never heard such trash in my life. Take it off, Mr. Scruby, and let
+the policeman keep it. I understand Lord Fawn to say that the man's
+figure was about the same as yours. My client, I believe, stands
+about twelve inches taller. Thank you, my lord;--we shall get at
+the truth at last, I don't doubt." It was afterwards said that Mr.
+Chaffanbrass's conduct had been very improper in enticing Lord Fawn
+to Mr. Wickerby's chambers; but Mr. Chaffanbrass never cared what
+any one said. "I don't know that we can make much of it," he said,
+when he and Mr. Wickerby were alone, "but it may be as well to bring
+it into court. It would prove nothing against the Jew even if that
+fellow,"--he meant Lord Fawn,--"could be made to swear that the
+coat worn was exactly similar to this. I am thinking now about the
+height."
+
+"I don't doubt but you'll get him off."
+
+"Well;--I may do so. They ought not to hang any man on such evidence
+as there is against him, even though there were no moral doubt of his
+guilt. There is nothing really to connect Mr. Phineas Finn with the
+murder,--nothing tangible. But there is no saying nowadays what a
+jury will do. Juries depend a great deal more on the judge than they
+used to do. If I were on trial for my life, I don't think I'd have
+counsel at all."
+
+"No one could defend you as well as yourself, Mr. Chaffanbrass."
+
+"I didn't mean that. No;--I shouldn't defend myself. I should say
+to the judge, 'My lord, I don't doubt the jury will do just as you
+tell them, and you'll form your own opinion quite independent of the
+arguments.'"
+
+"You'd be hung, Mr. Chaffanbrass."
+
+"No; I don't know that I should," said Mr. Chaffanbrass, slowly. "I
+don't think I could affront a judge of the present day into hanging
+me. They've too much of what I call thick-skinned honesty for that.
+It's the temper of the time to resent nothing,--to be mealy-mouthed
+and mealy-hearted. Jurymen are afraid of having their own opinion,
+and almost always shirk a verdict when they can."
+
+"But we do get verdicts."
+
+"Yes; the judges give them. And they are mealy-mouthed verdicts,
+tending to equalise crime and innocence, and to make men think that
+after all it may be a question whether fraud is violence, which,
+after all, is manly, and to feel that we cannot afford to hate
+dishonesty. It was a bad day for the commercial world, Mr. Wickerby,
+when forgery ceased to be capital."
+
+"It was a horrid thing to hang a man for writing another man's name
+to a receipt for thirty shillings."
+
+"We didn't do it, but the fact that the law held certain frauds to be
+hanging matters operated on the minds of men in regard to all fraud.
+What with the joint-stock working of companies, and the confusion
+between directors who know nothing and managers who know everything,
+and the dislike of juries to tread upon people's corns, you can't
+punish dishonest trading. Caveat emptor is the only motto going,
+and the worst proverb that ever came from dishonest stony-hearted
+Rome. With such a motto as that to guide us no man dare trust his
+brother. Caveat lex,--and let the man who cheats cheat at his
+peril."
+
+"You'd give the law a great deal to do."
+
+"Much less than at present. What does your Caveat emptor come to?
+That every seller tries to pick the eyes out of the head of the
+purchaser. Sooner or later the law must interfere, and Caveat
+emptor falls to the ground. I bought a horse the other day; my
+daughter wanted something to look pretty, and like an old ass as I am
+I gave a hundred and fifty pounds for the brute. When he came home he
+wasn't worth a feed of corn."
+
+"You had a warranty, I suppose?"
+
+"No, indeed! Did you ever hear of such an old fool?"
+
+"I should have thought any dealer would have taken him back for the
+sake of his character."
+
+"Any dealer would; but--I bought him of a gentleman."
+
+"Mr. Chaffanbrass!"
+
+"I ought to have known better, oughtn't I? Caveat emptor."
+
+"It was just giving away your money, you know."
+
+"A great deal worse than that. I could have given the--gentleman--a
+hundred and fifty pounds, and not have minded it much. I ought to
+have had the horse killed, and gone to a dealer for another. Instead
+of that,--I went to an attorney."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Chaffanbrass;--the idea of your going to an attorney."
+
+"I did then. I never had so much honest truth told me in my life."
+
+"By an attorney!"
+
+"He said that he did think I'd been born long enough to have known
+better than that! I pleaded on my own behalf that the gentleman said
+the horse was all right. 'Gentleman!' exclaimed my friend. 'You go
+to a gentleman for a horse; you buy a horse from a gentleman without
+a warranty; and then you come to me! Didn't you ever hear of Caveat
+emptor, Mr. Chaffanbrass? What can I do for you?' That's what my
+friend, the attorney, said to me."
+
+"And what came of it, Mr. Chaffanbrass? Arbitration, I should say?"
+
+"Just that;--with the horse eating his head off every meal at ever
+so much per week,--till at last I fairly gave in from sheer vexation.
+So the--gentleman--got my money, and I added something to my stock
+of experience. Of course, that's only my story, and it may be that
+the gentleman could tell it another way. But I say that if my story
+be right the doctrine of Caveat emptor does not encourage trade.
+I don't know how we got to all this from Mr. Finn. I'm to see him
+to-morrow."
+
+"Yes;--he is very anxious to speak to you."
+
+"What's the use of it, Wickerby? I hate seeing a client.--What comes
+of it?"
+
+"Of course he wants to tell his own story."
+
+"But I don't want to hear his own story. What good will his own story
+do me? He'll tell me either one of two things. He'll swear he didn't
+murder the man--"
+
+"That's what he'll say."
+
+"Which can have no effect upon me one way or the other; or else he'll
+say that he did,--which would cripple me altogether."
+
+"He won't say that, Mr. Chaffanbrass."
+
+"There's no knowing what they'll say. A man will go on swearing by
+his God that he is innocent, till at last, in a moment of emotion, he
+breaks down, and out comes the truth. In such a case as this I do not
+in the least want to know the truth about the murder."
+
+"That is what the public wants to know."
+
+"Because the public is ignorant. The public should not wish to know
+anything of the kind. What we should all wish to get at is the truth
+of the evidence about the murder. The man is to be hung not because
+he committed the murder,--as to which no positive knowledge is
+attainable; but because he has been proved to have committed the
+murder,--as to which proof, though it be enough for hanging, there
+must always be attached some shadow of doubt. We were delighted to
+hang Palmer,--but we don't know that he killed Cook. A learned man
+who knew more about it than we can know seemed to think that he
+didn't. Now the last man to give us any useful insight into the
+evidence is the prisoner himself. In nineteen cases out of twenty a
+man tried for murder in this country committed the murder for which
+he is tried."
+
+"There really seems to be a doubt in this case."
+
+"I dare say. If there be only nineteen guilty out of twenty, there
+must be one innocent; and why not Mr. Phineas Finn? But, if it be so,
+he, burning with the sense of injustice, thinks that everybody should
+see it as he sees it. He is to be tried, because, on investigation,
+everybody sees it just in a different light. In such case he is
+unfortunate, but he can't assist me in liberating him from his
+misfortune. He sees what is patent and clear to him,--that he walked
+home on that night without meddling with any one. But I can't see
+that, or make others see it, because he sees it."
+
+"His manner of telling you may do something."
+
+"If it do, Mr. Wickerby, it is because I am unfit for my business.
+If he have the gift of protesting well, I am to think him innocent;
+and, therefore, to think him guilty, if he be unprovided with such
+eloquence! I will neither believe or disbelieve anything that a
+client says to me,--unless he confess his guilt, in which case my
+services can be but of little avail. Of course I shall see him, as he
+asks it. We had better meet there,--say at half-past ten." Whereupon
+Mr. Wickerby wrote to the governor of the prison begging that Phineas
+Finn might be informed of the visit.
+
+Phineas had now been in gaol between six and seven weeks, and the
+very fact of his incarceration had nearly broken his spirits. Two
+of his sisters, who had come from Ireland to be near him, saw him
+every day, and his two friends, Mr. Low and Lord Chiltern, were very
+frequently with him; Lady Laura Kennedy had not come to him again;
+but he heard from her frequently through Barrington Erle. Lord
+Chiltern rarely spoke of his sister,--alluding to her merely in
+connection with her father and her late husband. Presents still came
+to him from various quarters,--as to which he hardly knew whence they
+came. But the Duchess and Lady Chiltern and Lady Laura all catered
+for him,--while Mrs. Bunce looked after his wardrobe, and saw that he
+was not cut down to prison allowance of clean shirts and socks. But
+the only friend whom he recognised as such was the friend who would
+freely declare a conviction of his innocence. They allowed him books
+and pens and paper, and even cards, if he chose to play at Patience
+with them or build castles. The paper and pens he could use because
+he could write about himself. From day to day he composed a diary in
+which he was never tired of expatiating on the terrible injustice of
+his position. But he could not read. He found it to be impossible to
+fix his attention on matters outside himself. He assured himself from
+hour to hour that it was not death he feared,--not even death from
+the hangman's hand. It was the condemnation of those who had known
+him that was so terrible to him--the feeling that they with whom he
+had aspired to work and live, the leading men and women of his day,
+Ministers of the Government and their wives, statesmen and their
+daughters, peers and members of the House in which he himself had
+sat;--that these should think that, after all, he had been a base
+adventurer unworthy of their society! That was the sorrow that broke
+him down, and drew him to confess that his whole life had been a
+failure.
+
+Mr. Low had advised him not to see Mr. Chaffanbrass;--but he had
+persisted in declaring that there were instructions which no one
+but himself could give to the counsellor whose duty it would be to
+defend him at the trial. Mr. Chaffanbrass came at the hour fixed,
+and with him came Mr. Wickerby. The old barrister bowed courteously
+as he entered the prison room, and the attorney introduced the two
+gentlemen with more than all the courtesy of the outer world. "I am
+sorry to see you here, Mr. Finn," said the barrister.
+
+"It's a bad lodging, Mr. Chaffanbrass, but the term will soon be
+over. I am thinking a good deal more of my next abode."
+
+"It has to be thought of, certainly," said the barrister. "Let us
+hope that it may be all that you would wish it to be. My services
+shall not be wanting to make it so."
+
+"We are doing all we can, Mr. Finn," said Mr. Wickerby.
+
+"Mr. Chaffanbrass," said Phineas, "there is one special thing that
+I want you to do." The old man, having his own idea as to what was
+coming, laid one of his hands over the other, bowed his head, and
+looked meek. "I want you to make men believe that I am innocent of
+this crime."
+
+This was better than Mr. Chaffanbrass expected. "I trust that we may
+succeed in making twelve men believe it," said he.
+
+"Comparatively I do not care a straw for the twelve men. It is not to
+them especially that I am anxious that you should address yourself--"
+
+"But that will be my bounden duty, Mr. Finn."
+
+"I can well believe, sir, that though I have myself been bred a
+lawyer, I may not altogether understand the nature of an advocate's
+duty to his client. But I would wish something more to be done than
+what you intimate."
+
+"The duty of an advocate defending a prisoner is to get a verdict
+of acquittal if he can, and to use his own discretion in making the
+attempt."
+
+"But I want something more to be attempted, even if in the struggle
+something less be achieved. I have known men to be so acquitted that
+every man in court believed them to be guilty."
+
+"No doubt;--and such men have probably owed much to their advocates."
+
+"It is not such a debt that I wish to owe. I know my own innocence."
+
+"Mr. Chaffanbrass takes that for granted," said Mr. Wickerby.
+
+"To me it is a matter of astonishment that any human being should
+believe me to have committed this murder. I am lost in surprise when
+I remember that I am here simply because I walked home from my club
+with a loaded stick in my pocket. The magistrate, I suppose, thought
+me guilty."
+
+"He did not think about it, Mr. Finn. He went by the evidence;--the
+quarrel, your position in the streets at the time, the colour of the
+coat you wore and that of the coat worn by the man whom Lord Fawn saw
+in the street; the doctor's evidence as to the blows by which the man
+was killed; and the nature of the weapon which you carried. He put
+these things together, and they were enough to entitle the public to
+demand that a jury should decide. He didn't say you were guilty. He
+only said that the circumstances were sufficient to justify a trial."
+
+"If he thought me innocent he would not have sent me here."
+
+"Yes, he would;--if the evidence required that he should do so."
+
+"We will not argue about that, Mr. Chaffanbrass."
+
+"Certainly not, Mr. Finn."
+
+"Here I am, and to-morrow I shall be tried for my life. My life will
+be nothing to me unless it can be made clear to all the world that
+I am innocent. I would be sooner hung for this,--with the certainty
+at my heart that all England on the next day would ring with the
+assurance of my innocence, than be acquitted and afterwards be looked
+upon as a murderer." Phineas, when he was thus speaking, had stepped
+out into the middle of the room, and stood with his head thrown
+back, and his right hand forward. Mr. Chaffanbrass, who was himself
+an ugly, dirty old man, who had always piqued himself on being
+indifferent to appearance, found himself struck by the beauty and
+grace of the man whom he now saw for the first time. And he was
+struck, too, by his client's eloquence, though he had expressly
+declared to the attorney that it was his duty to be superior to any
+such influence. "Oh, Mr. Chaffanbrass, for the love of Heaven, let
+there be no quibbling."
+
+"We never quibble, I hope, Mr. Finn."
+
+"No subterfuges, no escaping by a side wind, no advantage taken of
+little forms, no objection taken to this and that as though delay
+would avail us anything."
+
+"Character will go a great way, we hope."
+
+"It should go for nothing. Though no one would speak a word for me,
+still am I innocent. Of course the truth will be known some day."
+
+"I'm not so sure of that, Mr. Finn."
+
+"It will certainly be known some day. That it should not be known
+as yet is my misfortune. But in defending me I would have you hurl
+defiance at my accusers. I had the stick in my pocket,--having
+heretofore been concerned with ruffians in the street. I did quarrel
+with the man, having been insulted by him at the club. The coat which
+I wore was such as they say. But does that make a murderer of me?"
+
+"Somebody did the deed, and that somebody could probably say all that
+you say."
+
+"No, sir;--he, when he is known, will be found to have been skulking
+in the streets; he will have thrown away his weapon; he will have
+been secret in his movements; he will have hidden his face, and have
+been a murderer in more than the deed. When they came to me in the
+morning did it seem to them that I was a murderer? Has my life been
+like that? They who have really known me cannot believe that I have
+been guilty. They who have not known me, and do believe, will live to
+learn their error."
+
+He then sat down and listened patiently while the old lawyer
+described to him the nature of the case,--wherein lay his danger, and
+wherein what hope there was of safety. There was no evidence against
+him other than circumstantial evidence, and both judges and jury
+were wont to be unwilling to accept such, when uncorroborated, as
+sufficient in cases of life and death. Unfortunately, in this case
+the circumstantial evidence was very strong against him. But, on the
+other hand, his character, as to which men of great mark would speak
+with enthusiasm, would be made to stand very high. "I would not have
+it made to stand higher than it is," said Phineas. As to the opinion
+of the world afterwards, Mr. Chaffanbrass went on to say, of that he
+must take his chance. But surely he himself might fight better for it
+living than any friend could do for him after his death. "You must
+believe me in this, Mr. Finn, that a verdict of acquittal from the
+jury is the one object that we must have before us."
+
+"The one object that I shall have before me is the verdict of the
+public," said Phineas. "I am treated with so much injustice in being
+thought a murderer that they can hardly add anything to it by hanging
+me."
+
+When Mr. Chaffanbrass left the prison he walked back with Mr.
+Wickerby to the attorney's chambers in Hatton Garden, and he lingered
+for awhile on the Viaduct expressing his opinion of his client. "He's
+not a bad fellow, Wickerby."
+
+"A very good sort of fellow, Mr. Chaffanbrass."
+
+"I never did,--and I never will,--express an opinion of my own as
+to the guilt or innocence of a client till after the trial is over.
+But I have sometimes felt as though I would give the blood out of my
+veins to save a man. I never felt in that way more strongly than I do
+now."
+
+"It'll make me very unhappy, I know, if it goes against him," said
+Mr. Wickerby.
+
+"People think that the special branch of the profession into which I
+have chanced to fall is a very low one,--and I do not know whether,
+if the world were before me again, I would allow myself to drift into
+an exclusive practice in criminal courts."
+
+"Yours has been a very useful life, Mr. Chaffanbrass."
+
+"But I often feel," continued the barrister, paying no attention to
+the attorney's last remark, "that my work touches the heart more
+nearly than does that of gentlemen who have to deal with matters of
+property and of high social claims. People think I am savage,--savage
+to witnesses."
+
+"You can frighten a witness, Mr. Chaffanbrass."
+
+"It's just the trick of the trade that you learn, as a girl learns
+the notes of her piano. There's nothing in it. You forget it all the
+next hour. But when a man has been hung whom you have striven to
+save, you do remember that. Good-morning, Mr. Wickerby. I'll be there
+a little before ten. Perhaps you may have to speak to me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXI.
+
+THE BEGINNING OF THE TRIAL.
+
+
+The task of seeing an important trial at the Old Bailey is by no
+means a pleasant business, unless you be what the denizens of the
+Court would call "one of the swells,"--so as to enjoy the privilege
+of being a benchfellow with the judge on the seat of judgment. And
+even in that case the pleasure is not unalloyed. You have, indeed,
+the gratification of seeing the man whom all the world has been
+talking about for the last nine days, face to face; and of being seen
+in a position which causes you to be acknowledged as a man of mark;
+but the intolerable stenches of the Court and its horrid heat come
+up to you there, no doubt, as powerfully as they fall on those below.
+And then the tedium of a prolonged trial, in which the points of
+interest are apt to be few and far between, grows upon you till you
+begin to feel that though the Prime Minister who is out should murder
+the Prime Minister who is in, and all the members of the two Cabinets
+were to be called in evidence, you would not attend the trial, though
+the seat of honour next to the judge were accorded to you. Those
+be-wigged ones, who are the performers, are so insufferably long in
+their parts, so arrogant in their bearing,--so it strikes you, though
+doubtless the fashion of working has been found to be efficient
+for the purposes they have in hand,--and so uninteresting in their
+repetition, that you first admire, and then question, and at last
+execrate the imperturbable patience of the judge, who might, as you
+think, force the thing through in a quarter of the time without any
+injury to justice. And it will probably strike you that the length
+of the trial is proportioned not to the complicity but to the
+importance, or rather to the public interest, of the case,--so
+that the trial which has been suggested of a disappointed and
+bloody-minded ex-Prime Minister would certainly take at least a
+fortnight, even though the Speaker of the House of Commons and the
+Lord Chancellor had seen the blow struck, whereas a collier may knock
+his wife's brains out in the dark and be sent to the gallows with
+a trial that shall not last three hours. And yet the collier has
+to be hung,--if found guilty,--and no one thinks that his life is
+improperly endangered by reckless haste. Whether lives may not be
+improperly saved by the more lengthened process is another question.
+
+But the honours of such benchfellowship can be accorded but to few,
+and the task becomes very tiresome when the spectator has to enter
+the Court as an ordinary mortal. There are two modes open to him,
+either of which is subject to grievous penalties. If he be the
+possessor of a decent coat and hat, and can scrape any acquaintance
+with any one concerned, he may get introduced to that overworked and
+greatly perplexed official, the under-sheriff, who will stave him off
+if possible,--knowing that even an under-sheriff cannot make space
+elastic,--but, if the introduction has been acknowledged as good,
+will probably find a seat for him if he persevere to the end. But
+the seat when obtained must be kept in possession from morning to
+evening, and the fight must be renewed from day to day. And the
+benches are hard, and the space is narrow, and you feel that the
+under-sheriff would prod you with his sword if you ventured to
+sneeze, or to put to your lips the flask which you have in your
+pocket. And then, when all the benchfellows go out to lunch at
+half-past one, and you are left to eat your dry sandwich without room
+for your elbows, a feeling of unsatisfied ambition will pervade you.
+It is all very well to be the friend of an under-sheriff, but if you
+could but have known the judge, or have been a cousin of the real
+sheriff, how different it might have been with you!
+
+But you may be altogether independent, and, as a matter of right,
+walk into an open English court of law as one of the British public.
+You will have to stand of course,--and to commence standing very
+early in the morning if you intend to succeed in witnessing any
+portion of the performance. And when you have made once good your
+entrance as one of the British public, you are apt to be a good
+deal knocked about, not only by your public brethren, but also by
+those who have to keep the avenues free for witnesses, and who will
+regard you from first to last as a disagreeable excrescence on the
+officialities of the work on hand. Upon the whole it may be better
+for you, perhaps, to stay at home and read the record of the affair
+as given in the next day's Times. Impartial reporters, judicious
+readers, and able editors between them will preserve for you all the
+kernel, and will save you from the necessity of having to deal with
+the shell.
+
+At this trial there were among the crowd who succeeded in entering
+the Court three persons of our acquaintance who had resolved to
+overcome the various difficulties. Mr. Monk, who had formerly been
+a Cabinet Minister, was seated on the bench,--subject, indeed, to
+the heat and stenches, but priviledged to eat the lunch. Mr. Quintus
+Slide, of The People's Banner,--who knew the Court well, for in
+former days he had worked many an hour in it as a reporter,--had
+obtained the good graces of the under-sheriff. And Mr. Bunce, with
+all the energy of the British public, had forced his way in among the
+crowd, and had managed to wedge himself near to the dock, so that he
+might be able by a hoist of the neck to see his lodger as he stood
+at the bar. Of these three men, Bunce was assured that the prisoner
+was innocent,--led to such assurance partly by belief in the man,
+and partly by an innate spirit of opposition to all exercise of
+restrictive power. Mr. Quintus Slide was certain of the prisoner's
+guilt, and gave himself considerable credit for having assisted in
+running down the criminal. It seemed to be natural to Mr. Quintus
+Slide that a man who had openly quarrelled with the Editor of The
+People's Banner should come to the gallows. Mr. Monk, as Phineas
+himself well knew, had doubted. He had received the suspected
+murderer into his warmest friendship, and was made miserable even
+by his doubts. Since the circumstances of the case had come to his
+knowledge, they had weighed upon his mind so as to sadden his whole
+life. But he was a man who could not make his reason subordinate to
+his feelings. If the evidence against his friend was strong enough
+to send his friend for trial, how should he dare to discredit the
+evidence because the man was his friend? He had visited Phineas in
+prison, and Phineas had accused him of doubting. "You need not answer
+me," the unhappy man had said, "but do not come unless you are able
+to tell me from your heart that you are sure of my innocence. There
+is no person living who could comfort me by such assurance as you
+could do." Mr. Monk had thought about it very much, but he had not
+repeated his visit.
+
+At a quarter past ten the Chief Justice was on the bench, with a
+second judge to help him, and with lords and distinguished commoners
+and great City magnates crowding the long seat between him and the
+doorway; the Court was full, so that you would say that another
+head could not be made to appear; and Phineas Finn, the member
+for Tankerville, was in the dock. Barrington Erle, who was there
+to see,--as one of the great ones, of course,--told the Duchess
+of Omnium that night that Phineas was thin and pale, and in many
+respects an altered man,--but handsomer than ever.
+
+"He bore himself well?" asked the Duchess.
+
+"Very well,--very well indeed. We were there for six hours, and he
+maintained the same demeanour throughout. He never spoke but once,
+and that was when Chaffanbrass began his fight about the jury."
+
+"What did he say?"
+
+"He addressed the judge, interrupting Slope, who was arguing that
+some man would make a very good juryman, and declared that it was not
+by his wish that any objection was raised against any gentleman."
+
+"What did the judge say?"
+
+"Told him to abide by his counsel. The Chief Justice was very civil
+to him,--indeed better than civil."
+
+"We'll have him down to Matching, and make ever so much of him," said
+the Duchess.
+
+"Don't go too fast, Duchess, for he may have to hang poor Phineas
+yet."
+
+"Oh dear; I wish you wouldn't use that word. But what did he say?"
+
+"He told Finn that as he had thought fit to employ counsel for his
+defence,--in doing which he had undoubtedly acted wisely,--he must
+leave the case to the discretion of his counsel."
+
+"And then poor Phineas was silenced?"
+
+"He spoke another word. 'My lord,' said he, 'I for my part wish
+that the first twelve men on the list might be taken.' But old
+Chaffanbrass went on just the same. It took them two hours and a half
+before they could swear a jury."
+
+"But, Mr. Erle,--taking it altogether,--which way is it going?"
+
+"Nobody can even guess as yet. There was ever so much delay besides
+that about the jury. It seemed that somebody had called him Phinees
+instead of Phineas, and that took half an hour. They begin with the
+quarrel at the club, and are to call the first witness to-morrow
+morning. They are to examine Ratler about the quarrel, and
+Fitzgibbon, and Monk, and, I believe, old Bouncer, the man who
+writes, you know. They all heard what took place."
+
+"So did you?"
+
+"I have managed to escape that. They can't very well examine all the
+club. But I shall be called afterwards as to what took place at the
+door. They will begin with Ratler."
+
+"Everybody knows there was a quarrel, and that Mr. Bonteen had been
+drinking, and that he behaved as badly as a man could behave."
+
+"It must all be proved, Duchess."
+
+"I'll tell you what, Mr. Erle. If,--if,--if this ends badly for
+Mr. Finn I'll wear mourning to the day of my death. I'll go to the
+Drawing Room in mourning, to show what I think of it."
+
+Lord Chiltern, who was also on the bench, took his account of the
+trial home to his wife and sister in Portman Square. At this time
+Miss Palliser was staying with them, and the three ladies were
+together when the account was brought to them. In that house it was
+taken as doctrine that Phineas Finn was innocent. In the presence of
+her brother, and before her sister-in-law's visitor, Lady Laura had
+learned to be silent on the subject, and she now contented herself
+with listening, knowing that she could relieve herself by speech
+when alone with Lady Chiltern. "I never knew anything so tedious in
+my life," said the Master of the Brake hounds. "They have not done
+anything yet."
+
+"I suppose they have made their speeches?" said his wife.
+
+"Sir Gregory Grogram opened the case, as they call it; and a very
+strong case he made of it. I never believe anything that a lawyer
+says when he has a wig on his head and a fee in his hand. I prepare
+myself beforehand to regard it all as mere words, supplied at so much
+the thousand. I know he'll say whatever he thinks most likely to
+forward his own views. But upon my word he put it very strongly. He
+brought it all within so very short a space of time! Bonteen and Finn
+left the club within a minute of each other. Bonteen must have been
+at the top of the passage five minutes afterwards, and Phineas at
+that moment could not have been above two hundred yards from him.
+There can be no doubt of that."
+
+"Oswald, you don't mean to say that it's going against him!"
+exclaimed Lady Chiltern.
+
+"It's not going any way at present. The witnesses have not been
+examined. But so far, I suppose, the Attorney-General was right. He
+has got to prove it all, but so much no doubt he can prove. He can
+prove that the man was killed with some blunt weapon, such as Finn
+had. And he can prove that exactly at the same time a man was running
+to the spot very like to Finn, and that by a route which would not
+have been his route, but by using which he could have placed himself
+at that moment where the man was seen."
+
+"How very dreadful!" said Miss Palliser.
+
+"And yet I feel that I know it was that other man," said Lady
+Chiltern. Lady Laura sat silent through it all, listening with her
+eyes intent on her brother's face, with her elbow on the table and
+her brow on her hand. She did not speak a word till she found herself
+alone with her sister-in-law, and then it was hardly more than a
+word. "Violet, they will murder him!" Lady Chiltern endeavoured to
+comfort her, telling her that as yet they had heard but one side of
+the case; but the wretched woman only shook her head. "I know they
+will murder him," she said, "and then when it is too late they will
+find out what they have done!"
+
+
+[Illustration: "Violet, they will murder him."]
+
+
+On the following day the crowd in Court was if possible greater, so
+that the benchfellows were very much squeezed indeed. But it was
+impossible to exclude from the high seat such men as Mr. Ratler and
+Lord Fawn when they were required in the Court as witnesses;--and
+not a man who had obtained a seat on the first day was willing to be
+excluded on the second. And even then the witnesses were not called
+at once. Sir Gregory Grogram began the work of the day by saying
+that he had heard that morning for the first time that one of
+his witnesses had been,--"tampered with" was the word that he
+unfortunately used,--by his learned friend on the other side. He
+alluded, of course, to Lord Fawn, and poor Lord Fawn, sitting up
+there on the seat of honour, visible to all the world, became very
+hot and very uncomfortable. Then there arose a vehement dispute
+between Sir Gregory, assisted by Sir Simon, and old Mr. Chaffanbrass,
+who rejected with disdain any assistance from the gentler men who
+were with him. "Tampered with! That word should be recalled by the
+honourable gentleman who was at the head of the bar, or--or--" Had
+Mr. Chaffanbrass declared that as an alternative he would pull the
+Court about their ears, it would have been no more than he meant.
+Lord Fawn had been invited,--not summoned to attend; and why? In
+order that no suspicion of guilt might be thrown on another man,
+unless the knowledge that was in Lord Fawn's bosom, and there alone,
+would justify such a line of defence. Lord Fawn had been attended by
+his own solicitor, and might have brought the Attorney-General with
+him had he so pleased. There was a great deal said on both sides, and
+something said also by the judge. At last Sir Gregory withdrew the
+objectionable word, and substituted in lieu of it an assertion that
+his witness had been "indiscreetly questioned." Mr. Chaffanbrass
+would not for a moment admit the indiscretion, but bounced about in
+his place, tearing his wig almost off his head, and defying every one
+in the Court. The judge submitted to Mr. Chaffanbrass that he had
+been indiscreet.--"I never contradicted the Bench yet, my lord," said
+Mr. Chaffanbrass,--at which there was a general titter throughout the
+bar,--"but I must claim the privilege of conducting my own practice
+according to my own views. In this Court I am subject to the Bench.
+In my own chamber I am subject only to the law of the land." The
+judge looking over his spectacles said a mild word about the
+profession at large. Mr. Chaffanbrass, twisting his wig quite on
+one side, so that it nearly fell on Mr. Serjeant Birdbolt's face,
+muttered something as to having seen more work done in that Court
+than any other living lawyer, let his rank be what it might. When
+the little affair was over, everybody felt that Sir Gregory had been
+vanquished.
+
+Mr. Ratler, and Laurence Fitzgibbon, and Mr. Monk, and Mr. Bouncer
+were examined about the quarrel at the club, and proved that the
+quarrel had been a very bitter quarrel. They all agreed that Mr.
+Bonteen had been wrong, and that the prisoner had had cause for
+anger. Of the three distinguished legislators and statesmen above
+named Mr. Chaffanbrass refused to take the slightest notice. "I have
+no question to put to you," he said to Mr. Ratler. "Of course there
+was a quarrel. We all know that." But he did ask a question or two of
+Mr. Bouncer. "You write books, I think, Mr. Bouncer?"
+
+"I do," said Mr. Bouncer, with dignity. Now there was no peculiarity
+in a witness to which Mr. Chaffanbrass was so much opposed as an
+assumption of dignity.
+
+"What sort of books, Mr. Bouncer?"
+
+"I write novels," said Mr. Bouncer, feeling that Mr. Chaffanbrass
+must have been ignorant indeed of the polite literature of the day to
+make such a question necessary.
+
+"You mean fiction."
+
+"Well, yes; fiction,--if you like that word better."
+
+"I don't like either, particularly. You have to find plots, haven't
+you?"
+
+Mr. Bouncer paused a moment. "Yes; yes," he said. "In writing a novel
+it is necessary to construct a plot."
+
+"Where do you get 'em from?"
+
+"Where do I get 'em from?"
+
+"Yes,--where do you find them? You take them from the French
+mostly;--don't you?" Mr. Bouncer became very red. "Isn't that the way
+our English writers get their plots?"
+
+"Sometimes,--perhaps."
+
+"Your's ain't French then?"
+
+"Well;--no;--that is--I won't undertake to say that--that--"
+
+"You won't undertake to say that they're not French."
+
+"Is this relevant to the case before us, Mr. Chaffanbrass?" asked the
+judge.
+
+"Quite so, my lud. We have a highly-distinguished novelist before us,
+my lud, who, as I have reason to believe, is intimately acquainted
+with the French system of the construction of plots. It is a business
+which the French carry to perfection. The plot of a novel should, I
+imagine, be constructed in accordance with human nature?"
+
+"Certainly," said Mr. Bouncer.
+
+"You have murders in novels?"
+
+"Sometimes," said Mr. Bouncer, who had himself done many murders in
+his time.
+
+"Did you ever know a French novelist have a premeditated murder
+committed by a man who could not possibly have conceived the murder
+ten minutes before he committed it;--with whom the cause of the
+murder anteceded the murder no more than ten minutes?" Mr. Bouncer
+stood thinking for a while. "We will give you your time, because an
+answer to the question from you will be important testimony."
+
+"I don't think I do," said Mr. Bouncer, who in his confusion had been
+quite unable to think of the plot of a single novel.
+
+"And if there were such a French plot that would not be the plot that
+you would borrow?"
+
+"Certainly not," said Mr. Bouncer.
+
+"Did you ever read poetry, Mr. Bouncer?"
+
+"Oh yes;--I read a great deal of poetry."
+
+"Shakespeare, perhaps?" Mr. Bouncer did not condescend to do more
+than nod his head. "There is a murder described in _Hamlet_. Was that
+supposed by the poet to have been devised suddenly?"
+
+"I should say not."
+
+"So should I, Mr. Bouncer. Do you remember the arrangements for the
+murder in _Macbeth_? That took a little time in concocting;--didn't
+it?"
+
+"No doubt it did."
+
+"And when Othello murdered Desdemona, creeping up to her in her
+sleep, he had been thinking of it for some time?"
+
+"I suppose he had."
+
+"Do you ever read English novels as well as French, Mr. Bouncer?" The
+unfortunate author again nodded his head. "When Amy Robsart was lured
+to her death, there was some time given to the preparation,--eh?"
+
+"Of course there was."
+
+"Of course there was. And Eugene Aram, when he murdered a man in
+Bulwer's novel, turned the matter over in his mind before he did it?"
+
+"He was thinking a long time about it, I believe."
+
+"Thinking about it a long time! I rather think he was. Those great
+masters of human nature, those men who knew the human heart, did not
+venture to describe a secret murder as coming from a man's brain
+without premeditation?"
+
+"Not that I can remember."
+
+"Such also is my impression. But now, I bethink me of a murder that
+was almost as sudden as this is supposed to have been. Didn't a Dutch
+smuggler murder a Scotch lawyer, all in a moment as it were?"
+
+"Dirk Hatteraick did murder Glossop in _The Antiquary_ very
+suddenly;--but he did it from passion."
+
+"Just so, Mr. Bouncer. There was no plot there, was there? No
+arrangement; no secret creeping up to his victim; no escape even?"
+
+"He was chained."
+
+"So he was; chained like a dog;--and like a dog he flew at his enemy.
+If I understand you, then, Mr. Bouncer, you would not dare so to
+violate probability in a novel, as to produce a murderer to the
+public who should contrive a secret hidden murder,--contrive it and
+execute it, all within a quarter of an hour?"
+
+Mr. Bouncer, after another minute's consideration, said that he
+thought he would not do so. "Mr. Bouncer," said Mr. Chaffanbrass,
+"I am uncommonly obliged to our excellent friend, Sir Gregory, for
+having given us the advantage of your evidence."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXII.
+
+LORD FAWN'S EVIDENCE.
+
+
+A crowd of witnesses were heard on the second day after Mr.
+Chaffanbrass had done with Mr. Bouncer, but none of them were of much
+interest to the public. The three doctors were examined as to the
+state of the dead man's head when he was picked up, and as to the
+nature of the instrument with which he had probably been killed; and
+the fact of Phineas Finn's life-preserver was proved,--in the middle
+of which he begged that the Court would save itself some little
+trouble, as he was quite ready to acknowledge that he had walked
+home with the short bludgeon, which was then produced, in his pocket.
+"We would acknowledge a great deal if they would let us," said Mr.
+Chaffanbrass. "We acknowledge the quarrel, we acknowledge the walk
+home at night, we acknowledge the bludgeon, and we acknowledge a grey
+coat." But that happened towards the close of the second day, and
+they had not then reached the grey coat. The question of the grey
+coat was commenced on the third morning,--on the Saturday,--which
+day, as was well known, would be opened with the examination of
+Lord Fawn. The anxiety to hear Lord Fawn undergo his penance was
+intense, and had been greatly increased by the conviction that
+Mr. Chaffanbrass would resent upon him the charge made by the
+Attorney-General as to tampering with a witness. "I'll tamper with
+him by-and-bye," Mr. Chaffanbrass had whispered to Mr. Wickerby, and
+the whispered threat had been spread abroad. On the table before Mr.
+Chaffanbrass, when he took his place in the Court on the Saturday,
+was laid a heavy grey coat, and on the opposite side of the table,
+just before the Solicitor-General, was laid another grey coat, of
+much lighter material. When Lord Fawn saw the two coats as he took
+his seat on the bench his heart failed him.
+
+He was hardly allowed to seat himself before he was called upon to be
+sworn. Sir Simon Slope, who was to examine him, took it for granted
+that his lordship could give his evidence from his place on the
+bench, but to this Mr. Chaffanbrass objected. He was very well aware,
+he said, that such a practice was usual. He did not doubt but that in
+his time he had examined some hundreds of witnesses from the bench.
+In nineteen cases out of twenty there could be no objection to such a
+practice. But in this case the noble lord would have to give evidence
+not only as to what he had seen, but as to what he then saw. It would
+be expedient that he should see colours as nearly as possible in
+the same light as the jury, which he would do if he stood in the
+witness-box. And there might arise questions of identity, in speaking
+of which it would be well that the noble lord should be as near as
+possible to the thing or person to be identified. He was afraid that
+he must trouble the noble lord to come down from the Elysium of
+the bench. Whereupon Lord Fawn descended, and was sworn in at the
+witness-box.
+
+His treatment from Sir Simon Slope was all that was due from a
+Solicitor-General to a distinguished peer who was a member of
+the same Government as himself. Sir Simon put his questions so
+as almost to reassure the witness; and very quickly,--only too
+quickly,--obtained from him all the information that was needed on
+the side of the prosecution. Lord Fawn, when he had left the club,
+had seen both Mr. Bonteen and Mr. Finn preparing to follow him, but
+he had gone alone, and had never seen Mr. Bonteen since. He walked
+very slowly down into Curzon Street and Bolton Row, and when there,
+as he was about to cross the road at the top of Clarges Street,--as
+he believed, just as he was crossing the street,--he saw a man come
+at a very fast pace out of the mews which runs into Bolton Row,
+opposite to Clarges Street, and from thence hurry very quickly
+towards the passage which separates the gardens of Devonshire and
+Lansdowne Houses. It had already been proved that had Phineas Finn
+retraced his steps after Erle and Fitzgibbon had turned their backs
+upon him, his shortest and certainly most private way to the spot
+on which Lord Fawn had seen the man would have been by the mews in
+question. Lord Fawn went on to say that the man wore a grey coat,--as
+far as he could judge it was such a coat as Sir Simon now showed him;
+he could not at all identify the prisoner; he could not say whether
+the man he had seen was as tall as the prisoner; he thought that as
+far as he could judge, there was not much difference in the height.
+He had not thought of Mr. Finn when he saw the man hurrying along,
+nor had he troubled his mind about the man. That was the end of Lord
+Fawn's evidence-in-chief, which he would gladly have prolonged to the
+close of the day could he thereby have postponed the coming horrors
+of his cross-examination. But there he was,--in the clutches of
+the odious, dirty, little man, hating the little man, despising
+him because he was dirty, and nothing better than an Old Bailey
+barrister,--and yet fearing him with so intense a fear!
+
+Mr. Chaffanbrass smiled at his victim, and for a moment was quite
+soft with him,--as a cat is soft with a mouse. The reporters
+could hardly hear his first question,--"I believe you are an
+Under-Secretary of State?" Lord Fawn acknowledged the fact. Now it
+was the case that in the palmy days of our hero's former career he
+had filled the very office which Lord Fawn now occupied, and that
+Lord Fawn had at the time filled a similar position in another
+department. These facts Mr. Chaffanbrass extracted from his
+witness,--not without an appearance of unwillingness, which was
+produced, however, altogether by the natural antagonism of the
+victim to his persecutor; for Mr. Chaffanbrass, even when asking the
+simplest questions, in the simplest words, even when abstaining from
+that sarcasm of tone under which witnesses were wont to feel that
+they were being flayed alive, could so look at a man as to create an
+antagonism which no witness could conceal. In asking a man his name,
+and age, and calling, he could produce an impression that the man
+was unwilling to tell anything, and that, therefore, the jury were
+entitled to regard his evidence with suspicion. "Then," continued Mr.
+Chaffanbrass, "you must have met him frequently in the intercourse of
+your business?"
+
+"I suppose I did,--sometimes."
+
+"Sometimes? You belonged to the same party?"
+
+"We didn't sit in the same House."
+
+"I know that, my lord. I know very well what House you sat in. But
+I suppose you would condescend to be acquainted with even a commoner
+who held the very office which you hold now. You belonged to the same
+club with him."
+
+"I don't go much to the clubs," said Lord Fawn.
+
+"But the quarrel of which we have heard so much took place at a
+club in your presence?" Lord Fawn assented. "In fact you cannot but
+have been intimately and accurately acquainted with the personal
+appearance of the gentleman who is now on his trial. Is that so?"
+
+"I never was intimate with him."
+
+Mr. Chaffanbrass looked up at the jury and shook his head sadly.
+"I am not presuming, Lord Fawn, that you so far derogated as to be
+intimate with this gentleman,--as to whom, however, I shall be able
+to show by and by that he was the chosen friend of the very man under
+whose mastership you now serve. I ask whether his appearance is not
+familiar to you?" Lord Fawn at last said that it was. "Do you know
+his height? What should you say was his height?" Lord Fawn altogether
+refused to give an opinion on such a subject, but acknowledged that
+he should not be surprised if he were told that Mr. Finn was over six
+feet high. "In fact you consider him a tall man, my lord? There he
+is, you can look at him. Is he a tall man?" Lord Fawn did look, but
+wouldn't give an answer. "I'll undertake to say, my lord, that there
+isn't a person in the Court at this moment, except yourself, who
+wouldn't be ready to express an opinion on his oath that Mr. Finn is
+a tall man. Mr. Chief Constable, just let the prisoner step out from
+the dock for a moment. He won't run away. I must have his lordship's
+opinion as to Mr. Finn's height." Poor Phineas, when this was said,
+clutched hold of the front of the dock, as though determined that
+nothing but main force should make him exhibit himself to the Court
+in the manner proposed.
+
+But the need for exhibition passed away. "I know that he is a very
+tall man," said Lord Fawn.
+
+"You know that he is a very tall man. We all know it. There can be
+no doubt about it. He is, as you say, a very tall man,--with whose
+personal appearance you have long been familiar? I ask again, my
+lord, whether you have not been long familiar with his personal
+appearance?" After some further agonising delay Lord Fawn at last
+acknowledged that it had been so. "Now we shall get on like a house
+on fire," said Mr. Chaffanbrass.
+
+But still the house did not burn very quickly. A string of questions
+was then asked as to the attitude of the man who had been seen coming
+out of the mews wearing a grey great coat,--as to his attitude, and
+as to his general likeness to Phineas Finn. In answer to these Lord
+Fawn would only say that he had not observed the man's attitude,
+and had certainly not thought of the prisoner when he saw the man.
+"My lord," said Mr. Chaffanbrass, very solemnly, "look at your late
+friend and colleague, and remember that his life depends probably on
+the accuracy of your memory. The man you saw--murdered Mr. Bonteen.
+With all my experience in such matters,--which is great; and with all
+my skill,--which is something, I cannot stand against that fact. It
+is for me to show that that man and my client were not one and the
+same person, and I must do so by means of your evidence,--by sifting
+what you say to-day, and by comparing it with what you have already
+said on other occasions. I understand you now to say that there is
+nothing in your remembrance of the man you saw, independently of the
+colour of the coat, to guide you to an opinion whether that man was
+or was not one and the same with the prisoner?"
+
+In all the crowd then assembled there was no man more thoroughly
+under the influence of conscience as to his conduct than was Lord
+Fawn in reference to the evidence which he was called upon to give.
+Not only would the idea of endangering the life of a human being have
+been horrible to him, but the sanctity of an oath was imperative to
+him. He was essentially a truth-speaking man, if only he knew how
+to speak the truth. He would have sacrificed much to establish the
+innocence of Phineas Finn,--not for the love of Phineas, but for
+the love of innocence;--but not even to do that would he have lied.
+But he was a bad witness, and by his slowness, and by a certain
+unsustained pomposity which was natural to him, had already taught
+the jury to think that he was anxious to convict the prisoner. Two
+men in the Court, and two only, thoroughly understood his condition.
+Mr. Chaffanbrass saw it all, and intended without the slightest
+scruple to take advantage of it. And the Chief Justice saw it all,
+and was already resolving how he could set the witness right with the
+jury.
+
+"I didn't think of Mr. Finn at the time," said Lord Fawn in answer to
+the last question.
+
+"So I understand. The man didn't strike you as being tall."
+
+"I don't think that he did."
+
+"But yet in the evidence you gave before the magistrate in Bow Street
+I think you expressed a very strong opinion that the man you saw
+running out of the mews was Mr. Finn?" Lord Fawn was again silent. "I
+am asking your lordship a question to which I must request an answer.
+Here is the Times report of the examination, with which you can
+refresh your memory, and you are of course aware that it was mainly
+on your evidence as here reported that my client stands there in
+jeopardy of his life."
+
+"I am not aware of anything of the kind," said the witness.
+
+"Very well. We will drop that then. But such was your evidence,
+whether important or not important. Of course your lordship can take
+what time you please for recollection."
+
+Lord Fawn tried very hard to recollect, but would not look at the
+newspaper which had been handed to him. "I cannot remember what words
+I used. It seems to me that I thought it must have been Mr. Finn
+because I had been told that Mr. Finn could have been there by
+running round."
+
+"Surely, my lord, that would not have sufficed to induce you to give
+such evidence as is there reported?"
+
+"And the colour of the coat," said Lord Fawn.
+
+"In fact you went by the colour of the coat, and that only?"
+
+"Then there had been the quarrel."
+
+"My lord, is not that begging the question? Mr. Bonteen quarrelled
+with Mr. Finn. Mr. Bonteen was murdered by a man,--as we all
+believe,--whom you saw at a certain spot. Therefore you identified
+the man whom you saw as Mr. Finn. Was that so?"
+
+"I didn't identify him."
+
+"At any rate you do not do so now? Putting aside the grey coat there
+is nothing to make you now think that that man and Mr. Finn were one
+and the same? Come, my lord, on behalf of that man's life, which is
+in great jeopardy,--is in great jeopardy because of the evidence
+given by you before the magistrate,--do not be ashamed to speak the
+truth openly, though it be at variance with what you may have said
+before with ill-advised haste."
+
+"My lord, is it proper that I should be treated in this way?" said
+the witness, appealing to the Bench.
+
+"Mr. Chaffanbrass," said the judge, again looking at the barrister
+over his spectacles, "I think you are stretching the privilege of
+your position too far."
+
+"I shall have to stretch it further yet, my lord. His lordship in his
+evidence before the magistrate gave on his oath a decided opinion
+that the man he saw was Mr. Finn;--and on that evidence Mr. Finn was
+committed for murder. Let him say openly, now, to the jury,--when Mr.
+Finn is on his trial for his life before the Court, and for all his
+hopes in life before the country,--whether he thinks as then he
+thought, and on what grounds he thinks so."
+
+"I think so because of the quarrel, and because of the grey coat."
+
+"For no other reasons?"
+
+"No;--for no other reasons."
+
+"Your only ground for suggesting identity is the grey coat?"
+
+"And the quarrel," said Lord Fawn.
+
+"My lord, in giving evidence as to identity, I fear that you do not
+understand the meaning of the word." Lord Fawn looked up at the
+judge, but the judge on this occasion said nothing. "At any rate we
+have it from you at present that there was nothing in the appearance
+of the man you saw like to that of Mr. Finn except the colour of the
+coat."
+
+"I don't think there was," said Lord Fawn, slowly.
+
+Then there occurred a scene in the Court which no doubt was
+gratifying to the spectators, and may in part have repaid them for
+the weariness of the whole proceeding. Mr. Chaffanbrass, while Lord
+Fawn was still in the witness-box, requested permission for a certain
+man to stand forward, and put on the coat which was lying on the
+table before him,--this coat being in truth the identical garment
+which Mr. Meager had brought home with him on the morning of the
+murder. This man was Mr. Wickerby's clerk, Mr. Scruby, and he put on
+the coat,--which seemed to fit him well. Mr. Chaffanbrass then asked
+permission to examine Mr. Scruby, explaining that much time might be
+saved, and declaring that he had but one question to ask him. After
+some difficulty this permission was given him, and Mr. Scruby was
+asked his height. Mr. Scruby was five feet eight inches, and had
+been accurately measured on the previous day with reference to the
+question. Then the examination of Lord Fawn was resumed, and Mr.
+Chaffanbrass referred to that very irregular interview to which he
+had so improperly enticed the witness in Mr. Wickerby's chambers. For
+a long time Sir Gregory Grogram declared that he would not permit any
+allusion to what had taken place at a most improper conference,--a
+conference which he could not stigmatize in sufficiently strong
+language. But Mr. Chaffanbrass, smiling blandly,--smiling very
+blandly for him,--suggested that the impropriety of the conference,
+let it have been ever so abominable, did not prevent the fact of the
+conference, and that he was manifestly within his right in alluding
+to it. "Suppose, my lord, that Lord Fawn had confessed in Mr.
+Wickerby's chambers that he had murdered Mr. Bonteen himself, and
+had since repented of that confession, would Mr. Camperdown and Mr.
+Wickerby, who were present, and would I, be now debarred from stating
+that confession in evidence, because, in deference to some fanciful
+rules of etiquette, Lord Fawn should not have been there?" Mr.
+Chaffanbrass at last prevailed, and the evidence was resumed.
+
+"You saw Mr. Scruby wear that coat in Mr. Wickerby's chambers." Lord
+Fawn said that he could not identify the coat. "We'll take care to
+have it identified. We shall get a great deal out of that coat yet.
+You saw that man wear a coat like that."
+
+"Yes; I did."
+
+"And you see him now."
+
+"Yes, I do."
+
+"Does he remind you of the figure of the man you saw come out of the
+mews?" Lord Fawn paused. "We can't make him move about here as we did
+in Mr. Wickerby's room; but remembering that as you must do, does he
+look like the man?"
+
+"I don't remember what the man looked like."
+
+"Did you not tell us in Mr. Wickerby's room that Mr. Scruby with the
+grey coat on was like the figure of the man?"
+
+Questions of this nature were prolonged for near half an hour, during
+which Sir Gregory made more than one attempt to defend his witness
+from the weapons of their joint enemies; but Lord Fawn at last
+admitted that he had acknowledged the resemblance, and did, in some
+faint ambiguous fashion, acknowledge it in his present evidence.
+
+"My lord," said Mr. Chaffanbrass as he allowed Lord Fawn to go down,
+"you have no doubt taken a note of Mr. Scruby's height." Whereupon
+the judge nodded his head.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIII.
+
+MR. CHAFFANBRASS FOR THE DEFENCE.
+
+
+The case for the prosecution was completed on the Saturday evening,
+Mrs. Bunce having been examined as the last witness on that side.
+She was only called upon to say that her lodger had been in the
+habit of letting himself in and out of her house at all hours with
+a latch-key;--but she insisted on saying more, and told the judge
+and the jury and the barristers that if they thought that Mr. Finn
+had murdered anybody they didn't know anything about the world in
+general. Whereupon Mr. Chaffanbrass said that he would like to ask
+her a question or two, and with consummate flattery extracted from
+her her opinion of her lodger. She had known him for years, and
+thought that, of all the gentlemen that ever were born, he was the
+least likely to do such a bloody-minded action. Mr. Chaffanbrass was,
+perhaps, right in thinking that her evidence might be as serviceable
+as that of the lords and countesses.
+
+During the Sunday the trial was, as a matter of course, the talk
+of the town. Poor Lord Fawn shut himself up, and was seen by no
+one;--but his conduct and evidence were discussed everywhere. At
+the clubs it was thought that he had escaped as well as could be
+expected; but he himself felt that he had been disgraced for ever.
+There was a very common opinion that Mr. Chaffanbrass had admitted
+too much when he had declared that the man whom Lord Fawn had seen
+was doubtless the murderer. To the minds of men generally it seemed
+to be less evident that the man so seen should have done the deed,
+than that Phineas Finn should have been that man. Was it probable
+that there should be two men going about in grey coats, in exactly
+the same vicinity, and at exactly the same hour of the night? And
+then the evidence which Lord Fawn had given before the magistrates
+was to the world at large at any rate as convincing as that given in
+the Court. The jury would, of course, be instructed to regard only
+the latter; whereas the general public would naturally be guided by
+the two combined. At the club it was certainly believed that the case
+was going against the prisoner.
+
+"You have read it all, of course," said the Duchess of Omnium to her
+husband, as she sat with the Observer in her hand on that Sunday
+morning. The Sunday papers were full of the report, and were enjoying
+a very extended circulation.
+
+"I wish you would not think so much about it," said the Duke.
+
+"That's very easily said, but how is one to help thinking about it?
+Of course I am thinking about it. You know all about the coat. It
+belonged to the man where Mealyus was lodging."
+
+"I will not talk about the coat, Glencora. If Mr. Finn did commit the
+murder it is right that he should be convicted."
+
+"But if he didn't?"
+
+"It would be doubly right that he should be acquitted. But the jury
+will have means of arriving at a conclusion without prejudice, which
+you and I cannot have; and therefore we should be prepared to take
+their verdict as correct."
+
+"If they find him guilty, their verdict will be damnable and false,"
+said the Duchess. Whereupon the Duke turned away in anger, and
+resolved that he would say nothing more about the trial,--which
+resolution, however, he was compelled to break before the trial was
+over.
+
+"What do you think about it, Mr. Erle?" asked the other Duke.
+
+"I don't know what to think;--I only hope."
+
+"That he may be acquitted?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"Whether guilty or innocent?"
+
+"Well;--yes. But if he is acquitted I shall believe him to have been
+innocent. Your Grace thinks--?"
+
+"I am as unwilling to think as you are, Mr. Erle." It was thus that
+people spoke of it. With the exception of some very few, all those
+who had known Phineas were anxious for an acquittal, though they
+could not bring themselves to believe that an innocent man had been
+put in peril of his life.
+
+On the Monday morning the trial was recommenced, and the whole day
+was taken up by the address which Mr. Chaffanbrass made to the jury.
+He began by telling them the history of the coat which lay before
+them, promising to prove by evidence all the details which he stated.
+It was not his intention, he said, to accuse any one of the murder.
+It was his business to defend the prisoner, not to accuse others.
+But, as he should prove to them, two persons had been arrested as
+soon as the murder had been discovered,--two persons totally unknown
+to each other, and who were never for a moment supposed to have acted
+together,--and the suspicion of the police had in the first instance
+pointed, not to his client, but to the other man. That other man
+had also quarrelled with Mr. Bonteen, and that other man was now in
+custody on a charge of bigamy chiefly through the instrumentality of
+Mr. Bonteen, who had been the friend of the victim of the supposed
+bigamist. With the accusation of bigamy they would have nothing to
+do, but he must ask them to take cognisance of that quarrel as well
+as of the quarrel at the club. He then named that formerly popular
+preacher, the Rev. Mr. Emilius, and explained that he would prove
+that this man, who had incurred the suspicion of the police in
+the first instance, had during the night of the murder been so
+circumstanced as to have been able to use the coat produced. He would
+prove also that Mr. Emilius was of precisely the same height as the
+man whom they had seen wearing the coat. God forbid that he should
+bring an accusation of murder against a man on such slight testimony.
+But if the evidence, as grounded on the coat, was slight against
+Emilius, how could it prevail at all against his client? The two
+coats were as different as chalk from cheese, the one being what
+would be called a gentleman's fashionable walking coat, and the other
+the wrap-rascal of such a fellow as was Mr. Meager. And yet Lord
+Fawn, who attempted to identify the prisoner only by his coat, could
+give them no opinion as to which was the coat he had seen! But Lord
+Fawn, who had found himself to be debarred by his conscience from
+repeating the opinion he had given before the magistrate as to the
+identity of Phineas Finn with the man he had seen, did tell them that
+the figure of that man was similar to the figure of him who had worn
+the coat on Saturday in presence of them all. This man in the street
+had therefore been like Mr. Emilius, and could not in the least
+have resembled the prisoner. Mr. Chaffanbrass would not tell the
+jury that this point bore strongly against Mr. Emilius, but he took
+upon himself to assert that it was quite sufficient to snap asunder
+the thin thread of circumstantial evidence by which his client was
+connected with the murder. A great deal more was said about Lord
+Fawn, which was not complimentary to that nobleman. "His lordship is
+an honest, slow man, who has doubtless meant to tell you the truth,
+but who does not understand the meaning of what he himself says. When
+he swore before the magistrate that he thought he could identify my
+client with the man in the street, he really meant that he thought
+that there must be identity, because he believed from other reasons
+that Mr. Finn was the man in the street. Mr. Bonteen had been
+murdered;--according to Lord Fawn's thinking had probably been
+murdered by Mr. Finn. And it was also probable to him that Mr.
+Bonteen had been murdered by the man in the street. He came thus to
+the conclusion that the prisoner was the man in the street. In fact,
+as far as the process of identifying is concerned, his lordship's
+evidence is altogether in favour of the prisoner. The figure seen by
+him we must suppose was the figure of a short man, and not of one
+tall and commanding in his presence, as is that of the prisoner."
+
+There were many other points on which Mr. Chaffanbrass insisted at
+great length;--but, chiefly, perhaps, on the improbability, he might
+say impossibility, that the plot for a murder so contrived should
+have entered into a man's head, have been completed and executed, all
+within a few minutes. "But under no hypothesis compatible with the
+allegations of the prosecution can it be conceived that the murder
+should have been contemplated by my client before the quarrel at the
+club. No, gentlemen;--the murderer had been at his work for days. He
+had examined the spot and measured the distances. He had dogged the
+steps of his victim on previous nights. In the shade of some dark
+doorway he had watched him from his club, and had hurried by his
+secret path to the spot which he had appointed for the deed. Can any
+man doubt that the murder has thus been committed, let who will have
+been the murderer? But, if so, then my client could not have done
+the deed." Much had been made of the words spoken at the club door.
+Was it probable,--was it possible,--that a man intending to commit
+a murder should declare how easily he could do it, and display the
+weapon he intended to use? The evidence given as to that part of the
+night's work was, he contended, altogether in the prisoner's favour.
+Then he spoke of the life-preserver, and gave a rather long account
+of the manner in which Phineas Finn had once taken two garotters
+prisoner in the street. All this lasted till the great men on the
+bench trooped out to lunch. And then Mr. Chaffanbrass, who had been
+speaking for nearly four hours, retired to a small room and there
+drank a pint of port wine. While he was doing so, Mr. Serjeant
+Birdbolt spoke a word to him, but he only shook his head and snarled.
+He was telling himself at the moment how quick may be the resolves
+of the eager mind,--for he was convinced that the idea of attacking
+Mr. Bonteen had occurred to Phineas Finn after he had displayed the
+life-preserver at the club door; and he was telling himself also
+how impossible it is for a dull conscientious man to give accurate
+evidence as to what he had himself seen,--for he was convinced that
+Lord Fawn had seen Phineas Finn in the street. But to no human being
+had he expressed this opinion; nor would he express it,--unless his
+client should be hung.
+
+After lunch he occupied nearly three hours in giving to the jury,
+and of course to the whole assembled Court, the details of about two
+dozen cases, in which apparently strong circumstantial evidence had
+been wrong in its tendency. In some of the cases quoted, the persons
+tried had been acquitted; in some, convicted and afterwards pardoned;
+in one pardoned after many years of punishment;--and in one the poor
+victim had been hung. On this he insisted with a pathetic eloquence
+which certainly would not have been expected from his appearance, and
+spoke with tears in his eyes,--real unaffected tears,--of the misery
+of those wretched jurymen who, in the performance of their duty,
+had been led into so frightful an error. Through the whole of this
+long recital he seemed to feel no fatigue, and when he had done with
+his list of judicial mistakes about five o'clock in the afternoon,
+went on to make what he called the very few remarks necessary as to
+the evidence which on the next day he proposed to produce as to the
+prisoner's character. He ventured to think that evidence as to the
+character of such a nature,--so strong, so convincing, so complete,
+and so free from all objection, had never yet been given in a
+criminal court. At six o'clock he completed his speech, and it
+was computed that the old man had been on his legs very nearly
+seven hours. It was said of him afterwards that he was taken home
+speechless by one of his daughters and immediately put to bed, that
+he roused himself about eight and ate his dinner and drank a bottle
+of port in his bedroom, that he then slept,--refusing to stir even
+when he was waked, till half-past nine in the morning, and that then
+he scrambled into his clothes, breakfasted, and got down to the Court
+in half an hour. At ten o'clock he was in his place, and nobody knew
+that he was any the worse for the previous day's exertion.
+
+This was on a Tuesday, the fifth day of the trial, and upon the
+whole perhaps the most interesting. A long array of distinguished
+persons,--of women as well as men,--was brought up to give to the
+jury their opinion as to the character of Mr. Finn. Mr. Low was the
+first, who having been his tutor when he was studying at the bar,
+knew him longer than any other Londoner. Then came his countryman
+Laurence Fitzgibbon, and Barrington Erle, and others of his own party
+who had been intimate with him. And men, too, from the opposite side
+of the House were brought up, Sir Orlando Drought among the number,
+all of whom said that they had known the prisoner well, and from
+their knowledge would have considered it impossible that he should
+have become a murderer. The two last called were Lord Cantrip and Mr.
+Monk, one of whom was, and the other had been, a Cabinet Minister.
+But before them came Lady Cantrip,--and Lady Chiltern, whom we once
+knew as Violet Effingham, whom this very prisoner had in early days
+fondly hoped to make his wife, who was still young and beautiful, and
+who had never before entered a public Court.
+
+There had of course been much question as to the witnesses to be
+selected. The Duchess of Omnium had been anxious to be one, but the
+Duke had forbidden it, telling his wife that she really did not know
+the man, and that she was carried away by a foolish enthusiasm. Lady
+Cantrip when asked had at once consented. She had known Phineas Finn
+when he had served under her husband, and had liked him much. Then
+what other woman's tongue should be brought to speak of the man's
+softness and tender bearing! It was out of the question that Lady
+Laura Kennedy should appear. She did not even propose it when her
+brother with unnecessary sternness told her it could not be so. Then
+his wife looked at him. "You shall go," said Lord Chiltern, "if you
+feel equal to it. It seems to be nonsense, but they say that it is
+important."
+
+"I will go," said Violet, with her eyes full of tears. Afterwards
+when her sister-in-law besought her to be generous in her testimony,
+she only smiled as she assented. Could generosity go beyond hers?
+
+Lord Chiltern preceded his wife. "I have," he said, "known Mr. Finn
+well, and have loved him dearly. I have eaten with him and drank with
+him, have ridden with him, have lived with him, and have quarrelled
+with him; and I know him as I do my own right hand." Then he
+stretched forth his arm with the palm extended.
+
+"Irrespectively of the evidence in this case you would not have
+thought him to be a man likely to commit such a crime?" asked
+Serjeant Birdbolt.
+
+"I am quite sure from my knowledge of the man that he could not
+commit a murder," said Lord Chiltern; "and I don't care what the
+evidence is."
+
+Then came his wife, and it certainly was a pretty sight to see as her
+husband led her up to the box and stood close beside her as she gave
+her evidence. There were many there who knew much of the history of
+her life,--who knew that passage in it of her early love,--for the
+tale had of course been told when it was whispered about that Lady
+Chiltern was to be examined as a witness. Every ear was at first
+strained to hear her words;--but they were audible in every corner
+of the Court without any effort. It need hardly be said that she was
+treated with the greatest deference on every side. She answered the
+questions very quietly, but apparently without nervousness. "Yes; she
+had known Mr. Finn long, and intimately, and had very greatly valued
+his friendship. She did so still,--as much as ever. Yes; she had
+known him for some years, and in circumstances which she thought
+justified her in saying that she understood his character. She
+regarded him as a man who was brave and tender-hearted, soft in
+feeling and manly in disposition. To her it was quite incredible that
+he should have committed a crime such as this. She knew him to be a
+man prone to forgive offences, and of a sweet nature." And it was
+pretty too to watch the unwonted gentleness of old Chaffanbrass as
+he asked the questions, and carefully abstained from putting any one
+that could pain her. Sir Gregory said that he had heard her evidence
+with great pleasure, but that he had no question to ask her himself.
+Then she stepped down, again took her husband's arm, and left the
+Court amidst a hum of almost affectionate greeting.
+
+And what must he have thought as he stood there within the dock,
+looking at her and listening to her? There had been months in his
+life when he had almost trusted that he would succeed in winning that
+fair, highly-born, and wealthy woman for his wife; and though he
+had failed, and now knew that he had never really touched her heart,
+that she had always loved the man whom,--though she had rejected him
+time after time because of the dangers of his ways,--she had at last
+married, yet it must have been pleasant to him, even in his peril, to
+hear from her own lips how well she had esteemed him. She left the
+Court with her veil down, and he could not catch her eye; but Lord
+Chiltern nodded to him in his old pleasant familiar way, as though to
+bid him take courage, and to tell him that all things would even yet
+be well with him.
+
+The evidence given by Lady Cantrip and her husband and by Mr. Monk
+was equally favourable. She had always regarded him as a perfect
+gentleman. Lord Cantrip had found him to be devoted to the service
+of the country,--modest, intelligent, and high-spirited. Perhaps the
+few words which fell from Mr. Monk were as strong as any that were
+spoken. "He is a man whom I have delighted to call my friend, and I
+have been happy to think that his services have been at the disposal
+of his country."
+
+Sir Gregory Grogram replied. It seemed to him that the evidence was
+as he had left it. It would be for the jury to decide, under such
+directions as his lordship might be pleased to give them, how far
+that evidence brought the guilt home to the prisoner. He would use no
+rhetoric in pushing the case against the prisoner; but he must submit
+to them that his learned friend had not shown that acquaintance with
+human nature which the gentleman undoubtedly possessed in arguing
+that there had lacked time for the conception and execution of the
+crime. Then, at considerable length, he strove to show that Mr.
+Chaffanbrass had been unjustly severe upon Lord Fawn.
+
+It was late in the afternoon when Sir Gregory had finished his
+speech, and the judge's charge was reserved for a sixth day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIV.
+
+CONFUSION IN THE COURT.
+
+
+On the following morning it was observed that before the judges took
+their seats Mr. Chaffanbrass entered the Court with a manner much
+more brisk than was expected from him now that his own work was done.
+As a matter of course he would be there to hear the charge, but,
+almost equally as a matter of course, he would be languid, silent,
+cross, and unenergetic. They who knew him were sure, when they saw
+his bearing on this morning, that he intended to do something more
+before the charge was given. The judges entered the Court nearly half
+an hour later than usual, and it was observed with surprise that they
+were followed by the Duke of Omnium. Mr. Chaffanbrass was on his feet
+before the Chief Justice had taken his seat, but the judge was the
+first to speak. It was observed that he held a scrap of paper in his
+hand, and that the barrister held a similar scrap. Then every man
+in the Court knew that some message had come suddenly by the wires.
+"I am informed, Mr. Chaffanbrass, that you wish to address the Court
+before I begin my charge."
+
+"Yes, my lud; and I am afraid, my lud, that I shall have to ask
+your ludship to delay your charge for some days, and to subject the
+jury to the very great inconvenience of prolonged incarceration for
+another week;--either to do that or to call upon the jury to acquit
+the prisoner. I venture to assert, on my own peril, that no jury can
+convict the prisoner after hearing me read that which I hold in my
+hand." Then Mr. Chaffanbrass paused, as though expecting that the
+judge would speak;--but the judge said not a word, but sat looking
+at the old barrister over his spectacles.
+
+Every eye was turned upon Phineas Finn, who up to this moment had
+heard nothing of these new tidings,--who did not in the least know
+on what was grounded the singularly confident,--almost insolently
+confident assertion which Mr. Chaffanbrass had made in his favour. On
+him the effect was altogether distressing. He had borne the trying
+week with singular fortitude, having stood there in the place of
+shame hour after hour, and day after day, expecting his doom. It had
+been to him as a lifetime of torture. He had become almost numb from
+the weariness of his position and the agonising strain upon his mind.
+The gaoler had offered him a seat from day to day, but he had always
+refused it, preferring to lean upon the rail and gaze upon the Court.
+He had almost ceased to hope for anything except the end of it. He
+had lost count of the days, and had begun to feel that the trial was
+an eternity of torture in itself. At nights he could not sleep, but
+during the Sunday, after Mass, he had slept all day. Then it had
+begun again, and when the Tuesday came he hardly knew how long it had
+been since that vacant Sunday. And now he heard the advocate declare,
+without knowing on what ground the declaration was grounded, that
+the trial must be postponed, or that the jury must be instructed to
+acquit him.
+
+"This telegram has reached us only this morning," continued Mr.
+Chaffanbrass. "'Mealyus had a house door-key made in Prague. We have
+the mould in our possession, and will bring the man who made the
+key to England.' Now, my lud, the case in the hands of the police,
+as against this man Mealyus, or Emilius, as he has chosen to call
+himself, broke down altogether on the presumption that he could not
+have let himself in and out of the house in which he had put himself
+to bed on the night of the murder. We now propose to prove that he
+had prepared himself with the means of doing so, and had done so
+after a fashion which is conclusive as to his having required the key
+for some guilty purpose. We assert that your ludship cannot allow the
+case to go to the jury without taking cognisance of this telegram;
+and we go further, and say that those twelve men, as twelve human
+beings with hearts in their bosoms and ordinary intelligence at their
+command, cannot ignore the message, even should your ludship insist
+upon their doing so with all the energy at your disposal."
+
+Then there was a scene in Court, and it appeared that no less
+than four messages had been received from Prague, all to the same
+effect. One had been addressed by Madame Goesler to her friend the
+Duchess,--and that message had caused the Duke's appearance on the
+scene. He had brought his telegram direct to the Old Bailey, and the
+Chief Justice now held it in his hand. The lawyer's clerk who had
+accompanied Madame Goesler had telegraphed to the Governor of the
+gaol, to Mr. Wickerby, and to the Attorney-General. Sir Gregory,
+rising with the telegram in his hand, stated that he had received the
+same information. "I do not see," said he, "that it at all alters the
+evidence as against the prisoner."
+
+"Let your evidence go to the jury, then," said Mr. Chaffanbrass,
+"with such observations as his lordship may choose to make on the
+telegram. I shall be contented. You have already got your other man
+in prison on a charge of bigamy."
+
+"I could not take notice of the message in charging the jury, Mr.
+Chaffanbrass," said the judge. "It has come, as far as we know,
+from the energy of a warm friend,--from that hearty friendship with
+which it seemed yesterday that this gentleman, the prisoner at the
+bar, has inspired so many men and women of high character. But it
+proves nothing. It is an assertion. And where should we all be, Mr.
+Chaffanbrass, if it should appear hereafter that the assertion is
+fictitious,--prepared purposely to aid the escape of a criminal?"
+
+"I defy you to ignore it, my lord."
+
+"I can only suggest, Mr. Chaffanbrass," continued the judge, "that
+you should obtain the consent of the gentlemen on the other side to
+a postponement of my charge."
+
+Then spoke out the foreman of the jury. Was it proposed that they
+should be locked up till somebody should come from Prague, and that
+then the trial should be recommenced? The system, said the foreman,
+under which Middlesex juries were chosen for service in the City was
+known to be most horribly cruel;--but cruelty to jurymen such as this
+had never even been heard of. Then a most irregular word was spoken.
+One of the jurymen declared that he was quite willing to believe the
+telegram. "Every one believes it," said Mr. Chaffanbrass. Then the
+Chief Justice scolded the juryman, and Sir Gregory Grogram scolded
+Mr. Chaffanbrass. It seemed as though all the rules of the Court
+were to be set at defiance. "Will my learned friend say that he
+doesn't believe it?" asked Mr. Chaffanbrass. "I neither believe nor
+disbelieve it; but it cannot affect the evidence," said Sir Gregory.
+"Then send the case to the jury," said Mr. Chaffanbrass. It seemed
+that everybody was talking, and Mr. Wickerby, the attorney, tried
+to explain it all to the prisoner over the bar of the dock, not in
+the lowest possible voice. The Chief Justice became angry, and the
+guardian of the silence of the Court bestirred himself energetically.
+"My lud," said Mr. Chaffanbrass, "I maintain that it is proper that
+the prisoner should be informed of the purport of these telegrams.
+Mercy demands it, and justice as well." Phineas Finn, however, did
+not understand, as he had known nothing about the latch-key of the
+house in Northumberland Street.
+
+Something, however, must be done. The Chief Justice was of opinion
+that, although the preparation of a latch-key in Prague could not
+really affect the evidence against the prisoner,--although the facts
+against the prisoner would not be altered, let the manufacture
+of that special key be ever so clearly proved,--nevertheless the
+jury were entitled to have before them the facts now tendered in
+evidence before they could be called upon to give a verdict, and
+that therefore they should submit themselves, in the service of
+their country, to the very serious additional inconvenience which
+they would be called upon to endure. Sundry of the jury altogether
+disagreed with this, and became loud in their anger. They had already
+been locked up for a week. "And we are quite prepared to give a
+verdict," said one. The judge again scolded him very severely; and
+as the Attorney-General did at last assent, and as the unfortunate
+jurymen had no power in the matter, so it was at last arranged.
+The trial should be postponed till time should be given for Madame
+Goesler and the blacksmith to reach London from Prague.
+
+If the matter was interesting to the public before, it became doubly
+interesting now. It was of course known to everybody that Madame
+Goesler had undertaken a journey to Bohemia,--and, as many supposed,
+a roving tour through all the wilder parts of unknown Europe, Poland,
+Hungary, and the Principalities for instance,--with the object of
+looking for evidence to save the life of Phineas Finn; and grandly
+romantic tales were told of her wit, her wealth, and her beauty.
+The story was published of the Duke of Omnium's will, only not
+exactly the true story. The late Duke had left her everything at his
+disposal, and, it was hinted that they had been privately married
+just before the Duke's death. Of course Madame Goesler became very
+popular, and the blacksmith from Prague who had made the key was
+expected with an enthusiasm which almost led to preparation for a
+public reception.
+
+And yet, let the blacksmith from Prague be ever so minute in his
+evidence as to the key, let it be made as clear as running water that
+Mealyus had caused to be constructed for him in Prague a key that
+would open the door of the house in Northumberland Street, the facts
+as proved at the trial would not be at all changed. The lawyers were
+much at variance with their opinions on the matter, some thinking
+that the judge had been altogether wrong in delaying his charge.
+According to them he should not have allowed Mr. Chaffanbrass to have
+read the telegram in Court. The charge should have been given, and
+the sentence of the Court should have been pronounced if a verdict
+of guilty were given. The Home Secretary should then have granted
+a respite till the coming of the blacksmith, and have extended
+this respite to a pardon, if advised that the circumstances of the
+latch-key rendered doubtful the propriety of the verdict. Others,
+however, maintained that in this way a grievous penalty would be
+inflicted on a man who, by general consent, was now held to be
+innocent. Not only would he, by such an arrangement of circumstances,
+have been left for some prolonged period under the agony of a
+condemnation, but, by the necessity of the case, he would lose his
+seat for Tankerville. It would be imperative upon the House to
+declare vacant by its own action a seat held by a man condemned to
+death for murder, and no pardon from the Queen or from the Home
+Secretary would absolve the House from that duty. The House, as a
+House of Parliament, could only recognise the verdict of the jury
+as to the man's guilt. The Queen, of course, might pardon whom she
+pleased, but no pardon from the Queen would remove the guilt implied
+by the sentence. Many went much further than this, and were prepared
+to prove that were he once condemned he could not afterwards sit in
+the House, even if re-elected.
+
+Now there was unquestionably an intense desire,--since the arrival of
+these telegrams,--that Phineas Finn should retain his seat. It may be
+a question whether he would not have been the most popular man in the
+House could he have sat there on the day after the telegrams arrived.
+The Attorney-General had declared,--and many others had declared
+with him,--that this information about the latch-key did not in
+the least affect the evidence as given against Mr. Finn. Could it
+have been possible to convict the other man, merely because he had
+surreptitiously caused a door-key of the house in which he lived
+to be made for him? And how would this new information have been
+received had Lord Fawn sworn unreservedly that the man he had seen
+running out of the mews had been Phineas Finn? It was acknowledged
+that the latch-key could not be accepted as sufficient evidence
+against Mealyus. But nevertheless the information conveyed by the
+telegrams altogether changed the opinion of the public as to the
+guilt or innocence of Phineas Finn. His life now might have been
+insured, as against the gallows, at a very low rate. It was felt
+that no jury could convict him, and he was much more pitied in
+being subjected to a prolonged incarceration than even those twelve
+unfortunate men who had felt sure that the Wednesday would have been
+the last day of their unmerited martyrdom.
+
+Phineas in his prison was materially circumstanced precisely as
+he had been before the trial. He was supplied with a profusion of
+luxuries, could they have comforted him; and was allowed to receive
+visitors. But he would see no one but his sisters,--except that he
+had one interview with Mr. Low. Even Mr. Low found it difficult to
+make him comprehend the exact condition of the affair, and could not
+induce him to be comforted when he did understand it. What had he to
+do,--how could his innocence or his guilt be concerned,--with the
+manufacture of a paltry key by such a one as Mealyus? How would it
+have been with him and with his name for ever if this fact had not
+been discovered? "I was to be hung or saved from hanging according to
+the chances of such a thing as this! I do not care for my life in a
+country where such injustice can be done." His friend endeavoured to
+assure him that even had nothing been heard of the key the jury would
+have acquitted him. But Phineas would not believe him. It had seemed
+to him as he had listened to the whole proceeding that the Court had
+been against him. The Attorney and Solicitor-General had appeared to
+him resolved upon hanging him,--men who had been, at any rate, his
+intimate acquaintances, with whom he had sat on the same bench, who
+ought to have known him. And the judge had taken the part of Lord
+Fawn, who had seemed to Phineas to be bent on swearing away his life.
+He had borne himself very gallantly during that week, having in all
+his intercourse with his attorney, spoken without a quaver in his
+voice, and without a flaw in the perspicuity of his intelligence.
+But now, when Mr. Low came to him, explaining to him that it was
+impossible that a verdict should be found against him, he was quite
+broken down. "There is nothing left of me," he said at the end of the
+interview. "I feel that I had better take to my bed and die. Even
+when I think of all that friends have done for me, it fails to cheer
+me. In this matter I should not have had to depend on friends. Had
+not she gone for me to that place every one would have believed me to
+be a murderer."
+
+And yet in his solitude he thought very much of the marvellous love
+shown to him by his friends. Words had been spoken which had been
+very sweet to him in all his misery,--words such as neither men nor
+women can say to each other in the ordinary intercourse of life,
+much as they may wish that their purport should be understood. Lord
+Chiltern, Lord Cantrip, and Mr. Monk had alluded to him as a man
+specially singled out by them for their friendship. Lady Cantrip,
+than whom no woman in London was more discreet, had been equally
+enthusiastic. Then how gracious, how tender, how inexpressibly sweet
+had been the words of her who had been Violet Effingham! And now the
+news had reached him of Madame Goesler's journey to the continent.
+"It was a wonderful thing for her to do," Mr. Low had said. Yes,
+indeed! Remembering all that had passed between them he acknowledged
+to himself that it was very wonderful. Were it not that his back was
+now broken, that he was prostrate and must remain so, a man utterly
+crushed by what he had endured, it might have been possible that she
+should do more for him even than she yet had done.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXV.
+
+"I HATE HER!"
+
+
+Lady Laura Kennedy had been allowed to take no active part in the
+manifestations of friendship which at this time were made on behalf
+of Phineas Finn. She had, indeed, gone to him in his prison, and made
+daily efforts to administer to his comfort; but she could not go up
+into the Court and speak for him. And now this other woman, whom she
+hated, would have the glory of his deliverance! She already began
+to see a fate before her, which would make even her past misery as
+nothing to that which was to come. She was a widow,--not yet two
+months a widow; and though she did not and could not mourn the death
+of a husband as do other widows,--though she could not sorrow in
+her heart for a man whom she had never loved, and from whom she had
+been separated during half her married life,--yet the fact of her
+widowhood and the circumstances of her weeds were heavy on her. That
+she loved this man, Phineas Finn, with a passionate devotion of which
+the other woman could know nothing she was quite sure. Love him! Had
+she not been true to him and to his interests from the very first
+day in which he had come among them in London, with almost more than
+a woman's truth? She knew and recalled to her memory over and over
+again her own one great sin,--the fault of her life. When she was, as
+regarded her own means, a poor woman, she had refused to be this poor
+man's wife, and had given her hand to a rich suitor. But she had done
+this with a conviction that she could so best serve the interests of
+the man in regard to whom she had promised herself that her feeling
+should henceforth be one of simple and purest friendship. She had
+made a great effort to carry out that intention, but the effort had
+been futile. She had striven to do her duty to a husband whom she
+disliked,--but even in that she had failed. At one time she had been
+persistent in her intercourse with Phineas Finn, and at another had
+resolved that she would not see him. She had been madly angry with
+him when he came to her with the story of his love for another woman,
+and had madly shown her anger; but yet she had striven to get for him
+the wife he wanted, though in doing so she would have abandoned one
+of the dearest purposes of her life. She had moved heaven and earth
+for him,--her heaven and earth,--when there was danger that he would
+lose his seat in Parliament. She had encountered the jealousy of
+her husband with scorn,--and had then deserted him because he was
+jealous. And all this she did with a consciousness of her own virtue
+which was almost as sublime as it was ill-founded. She had been
+wrong. She confessed so much to herself with bitter tears. She had
+marred the happiness of three persons by the mistake she had made in
+early life. But it had not yet occurred to her that she had sinned.
+To her thinking the jealousy of her husband had been preposterous and
+abominable, because she had known,--and had therefore felt that he
+should have known,--that she would never disgrace him by that which
+the world calls falsehood in a wife. She had married him without
+loving him, but it seemed to her that he was in fault for that. They
+had become wretched, but she had never pitied his wretchedness. She
+had left him, and thought herself to be ill-used because he had
+ventured to reclaim his wife. Through it all she had been true in her
+regard to the one man she had ever loved, and,--though she admitted
+her own folly and knew her own shipwreck,--yet she had always drawn
+some woman's consolation from the conviction of her own constancy.
+He had vanished from her sight for a while with a young wife,--never
+from her mind,--and then he had returned a widower. Through silence,
+absence, and distance she had been true to him. On his return to
+his old ways she had at once welcomed him and strove to aid him.
+Everything that was hers should be his,--if only he would open his
+hands to take it. And she would tell it him all,--let him know every
+corner of her heart. She was a married woman, and could not be his
+wife. She was a woman of virtue, and would not be his mistress. But
+she would be to him a friend so tender that no wife, no mistress
+should ever have been fonder! She did tell him everything as they
+stood together on the ramparts of the old Saxon castle. Then he had
+kissed her, and pressed her to his heart,--not because he loved her,
+but because he was generous. She had partly understood it all,--but
+yet had not understood it thoroughly. He did not assure her of his
+love,--but then she was a wife, and would have admitted no love that
+was sinful. When she returned to Dresden that night she stood gazing
+at herself in the glass and saw that there was nothing there to
+attract the love of such a man as Phineas Finn,--of one who was
+himself glorious with manly beauty; but yet for her sadness there was
+some cure, some possibility of consolation in the fact that she was
+a wife. Why speak of love at all when marriage was so far out of the
+question? But now she was a widow and as free as he was,--a widow
+endowed with ample wealth; and she was the woman to whom he had sworn
+his love when they had stood together, both young, by the falls
+of the Linter! How often might they stand there again if only his
+constancy would equal hers?
+
+She had seen him once since Fate had made her a widow; but then she
+had been but a few days a widow, and his life had at that moment been
+in strange jeopardy. There had certainly been no time then for other
+love than that which the circumstances and the sorrow of the hour
+demanded from their mutual friendship. From that day, from the first
+moment in which she had heard of his arrest, every thought, every
+effort of her mind had been devoted to his affairs. So great was his
+peril and so strange, that it almost wiped out from her mind the
+remembrance of her own condition. Should they hang him,--undoubtedly
+she would die. Such a termination to all her aspirations for him whom
+she had selected as her god upon earth would utterly crush her. She
+had borne much, but she could never bear that. Should he escape, but
+escape ingloriously;--ah, then he should know what the devotion of
+a woman could do for a man! But if he should leave his prison with
+flying colours, and come forth a hero to the world, how would it be
+with her then? She could foresee and understand of what nature would
+be the ovation with which he would be greeted. She had already heard
+what the Duchess was doing and saying. She knew how eager on his
+behalf were Lord and Lady Cantrip. She discussed the matter daily
+with her sister-in-law, and knew what her brother thought. If the
+acquittal were perfect, there would certainly be an ovation,--in
+which, was it not certain to her, that she would be forgotten? And
+she heard much, too, of Madame Goesler. And now there came the
+news. Madame Goesler had gone to Prague, to Cracow,--and where
+not?--spending her wealth, employing her wits, bearing fatigue,
+openly before the world on this man's behalf; and had done so
+successfully. She had found this evidence of the key, and now because
+the tracings of a key had been discovered by a woman, people were
+ready to believe that he was innocent, as to whose innocence she,
+Laura Kennedy, would have been willing to stake her own life from the
+beginning of the affair!
+
+Why had it not been her lot to go to Prague? Would not she have drunk
+up Esil, or swallowed a crocodile against any she-Laertes that would
+have thought to rival and to parallel her great love? Would not
+she have piled up new Ossas, had the opportunity been given her?
+Womanlike she had gone to him in her trouble,--had burst through
+his prison doors, had thrown herself on his breast, and had wept
+at his feet. But of what avail had been that? This strange female,
+this Moabitish woman, had gone to Prague, and had found a key,--and
+everybody said that the thing was done! How she hated the strange
+woman, and remembered all the evil things that had been said of the
+intruder! She told herself over and over again that had it been
+any one else than this half-foreigner, this German Jewess, this
+intriguing unfeminine upstart, she could have borne it. Did not all
+the world know that the woman for the last two years had been the
+mistress of that old doting Duke who was now dead? Had one ever heard
+who was her father or who was her mother? Had it not always been
+declared of her that she was a pushing, dangerous, scheming creature?
+And then she was old enough to be his mother, though by some Medean
+tricks known to such women, she was able to postpone,--not the
+ravages of age,--but the manifestation of them to the eyes of the
+world. In all of which charges poor Lady Laura wronged her rival
+foully;--in that matter of age especially, for, as it happened,
+Madame Goesler was by some months the younger of the two. But Lady
+Laura was a blonde, and trouble had told upon her outwardly, as it
+is wont to do upon those who are fair-skinned, and, at the same time,
+high-hearted. But Madame Goesler was a brunette,--swarthy, Lady Laura
+would have called her,--with bright eyes and glossy hair and thin
+cheeks, and now being somewhat over thirty she was at her best. Lady
+Laura hated her as a fair woman who has lost her beauty can hate the
+dark woman who keeps it.
+
+"What made her think of the key?" said Lady Chiltern.
+
+"I don't believe she did think of it. It was an accident."
+
+"Then why did she go?"
+
+"Oh, Violet, do not talk to me about that woman any more, or I shall
+be mad."
+
+"She has done him good service."
+
+"Very well;--so be it. Let him have the service. I know they would
+have acquitted him if she had never stirred from London. Oswald says
+so. But no matter. Let her have her triumph. Only do not talk to me
+about her. You know what I have thought about her ever since she
+first came up in London. Nothing ever surprised me so much as that
+you should take her by the hand."
+
+"I do not know that I took her specially by the hand."
+
+"You had her down at Harrington."
+
+"Yes; I did. And I do like her. And I know nothing against her. I
+think you are prejudiced against her, Laura."
+
+"Very well. Of course you think and can say what you please. I hate
+her, and that is sufficient." Then, after a pause, she added, "Of
+course he will marry her. I know that well enough. It is nothing to
+me whom he marries--only,--only,--only, after all that has passed it
+seems hard upon me that his wife should be the only woman in London
+that I could not visit."
+
+"Dear Laura, you should control your thoughts about this young man."
+
+"Of course I should;--but I don't. You mean that I am disgracing
+myself."
+
+"No."
+
+"Yes, you do. Oswald is more candid, and tells me so openly. And
+yet what have I done? The world has been hard upon me, and I have
+suffered. Do I desire anything except that he shall be happy and
+respectable? Do I hope for anything? I will go back and linger
+out my life at Dresden, where my disgrace can hurt no one." Her
+sister-in-law with all imaginable tenderness said what she could to
+console the miserable woman;--but there was no consolation possible.
+They both knew that Phineas Finn would never renew the offer which he
+had once made.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXVI.
+
+THE FOREIGN BLUDGEON.
+
+
+In the meantime Madame Goesler, having accomplished the journey from
+Prague in considerably less than a week, reached London with the
+blacksmith, the attorney's clerk, and the model of the key. The trial
+had been adjourned on Wednesday, the 24th of June, and it had been
+suggested that the jury should be again put into their box on that
+day week. All manner of inconvenience was to be endured by various
+members of the legal profession, and sundry irregularities were of
+necessity sanctioned on this great occasion. The sitting of the Court
+should have been concluded, and everybody concerned should have been
+somewhere else, but the matter was sufficient to justify almost any
+departure from routine. A member of the House of Commons was in
+custody, and it had already been suggested that some action should
+be taken by the House as to his speedy deliverance. Unless a jury
+could find him guilty, let him be at once restored to his duties and
+his privileges. The case was involved in difficulties, but in the
+meantime the jury, who had been taken down by train every day to have
+a walk in the country in the company of two sheriff's officers, and
+who had been allowed to dine at Greenwich one day and at Richmond on
+another in the hope that whitebait with lamb and salad might in some
+degree console them for their loss of liberty, were informed that
+they would be once again put into their box on Wednesday. But Madame
+Goesler reached London on the Sunday morning, and on the Monday the
+whole affair respecting the key was unravelled in the presence of the
+Attorney-General, and with the personal assistance of our old friend,
+Major Mackintosh. Without a doubt the man Mealyus had caused to be
+made for him in Prague a key which would open the door of the house
+in Northumberland Street. A key was made in London from the model now
+brought which did open the door. The Attorney-General seemed to think
+that it would be his duty to ask the judge to call upon the jury to
+acquit Phineas Finn, and that then the matter must rest for ever,
+unless further evidence could be obtained against Yosef Mealyus.
+It would not be possible to hang a man for a murder simply because
+he had fabricated a key,--even though he might possibly have
+obtained the use of a grey coat for a few hours. There was no tittle
+of evidence to show that he had ever had the great coat on his
+shoulders, or that he had been out of the house on that night. Lord
+Fawn, to his infinite disgust, was taken to the prison in which
+Mealyus was detained, and was confronted with the man, but he could
+say nothing. Mealyus, at his own suggestion, put on the coat, and
+stalked about the room in it. But Lord Fawn would not say a word. The
+person whom he now saw might have been the man in the street, or Mr.
+Finn might have been the man, or any other man might have been the
+man. Lord Fawn was very dignified, very reserved, and very unhappy.
+To his thinking he was the great martyr of this trial. Phineas Finn
+was becoming a hero. Against the twelve jurymen the finger of scorn
+would never be pointed. But his sufferings must endure for his
+life--might probably embitter his life to the very end. Looking into
+his own future from his present point of view he did not see how
+he could ever again appear before the eye of the public. And yet
+with what persistency of conscience had he struggled to be true and
+honest! On the present occasion he would say nothing. He had seen
+a man in a grey coat, and for the future would confine himself to
+that. "You did not see me, my lord," said Mr. Emilius with touching
+simplicity.
+
+So the matter stood on the Monday afternoon, and the jury had
+already been told that they might be released on the following
+Tuesday,--might at any rate hear the judge's charge on that
+day,--when another discovery was made more wonderful than that of the
+key. And this was made without any journey to Prague, and might, no
+doubt, have been made on any day since the murder had been committed.
+And it was a discovery for not having made which the police force
+generally was subjected to heavy censure. A beautiful little boy was
+seen playing in one of those gardens through which the passage runs
+with a short loaded bludgeon in his hand. He came into the house with
+the weapon, the maid who was with him having asked the little lord no
+question on the subject. But luckily it attracted attention, and his
+little lordship took two gardeners and a coachman and all the nurses
+to the very spot at which he found it. Before an hour was over he was
+standing at his father's knee, detailing the fact with great open
+eyes to two policemen, having by this time become immensely proud of
+his adventure. This occurred late on the Monday afternoon, when the
+noble family were at dinner, and the noble family was considerably
+disturbed, and at the same time very much interested, by the
+occurrence. But on the Tuesday morning there was the additional fact
+established that a bludgeon loaded with lead had been found among the
+thick grass and undergrowth of shrubs in a spot to which it might
+easily have been thrown by any one attempting to pitch it over the
+wall. The news flew about the town like wildfire, and it was now
+considered certain that the real murderer would be discovered.
+
+
+[Illustration: The boy who found the bludgeon.]
+
+
+But the renewal of the trial was again postponed till the Wednesday,
+as it was necessary that an entire day should be devoted to the
+bludgeon. The instrument was submitted to the eyes and hands of
+persons experienced in such matters, and it was declared on all sides
+that the thing was not of English manufacture. It was about a foot
+long, with a leathern thong to the handle, with something of a spring
+in the shaft, and with the oval loaded knot at the end cased with
+leathern thongs very minutely and skilfully cut. They who understood
+modern work in leather gave it as their opinion that the weapon had
+been made in Paris. It was considered that Mealyus had brought it
+with him, and concealed it in preparation for this occasion. If the
+police could succeed in tracing the bludgeon into his hands, or in
+proving that he had purchased any such instrument, then,--so it was
+thought,--there would be evidence to justify a police magistrate in
+sending Mr. Emilius to occupy the place so lately and so long held
+by poor Phineas Finn. But till that had been done, there could be
+nothing to connect the preacher with the murder. All who had heard
+the circumstances of the case were convinced that Mr. Bonteen had
+been murdered by the weapon lately discovered, and not by that which
+Phineas had carried in his pocket,--but no one could adduce proof
+that it was so. This second bludgeon would no doubt help to remove
+the difficulty in regard to Phineas, but would not give atonement to
+the shade of Mr. Bonteen.
+
+Mealyus was confronted with the weapon in the presence of Major
+Mackintosh, and was told its story;--how it was found in the
+nobleman's garden by the little boy. At the first moment, with
+instant readiness, he took the thing in his hand, and looked at it
+with feigned curiosity. He must have studied his conduct so as to
+have it ready for such an occasion, thinking that it might some
+day occur. But with all his presence of mind he could not keep the
+tell-tale blood from mounting.
+
+"You don't know anything about it, Mr. Mealyus?" said one of the
+policemen present, looking closely into his face. "Of course you need
+not criminate yourself."
+
+"What should I know about it? No;--I know nothing about the stick. I
+never had such a stick, or, as I believe, saw one before." He did it
+very well, but he could not keep the blood from rising to his cheeks.
+The policemen were sure that he was the murderer,--but what could
+they do?
+
+"You saved his life, certainly," said the Duchess to her friend on
+the Sunday afternoon. That had been before the bludgeon was found.
+
+"I do not believe that they could have touched a hair of his head,"
+said Madame Goesler.
+
+"Would they not? Everybody felt sure that he would be hung. Would
+it not have been awful? I do not see how you are to help becoming
+man and wife now, for all the world are talking about you." Madame
+Goesler smiled, and said that she was quite indifferent to the
+world's talk. On the Tuesday after the bludgeon was found, the two
+ladies met again. "Now it was known that it was the clergyman," said
+the Duchess.
+
+"I never doubted it."
+
+"He must have been a brave man for a foreigner,--to have attacked Mr.
+Bonteen all alone in the street, when any one might have seen him.
+I don't feel to hate him so very much after all. As for that little
+wife of his, she has got no more than she deserved."
+
+"Mr. Finn will surely be acquitted now."
+
+"Of course he'll be acquitted. Nobody doubts about it. That is all
+settled, and it is a shame that he should be kept in prison even
+over to-day. I should think they'll make him a peer, and give him a
+pension,--or at the very least appoint him secretary to something.
+I do wish Plantagenet hadn't been in such a hurry about that nasty
+Board of Trade, and then he might have gone there. He couldn't very
+well be Privy Seal, unless they do make him a peer. You wouldn't
+mind,--would you, my dear?"
+
+"I think you'll find that they will console Mr. Finn with something
+less gorgeous than that. You have succeeded in seeing him, of
+course?"
+
+"Plantagenet wouldn't let me, but I know who did."
+
+"Some lady?"
+
+"Oh, yes,--a lady. Half the men about the clubs went to him, I
+believe."
+
+"Who was she?"
+
+"You won't be ill-natured?"
+
+"I'll endeavour at any rate to keep my temper, Duchess."
+
+"It was Lady Laura."
+
+"I supposed so."
+
+"They say she is frantic about him, my dear."
+
+"I never believe those things. Women do not get frantic about men
+in these days. They have been very old friends, and have known each
+other for many years. Her brother, Lord Chiltern, was his particular
+friend. I do not wonder that she should have seen him."
+
+"Of course you know that she is a widow."
+
+"Oh, yes;--Mr. Kennedy had died long before I left England."
+
+"And she is very rich. She has got all Loughlinter for her life, and
+her own fortune back again. I will bet you anything you like that she
+offers to share it with him."
+
+"It may be so," said Madame Goesler, while the slightest blush in the
+world suffused her cheek.
+
+"And I'll make you another bet, and give you any odds."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"That he refuses her. It is quite a common thing nowadays for ladies
+to make the offer, and for gentlemen to refuse. Indeed, it was felt
+to be so inconvenient while it was thought that gentlemen had not the
+alternative, that some men became afraid of going into society. It is
+better understood now."
+
+"Such things have been done, I do not doubt," said Madame Goesler,
+who had contrived to avert her face without making the motion
+apparent to her friend.
+
+"When this is all over we'll get him down to Matching, and manage
+better than that. I should think they'll hardly go on with the
+Session, as nobody has done anything since the arrest. While Mr. Finn
+has been in prison legislation has come to a standstill altogether.
+Even Plantagenet doesn't work above twelve hours a day, and I'm
+told that poor Lord Fawn hasn't been near his office for the last
+fortnight. When the excitement is over they'll never be able to get
+back to their business before the grouse. There'll be a few dinners
+of course, just as a compliment to the great man,--but London will
+break up after that, I should think. You won't come in for so much
+of the glory as you would have done if they hadn't found the stick.
+Little Lord Frederick must have his share, you know."
+
+"It's the most singular case I ever knew," said Sir Simon Slope that
+night to one of his friends. "We certainly should have hanged him but
+for the two accidents, and yet neither of them brings us a bit nearer
+to hanging any one else."
+
+"What a pity!"
+
+"It shows the danger of circumstantial evidence,--and yet without it
+one never could get at any murder. I'm very glad, you know, that the
+key and the stick did turn up. I never thought much about the coat."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXVII.
+
+THE VERDICT.
+
+
+On the Wednesday morning Phineas Finn was again brought into the
+Court, and again placed in the dock. There was a general feeling
+that he should not again have been so disgraced; but he was still a
+prisoner under a charge of murder, and it was explained to him that
+the circumstances of the case and the stringency of the law did not
+admit of his being seated elsewhere during his trial. He treated the
+apology with courteous scorn. He should not have chosen, he said,
+to have made any change till after the trial was over, even had any
+change been permitted. When he was brought up the steps into the dock
+after the judges had taken their seats there was almost a shout of
+applause. The crier was very angry, and gave it to be understood that
+everybody would be arrested unless everybody was silent; but the
+Chief Justice said not a word, nor did those great men the Attorney
+and Solicitor-General express any displeasure. The bench was again
+crowded with Members of Parliament from both Houses, and on this
+occasion Mr. Gresham himself had accompanied Lord Cantrip. The two
+Dukes were there, and men no bigger than Laurence Fitzgibbon were
+forced to subject themselves to the benevolence of the Under-Sheriff.
+
+Phineas himself was pale and haggard. It was observed that he leaned
+forward on the rail of the dock all the day, not standing upright
+as he had done before; and they who watched him closely said that
+he never once raised his eyes on this day to meet those of the men
+opposite to him on the bench, although heretofore throughout the
+trial he had stood with his face raised so as to look directly at
+those who were there seated. On this occasion he kept his eyes fixed
+upon the speaker. But the whole bearing of the man, his gestures, his
+gait, and his countenance were changed. During the first long week
+of his trial, his uprightness, the manly beauty of his countenance,
+and the general courage and tranquillity of his deportment had been
+conspicuous. Whatever had been his fatigue, he had managed not to
+show the outward signs of weariness. Whatever had been his fears,
+no mark of fear had disfigured his countenance. He had never once
+condescended to the exhibition of any outward show of effrontery.
+Through six weary days he had stood there, supported by a manhood
+sufficient for the terrible emergency. But now it seemed that at any
+rate the outward grace of his demeanour had deserted him. But it
+was known that he had been ill during the last few days, and it had
+been whispered through the Court that he had not slept at nights.
+Since the adjournment of the Court there had been bulletins as to his
+health, and everybody knew that the confinement was beginning to tell
+upon him.
+
+On the present occasion the proceedings of the day were opened by the
+Attorney-General, who began by apologising to the jury. Apologies to
+the jury had been very frequent during the trial, and each apology
+had called forth fresh grumbling. On this occasion the foreman
+expressed a hope that the Legislature would consider the condition
+of things which made it possible that twelve gentlemen all concerned
+extensively in business should be confined for fourteen days because
+a mistake had been made in the evidence as to a murder. Then the
+Chief Justice, bowing down his head and looking at them over the rim
+of his spectacles with an expression of wisdom that almost convinced
+them, told them that he was aware of no mistake in the evidence. It
+might become their duty, on the evidence which they had heard and the
+further evidence which they would hear, to acquit the prisoner at the
+bar; but not on that account would there have been any mistake or
+erroneous procedure in the Court, other than such error on the part
+of the prosecution in regard to the alleged guilt of the prisoner
+as it was the general and special duty of jurors to remedy. Then he
+endeavoured to reconcile them to their sacrifice by describing the
+importance and glorious British nature of their position. "My lord,"
+said one of the jurors, "if you was a salesman, and hadn't got no
+partner, only a very young 'un, you'd know what it was to be kept
+out of your business for a fortnight." Then that salesman wagged his
+head, and put his handkerchief up to his eyes, and there was pity
+also for him in the Court.
+
+After that the Attorney-General went on. His learned friend on
+the other side,--and he nodded to Mr. Chaffanbrass,--had got some
+further evidence to submit to them on behalf of the prisoner who was
+still on his trial before them. He now addressed them with the view
+of explaining to them that if that evidence should be such as he
+believed, it would become his duty on behalf of the Crown to join
+with his learned friend in requesting the Court to direct the jury
+to acquit the prisoner. Not the less on that account would it be the
+duty of the jury to form their own opinion as to the credibility of
+the fresh evidence which would be brought before them.
+
+"There won't be much doubt about the credibility," said Mr.
+Chaffanbrass, rising in his place. "I am not a bit afraid about the
+credibility, gentlemen; and I don't think that you need be afraid
+either. You must understand, gentlemen, that I am now going on
+calling evidence for the defence. My last witness was the Right
+Honourable Mr. Monk, who spoke as to character. My next will be a
+Bohemian blacksmith named Praska,--Peter Praska,--who naturally can't
+speak a word of English, and unfortunately can't speak a word of
+German either. But we have got an interpreter, and I daresay we shall
+find out without much delay what Peter Praska has to tell us." Then
+Peter Praska was handed up to the rostrum for the witnesses, and the
+man learned in Czech and also in English was placed close to him, and
+sworn to give a true interpretation.
+
+Mealyus the unfortunate one was also in Court, brought in between
+two policemen, and the Bohemian blacksmith swore that he had made a
+certain key on the instructions of the man he now saw. The reader
+need not be further troubled with all the details of the evidence
+about the key. It was clearly proved that in a village near to
+Prague a key had been made such as would open Mr. Meager's door in
+Northumberland Street, and it was also proved that it was made from
+a mould supplied by Mealyus. This was done by the joint evidence of
+Mr. Meager and of the blacksmith. "And if I lose my key," said the
+reverend gentleman, "why should I not have another made? Did I ever
+deny it? This, I think, is very strange." But Mr. Emilius was very
+quickly walked back out of the Court between the two policemen, as
+his presence would not be required in regard to the further evidence
+regarding the bludgeon.
+
+Mr. Chaffanbrass, having finished his business with the key, at once
+began with the bludgeon. The bludgeon was produced, and was handed
+up to the bench, and inspected by the Chief Justice. The instrument
+excited great interest. Men rose on tiptoe to look at it even from a
+distance, and the Prime Minister was envied because for a moment it
+was placed in his hands. As the large-eyed little boy who had found
+it was not yet six years old, there was a difficulty in perfecting
+the thread of the evidence. It was not held to be proper to
+administer an oath to an infant. But in a roundabout way it was
+proved that the identical bludgeon had been picked up in the garden.
+There was an elaborate surveyor's plan produced of the passage, the
+garden, and the wall,--with the steps on which it was supposed that
+the blow had been struck; and the spot was indicated on which the
+child had said that he had found the weapon. Then certain workers
+in leather were questioned, who agreed in asserting that no such
+instrument as that handed to them had ever been made in England.
+After that, two scientific chemists told the jury that they had
+minutely examined the knob of the instrument with reference to the
+discovery of human blood,--but in vain. They were, however, of
+opinion that the man might very readily have been killed by the
+instrument without any effusion of blood at the moment of the blows.
+This seemed to the jury to be the less necessary, as three or four
+surgeons who had examined the murdered man's head had already told
+them that in all probability there had been no such effusion. When
+the judges went out to lunch at two o'clock the jury were trembling
+as to their fate for another night.
+
+The fresh evidence, however, had been completed, and on the return of
+the Court Mr. Chaffanbrass said that he should only speak a very few
+words. For a few words he must ask indulgence, though he knew them to
+be irregular. But it was the speciality of this trial that everything
+in it was irregular, and he did not think that his learned friend the
+Attorney-General would dispute the privilege. The Attorney-General
+said nothing, and Mr. Chaffanbrass went on with his little
+speech,--with which he took up the greatest part of an hour. It was
+thought to have been unnecessary, as nearly all that he said was said
+again--and was sure to have been so said,--by the judge. It was not
+his business,--the business of him, Mr. Chaffanbrass,--to accuse
+another man of the murder of Mr. Bonteen. It was not for him to tell
+the jury whether there was or was not evidence on which any other man
+should be sent to trial. But it was his bounden duty in defence of
+his client to explain to them that a collection of facts tending
+to criminate another man,--which when taken together made a fair
+probability that another man had committed the crime,--rendered it
+quite out of the question that they should declare his client to be
+guilty. He did not believe that there was a single person in the
+Court who was not now convinced of the innocence of his client;--but
+it was not permitted to him to trust himself solely to that belief.
+It was his duty to show them that, of necessity, they must acquit his
+client. When Mr. Chaffanbrass sat down, the Attorney-General waived
+any right he might have of further reply.
+
+It was half-past three when the judge began his charge. He would, he
+said, do his best to enable the jury to complete their tedious duty,
+so as to return to their families on that night. Indeed he would
+certainly finish his charge before he rose from the seat, let the
+hour be what it might; and though time must be occupied by him in
+going through the evidence and explaining the circumstances of
+this very singular trial, it might not be improbable that the jury
+would be able to find their verdict without any great delay among
+themselves. "There won't be any delay at all, my lord," said the
+suffering and very irrational salesman. The poor man was again
+rebuked, mildly, and the Chief Justice continued his charge.
+
+As it occupied four hours in the delivery, of which by far the
+greater part was taken up in recapitulating and sifting evidence
+with which the careful reader, if such there be, has already been
+made too intimately acquainted, the account of it here shall be
+very short. The nature of circumstantial evidence was explained,
+and the truth of much that had been said in regard to such evidence
+by Mr. Chaffanbrass admitted;--but, nevertheless, it would be
+impossible,--so said his lordship,--to administer justice if guilt
+could never be held to have been proved by circumstantial evidence
+alone. In this case it might not improbably seem to them that the
+gentleman who had so long stood before them as a prisoner at the
+bar had been the victim of a most singularly untoward chain of
+circumstances, from which he would have to be liberated, should he
+be at last liberated, by another chain of circumstances as singular;
+but it was his duty to inform them now, after they had heard what he
+might call the double evidence, that he could not have given it to
+them as his opinion that the charge had been brought home against the
+prisoner, even had those circumstances of the Bohemian key and of the
+foreign bludgeon never been brought to light. He did not mean to say
+that the evidence had not justified the trial. He thought that the
+trial had been fully justified. Nevertheless, had nothing arisen to
+point to the possibility of guilt in another man, he should not the
+less have found himself bound in duty to explain to them that the
+thread of the evidence against Mr. Finn had been incomplete,--or,
+he would rather say, the weight of it had been, to his judgment,
+insufficient. He was the more intent on saying so much, as he was
+desirous of making it understood that, even had the bludgeon still
+remained buried beneath the leaves, had the manufacturer of that
+key never been discovered, the great evil would not, he thought,
+have fallen upon them of punishing the innocent instead of the
+guilty,--that most awful evil of taking innocent blood in their just
+attempt to punish murder by death. As far as he knew, to the best of
+his belief, that calamity had never fallen upon the country in his
+time. The administration of the law was so careful of life that the
+opposite evil was fortunately more common. He said so much because he
+would not wish that this case should be quoted hereafter as showing
+the possible danger of circumstantial evidence. It had been a case in
+which the evidence given as to character alone had been sufficient
+to make him feel that the circumstances which seemed to affect the
+prisoner injuriously could not be taken as establishing his guilt.
+But now other and imposing circumstances had been brought to light,
+and he was sure that the jury would have no difficulty with their
+verdict. A most frightful murder had no doubt been committed in the
+dead of the night. A gentleman coming home from his club had been
+killed,--probably by the hand of one who had himself moved in the
+company of gentlemen. A plot had been made,--had probably been
+thought of for days and weeks before,--and had been executed with
+extreme audacity, in order that an enemy might be removed. There
+could, he thought, be but little doubt that Mr. Bonteen had been
+killed by the instrument found in the garden, and if so, he certainly
+had not been killed by the prisoner, who could not be supposed
+to have carried two bludgeons in his pocket, and whose quarrel
+with the murdered man had been so recent as to have admitted of no
+preparation. They had heard the story of Mr. Meager's grey coat, and
+of the construction of the duplicate key for Mr. Meager's house-door.
+It was not for him to tell them on the present occasion whether these
+stories, and the evidence by which they had been supported, tended
+to affix guilt elsewhere. It was beyond his province to advert to
+such probability or possibility; but undoubtedly the circumstances
+might be taken by them as an assistance, if assistance were needed,
+in coming to a conclusion on the charge against the prisoner.
+"Gentlemen," he said at last, "I think you will find no difficulty in
+acquitting the prisoner of the murder laid to his charge," whereupon
+the jurymen put their heads together; and the foreman, without half
+a minute's delay, declared that they were unanimous, and that they
+found the prisoner Not Guilty. "And we are of opinion," said the
+foreman, "that Mr. Finn should not have been put upon his trial on
+such evidence as has been brought before us."
+
+The necessity of liberating poor Phineas from the horrors of his
+position was too urgent to allow of much attention being given at
+the moment to this protest. "Mr. Finn," said the judge, addressing
+the poor broken wretch, "you have been acquitted of the odious and
+abominable charge brought against you, with the concurrence, I am
+sure, not only of those who have heard this trial, but of all your
+countrymen and countrywomen. I need not say that you will leave that
+dock with no stain on your character. It has, I hope, been some
+consolation to you in your misfortune to hear the terms in which
+you have been spoken of by such friends as they who came here to
+give their testimony on your behalf. It is, and it has been, a great
+sorrow to me to see such a one as you subjected to so unmerited an
+ignominy; but a man educated in the laws of his country, as you
+have been, and understanding its constitution fundamentally, as you
+do, will probably have acknowledged that, great as has been the
+misfortune to you personally, nothing more than a proper attempt has
+been made to execute justice. I trust that you may speedily find
+yourself able to resume your place among the legislators of the
+country." Thus Phineas Finn was acquitted, and the judges, collecting
+up their robes, trooped off from the bench, following the long line
+of their assessors who had remained even to that hour to hear the
+last word of the trial. Mr. Chaffanbrass collected his papers, with
+the assistance of Mr. Wickerby,--totally disregardful of his junior
+counsel, and the Attorney and Solicitor-General congratulated each
+other on the successful termination of a very disagreeable piece of
+business.
+
+And Phineas was discharged. According to the ordinary meaning of the
+words he was now to go about his business as he pleased, the law
+having no further need of his person. We can understand how in common
+cases the prisoner discharged on his acquittal,--who probably in
+nine cases out of ten is conscious of his own guilt,--may feel the
+sweetness of his freedom and enjoy his immunity from danger with a
+light heart. He is received probably by his wife or young woman,--or
+perhaps, having no wife or young woman to receive him, betakes
+himself to his usual haunts. The interest which has been felt in his
+career is over, and he is no longer the hero of an hour;--but he is a
+free man, and may drink his gin-and-water where he pleases. Perhaps
+a small admiring crowd may welcome him as he passes out into the
+street, but he has become nobody before he reaches the corner. But it
+could not be so with this discharged prisoner,--either as regarded
+himself and his own feelings, or as regarded his friends. When
+the moment came he had hardly as yet thought about the immediate
+future,--had not considered how he would live, or where, during
+the next few months. The sensations of the moment had been so full,
+sometimes of agony and at others of anticipated triumph, that he had
+not attempted as yet to make for himself any schemes. The Duchess
+of Omnium had suggested that he would be received back into society
+with an elaborate course of fashionable dinners; but that view of his
+return to the world had certainly not occurred to him. When he was
+led down from the dock he hardly knew whither he was being taken, and
+when he found himself in a small room attached to the Court, clasped
+on one arm by Mr. Low and on the other by Lord Chiltern, he did not
+know what they would propose to him,--nor had he considered what
+answer he would make to any proposition. "At last you are safe," said
+Mr. Low.
+
+"But think what he has suffered," said Lord Chiltern.
+
+Phineas looked round to see if there was any other friend present.
+Certainly among all his friends he had thought most of her who had
+travelled half across Europe for evidence to save him. He had seen
+Madame Goesler last on the evening preceding the night of the murder,
+and had not even heard from her since. But he had been told what she
+had done for him, and now he had almost fancied that he would have
+found her waiting for him. He smiled first at the one man and then
+at the other, and made an effort to carry himself with his ordinary
+tranquillity. "It will be all right now, I dare say," he said. "I
+wonder whether I could have a glass of water."
+
+He sat down while the water was brought to him, and his two friends
+stood over him, hardly knowing how to do more than support him by
+their presence.
+
+Then Lord Cantrip made his way into the room. He had sat on the bench
+to the last, whereas the other two had gone down to receive the
+prisoner when acquitted;--and with him came Sir Harry Coldfoot, the
+Home Secretary. "My friend," said the former, "the bitter day has
+passed over you, and I hope that the bitterness will soon pass away
+also." Phineas again attempted to smile as he held the hand of the
+man with whom he had formerly been associated in office.
+
+"I should not intrude, Mr. Finn," said Sir Harry, "did I not feel
+myself bound in a special manner to express my regret at the great
+trouble to which you have been subjected." Phineas rose, and
+bowed stiffly. He had conceived that every one connected with the
+administration of the law had believed him to be guilty, and none in
+his present mood could be dear to him but they who from the beginning
+trusted in his innocence. "I am requested by Mr. Gresham," continued
+Sir Harry, "to express to you his entire sympathy, and his joy that
+all this is at last over." Phineas tried to make some little speech,
+but utterly failed. Then Sir Harry left them, and he burst out into
+tears.
+
+"Who can be surprised?" said Lord Cantrip. "The marvel is that he
+should have been able to bear it so long."
+
+"It would have crushed me utterly, long since," said the other lord.
+Then there was a question asked as to what he would do, and Mr. Low
+proposed that he should be allowed to take Phineas to his own house
+for a few days. His wife, he said, had known their friend so long and
+so intimately that she might perhaps be able to make herself more
+serviceable than any other lady, and at their house Phineas could
+receive his sisters just as he would at his own. His sisters had been
+lodging near the prison almost ever since the committal, and it had
+been thought well to remove them to Mr. Low's house in order that
+they might meet their brother there.
+
+"I think I'll go to my--own room--in Marlborough Street." These were
+the first intelligible words he had uttered since he had been led out
+of the dock, and to that resolution he adhered. Lord Cantrip offered
+the retirements of a country house belonging to himself within an
+hour's journey of London, and Lord Chiltern declared that Harrington
+Hall, which Phineas knew, was altogether at his service,--but Phineas
+decided in favour of Mrs. Bunce, and to Great Marlborough Street he
+was taken by Mr. Low.
+
+"I'll come to you to-morrow,--with my wife,"--said Lord Chiltern, as
+he was going.
+
+"Not to-morrow, Chiltern. But tell your wife how deeply I value her
+friendship." Lord Cantrip also offered to come, but was asked to
+wait awhile. "I am afraid I am hardly fit for visitors yet. All the
+strength seems to have been knocked out of me this last week."
+
+Mr. Low accompanied him to his lodgings, and then handed him over to
+Mrs. Bunce, promising that his two sisters should come to him early
+on the following morning. On that evening he would prefer to be quite
+alone. He would not allow the barrister even to go upstairs with him;
+and when he had entered his room, almost rudely begged his weeping
+landlady to leave him.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Phineas, let me do something for you," said the poor woman.
+"You have not had a bit of anything all day. Let me get you just a
+cup of tea and a chop."
+
+In truth he had dined when the judges went out to their lunch,--dined
+as he had been wont to dine since the trial had been commenced,--and
+wanted nothing. She might bring him tea, he said, if she would leave
+him for an hour. And then at last he was alone. He stood up in the
+middle of the room, stretching forth his hands, and putting one
+first to his breast and then to his brow, feeling himself as though
+doubting his own identity. Could it be that the last week had been
+real,--that everything had not been a dream? Had he in truth been
+suspected of a murder and tried for his life? And then he thought of
+him who had been murdered, of Mr. Bonteen, his enemy. Was he really
+gone,--the man who the other day was to have been Chancellor of
+the Exchequer,--the scornful, arrogant, loud, boastful man? He had
+hardly thought of Mr. Bonteen before, during these weeks of his own
+incarceration. He had heard all the details of the murder with a
+fulness that had been at last complete. The man who had oppressed
+him, and whom he had at times almost envied, was indeed gone, and the
+world for awhile had believed that he, Phineas Finn, had been the
+man's murderer!
+
+And now what should be his own future life? One thing seemed certain
+to him. He could never again go into the House of Commons, and sit
+there, an ordinary man of business, with other ordinary men. He had
+been so hacked and hewed about, so exposed to the gaze of the vulgar,
+so mauled by the public, that he could never more be anything but the
+wretched being who had been tried for the murder of his enemy. The
+pith had been taken out of him, and he was no longer a man fit for
+use. He could never more enjoy that freedom from self-consciousness,
+that inner tranquillity of spirit, which are essential to public
+utility. Then he remembered certain lines which had long been
+familiar to him, and he repeated them aloud, with some conceit that
+they were apposite to him:--
+
+   The true gods sigh for the cost and pain,--
+   For the reed that grows never more again
+      As a reed with the reeds in the river.
+
+He sat drinking his tea, still thinking of himself,--knowing how
+infinitely better it would be for him that he should indulge in no
+such thought, till an idea struck him, and he got up, and, drawing
+back the blinds from the open window, looked out into the night. It
+was the last day of June, and the weather was very sultry; but the
+night was dark, and it was now near midnight. On a sudden he took
+his hat, and feeling with a smile for the latch-key which he always
+carried in his pocket,--thinking of the latch-key which had been made
+at Prague for the lock of a house in Northumberland Street, New Road,
+he went down to the front door. "You'll be back soon, Mr. Finn, won't
+you now?" said Mrs. Bunce, who had heard his step, and had remained
+up, thinking it better this, the first night of his return, not to
+rest till he had gone to his bed.
+
+"Why should I be back soon?" he said, turning upon her. But then
+he remembered that she had been one of those who were true to him,
+and he took her hand and was gracious to her. "I will be back soon,
+Mrs. Bunce, and you need fear nothing. But recollect how little
+I have had of liberty lately. I have not even had a walk for six
+weeks. You cannot wonder that I should wish to roam about a little."
+Nevertheless she would have preferred that he should not have gone
+out all alone on that night.
+
+He had taken off the black morning coat which he had worn during the
+trial, and had put on that very grey garment by which it had been
+sought to identify him with the murderer. So clad he crossed Regent
+Street into Hanover Square, and from thence went a short way down
+Bond Street, and by Bruton Street into Berkeley Square. He took
+exactly the reverse of the route by which he had returned home
+from the club on the night of the murder. Every now and then he
+trembled as he passed some figure which might be that of a man who
+would recognise him. But he walked fast, and went on till he came
+to the spot at which the steps descend from the street into the
+passage,--the very spot at which the murder had been committed. He
+looked down it with an awful dread, and stood there as though he were
+fascinated, thinking of all the details which he had heard throughout
+the trial. Then he looked around him, and listened whether there were
+any step approaching through the passage. Hearing none and seeing no
+one he at last descended, and for the first time in his life passed
+through that way into Bolton Row. Here it was that the wretch of whom
+he had now heard so much had waited for his enemy,--the wretch for
+whom during the last six weeks he had been mistaken. Heavens!--that
+men who had known him should have believed him to have done such a
+deed as that! He remembered well having shown the life-preserver to
+Erle and Fitzgibbon at the door of the club; and it had been thought
+that after having so shown it he had used it for the purpose to which
+in his joke he had alluded! Were men so blind, so ignorant of nature,
+so little capable of discerning the truth as this? Then he went on
+till he came to the end of Clarges Street, and looked up the mews
+opposite to it,--the mews from which the man had been seen to hurry.
+The place was altogether unknown to him. He had never thought whither
+it had led when passing it on his way up from Piccadilly to the club.
+But now he entered the mews so as to test the evidence that had been
+given, and found that it brought him by a turn close up to the spot
+at which he had been described as having been last seen by Erle
+and Fitzgibbon. When there he went on, and crossed the street, and
+looking back saw the club was lighted up. Then it struck him for the
+first time that it was the night of the week on which the members
+were wont to assemble. Should he pluck up courage, and walk in among
+them? He had not lost his right of entry there because he had been
+accused of murder. He was the same now as heretofore,--if he could
+only fancy himself to be the same. Why not go in, and have done with
+all this? He would be the wonder of the club for twenty minutes, and
+then it would all be over. He stood close under the shade of a heavy
+building as he thought of this, but he found that he could not do it.
+He had known from the beginning that he could not do it. How callous,
+how hard, how heartless, must he have been, had such a course been
+possible to him! He again repeated the lines to himself--
+
+   The reed that grows never more again
+      As a reed with the reeds in the river.
+
+He felt sure that never again would he enter that room, in which no
+doubt all those assembled were now talking about him.
+
+As he returned home he tried to make out for himself some plan for
+his future life,--but, interspersed with any idea that he could weave
+were the figures of two women, Lady Laura Kennedy and Madame Max
+Goesler. The former could be nothing to him but a friend; and though
+no other friend would love him as she loved him, yet she could not
+influence his life. She was very wealthy, but her wealth could be
+nothing to him. She would heap it all upon him if he would take
+it. He understood and knew that. Taking no pride to himself that
+it was so, feeling no conceit in her love, he was conscious of her
+devotion to him. He was poor, broken in spirit, and almost without a
+future;--and yet could her devotion avail him nothing!
+
+But how might it be with that other woman? Were she, after all that
+had passed between them, to consent to be his wife,--and it might be
+that she would consent,--how would the world be with him then? He
+would be known as Madame Goesler's husband, and have to sit at the
+bottom of her table,--and be talked of as the man who had been tried
+for the murder of Mr. Bonteen. Look at it in which way he might, he
+thought that no life could any longer be possible to him in London.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXVIII.
+
+PHINEAS AFTER THE TRIAL.
+
+
+Ten days passed by, and Phineas Finn had not been out of his lodgings
+till after daylight, and then he only prowled about in the manner
+described in the last chapter. His sisters had returned to Ireland,
+and he saw no one, even in his own room, but two or three of his most
+intimate friends. Among those Mr. Low and Lord Chiltern were the most
+frequently with him, but Fitzgibbon, Barrington Erle, and Mr. Monk
+had also been admitted. People had called by the hundred, till Mrs.
+Bunce was becoming almost tired of her lodger's popularity; but they
+came only to inquire,--because it had been reported that Mr. Finn was
+not well after his imprisonment. The Duchess of Omnium had written
+to him various notes, asking when he would come to her, and what
+she could do for him. Would he dine, would he spend a quiet evening,
+would he go to Matching? Finally, would he become her guest and the
+Duke's next September for the partridge shooting? They would have a
+few friends with them, and Madame Goesler would be one of the number.
+Having had this by him for a week, he had not as yet answered the
+invitation. He had received two or three notes from Lady Laura, who
+had frankly explained to him that if he were really ill she would
+of course go to him, but that as matters stood she could not do so
+without displeasing her brother. He had answered each note by an
+assurance that his first visit should be made in Portman Square. To
+Madame Goesler he had written a letter of thanks,--a letter which had
+in truth cost him some pains. "I know," he said, "for how much I have
+to thank you, but I do not know in what words to do it. I ought to
+be with you telling you in person of my gratitude; but I must own to
+you that for the present what has occurred has so unmanned me that
+I am unfit for the interview. I should only weep in your presence
+like a school-girl, and you would despise me." It was a long letter,
+containing many references to the circumstances of the trial, and to
+his own condition of mind throughout its period. Her answer to him,
+which was very short, was as follows:--
+
+
+   Park Lane, Sunday--.
+
+   MY DEAR MR. FINN,
+
+   I can well understand that for a while you should be too
+   agitated by what has passed to see your friends. Remember,
+   however, that you owe it to them as well as to yourself
+   not to sink into seclusion. Send me a line when you think
+   that you can come to me that I may be at home. My journey
+   to Prague was nothing. You forget that I am constantly
+   going to Vienna on business connected with my own property
+   there. Prague lies but a few hours out of the route.
+
+   Most sincerely yours,
+
+   M. M. G.
+
+
+His friends who did see him urged him constantly to bestir himself,
+and Mr. Monk pressed him very much to come down to the House. "Walk
+in with me to-night, and take your seat as though nothing had
+happened," said Mr. Monk.
+
+"But so much has happened."
+
+"Nothing has happened to alter your outward position as a man. No
+doubt many will flock round you to congratulate you, and your first
+half-hour will be disagreeable; but then the thing will have been
+done. You owe it to your constituents to do so." Then Phineas for the
+first time expressed an opinion that he would resign his seat,--that
+he would take the Chiltern Hundreds, and retire altogether from
+public life.
+
+"Pray do nothing of the kind," said Mr. Monk.
+
+"I do not think you quite understand," said Phineas, "how such an
+ordeal as this works upon a man, how it may change a man, and knock
+out of him what little strength there ever was there. I feel that I
+am broken, past any patching up or mending. Of course it ought not to
+be so. A man should be made of better stuff;--but one is only what
+one is."
+
+"We'll put off the discussion for another week," said Mr. Monk.
+
+"There came a letter to me when I was in prison from one of the
+leading men in Tankerville, saying that I ought to resign. I know
+they all thought that I was guilty. I do not care to sit for a place
+where I was so judged,--even if I was fit any longer for a seat in
+Parliament." He had never felt convinced that Mr. Monk had himself
+believed with confidence his innocence, and he spoke with soreness,
+and almost with anger.
+
+"A letter from one individual should never be allowed to create
+interference between a member and his constituents. It should simply
+be answered to that effect, and then ignored. As to the belief of the
+townspeople in your innocence,--what is to guide you? I believed you
+innocent with all my heart."
+
+"Did you?"
+
+"But there was always sufficient possibility of your guilt to prevent
+a rational man from committing himself to the expression of an
+absolute conviction." The young member's brow became black as he
+heard this. "I can see that I offend you by saying so,--but if you
+will think of it, I must be right. You were on your trial; and I as
+your friend was bound to await the result,--with much confidence,
+because I knew you; but with no conviction, because both you and I
+are human and fallible. If the electors at Tankerville, or any great
+proportion of them, express a belief that you are unfit to represent
+them because of what has occurred, I shall be the last to recommend
+you to keep your seat;--but I shall be surprised indeed if they
+should do so. If there were a general election to-morrow, I should
+regard your seat as one of the safest in England."
+
+Both Mr. Low and Lord Chiltern were equally urgent with him to
+return to his usual mode of life,--using different arguments for
+their purpose. Lord Chiltern told him plainly that he was weak and
+womanly,--or rather that he would be were he to continue to dread
+the faces of his fellow-creatures. The Master of the Brake hounds
+himself was a man less gifted than Phineas Finn, and therefore hardly
+capable of understanding the exaggerated feelings of the man who had
+recently been tried for his life. Lord Chiltern was affectionate,
+tender-hearted, and true;--but there were no vacillating fibres in
+his composition. The balance which regulated his conduct was firmly
+set, and went well. The clock never stopped, and wanted but little
+looking after. But the works were somewhat rough, and the seconds
+were not scored. He had, however, been quite true to Phineas during
+the dark time, and might now say what he pleased. "I am womanly,"
+said Phineas. "I begin to feel it. But I can't alter my nature."
+
+"I never was so much surprised in my life," said Lord Chiltern. "When
+I used to look at you in the dock, by heaven I envied you your pluck
+and strength."
+
+"I was burning up the stock of coals, Chiltern."
+
+"You'll come all right after a few weeks. You've been knocked out of
+time;--that's the truth of it."
+
+Mr. Low treated his patient with more indulgence; but he also was
+surprised, and hardly understood the nature of the derangement of the
+mechanism in the instrument which he was desirous of repairing. "I
+should go abroad for a few months if I were you," said Mr. Low.
+
+"I should stick at the first inn I got to," said Phineas. "I think I
+am better here. By and bye I shall travel, I dare say,--all over the
+world, as far as my money will last. But for the present I am only
+fit to sit still."
+
+Mrs. Low had seen him more than once, and had been very kind to him;
+but she also failed to understand. "I always thought that he was such
+a manly fellow," she said to her husband.
+
+"If you mean personal courage, there is no doubt that he possesses
+it,--as completely now, probably, as ever."
+
+"Oh yes;--he could go over to Flanders and let that lord shoot at
+him; and he could ride brutes of horses, and not care about breaking
+his neck. That's not what I mean. I thought that he could face the
+world with dignity;--but now it seems that he breaks down."
+
+"He has been very roughly used, my dear."
+
+"So he has,--and tenderly used too. Nobody has had better friends. I
+thought he would have been more manly."
+
+The property of manliness in a man is a great possession, but perhaps
+there is none that is less understood,--which is more generally
+accorded where it does not exist, or more frequently disallowed where
+it prevails. There are not many who ever make up their minds as to
+what constitutes manliness, or even inquire within themselves upon
+the subject. The woman's error, occasioned by her natural desire for
+a master, leads her to look for a certain outward magnificence of
+demeanour, a pretended indifference to stings and little torments,
+a would-be superiority to the bread-and-butter side of life, an
+unreal assumption of personal grandeur. But a robe of State such as
+this,--however well the garment may be worn with practice,--can never
+be the raiment natural to a man; and men, dressing themselves in
+women's eyes, have consented to walk about in buckram. A composure of
+the eye, which has been studied, a reticence as to the little things
+of life, a certain slowness of speech unless the occasion call for
+passion, an indifference to small surroundings, these,--joined, of
+course, with personal bravery,--are supposed to constitute manliness.
+That personal bravery is required in the composition of manliness
+must be conceded, though, of all the ingredients needed, it is the
+lowest in value. But the first requirement of all must be described
+by a negative. Manliness is not compatible with affectation. Women's
+virtues, all feminine attributes, may be marred by affectation, but
+the virtues and the vice may co-exist. An affected man, too, may
+be honest, may be generous, may be pious;--but surely he cannot
+be manly. The self-conscious assumption of any outward manner,
+the striving to add,--even though it be but a tenth of a cubit to
+the height,--is fatal, and will at once banish the all but divine
+attribute. Before the man can be manly, the gifts which make him
+so must be there, collected by him slowly, unconsciously, as are
+his bones, his flesh, and his blood. They cannot be put on like a
+garment for the nonce,--as may a little learning. A man cannot become
+faithful to his friends, unsuspicious before the world, gentle with
+women, loving with children, considerate to his inferiors, kindly
+with servants, tender-hearted with all,--and at the same time be
+frank, of open speech, with springing eager energies,--simply because
+he desires it. These things, which are the attributes of manliness,
+must come of training on a nature not ignoble. But they are the very
+opposites, the antipodes, the direct antagonism, of that staring,
+posed, bewhiskered and bewigged deportment, that _nil admirari_,
+self-remembering assumption of manliness, that endeavour of twopence
+halfpenny to look as high as threepence, which, when you prod it
+through, has in it nothing deeper than deportment. We see the two
+things daily, side by side, close to each other. Let a man put
+his hat down, and you shall say whether he has deposited it with
+affectation or true nature. The natural man will probably be manly.
+The affected man cannot be so.
+
+Mrs. Low was wrong when she accused our hero of being unmanly. Had
+his imagination been less alert in looking into the minds of men, and
+in picturing to himself the thoughts of others in reference to the
+crime with which he had been charged, he would not now have shrunk
+from contact with his fellow-creatures as he did. But he could not
+pretend to be other than he was. During the period of his danger,
+when men had thought that he would be hung,--and when he himself had
+believed that it would be so,--he had borne himself bravely without
+any conscious effort. When he had confronted the whole Court with
+that steady courage which had excited Lord Chiltern's admiration, and
+had looked the Bench in the face as though he at least had no cause
+to quail, he had known nothing of what he was doing. His features had
+answered the helm from his heart, but had not been played upon by his
+intellect. And it was so with him now. The reaction had overcome him,
+and he could not bring himself to pretend that it was not so. The
+tears would come to his eyes, and he would shiver and shake like one
+struck by palsy.
+
+Mr. Monk came to him often, and was all but forgiven for the apparent
+defection in his faith. "I have made up my mind to one thing,"
+Phineas said to him at the end of the ten days.
+
+"And what is the one thing?"
+
+"I will give up my seat."
+
+"I do not see a shadow of a reason for it."
+
+"Nevertheless I will do it. Indeed, I have already written to Mr.
+Ratler for the Hundreds. There may be and probably are men down
+at Tankerville who still think that I am guilty. There is an
+offensiveness in murder which degrades a man even by the accusation.
+I suppose it wouldn't do for you to move for the new writ."
+
+"Ratler will do it, as a matter of course. No doubt there will be
+expressions of great regret, and my belief is that they will return
+you again."
+
+"If so, they'll have to do it without my presence."
+
+Mr. Ratler did move for a new writ for the borough of Tankerville,
+and within a fortnight of his restoration to liberty Phineas Finn was
+no longer a Member of Parliament. It cannot be alleged that there
+was any reason for what he did, and yet the doing of it for the time
+rather increased than diminished his popularity. Both Mr. Gresham and
+Mr. Daubeny expressed their regret in the House, and Mr. Monk said a
+few words respecting his friend, which were very touching. He ended
+by expressing a hope that they soon might see him there again, and an
+opinion that he was a man peculiarly fitted by the tone of his mind,
+and the nature of his intellect, for the duties of Parliament.
+
+Then at last, when all this had been settled, he went to Lord
+Brentford's house in Portman Square. He had promised that that should
+be the first house he would visit, and he was as good as his word.
+One evening he crept out, and walked slowly along Oxford Street, and
+knocked timidly at the door. As he did so he longed to be told that
+Lady Laura was not at home. But Lady Laura was at home,--as a matter
+of course. In those days she never went into society, and had not
+passed an evening away from her father's house since Mr. Kennedy's
+death. He was shown up into the drawing-room in which she sat, and
+there he found her--alone. "Oh, Phineas, I am so glad you have come."
+
+"I have done as I said, you see."
+
+"I could not go to you when they told me that you were ill. You will
+have understood all that?"
+
+"Yes; I understand."
+
+"People are so hard, and cold, and stiff, and cruel, that one can
+never do what one feels, oneself, to be right. So you have given up
+your seat."
+
+"Yes,--I am no longer a Member of Parliament."
+
+"Barrington says that they will certainly re-elect you."
+
+"We shall see. You may be sure at any rate of this,--that I shall
+never ask them to do so. Things seem to be so different now from what
+they did. I don't care for the seat. It all seems to be a bore and a
+trouble. What does it matter who sits in Parliament? The fight goes
+on just the same. The same falsehoods are acted. The same mock truths
+are spoken. The same wrong reasons are given. The same personal
+motives are at work."
+
+"And yet, of all believers in Parliament, you used to be the most
+faithful."
+
+"One has time to think of things, Lady Laura, when one lies in
+Newgate. It seems to me to be an eternity of time since they locked
+me up. And as for that trial, which they tell me lasted a week, I
+look back at it till the beginning is so distant that I can hardly
+remember it. But I have resolved that I will never talk of it again.
+Lady Chiltern is out probably."
+
+"Yes;--she and Oswald are dining with the Baldocks."
+
+"She is well?"
+
+"Yes;--and most anxious to see you. Will you go to their place in
+September?"
+
+He had almost made up his mind that if he went anywhere in September
+he would go to Matching Priory, accepting the offer of the Duchess
+of Omnium; but he did not dare to say so to Lady Laura, because she
+would have known that Madame Goesler also would be there. And he had
+not as yet accepted the invitation, and was still in doubt whether he
+would not escape by himself instead of attempting to return into the
+grooves of society. "I think not;--I am hardly as yet sufficiently
+master of myself to know what I shall do."
+
+"They will be much disappointed."
+
+"And you?--what will you do?"
+
+"I shall not go there. I am told that I ought to visit Loughlinter,
+and I suppose I shall. Oswald has promised to go down with me before
+the end of the month, but he will not remain above a day or two."
+
+"And your father?"
+
+"We shall leave him at Saulsby. I cannot look it all in the face
+yet. It is not possible that I should remain all alone in that great
+house. The people all around would hate and despise me. I think
+Violet will come down with me, but of course she cannot remain there.
+Oswald must go to Harrington because of the hunting. It has become
+the business of his life. And she must go with him."
+
+"You will return to Saulsby."
+
+"I cannot say. They seem to think that I should live at
+Loughlinter;--but I cannot live there alone."
+
+He soon took leave of her, and did so with no warmer expressions of
+regard on either side than have here been given. Then he crept back
+to his lodgings, and she sat weeping alone in her father's house.
+When he had come to her during her husband's lifetime at Dresden, or
+even when she had visited him at his prison, it had been better than
+this.
+
+
+[Illustration: And she sat weeping alone in her father's house.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIX.
+
+THE DUKE'S FIRST COUSIN.
+
+
+Our pages have lately been taken up almost exclusively with the
+troubles of Phineas Finn, and indeed have so far not unfairly
+represented the feelings and interest of people generally at the
+time. Not to have talked of Phineas Finn from the middle of May to
+the middle of July in that year would have exhibited great ignorance
+or a cynical disposition. But other things went on also. Moons
+waxed and waned; children were born; marriages were contracted; and
+the hopes and fears of the little world around did not come to an
+end because Phineas Finn was not to be hung. Among others who had
+interests of their own there was poor Adelaide Palliser, whom we last
+saw under the affliction of Mr. Spooner's love,--but who before that
+had encountered the much deeper affliction of a quarrel with her own
+lover. She had desired him to free her,--and he had gone. Indeed,
+as to his going at that moment there had been no alternative, as
+he considered himself to have been turned out of Lord Chiltern's
+house. The red-headed lord, in the fierceness of his defence of Miss
+Palliser, had told the lover that under such and such circumstances
+he could not be allowed to remain at Harrington Hall. Lord Chiltern
+had said something about "his roof." Now, when a host questions the
+propriety of a guest remaining under his roof, the guest is obliged
+to go. Gerard Maule had gone; and, having offended his sweetheart
+by a most impolite allusion to Boulogne, had been forced to go as
+a rejected lover. From that day to this he had done nothing,--not
+because he was contented with the lot assigned to him, for every
+morning, as he lay on his bed, which he usually did till twelve,
+he swore to himself that nothing should separate him from Adelaide
+Palliser,--but simply because to do nothing was customary with him.
+"What is a man to do?" he not unnaturally asked his friend Captain
+Boodle at the club. "Let her out on the grass for a couple of
+months," said Captain Boodle, "and she'll come up as clean as a
+whistle. When they get these humours there's nothing like giving them
+a run." Captain Boodle undoubtedly had the reputation of being very
+great in council on such matters; but it must not be supposed that
+Gerard Maule was contented to take his advice implicitly. He was
+unhappy, ill at ease, half conscious that he ought to do something,
+full of regrets,--but very idle.
+
+In the meantime Miss Palliser, who had the finer nature of the two,
+suffered grievously. The Spooner affair was but a small addition to
+her misfortune. She could get rid of Mr. Spooner,--of any number of
+Mr. Spooners; but how should she get back to her the man she loved?
+When young ladies quarrel with their lovers it is always presumed,
+especially in books, that they do not wish to get them back. It is to
+be understood that the loss to them is as nothing. Miss Smith begs
+that Mr. Jones may be assured that he is not to consider her at all.
+If he is pleased to separate, she will be at any rate quite as well
+pleased,--probably a great deal better. No doubt she had loved him
+with all her heart, but that will make no difference to her, if he
+wishes,--to be off. Upon the whole Miss Smith thinks that she would
+prefer such an arrangement, in spite of her heart. Adelaide Palliser
+had said something of the kind. As Gerard Maule had regarded her
+as a "trouble," and had lamented that prospect of "Boulogne" which
+marriage had presented to his eyes, she had dismissed him with a few
+easily spoken words. She had assured him that no such troubles need
+weigh upon him. No doubt they had been engaged;--but, as far as she
+was concerned, the remembrance of that need not embarrass him. And so
+she and Lord Chiltern between them had sent him away. But how was she
+to get him back again?
+
+When she came to think it over, she acknowledged to herself that it
+would be all the world to her to have him back. To have him at all
+had been all the world to her. There had been nothing peculiarly
+heroic about him, nor had she ever regarded him as a hero. She
+had known his faults and weaknesses, and was probably aware
+that he was inferior to herself in character and intellect. But,
+nevertheless, she had loved him. To her he had been, though not
+heroic, sufficiently a man to win her heart. He was a gentleman,
+pleasant-mannered, pleasant to look at, pleasant to talk to, not
+educated in the high sense of the word, but never making himself
+ridiculous by ignorance. He was the very antipodes of a Spooner, and
+he was,--or rather had been,--her lover. She did not wish to change.
+She did not recognise the possibility of changing. Though she had
+told him that he might go if he pleased, to her his going would be
+the loss of everything. What would life be without a lover,--without
+the prospect of marriage? And there could be no other lover. There
+could be no further prospect should he take her at her word.
+
+Of all this Lord Chiltern understood nothing, but Lady Chiltern
+understood it all. To his thinking the young man had behaved so badly
+that it was incumbent on them all to send him away and so have done
+with him. If the young man wanted to quarrel with any one, there was
+he to be quarrelled with. The thing was a trouble, and the sooner
+they got to the end of it the better. But Lady Chiltern understood
+more than that. She could not prevent the quarrel as it came,--or was
+coming; but she knew that "the quarrel of lovers is the renewal of
+love." At any rate, the woman always desires that it may be so, and
+endeavours to reconcile the parted ones. "You'll see him in London,"
+Lady Chiltern had said to her friend.
+
+"I do not want to see him," said Adelaide proudly.
+
+"But he'll want to see you, and then,--after a time,--you'll want to
+see him. I don't believe in quarrels, you know."
+
+"It is better that we should part, Lady Chiltern, if marrying will
+cause him--dismay. I begin to feel that we are too poor to be
+married."
+
+"A great deal poorer people than you are married every day. Of course
+people can't be equally rich. You'll do very well if you'll only be
+patient, and not refuse to speak to him when he comes to you." This
+was said at Harrington after Lady Chiltern had returned from her
+first journey up to London. That visit had been very short, and Miss
+Palliser had been left alone at the hall. We already know how Mr.
+Spooner took advantage of her solitude. After that, Miss Palliser was
+to accompany the Chilterns to London, and she was there with them
+when Phineas Finn was acquitted. By that time she had brought herself
+to acknowledge to her friend Lady Chiltern that it would perhaps be
+desirable that Mr. Maule should return. If he did not do so, and that
+at once, there must come an end to her life in England. She must go
+away to Italy,--altogether beyond the reach of Gerard Maule. In such
+case all the world would have collapsed for her, and she would become
+the martyr of a shipwreck. And yet the more that she confessed to
+herself that she loved the man so well that she could not part with
+him, the more angry she was with him for having told her that, when
+married, they must live at Boulogne.
+
+The house in Portman Square had been practically given up by Lord
+Brentford to his son; but nevertheless the old Earl and Lady Laura
+had returned to it when they reached England from Dresden. It was,
+however, large, and now the two families,--if the Earl and his
+daughter can be called a family,--were lodging there together. The
+Earl troubled them but little, living mostly in his own rooms, and
+Lady Laura never went out with them. But there was something in the
+presence of the old man and the widow which prevented the house from
+being gay as it might have been. There were no parties in Portman
+Square. Now and then a few old friends dined there; but at the
+present moment Gerard Maule could not be admitted as an old friend.
+When Adelaide had been a fortnight in London she had not as yet seen
+Gerard Maule or heard a word from him. She had been to balls and
+concerts, to dinner parties and the play; but no one had as yet
+brought them together. She did know that he was in town. She was able
+to obtain so much information of him as that. But he never came to
+Portman Square, and had evidently concluded that the quarrel--was to
+be a quarrel.
+
+Among other balls in London that July there had been one at the
+Duchess of Omnium's. This had been given after the acquittal of
+Phineas Finn, though fixed before that great era. "Nothing on earth
+should have made me have it while he was in prison," the Duchess
+had said. But Phineas was acquitted, and cakes and ale again became
+permissible. The ball had been given, and had been very grand.
+Phineas had been asked, but of course had not gone. Madame Goesler,
+who was a great heroine since her successful return from Prague, had
+shown herself there for a few minutes. Lady Chiltern had gone, and of
+course taken Adelaide. "We are first cousins," the Duke said to Miss
+Palliser,--for the Duke did steal a moment from his work in which to
+walk through his wife's drawing-room. Adelaide smiled and nodded, and
+looked pleased as she gave her hand to her great relative. "I hope we
+shall see more of each other than we have done," said the Duke. "We
+have all been sadly divided, haven't we?" Then he said a word to his
+wife, expressing his opinion that Adelaide Palliser was a nice girl,
+and asking her to be civil to so near a relative.
+
+The Duchess had heard all about Gerard Maule and the engagement. She
+always did hear all about everything. And on this evening she asked a
+question or two from Lady Chiltern. "Do you know," she said, "I have
+an appointment to-morrow with your husband?"
+
+"I did not know;--but I won't interfere to prevent it, now you are
+generous enough to tell me."
+
+"I wish you would, because I don't know what to say to him. He is to
+come about that horrid wood, where the foxes won't get themselves
+born and bred as foxes ought to do. How can I help it? I'd send down
+a whole Lying-in Hospital for the foxes if I thought that that would
+do any good."
+
+"Lord Chiltern thinks it's the shooting."
+
+"But where is a person to shoot if he mayn't shoot in his own woods?
+Not that the Duke cares about the shooting for himself. He could not
+hit a pheasant sitting on a haystack, and wouldn't know one if he saw
+it. And he'd rather that there wasn't such a thing as a pheasant in
+the world. He cares for nothing but farthings. But what is a man to
+do? Or, rather, what is a woman to do?--for he tells me that I must
+settle it."
+
+"Lord Chiltern says that Mr. Fothergill has the foxes destroyed. I
+suppose Mr. Fothergill may do as he pleases if the Duke gives him
+permission."
+
+"I hate Mr. Fothergill, if that'll do any good," said the Duchess;
+"and we wish we could get rid of him altogether. But that, you know,
+is impossible. When one has an old man on one's shoulders one never
+can get rid of him. He is my incubus; and then you see Trumpeton Wood
+is such a long way from us at Matching that I can't say I want the
+shooting for myself. And I never go to Gatherum if I can help it.
+Suppose we made out that the Duke wanted to let the shooting?"
+
+"Lord Chiltern would take it at once."
+
+"But the Duke wouldn't really let it, you know. I'll lay awake at
+night and think about it. And now tell me about Adelaide Palliser. Is
+she to be married?"
+
+"I hope so,--sooner or later."
+
+"There's a quarrel or something;--isn't there? She's the Duke's first
+cousin, and we should be so sorry that things shouldn't go pleasantly
+with her. And she's a very good-looking girl, too. Would she like to
+come down to Matching?"
+
+"She has some idea of going back to Italy."
+
+"And leaving her lover behind her! Oh, dear, that will be very bad.
+She'd much better come to Matching, and then I'd ask the man to come
+too. Mr. Maud, isn't he?"
+
+"Gerard Maule."
+
+"Ah, yes; Maule. If it's the kind of thing that ought to be, I'd
+manage it in a week. If you get a young man down into a country
+house, and there has been anything at all between them, I don't see
+how he is to escape. Isn't there some trouble about money?"
+
+"They wouldn't be very rich, Duchess."
+
+"What a blessing for them! But then, perhaps, they'd be very poor."
+
+"They would be rather poor."
+
+"Which is not a blessing. Isn't there some proverb about going
+safely in the middle? I'm sure it's true about money,--only perhaps
+you ought to be put a little beyond the middle. I don't know why
+Plantagenet shouldn't do something for her."
+
+As to this conversation Lady Chiltern said very little to Adelaide,
+but she did mention the proposed visit to Matching.
+
+"The Duchess said nothing to me," replied Adelaide, proudly.
+
+"No; I don't suppose she had time. And then she is so very odd;
+sometimes taking no notice of one, and at others so very loving."
+
+"I hate that."
+
+"But with her it is neither impudence nor affectation. She says
+exactly what she thinks at the time, and she is always as good as her
+word. There are worse women than the Duchess."
+
+"I am sure I wouldn't like going to Matching," said Adelaide.
+
+Lady Chiltern was right in saying that the Duchess of Omnium was
+always as good as her word. On the next day, after that interview
+with Lord Chiltern about Mr. Fothergill and the foxes,--as to which
+no present further allusion need be made here,--she went to work and
+did learn a good deal about Gerard Maule and Miss Palliser. Something
+she learned from Lord Chiltern,--without any consciousness on his
+lordship's part, something from Madame Goesler, and something from
+the Baldock people. Before she went to bed on the second night she
+knew all about the quarrel, and all about the money. "Plantagenet,"
+she said the next morning, "what are you going to do about the Duke's
+legacy to Marie Goesler?"
+
+"I can do nothing. She must take the things, of course."
+
+"She won't."
+
+"Then the jewels must remain packed up. I suppose they'll be sold at
+last for the legacy duty, and, when that's paid, the balance will
+belong to her."
+
+"But what about the money?"
+
+"Of course it belongs to her."
+
+"Couldn't you give it to that girl who was here last night?"
+
+"Give it to a girl!"
+
+"Yes;--to your cousin. She's as poor as Job, and can't get married
+because she hasn't got any money. It's quite true; and I must say
+that if the Duke had looked after his own relations instead of
+leaving money to people who don't want it and won't have it, it would
+have been much better. Why shouldn't Adelaide Palliser have it?"
+
+"How on earth should I give Adelaide Palliser what doesn't belong to
+me? If you choose to make her a present, you can, but such a sum as
+that would, I should say, be out of the question."
+
+The Duchess had achieved quite as much as she had anticipated. She
+knew her husband well, and was aware that she couldn't carry her
+point at once. To her mind it was "all nonsense" his saying that the
+money was not his. If Madame Goesler wouldn't take it, it must be
+his; and nobody could make a woman take money if she did not choose.
+Adelaide Palliser was the Duke's first cousin, and it was intolerable
+that the Duke's first cousin should be unable to marry because she
+would have nothing to live upon. It became, at least, intolerable
+as soon as the Duchess had taken it into her head to like the first
+cousin. No doubt there were other first cousins as badly off, or
+perhaps worse, as to whom the Duchess would care nothing whether
+they were rich or poor,--married or single; but then they were first
+cousins who had not had the advantage of interesting the Duchess.
+
+"My dear," said the Duchess to her friend, Madame Goesler, "you know
+all about those Maules?"
+
+"What makes you ask?"
+
+"But you do?"
+
+"I know something about one of them," said Madame Goesler. Now, as
+it happened, Mr. Maule, senior, had on that very day asked Madame
+Goesler to share her lot with his, and the request had been--almost
+indignantly, refused. The general theory that the wooing of widows
+should be quick had, perhaps, misled Mr. Maule. Perhaps he did not
+think that the wooing had been quick. He had visited Park Lane with
+the object of making his little proposition once before, and had
+then been stopped in his course by the consternation occasioned by
+the arrest of Phineas Finn. He had waited till Phineas had been
+acquitted, and had then resolved to try his luck. He had heard of the
+lady's journey to Prague, and was acquainted of course with those
+rumours which too freely connected the name of our hero with that of
+the lady. But rumours are often false, and a lady may go to Prague on
+a gentleman's behalf without intending to marry him. All the women in
+London were at present more or less in love with the man who had been
+accused of murder, and the fantasy of Madame Goesler might be only as
+the fantasy of others. And then, rumour also said that Phineas Finn
+intended to marry Lady Laura Kennedy. At any rate a man cannot have
+his head broken for asking a lady to marry him,--unless he is very
+awkward in the doing of it. So Mr. Maule made his little proposition.
+
+"Mr. Maule," said Madame, smiling, "is not this rather sudden?" Mr.
+Maule admitted that it was sudden, but still persisted. "I think,
+if you please, Mr. Maule, we will say no more about it," said the
+lady, with that wicked smile still on her face. Mr. Maule declared
+that silence on the subject had become impossible to him. "Then, Mr.
+Maule, I shall have to leave you to speak to the chairs and tables,"
+said Madame Goesler. No doubt she was used to the thing, and knew how
+to conduct herself well. He also had been refused before by ladies of
+wealth, but had never been treated with so little consideration. She
+had risen from her chair as though about to leave the room, but was
+slow in her movement, showing him that she thought it was well for
+him to leave it instead of her. Muttering some words, half of apology
+and half of self-assertion, he did leave the room; and now she told
+the Duchess that she knew something of one of the Maules.
+
+"That is, the father?"
+
+"Yes,--the father."
+
+"He is one of your tribe, I know. We met him at your house just
+before the murder. I don't much admire your taste, my dear, because
+he's a hundred and fifty years old;--and what there is of him comes
+chiefly from the tailor."
+
+"He's as good as any other old man."
+
+"I dare say,--and I hope Mr. Finn will like his society. But he has
+got a son."
+
+"So he tells me."
+
+"Who is a charming young man."
+
+"He never told me that, Duchess."
+
+"I dare say not. Men of that sort are always jealous of their sons.
+But he has. Now I am going to tell you something and ask you to do
+something."
+
+"What was it the French Minister said. If it is simply difficult it
+is done. If it is impossible, it shall be done."
+
+"The easiest thing in the world. You saw Plantagenet's first cousin
+the other night,--Adelaide Palliser. She is engaged to marry young
+Mr. Maule, and they neither of them have a shilling in the world. I
+want you to give them five-and-twenty thousand pounds."
+
+"Wouldn't that be peculiar?"
+
+"Not in the least."
+
+"At any rate it would be inconvenient."
+
+"No it wouldn't, my dear. It would be the most convenient thing in
+the world. Of course I don't mean out of your pocket. There's the
+Duke's legacy."
+
+"It isn't mine, and never will be."
+
+"But Plantagenet says it never can be anybody else's. If I can get
+him to agree, will you? Of course there will be ever so many papers
+to be signed; and the biggest of all robbers, the Chancellor of the
+Exchequer, will put his fingers into the pudding and pull out a plum,
+and the lawyers will take more plums. But that will be nothing to
+us. The pudding will be very nice for them let ever so many plums be
+taken. The lawyers and people will do it all, and then it will be her
+fortune,--just as though her uncle had left it to her. As it is now,
+the money will never be of any use to anybody." Madame Goesler said
+that if the Duke consented she also would consent. It was immaterial
+to her who had the money. If by signing any receipt she could
+facilitate the return of the money to any one of the Duke's family,
+she would willingly sign it. But Miss Palliser must be made to
+understand that the money did not come to her as a present from
+Madame Goesler.
+
+"But it will be a present from Madame Goesler," said the Duke.
+
+"Plantagenet, if you go and upset everything by saying that, I shall
+think it most ill-natured. Bother about true! Somebody must have the
+money. There's nothing illegal about it." And the Duchess had her own
+way. Lawyers were consulted, and documents were prepared, and the
+whole thing was arranged. Only Adelaide Palliser knew nothing about
+it, nor did Gerard Maule; and the quarrels of lovers had not yet
+become the renewal of love. Then the Duchess wrote the two following
+notes:--
+
+
+   MY DEAR ADELAIDE,
+
+   We shall hope to see you at Matching on the 15th of
+   August. The Duke, as head of the family, expects implicit
+   obedience. You'll meet fifteen young gentlemen from the
+   Treasury and the Board of Trade, but they won't incommode
+   you, as they are kept at work all day. We hope Mr. Finn
+   will be with us, and there isn't a lady in England who
+   wouldn't give her eyes to meet him. We shall stay ever so
+   many weeks at Matching, so that you can do as you please
+   as to the time of leaving us.
+
+   Yours affectionately,
+
+   G. O.
+
+   Tell Lord Chiltern that I have my hopes of making
+   Trumpeton Wood too hot for Mr. Fothergill,--but I have
+   to act with the greatest caution. In the meantime I am
+   sending down dozens of young foxes, all labelled Trumpeton
+   Wood, so that he shall know them.
+
+
+The other was a card rather than a note. The Duke and Duchess of
+Omnium presented their compliments to Mr. Gerard Maule, and requested
+the honour of his company to dinner on,--a certain day named. When
+Gerard Maule received this card at his club he was rather surprised,
+as he had never made the acquaintance either of the Duke or the
+Duchess. But the Duke was the first cousin of Adelaide Palliser, and
+of course he accepted the invitation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXX.
+
+"I WILL NOT GO TO LOUGHLINTER."
+
+
+The end of July came, and it was settled that Lady Laura Kennedy
+should go to Loughlinter. She had been a widow now for nearly three
+months, and it was thought right that she should go down and see the
+house, and the lands, and the dependents whom her husband had left
+in her charge. It was now three years since she had seen Loughlinter,
+and when last she had left it, she had made up her mind that she
+would never place her foot upon the place again. Her wretchedness
+had all come upon her there. It was there that she had first been
+subjected to the unendurable tedium of Sabbath Day observances. It
+was there she had been instructed in the unpalatable duties that
+had been expected from her. It was there that she had been punished
+with the doctor from Callender whenever she attempted escape under
+the plea of a headache. And it was there, standing by the waterfall,
+the noise of which could be heard from the front-door, that Phineas
+Finn had told her of his love. When she accepted the hand of Robert
+Kennedy she had known that she had not loved him; but from the moment
+in which Phineas had spoken to her, she knew well that her heart had
+gone one way, whereas her hand was to go another. From that moment
+her whole life had quickly become a blank. She had had no period of
+married happiness,--not a month, not an hour. From the moment in
+which the thing had been done she had found that the man to whom she
+had bound herself was odious to her, and that the life before her
+was distasteful to her. Things which before had seemed worthy to her,
+and full at any rate of interest, became at once dull and vapid. Her
+husband was in Parliament, as also had been her father, and many of
+her friends,--and, by weight of his own character and her influence,
+was himself placed high in office; but in his house politics lost all
+the flavour which they had possessed for her in Portman Square. She
+had thought that she could at any rate do her duty as the mistress
+of a great household, and as the benevolent lady of a great estate;
+but household duties under the tutelage of Mr. Kennedy had been
+impossible to her, and that part of a Scotch Lady Bountiful which she
+had intended to play seemed to be denied to her. The whole structure
+had fallen to the ground, and nothing had been left to her.
+
+But she would not sin. Though she could not bring herself to love her
+husband, she would at any rate be strong enough to get rid of that
+other love. Having so resolved, she became as weak as water. She at
+one time determined to be the guiding genius of the man she loved,--a
+sort of devoted elder sister, intending him to be the intimate friend
+of her husband; then she had told him not to come to her house, and
+had been weak enough to let him know why it was that she could not
+bear his presence. She had failed altogether to keep her secret, and
+her life during the struggle had become so intolerable to her that
+she had found herself compelled to desert her husband. He had shown
+her that he, too, had discovered the truth, and then she had become
+indignant, and had left him. Every place that she had inhabited
+with him had become disagreeable to her. The house in London had
+been so odious, that she had asked her intimate friends to come to
+her in that occupied by her father. But, of all spots upon earth,
+Loughlinter had been the most distasteful to her. It was there that
+the sermons had been the longest, the lessons in accounts the most
+obstinate, the lectures the most persevering, the dullness the most
+heavy. It was there that her ears had learned the sound of the wheels
+of Dr. Macnuthrie's gig. It was there that her spirit had been nearly
+broken. It was there that, with spirit not broken, she had determined
+to face all that the world might say of her, and fly from a tyranny
+which was insupportable. And now the place was her own, and she was
+told that she must go there as its owner;--go there and be potential,
+and beneficent, and grandly bland with persons, all of whom knew what
+had been the relations between her and her husband.
+
+And though she had been indignant with her husband when at last she
+had left him,--throwing it in his teeth as an unmanly offence that he
+had accused her of the truth; though she had felt him to be a tyrant
+and herself to be a thrall; though the sermons, and the lessons,
+and the doctor had each, severally, seemed to her to be horrible
+cruelties; yet she had known through it all that the fault had
+been hers, and not his. He only did that which she should have
+expected when she married him;--but she had done none of that which
+he was entitled to expect from her. The real fault, the deceit, the
+fraud,--the sin had been with her,--and she knew it. Her life had
+been destroyed,--but not by him. His life had also been destroyed,
+and she had done it. Now he was gone, and she knew that his
+people,--the old mother who was still left alone, his cousins, and
+the tenants who were now to be her tenants, all said that had she
+done her duty by him he would still have been alive. And they must
+hate her the worse, because she had never sinned after such a fashion
+as to liberate him from his bond to her. With a husband's perfect
+faith in his wife, he had, immediately after his marriage, given to
+her for her life the lordship over his people, should he be without
+a child and should she survive him. In his hottest anger he had not
+altered that. His constant demand had been that she should come back
+to him, and be his real wife. And while making that demand,--with a
+persistency which had driven him mad,--he had died; and now the place
+was hers, and they told her that she must go and live there!
+
+It is a very sad thing for any human being to have to say to
+himself,--with an earnest belief in his own assertion,--that all the
+joy of this world is over for him; and is the sadder because such
+conviction is apt to exclude the hope of other joy. This woman had
+said so to herself very often during the last two years, and had
+certainly been sincere. What was there in store for her? She was
+banished from the society of all those she liked. She bore a name
+that was hateful to her. She loved a man whom she could never see.
+She was troubled about money. Nothing in life had any taste for her.
+All the joys of the world were over,--and had been lost by her own
+fault. Then Phineas Finn had come to her at Dresden, and now her
+husband was dead!
+
+Could it be that she was entitled to hope that the sun might rise
+again for her once more and another day be reopened for her with
+a gorgeous morning? She was now rich and still young,--or young
+enough. She was two and thirty, and had known many women,--women
+still honoured with the name of girls,--who had commenced the world
+successfully at that age. And this man had loved her once. He had
+told her so, and had afterwards kissed her when informed of her own
+engagement. How well she remembered it all. He, too, had gone through
+vicissitudes in life, had married and retired out of the world,
+had returned to it, and had gone through fire and water. But now
+everybody was saying good things of him, and all he wanted was the
+splendour which wealth would give him. Why should he not take it at
+her hands, and why should not the world begin again for both of them?
+
+But though she would dream that it might be so, she was quite sure
+that there was no such life in store for her. The nature of the man
+was too well known to her. Fickle he might be;--or rather capable of
+change than fickle; but he was incapable of pretending to love when
+he did not love. She felt that in all the moments in which he had
+been most tender with her. When she had endeavoured to explain to him
+the state of her feelings at Koenigstein,--meaning to be true in what
+she said, but not having been even then true throughout,--she had
+acknowledged to herself that at every word he spoke she was wounded
+by his coldness. Had he then professed a passion for her she would
+have rebuked him, and told him that he must go from her,--but it
+would have warmed the blood in all her veins, and brought back to
+her a sense of youthful life. It had been the same when she visited
+him in the prison;--the same again when he came to her after his
+acquittal. She had been frank enough to him, but he would not even
+pretend that he loved her. His gratitude, his friendship, his
+services, were all hers. In every respect he had behaved well to her.
+All his troubles had come upon him because he would not desert her
+cause,--but he would never again say he loved her.
+
+She gazed at herself in the glass, putting aside for the moment the
+hideous widow's cap which she now wore, and told herself that it
+was natural that it should be so. Though she was young in years
+her features were hard and worn with care. She had never thought
+herself to be a beauty, though she had been conscious of a certain
+aristocratic grace of manner which might stand in the place of
+beauty. As she examined herself she found that that was not all
+gone;--but she now lacked that roundness of youth which had been hers
+when first she knew Phineas Finn. She sat opposite the mirror, and
+pored over her own features with an almost skilful scrutiny, and told
+herself at last aloud that she had become an old woman. He was in the
+prime of life; but for her was left nothing but its dregs.
+
+
+[Illustration: Lady Laura at the glass.]
+
+
+She was to go to Loughlinter with her brother and her brother's wife,
+leaving her father at Saulsby on the way. The Chilterns were to
+remain with her for one week, and no more. His presence was demanded
+in the Brake country, and it was with difficulty that he had been
+induced to give her so much of his time. But what was she to do when
+they should leave her? How could she live alone in that great house,
+thinking, as she ever must think, of all that had happened to her
+there? It seemed to her that everybody near to her was cruel in
+demanding from her such a sacrifice of her comfort. Her father
+had shuddered when she had proposed to him to accompany her to
+Loughlinter; but her father was one of those who insisted on the
+propriety of her going there. Then, in spite of that lesson which she
+had taught herself while sitting opposite to the glass, she allowed
+her fancy to revel in the idea of having him with her as she wandered
+over the braes. She saw him a day or two before her journey, when
+she told him her plans as she might tell them to any friend. Lady
+Chiltern and her father had been present, and there had been no
+special sign in her outward manner of the mingled tenderness and
+soreness of her heart within. No allusion had been made to any visit
+from him to the North. She would not have dared to suggest it in
+the presence of her brother, and was almost as much cowed by her
+brother's wife. But when she was alone, on the eve of her departure,
+she wrote to him as follows:--
+
+
+   Sunday, 1st August, ----.
+
+   DEAR FRIEND,
+
+   I thought that perhaps you might have come in this
+   afternoon, and I have not left the house all day. I
+   was so wretched that I could not go to church in the
+   morning;--and when the afternoon came, I preferred the
+   chance of seeing you to going out with Violet. We two
+   were alone all the evening, and I did not give you up
+   till nearly ten. I dare say you were right not to come.
+   I should only have bored you with my complaints, and have
+   grumbled to you of evils which you cannot cure.
+
+   We start at nine to-morrow, and get to Saulsby in the
+   afternoon. Such a family party as we shall be! I did fancy
+   that Oswald would escape it; but, like everybody else, he
+   has changed,--and has become domestic and dutiful. Not but
+   that he is as tyrannous as ever; but his tyranny is now
+   that of the responsible father of a family. Papa cannot
+   understand him at all, and is dreadfully afraid of him. We
+   stay two nights at Saulsby, and then go on to Scotland,
+   leaving papa at home.
+
+   Of course it is very good in Violet and Oswald to come
+   with me,--if, as they say, it be necessary for me to go at
+   all. As to living there by myself, it seems to me to be
+   impossible. You know the place well, and can you imagine
+   me there all alone, surrounded by Scotch men and women,
+   who, of course, must hate and despise me, afraid of every
+   face that I see, and reminded even by the chairs and
+   tables of all that is past? I have told papa that I know
+   I shall be back at Saulsby before the middle of the month.
+   He frets, and says nothing; but he tells Violet, and then
+   she lectures me in that wise way of hers which enables her
+   to say such hard things with so much seeming tenderness.
+   She asks me why I do not take a companion with me, as I am
+   so much afraid of solitude. Where on earth should I find a
+   companion who would not be worse than solitude? I do feel
+   now that I have mistaken life in having so little used
+   myself to the small resources of feminine companionship.
+   I love Violet dearly, and I used to be always happy in her
+   society. But even with her now I feel but a half sympathy.
+   That girl that she has with her is more to her than I am,
+   because after the first half-hour I grow tired about her
+   babies. I have never known any other woman with whom I
+   cared to be alone. How then shall I content myself with
+   a companion, hired by the quarter, perhaps from some
+   advertisement in a newspaper?
+
+   No companionship of any kind seems possible to me,--and
+   yet never was a human being more weary of herself. I
+   sometimes wonder whether I could go again and sit in
+   that cage in the House of Commons to hear you and other
+   men speak,--as I used to do. I do not believe that any
+   eloquence in the world would make it endurable to me. I
+   hardly care who is in or out, and do not understand the
+   things which my cousin Barrington tells me,--so long does
+   it seem since I was in the midst of them all. Not but that
+   I am intensely anxious that you should be back. They tell
+   me that you will certainly be re-elected this week, and
+   that all the House will receive you with open arms. I
+   should have liked, had it been possible, to be once more
+   in the cage to see that. But I am such a coward that I did
+   not even dare to propose to stay for it. Violet would have
+   told me that such manifestation of interest was unfit for
+   my condition as a widow. But in truth, Phineas, there is
+   nothing else now that does interest me. If, looking on
+   from a distance, I can see you succeed, I shall try once
+   more to care for the questions of the day. When you have
+   succeeded, as I know you will, it will be some consolation
+   to me to think that I also helped a little.
+
+   I suppose I must not ask you to come to Loughlinter? But
+   you will know best. If you will do so I shall care nothing
+   for what any one may say. Oswald hardly mentions your
+   name in my hearing, and of course I know of what he is
+   thinking. When I am with him I am afraid of him, because
+   it would add infinitely to my grief were I driven to
+   quarrel with him; but I am my own mistress as much as he
+   is his own master, and I will not regulate my conduct by
+   his wishes. If you please to come you will be welcome as
+   the flowers in May. Ah, how weak are such words in giving
+   any idea of the joy with which I should see you!
+
+   God bless you, Phineas.
+
+   Your most affectionate friend,
+
+   LAURA KENNEDY.
+
+   Write to me at Loughlinter. I shall long to hear that you
+   have taken your seat immediately on your re-election. Pray
+   do not lose a day. I am sure that all your friends will
+   advise you as I do.
+
+
+Throughout her whole letter she was struggling to tell him once again
+of her love, and yet to do it in some way of which she need not be
+ashamed. It was not till she had come to the last words that she
+could force her pen to speak of her affection, and then the words did
+not come freely as she would have had them. She knew that he would
+not come to Loughlinter. She felt that were he to do so he could come
+only as a suitor for her hand, and that such a suit, in these early
+days of her widowhood, carried on in her late husband's house, would
+be held to be disgraceful. As regarded herself, she would have faced
+all that for the sake of the thing to be attained. But she knew
+that he would not come. He had become wise by experience, and would
+perceive the result of such coming,--and would avoid it. His answer
+to her letter reached Loughlinter before she did:--
+
+
+   Great Marlborough Street,
+   Monday night.
+
+   DEAR LADY LAURA,--
+
+   I should have called in the Square last night, only that
+   I feel that Lady Chiltern must be weary of the woes of so
+   doleful a person as myself. I dined and spent the evening
+   with the Lows, and was quite aware that I disgraced myself
+   with them by being perpetually lachrymose. As a rule I do
+   not think that I am more given than other people to talk
+   of myself, but I am conscious of a certain incapability of
+   getting rid of myself what has grown upon me since those
+   weary weeks in Newgate and those frightful days in the
+   dock; and this makes me unfit for society. Should I again
+   have a seat in the House I shall be afraid to get up upon
+   my legs, lest I should find myself talking of the time
+   in which I stood before the judge with a halter round my
+   neck.
+
+   I sympathise with you perfectly in what you say about
+   Loughlinter. It may be right that you should go there and
+   show yourself,--so that those who knew the Kennedys in
+   Scotland should not say that you had not dared to visit
+   the place, but I do not think it possible that you should
+   live there as yet. And why should you do so? I cannot
+   conceive that your presence there should do good, unless
+   you took delight in the place.
+
+   I will not go to Loughlinter myself, although I know how
+   warm would be my welcome.
+
+When he had got so far with his letter he found the difficulty of
+going on with it to be almost insuperable. How could he give her any
+reasons for his not making the journey to Scotland? "People would say
+that you and I should not be alone together after all the evil that
+has been spoken of us;--and would be specially eager in saying so
+were I now to visit you, so lately made a widow, and to sojourn with
+you in the house that did belong to your husband. Only think how
+eloquent would be the indignation of The People's Banner were it
+known that I was at Loughlinter." Could he have spoken the truth
+openly, such were the reasons that he would have given; but it was
+impossible that such truths should be written by him in a letter to
+herself. And then it was almost equally difficult for him to tell
+her of a visit which he had resolved to make. But the letter must be
+completed, and at last the words were written.
+
+   I could be of no real service to you there, as will be
+   your brother and your brother's wife, even though their
+   stay with you is to be so short. Were I you I would go
+   out among the people as much as possible, even though
+   they should not receive you cordially at first. Though
+   we hear so much of clanship in the Highlands, I think
+   the Highlanders are prone to cling to any one who has
+   territorial authority among them. They thought a great
+   deal of Mr. Kennedy, but they had never heard his name
+   fifty years ago. I suppose you will return to Saulsby
+   soon, and then, perhaps, I may be able to see you.
+
+   In the meantime I am going to Matching. [This difficulty
+   was worse even than the other.] Both the Duke and Duchess
+   have asked me, and I know that I am bound to make an
+   effort to face my fellow-creatures again. The horror I
+   feel at being stared at, as the man that was not--hung
+   as a murderer, is stronger than I can describe; and I am
+   well aware that I shall be talked to and made a wonder
+   of on that ground. I am told that I am to be re-elected
+   triumphantly at Tankerville without a penny of cost
+   or the trouble of asking for a vote, simply because I
+   didn't knock poor Mr. Bonteen on the head. This to me is
+   abominable, but I cannot help myself, unless I resolve to
+   go away and hide myself. That I know cannot be right, and
+   therefore I had better go through it and have done with
+   it. Though I am to be stared at, I shall not be stared at
+   very long. Some other monster will come up and take my
+   place, and I shall be the only person who will not forget
+   it all. Therefore I have accepted the Duke's invitation,
+   and shall go to Matching some time in the end of August.
+   All the world is to be there.
+
+   This re-election,--and I believe I shall be re-elected
+   to-morrow,--would be altogether distasteful to me were it
+   not that I feel that I should not allow myself to be cut
+   to pieces by what has occurred. I shall hate to go back
+   to the House, and have somehow learned to dislike and
+   distrust all those things that used to be so fine and
+   lively to me. I don't think that I believe any more in the
+   party;--or rather in the men who lead it. I used to have a
+   faith that now seems to me to be marvellous. Even twelve
+   months ago, when I was beginning to think of standing for
+   Tankerville, I believed that on our side the men were
+   patriotic angels, and that Daubeny and his friends were
+   all fiends or idiots,--mostly idiots, but with a strong
+   dash of fiendism to control them. It has all come now to
+   one common level of poor human interests. I doubt whether
+   patriotism can stand the wear and tear and temptation of
+   the front benches in the House of Commons. Men are flying
+   at each other's throats, thrusting and parrying, making
+   false accusations and defences equally false, lying and
+   slandering,--sometimes picking and stealing,--till they
+   themselves become unaware of the magnificence of their own
+   position, and forget that they are expected to be great.
+   Little tricks of sword-play engage all their skill. And
+   the consequence is that there is no reverence now for any
+   man in the House,--none of that feeling which we used to
+   entertain for Mr. Mildmay.
+
+   Of course I write--and feel--as a discontented man; and
+   what I say to you I would not say to any other human
+   being. I did long most anxiously for office, having made
+   up my mind a second time to look to it as a profession.
+   But I meant to earn my bread honestly, and give it up,--as
+   I did before, when I could not keep it with a clear
+   conscience. I knew that I was hustled out of the object
+   of my poor ambition by that unfortunate man who has
+   been hurried to his fate. In such a position I ought to
+   distrust, and do, partly, distrust my own feelings. And
+   I am aware that I have been soured by prison indignities.
+   But still the conviction remains with me that
+   parliamentary interests are not those battles of gods
+   and giants which I used to regard them. Our Gyas with
+   the hundred hands is but a Three-fingered Jack, and I
+   sometimes think that we share our great Jove with the
+   Strand Theatre. Nevertheless I shall go back,--and if they
+   will make me a joint lord to-morrow I shall be in heaven!
+
+   I do not know why I should write all this to you except
+   that there is no one else to whom I can say it. There
+   is no one else who would give a moment of time to such
+   lamentations. My friends will expect me to talk to them of
+   my experiences in the dock rather than politics, and will
+   want to know what rations I had in Newgate. I went to call
+   on the Governor only yesterday, and visited the old room.
+   "I never could really bring myself to think that you did
+   it, Mr. Finn," he said. I looked at him and smiled, but
+   I should have liked to fly at his throat. Why did he not
+   know that the charge was a monstrous absurdity? Talking
+   of that, not even you were truer to me than your brother.
+   One expects it from a woman;--both the truth and the
+   discernment.
+
+   I have written to you a cruelly long letter; but when
+   one's mind is full such relief is sometimes better than
+   talking. Pray answer it before long, and let me know what
+   you intend to do.
+
+   Yours most affectionately,
+
+   PHINEAS FINN.
+
+
+She did read the letter through,--read it probably more than once;
+but there was only one sentence in it that had for her any enduring
+interest. "I will not go to Loughlinter myself." Though she had known
+that he would not come her heart sank within her, as though now, at
+this moment, the really fatal wound had at last been inflicted. But,
+in truth, there was another sentence as a complement to the first,
+which rivetted the dagger in her bosom. "In the meantime I am going
+to Matching." Throughout his letter the name of that woman was not
+mentioned, but of course she would be there. The thing had all been
+arranged in order that they two might be brought together. She
+told herself that she had always hated that intriguing woman, Lady
+Glencora. She read the remainder of the letter and understood it; but
+she read it all in connection with the beauty, and the wealth, and
+the art,--and the cunning of Madame Max Goesler.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXI.
+
+PHINEAS FINN IS RE-ELECTED.
+
+
+The manner in which Phineas Finn was returned a second time for the
+borough of Tankerville was memorable among the annals of English
+elections. When the news reached the town that their member was to be
+tried for murder no doubt every elector believed that he was guilty.
+It is the natural assumption when the police and magistrates and
+lawyers, who have been at work upon the matter carefully, have come
+to that conclusion, and nothing but private knowledge or personal
+affection will stand against such evidence. At Tankerville there was
+nothing of either, and our hero's guilt was taken as a certainty.
+There was an interest felt in the whole matter which was full of
+excitement, and not altogether without delight to the Tankervillians.
+Of course the borough, as a borough, would never again hold up its
+head. There had never been known such an occurrence in the whole
+history of this country as the hanging of a member of the House of
+Commons. And this Member of Parliament was to be hung for murdering
+another member, which, no doubt, added much to the importance of
+the transaction. A large party in the borough declared that it
+was a judgment. Tankerville had degraded itself among boroughs by
+sending a Roman Catholic to Parliament, and had done so at the very
+moment in which the Church of England was being brought into danger.
+This was what had come upon the borough by not sticking to honest
+Mr. Browborough! There was a moment,--just before the trial was
+begun,--in which a large proportion of the electors was desirous
+of proceeding to work at once, and of sending Mr. Browborough back
+to his own place. It was thought that Phineas Finn should be made
+to resign. And very wise men in Tankerville were much surprised
+when they were told that a member of Parliament cannot resign his
+seat,--that when once returned he is supposed to be, as long as that
+Parliament shall endure, the absolute slave of his constituency
+and his country, and that he can escape from his servitude only
+by accepting some office under the Crown. Now it was held to be
+impossible that a man charged with murder should be appointed even to
+the stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds. The House, no doubt, could
+expel a member, and would, as a matter of course, expel the member
+for Tankerville,--but the House could hardly proceed to expulsion
+before the member's guilt could have been absolutely established. So
+it came to pass that there was no escape for the borough from any
+part of the disgrace to which it had subjected itself by its unworthy
+choice, and some Tankervillians of sensitive minds were of opinion
+that no Tankervillian ever again ought to take part in politics.
+
+Then, quite suddenly, there came into the borough the tidings that
+Phineas Finn was an innocent man. This happened on the morning on
+which the three telegrams from Prague reached London. The news
+conveyed by the telegrams was at Tankerville almost as soon as in
+the Court at the Old Bailey, and was believed as readily. The name
+of the lady who had travelled all the way to Bohemia on behalf of
+their handsome young member was on the tongue of every woman in
+Tankerville, and a most delightful romance was composed. Some few
+Protestant spirits regretted the now assured escape of their Roman
+Catholic enemy, and would not even yet allow themselves to doubt that
+the whole murder had been arranged by Divine Providence to bring down
+the scarlet woman. It seemed to them to be so fitting a thing that
+Providence should interfere directly to punish a town in which the
+sins of the scarlet woman were not held to be abominable! But the
+multitude were soon convinced that their member was innocent; and
+as it was certain that he had been in great peril,--as it was known
+that he was still in durance, and as it was necessary that the trial
+should proceed, and that he should still stand at least for another
+day in the dock,--he became more than ever a hero. Then came the
+further delay, and at last the triumphant conclusion of the trial.
+When acquitted, Phineas Finn was still member for Tankerville and
+might have walked into the House on that very night. Instead of doing
+so he had at once asked for the accustomed means of escape from his
+servitude, and the seat for Tankerville was vacant. The most loving
+friends of Mr. Browborough perceived at once that there was not
+a chance for him. The borough was all but unanimous in resolving
+that it would return no one as its member but the man who had been
+unjustly accused of murder.
+
+Mr. Ruddles was at once despatched to London with two other political
+spirits,--so that there might be a real deputation,--and waited upon
+Phineas two days after his release from prison. Ruddles was very
+anxious to carry his member back with him, assuring Phineas of an
+entry into the borough so triumphant that nothing like to it had ever
+been known at Tankerville. But to all this Phineas was quite deaf.
+At first he declined even to be put in nomination. "You can't escape
+from it, Mr. Finn, you can't indeed," said Ruddles. "You don't at all
+understand the enthusiasm of the borough; does he, Mr. Gadmire?"
+
+"I never knew anything like it in my life before," said Gadmire.
+
+"I believe Mr. Finn would poll two-thirds of the Church party
+to-morrow," said Mr. Troddles, a leading dissenter in Tankerville,
+who on this occasion was the third member of the deputation.
+
+"I needn't sit for the borough unless I please, I suppose," pleaded
+Phineas.
+
+"Well, no;--at least I don't know," said Ruddles. "It would be
+throwing us over a good deal, and I'm sure you are not the gentleman
+to do that. And then, Mr. Finn, don't you see that though you have
+been knocked about a little lately--"
+
+"By George, he has,--most cruel," said Troddles.
+
+"You'll miss the House if you give it up; you will, after a bit, Mr.
+Finn. You've got to come round again, Mr. Finn,--if I may be so bold
+as to say so, and you shouldn't put yourself out of the way of coming
+round comfortably."
+
+Phineas knew that there was wisdom in the words of Mr. Ruddles, and
+consented. Though at this moment he was low in heart, disgusted with
+the world, and sick of humanity,--though every joint in his body was
+still sore from the rack on which he had been stretched, yet he knew
+that it would not be so with him always. As others recovered so would
+he, and it might be that he would live to "miss the House," should he
+now refuse the offer made to him. He accepted the offer, but he did
+so with a positive assurance that no consideration should at present
+take him to Tankerville.
+
+"We ain't going to charge you, not one penny," said Mr. Gadmire, with
+enthusiasm.
+
+"I feel all that I owe to the borough," said Phineas, "and to the
+warm friends there who have espoused my cause; but I am not in a
+condition at present, either of mind or body, to put myself forward
+anywhere in public. I have suffered a great deal."
+
+"Most cruel!" said Troddles.
+
+"And am quite willing to confess that I am therefore unfit in my
+present position to serve the borough."
+
+"We can't admit that," said Gadmire, raising his left hand.
+
+"We mean to have you," said Troddles.
+
+"There isn't a doubt about your re-election, Mr. Finn," said Ruddles.
+
+"I am very grateful, but I cannot be there. I must trust to one of
+you gentlemen to explain to the electors that in my present condition
+I am unable to visit the borough."
+
+Messrs. Ruddles, Gadmire, and Troddles returned to
+Tankerville,--disappointed no doubt at not bringing with them him
+whose company would have made their feet glorious on the pavement of
+their native town,--but still with a comparative sense of their own
+importance in having seen the great sufferer whose woes forbade that
+he should be beheld by common eyes. They never even expressed an idea
+that he ought to have come, alluding even to their past convictions
+as to the futility of hoping for such a blessing; but spoke of him as
+a personage made almost sacred by the sufferings which he had been
+made to endure. As to the election, that would be a matter of course.
+He was proposed by Mr. Ruddles himself, and was absolutely seconded
+by the rector of Tankerville,--the staunchest Tory in the place,
+who on this occasion made a speech in which he declared that as an
+Englishman, loving justice, he could not allow any political or even
+any religious consideration to bias his conduct on this occasion. Mr.
+Finn had thrown up his seat under the pressure of a false accusation,
+and it was, the rector thought, for the honour of the borough that
+the seat should be restored to him. So Phineas Finn was re-elected
+for Tankerville without opposition and without expense; and for
+six weeks after the ceremony parcels were showered upon him by
+the ladies of the borough who sent him worked slippers, scarlet
+hunting waistcoats, pocket handkerchiefs, with "P.F." beautifully
+embroidered, and chains made of their own hair.
+
+In this conjunction of affairs the editor of The People's Banner
+found it somewhat difficult to trim his sails. It was a rule of life
+with Mr. Quintus Slide to persecute an enemy. An enemy might at any
+time become a friend, but while an enemy was an enemy he should be
+trodden on and persecuted. Mr. Slide had striven more than once to
+make a friend of Phineas Finn; but Phineas Finn had been conceited
+and stiff-necked. Phineas had been to Mr. Slide an enemy of enemies,
+and by all his ideas of manliness, by all the rules of his life, by
+every principle which guided him, he was bound to persecute Phineas
+to the last. During the trial and the few weeks before the trial he
+had written various short articles with the view of declaring how
+improper it would be should a newspaper express any opinion of the
+guilt or innocence of a suspected person while under trial; and he
+gave two or three severe blows to contemporaries for having sinned in
+the matter; but in all these articles he had contrived to insinuate
+that the member for Tankerville would, as a matter of course, be
+dealt with by the hands of justice. He had been very careful to
+recapitulate all circumstances which had induced Finn to hate the
+murdered man, and had more than once related the story of the
+firing of the pistol at Macpherson's Hotel. Then came the telegram
+from Prague, and for a day or two Mr. Slide was stricken dumb. The
+acquittal followed, and Quintus Slide had found himself compelled to
+join in the general satisfaction evinced at the escape of an innocent
+man. Then came the re-election for Tankerville, and Mr. Slide felt
+that there was opportunity for another reaction. More than enough
+had been done for Phineas Finn in allowing him to elude the gallows.
+There could certainly be no need for crowning him with a political
+chaplet because he had not murdered Mr. Bonteen. Among a few other
+remarks which Mr. Slide threw together, the following appeared in the
+columns of The People's Banner:--
+
+
+   We must confess that we hardly understand the principle on
+   which Mr. Finn has been re-elected for Tankerville with so
+   much enthusiasm,--free of expense,--and without that usual
+   compliment to the constituency which is implied by the
+   personal appearance of the candidate. We have more than
+   once expressed our belief that he was wrongly accused in
+   the matter of Mr. Bonteen's murder. Indeed our readers
+   will do us the justice to remember that, during the trial
+   and before the trial, we were always anxious to allay the
+   very strong feeling against Mr. Finn with which the public
+   mind was then imbued, not only by the facts of the murder,
+   but also by the previous conduct of that gentleman. But we
+   cannot understand why the late member should be thought
+   by the electors of Tankerville to be especially worthy of
+   their confidence because he did not murder Mr. Bonteen. He
+   himself, instigated, we hope, by a proper feeling, retired
+   from Parliament as soon as he was acquitted. His career
+   during the last twelve months has not enhanced his credit,
+   and cannot, we should think, have increased his comfort.
+   We ventured to suggest after that affair in Judd Street,
+   as to which the police were so benignly inefficient, that
+   it would not be for the welfare of the nation that a
+   gentleman should be employed in the public service whose
+   public life had been marked by the misfortune which had
+   attended Mr. Finn. Great efforts were made by various
+   ladies of the old Whig party to obtain official employment
+   for him, but they were made in vain. Mr. Gresham was too
+   wise, and our advice,--we will not say was followed,--but
+   was found to agree with the decision of the Prime
+   Minister. Mr. Finn was left out in the cold in spite
+   of his great friends,--and then came the murder of Mr.
+   Bonteen.
+
+   Can it be that Mr. Finn's fitness for Parliamentary duties
+   has been increased by Mr. Bonteen's unfortunate death, or
+   by the fact that Mr. Bonteen was murdered by other hands
+   than his own? We think not. The wretched husband, who,
+   in the madness of jealousy, fired a pistol at this young
+   man's head, has since died in his madness. Does that
+   incident in the drama give Mr. Finn any special claim
+   to consideration? We think not;--and we think also that
+   the electors of Tankerville would have done better had
+   they allowed Mr. Finn to return to that obscurity which
+   he seems to have desired. The electors of Tankerville,
+   however, are responsible only to their borough, and may
+   do as they please with the seat in Parliament which is
+   at their disposal. We may, however, protest against the
+   employment of an unfit person in the service of his
+   country,--simply because he has not committed a murder.
+   We say so much now because rumours of an arrangement have
+   reached our ears, which, should it come to pass,--would
+   force upon us the extremely disagreeable duty of referring
+   very forcibly to past circumstances, which may otherwise,
+   perhaps, be allowed to be forgotten.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXII.
+
+THE END OF THE STORY OF MR. EMILIUS AND LADY EUSTACE.
+
+
+The interest in the murder by no means came to an end when Phineas
+Finn was acquitted. The new facts which served so thoroughly to prove
+him innocent tended with almost equal weight to prove another man
+guilty. And the other man was already in custody on a charge which
+had subjected him to the peculiar ill-will of the British public. He,
+a foreigner and a Jew, by name Yosef Mealyus,--as every one was now
+very careful to call him,--had come to England, had got himself to be
+ordained as a clergyman, had called himself Emilius, and had married
+a rich wife with a title, although he had a former wife still living
+in his own country. Had he called himself Jones it would have been
+better for him, but there was something in the name of Emilius which
+added a peculiar sting to his iniquities. It was now known that the
+bigamy could be certainly proved, and that his last victim,--our
+old friend, poor little Lizzie Eustace,--would be rescued from his
+clutches. She would once more be a free woman, and as she had been
+strong enough to defend her future income from his grasp, she was
+perhaps as fortunate as she deserved to be. She was still young
+and pretty, and there might come another lover more desirable than
+Yosef Mealyus. That the man would have to undergo the punishment of
+bigamy in its severest form, there was no doubt;--but would law, and
+justice, and the prevailing desire for revenge, be able to get at
+him in such a way that he might be hung? There certainly did exist
+a strong desire to prove Mr. Emilius to have been a murderer, so
+that there might come a fitting termination to his career in Great
+Britain.
+
+The police seemed to think that they could make but little either of
+the coat or of the key, unless other evidence, that would be almost
+sufficient in itself, should be found. Lord Fawn was informed that
+his testimony would probably be required at another trial,--which
+intimation affected him so grievously that his friends for a week
+or two thought that he would altogether sink under his miseries.
+But he would say nothing which would seem to criminate Mealyus. A
+man hurrying along with a grey coat was all that he could swear to
+now,--professing himself to be altogether ignorant whether the man,
+as seen by him, had been tall or short. And then the manufacture of
+the key,--though it was that which made every one feel sure that
+Mealyus was the murderer,--did not, in truth, afford the slightest
+evidence against him. Even had it been proved that he had certainly
+used the false key and left Mrs. Meager's house on the night in
+question, that would not have sufficed at all to prove that therefore
+he had committed a murder in Berkeley Street. No doubt Mr. Bonteen
+had been his enemy,--and Mr. Bonteen had been murdered by an enemy.
+But so great had been the man's luck that no real evidence seemed to
+touch him. Nobody doubted;--but then but few had doubted before as to
+the guilt of Phineas Finn.
+
+There was one other fact by which the truth might, it was hoped,
+still be reached. Mr. Bonteen had, of course, been killed by
+the weapon which had been found in the garden. As to that a
+general certainty prevailed. Mrs. Meager and Miss Meager, and the
+maid-of-all-work belonging to the Meagers, and even Lady Eustace,
+were examined as to this bludgeon. Had anything of the kind ever
+been seen in the possession of the clergyman? The clergyman had been
+so sly that nothing of the kind had been seen. Of the drawers and
+cupboards which he used, Mrs. Meager had always possessed duplicate
+keys, and Miss Meager frankly acknowledged that she had a general and
+fairly accurate acquaintance with the contents of these receptacles;
+but there had always been a big trunk with an impenetrable lock,--a
+lock which required that even if you had the key you should be
+acquainted with a certain combination of letters before you could
+open it,--and of that trunk no one had seen the inside. As a matter
+of course, the weapon, when brought to London, had been kept
+altogether hidden in the trunk. Nothing could be easier. But a man
+cannot be hung because he has had a secret hiding place in which a
+murderous weapon may have been stowed away.
+
+But might it not be possible to trace the weapon? Mealyus, on his
+return from Prague, had certainly come through Paris. So much was
+learned,--and it was also learned as a certainty that the article
+was of French,--and probably of Parisian manufacture. If it could be
+proved that the man had bought this weapon, or even such a weapon, in
+Paris then,--so said all the police authorities,--it might be worth
+while to make an attempt to hang him. Men very skilful in unravelling
+such mysteries were sent to Paris, and the police of that capital
+entered upon the search with most praiseworthy zeal. But the number
+of life-preservers which had been sold altogether baffled them. It
+seemed that nothing was so common as that gentlemen should walk about
+with bludgeons in their pockets covered with leathern thongs. A young
+woman and an old man who thought that they could recollect something
+of a special sale were brought over,--and saw the splendour of London
+under very favourable circumstances;--but when confronted with Mr.
+Emilius, neither could venture to identify him. A large sum of money
+was expended,--no doubt justified by the high position which poor Mr.
+Bonteen had filled in the counsels of the nation; but it was expended
+in vain. Mr. Bonteen had been murdered in the streets at the West End
+of London. The murderer was known to everybody. He had been seen a
+minute or two before the murder. The motive which had induced the
+crime was apparent. The weapon with which it had been perpetrated had
+been found. The murderer's disguise had been discovered. The cunning
+with which he had endeavoured to prove that he was in bed at home
+had been unravelled, and the criminal purpose of his cunning made
+altogether manifest. Every man's eye could see the whole thing from
+the moment in which the murderer crept out of Mrs. Meager's house
+with Mr. Meager's coat upon his shoulders and the life-preserver in
+his pocket, till he was seen by Lord Fawn hurrying out of the mews
+to his prey. The blows from the bludgeon could be counted. The very
+moment in which they had been struck had been ascertained. His very
+act in hurling the weapon over the wall was all but seen. And yet
+nothing could be done. "It is a very dangerous thing hanging a man on
+circumstantial evidence," said Sir Gregory Grogram, who, a couple of
+months since, had felt almost sure that his honourable friend Phineas
+Finn would have to be hung on circumstantial evidence. The police
+and magistrates and lawyers all agreed that it would be useless, and
+indeed wrong, to send the case before a jury. But there had been
+quite sufficient evidence against Phineas Finn!
+
+In the meantime the trial for bigamy proceeded in order that poor
+little Lizzie Eustace might be freed from the incubus which afflicted
+her. Before the end of July she was made once more a free woman, and
+the Rev. Joseph Emilius,--under which name it was thought proper that
+he should be tried,--was convicted and sentenced to penal servitude
+for five years. A very touching appeal was made for him to the jury
+by a learned serjeant, who declared that his client was to lose his
+wife and to be punished with extreme severity as a bigamist, because
+it was found to be impossible to bring home against him a charge of
+murder. There was, perhaps, some truth in what the learned serjeant
+said, but the truth had no effect upon the jury. Mr. Emilius was
+found guilty as quickly as Phineas Finn had been acquitted, and was,
+perhaps, treated with a severity which the single crime would hardly
+have elicited. But all this happened in the middle of the efforts
+which were being made to trace the purchase of the bludgeon, and
+when men hoped two or five or twenty-five years of threatened
+incarceration might be all the same to Mr. Emilius. Could they have
+succeeded in discovering where he had bought the weapon, his years
+of penal servitude would have afflicted him but little. They did not
+succeed; and though it cannot be said that any mystery was attached
+to the Bonteen murder, it has remained one of those crimes which are
+unavenged by the flagging law. And so the Rev. Mr. Emilius will pass
+away from our story.
+
+There must be one or two words further respecting poor little
+Lizzie Eustace. She still had her income almost untouched, having
+been herself unable to squander it during her late married life,
+and having succeeded in saving it from the clutches of her pseudo
+husband. And she had her title, of which no one could rob her, and
+her castle down in Ayrshire,--which, however, as a place of residence
+she had learned to hate most thoroughly. Nor had she done anything
+which of itself must necessarily have put her out of the pale of
+society. As a married woman she had had no lovers; and, when a widow,
+very little fault in that line had been brought home against her. But
+the world at large seemed to be sick of her. Mrs. Bonteen had been
+her best friend, and, while it was still thought that Phineas Finn
+had committed the murder, with Mrs. Bonteen she had remained. But
+it was impossible that the arrangement should be continued when it
+became known,--for it was known,--that Mr. Bonteen had been murdered
+by the man who was still Lizzie's reputed husband. Not that Lizzie
+perceived this,--though she was averse to the idea of her husband
+having been a murderer. But Mrs. Bonteen perceived it, and told her
+friend that she must--go. It was most unwillingly that the wretched
+widow changed her faith as to the murderer; but at last she found
+herself bound to believe as the world believed; and then she hinted
+to the wife of Mr. Emilius that she had better find another home.
+
+"I don't believe it a bit," said Lizzie.
+
+"It is not a subject I can discuss," said the widow.
+
+"And I don't see that it makes any difference. He isn't my husband.
+You have said that yourself very often, Mrs. Bonteen."
+
+"It is better that we shouldn't be together, Lady Eustace."
+
+"Oh, I can go, of course, Mrs. Bonteen. There needn't be the
+slightest trouble about that. I had thought perhaps it might be
+convenient; but of course you know best."
+
+She went forth into lodgings in Half Moon Street, close to the scene
+of the murder, and was once more alone in the world. She had a child
+indeed, the son of her first husband, as to whom it behoved many to
+be anxious, who stood high in rank and high in repute; but such had
+been Lizzie's manner of life that neither her own relations nor those
+of her husband could put up with her, or endure her contact. And yet
+she was conscious of no special sins, and regarded herself as one who
+with a tender heart of her own, and a too-confiding spirit, had been
+much injured by the cruelty of those with whom she had been thrown.
+Now she was alone, weeping in solitude, pitying herself with deepest
+compassion; but it never occurred to her that there was anything in
+her conduct that she need alter. She would still continue to play her
+game as before, would still scheme, would still lie; and might still,
+at last, land herself in that Elysium of life of which she had been
+always dreaming. Poor Lizzie Eustace! Was it nature or education
+which had made it impossible to her to tell the truth, when a lie
+came to her hand? Lizzie, the liar! Poor Lizzie!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXIII.
+
+PHINEAS FINN RETURNS TO HIS DUTIES.
+
+
+The election at Tankerville took place during the last week in July;
+and as Parliament was doomed to sit that year as late as the 10th
+of August, there was ample time for Phineas to present himself and
+take the oaths before the Session was finished. He had calculated
+that this could hardly be so when the matter of re-election was
+first proposed to him, and had hoped that his reappearance might be
+deferred till the following year. But there he was, once more member
+for Tankerville, while yet there was nearly a fortnight's work to be
+done, pressed by his friends, and told by one or two of those whom he
+most trusted, that he would neglect his duty and show himself to be
+a coward, if he abstained from taking his place. "Coward is a hard
+word," he said to Mr. Low, who had used it.
+
+"So men think when this or that other man is accused of running away
+in battle or the like. Nobody will charge you with cowardice of that
+kind. But there is moral cowardice as well as physical."
+
+"As when a man lies. I am telling no lie."
+
+"But you are afraid to meet the eyes of your fellow-creatures."
+
+"Yes, I am. You may call me a coward if you like. What matters the
+name, if the charge be true? I have been so treated that I am afraid
+to meet the eyes of my fellow-creatures. I am like a man who has had
+his knees broken, or his arms cut off. Of course I cannot be the same
+afterwards as I was before." Mr. Low said a great deal more to him on
+the subject, and all that Mr. Low said was true; but he was somewhat
+rough, and did not succeed. Barrington Erle and Lord Cantrip also
+tried their eloquence upon him; but it was Mr. Monk who at last drew
+from him a promise that he would go down to the House and be sworn
+in early on a certain Tuesday afternoon. "I am quite sure of this,"
+Mr. Monk had said, "that the sooner you do it the less will be the
+annoyance. Indeed there will be no trouble in the doing of it. The
+trouble is all in the anticipation, and is therefore only increased
+and prolonged by delay." "Of course it is your duty to go at once,"
+Mr. Monk had said again, when his friend argued that he had never
+undertaken to sit before the expiration of Parliament. "You did
+consent to be put in nomination, and you owe your immediate services
+just as does any other member."
+
+"If a man's grandmother dies he is held to be exempted."
+
+"But your grandmother has not died, and your sorrow is not of the
+kind that requires or is supposed to require retirement." He gave way
+at last, and on the Tuesday afternoon Mr. Monk called for him at Mrs.
+Bunce's house, and went down with him to Westminster. They reached
+their destination somewhat too soon, and walked the length of
+Westminster Hall two or three times while Phineas tried to justify
+himself. "I don't think," said he, "that Low quite understands my
+position when he calls me a coward."
+
+"I am sure, Phineas, he did not mean to do that."
+
+"Do not suppose that I am angry with him. I owe him a great deal too
+much for that. He is one of the few friends I have who are entitled
+to say to me just what they please. But I think he mistakes the
+matter. When a man becomes crooked from age it is no good telling him
+to be straight. He'd be straight if he could. A man can't eat his
+dinner with a diseased liver as he could when he was well."
+
+"But he may follow advice as to getting his liver in order again."
+
+"And so am I following advice. But Low seems to think the disease
+shouldn't be there. The disease is there, and I can't banish it by
+simply saying that it is not there. If they had hung me outright it
+would be almost as reasonable to come and tell me afterwards to shake
+myself and be again alive. I don't think that Low realises what it is
+to stand in the dock for a week together, with the eyes of all men
+fixed on you, and a conviction at your heart that every one there
+believes you to have been guilty of an abominable crime of which you
+know yourself to have been innocent. For weeks I lived under the
+belief that I was to be made away by the hangman, and to leave behind
+me a name that would make every one who has known me shudder."
+
+"God in His mercy has delivered you from that."
+
+"He has;--and I am thankful. But my back is not strong enough to bear
+the weight without bending under it. Did you see Ratler going in?
+There is a man I dread. He is intimate enough with me to congratulate
+me, but not friend enough to abstain, and he will be sure to say
+something about his murdered colleague. Very well;--I'll follow you.
+Go up rather quick, and I'll come close after you." Whereupon Mr.
+Monk entered between the two lamp-posts in the hall, and, hurrying
+along the passages, soon found himself at the door of the House.
+Phineas, with an effort at composure, and a smile that was almost
+ghastly at the door-keeper, who greeted him with some muttered word
+of recognition, held on his way close behind his friend, and walked
+up the House hardly conscious that the benches on each side were
+empty. There were not a dozen members present, and the Speaker had
+not as yet taken the chair. Mr. Monk stood by him while he took the
+oath, and in two minutes he was on a back seat below the gangway,
+with his friend by him, while the members, in slowly increasing
+numbers, took their seats. Then there were prayers, and as yet not a
+single man had spoken to him. As soon as the doors were again open
+gentlemen streamed in, and some few whom Phineas knew well came and
+sat near him. One or two shook hands with him, but no one said a word
+to him of the trial. No one at least did so in this early stage of
+the day's proceedings; and after half an hour he almost ceased to be
+afraid.
+
+Then came up an irregular debate on the great Church question of the
+day, as to which there had been no cessation of the badgering with
+which Mr. Gresham had been attacked since he came into office. He
+had thrown out Mr. Daubeny by opposing that gentleman's stupendous
+measure for disestablishing the Church of England altogether,
+although,--as was almost daily asserted by Mr. Daubeny and his
+friends,--he was himself in favour of such total disestablishment.
+Over and over again Mr. Gresham had acknowledged that he was in
+favour of disestablishment, protesting that he had opposed Mr.
+Daubeny's Bill without any reference to its merits,--solely on
+the ground that such a measure should not be accepted from such a
+quarter. He had been stout enough, and, as his enemies had said,
+insolent enough, in making these assurances. But still he was accused
+of keeping his own hand dark, and of omitting to say what bill he
+would himself propose to bring in respecting the Church in the next
+Session. It was essentially necessary,--so said Mr. Daubeny and his
+friends,--that the country should know and discuss the proposed
+measure during the vacation. There was, of course, a good deal of
+retaliation. Mr. Daubeny had not given the country, or even his own
+party, much time to discuss his Church Bill. Mr. Gresham assured Mr.
+Daubeny that he would not feel himself equal to producing a measure
+that should change the religious position of every individual in the
+country, and annihilate the traditions and systems of centuries,
+altogether complete out of his own unaided brain; and he went on
+to say that were he to do so, he did not think that he should find
+himself supported in such an effort by the friends with whom he
+usually worked. On this occasion he declared that the magnitude of
+the subject and the immense importance of the interests concerned
+forbade him to anticipate the passing of any measure of general
+Church reform in the next Session. He was undoubtedly in favour of
+Church reform, but was by no means sure that the question was one
+which required immediate settlement. Of this he was sure,--that
+nothing in the way of legislative indiscretion could be so injurious
+to the country, as any attempt at a hasty and ill-considered measure
+on this most momentous of all questions.
+
+The debate was irregular, as it originated with a question asked by
+one of Mr. Daubeny's supporters,--but it was allowed to proceed for a
+while. In answer to Mr. Gresham, Mr. Daubeny himself spoke, accusing
+Mr. Gresham of almost every known Parliamentary vice in having talked
+of a measure coming, like Minerva, from his, Mr. Daubeny's, own
+brain. The plain and simple words by which such an accusation might
+naturally be refuted would be unparliamentary; but it would not be
+unparliamentary to say that it was reckless, unfounded, absurd,
+monstrous, and incredible. Then there were various very spirited
+references to Church matters, which concern us chiefly because
+Mr. Daubeny congratulated the House upon seeing a Roman Catholic
+gentleman with whom they were all well acquainted, and whose presence
+in the House was desired by each side alike, again take his seat for
+an English borough. And he hoped that he might at the same time take
+the liberty of congratulating that gentleman on the courage and manly
+dignity with which he had endured the unexampled hardships of the
+cruel position in which he had been placed by an untoward combination
+of circumstances. It was thought that Mr. Daubeny did the thing very
+well, and that he was right in doing it;--but during the doing of
+it poor Phineas winced in agony. Of course every member was looking
+at him, and every stranger in the galleries. He did not know at
+the moment whether it behoved him to rise and make some gesture to
+the House, or to say a word, or to keep his seat and make no sign.
+There was a general hum of approval, and the Prime Minister turned
+round and bowed graciously to the newly-sworn member. As he said
+afterwards, it was just this which he had feared. But there must
+surely have been something of consolation in the general respect
+with which he was treated. At the moment he behaved with natural
+instinctive dignity, though himself doubting the propriety of his own
+conduct. He said not a word, and made no sign, but sat with his eyes
+fixed upon the member from whom the compliment had come. Mr. Daubeny
+went on with his tirade, and was called violently to order. The
+Speaker declared that the whole debate had been irregular, but had
+been allowed by him in deference to what seemed to be the general
+will of the House. Then the two leaders of the two parties composed
+themselves, throwing off their indignation while they covered
+themselves well up with their hats,--and, in accordance with the
+order of the day, an honourable member rose to propose a pet measure
+of his own for preventing the adulteration of beer by the publicans.
+He had made a calculation that the annual average mortality of
+England would be reduced one and a half per cent., or in other words
+that every English subject born would live seven months longer if the
+action of the Legislature could provide that the publicans should
+sell the beer as it came from the brewers. Immediately there was
+such a rush of members to the door that not a word said by the
+philanthropic would-be purifier of the national beverage could be
+heard. The quarrels of rival Ministers were dear to the House, and as
+long as they could be continued the benches were crowded by gentlemen
+enthralled by the interest of the occasion. But to sink from that
+to private legislation about beer was to fall into a bathos which
+gentlemen could not endure; and so the House was emptied, and at
+about half-past seven there was a count-out. That gentleman whose
+statistics had been procured with so much care, and who had been at
+work for the last twelve months on his effort to prolong the lives
+of his fellow-countrymen, was almost broken-hearted. But he knew the
+world too well to complain. He would try again next year, if by dint
+of energetic perseverance he could procure a day.
+
+Mr. Monk and Phineas Finn, behaving no better than the others,
+slipped out in the crowd. It had indeed been arranged that they
+should leave the House early, so that they might dine together at
+Mr. Monk's house. Though Phineas had been released from his prison
+now for nearly a month, he had not as yet once dined out of his own
+rooms. He had not been inside a club, and hardly ventured during the
+day into the streets about Pall Mall and Piccadilly. He had been
+frequently to Portman Square, but had not even seen Madame Goesler.
+Now he was to dine out for the first time; but there was to be no
+guest but himself.
+
+"It wasn't so bad after all," said Mr. Monk, when they were seated
+together.
+
+"At any rate it has been done."
+
+"Yes;--and there will be no doing of it over again. I don't like Mr.
+Daubeny, as you know; but he is happy at that kind of thing."
+
+"I hate men who are what you call happy, but who are never in
+earnest," said Phineas.
+
+"He was earnest enough, I thought."
+
+"I don't mean about myself, Mr. Monk. I suppose he thought that it
+was suitable to the occasion that he should say something, and he
+said it neatly. But I hate men who can make capital out of occasions,
+who can be neat and appropriate at the spur of the moment,--having,
+however, probably had the benefit of some forethought,--but whose
+words never savour of truth. If I had happened to have been hung at
+this time,--as was so probable,--Mr. Daubeny would have devoted one
+of his half hours to the composition of a dozen tragic words which
+also would have been neat and appropriate. I can hear him say them
+now, warning young members around him to abstain from embittered
+words against each other, and I feel sure that the funereal grace
+of such an occasion would have become him even better than the
+generosity of his congratulations."
+
+"It is rather grim matter for joking, Phineas."
+
+"Grim enough; but the grimness and the jokes are always running
+through my mind together. I used to spend hours in thinking what my
+dear friends would say about it when they found that I had been hung
+in mistake;--how Sir Gregory Grogram would like it, and whether men
+would think about it as they went home from The Universe at night.
+I had various questions to ask and answer for myself,--whether they
+would pull up my poor body, for instance, from what unhallowed ground
+is used for gallows corpses, and give it decent burial, placing 'M.P.
+for Tankerville' after my name on some more or less explicit tablet."
+
+"Mr. Daubeny's speech was, perhaps, preferable on the whole."
+
+"Perhaps it was;--though I used to feel assured that the explicit
+tablet would be as clear to my eyes in purgatory as Mr. Daubeny's
+words have been to my ears this afternoon. I never for a moment
+doubted that the truth would be known before long,--but did doubt so
+very much whether it would be known in time. I'll go home now, Mr.
+Monk, and endeavour to get the matter off my mind. I will resolve,
+at any rate, that nothing shall make me talk about it any more."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXIV.
+
+AT MATCHING.
+
+
+For about a week in the August heat of a hot summer, Phineas attended
+Parliament with fair average punctuality, and then prepared for his
+journey down to Matching Priory. During that week he spoke no word
+to any one as to his past tribulation, and answered all allusions to
+it simply by a smile. He had determined to live exactly as though
+there had been no such episode in his life as that trial at the Old
+Bailey, and in most respects he did so. During this week he dined at
+the club, and called at Madame Goesler's house in Park Lane,--not,
+however, finding the lady at home. Once, and once only, did he break
+down. On the Wednesday evening he met Barrington Erle, and was asked
+by him to go to The Universe. At the moment he became very pale, but
+he at once said that he would go. Had Erle carried him off in a cab
+the adventure might have been successful; but as they walked, and
+as they went together through Clarges Street and Bolton Row and
+Curzon Street, and as the scenes which had been so frequently and so
+graphically described in Court appeared before him one after another,
+his heart gave way, and he couldn't do it. "I know I'm a fool,
+Barrington; but if you don't mind I'll go home. Don't mind me, but
+just go on." Then he turned and walked home, passing through the
+passage in which the murder had been committed.
+
+"I brought him as far as the next street," Barrington Erle said to
+one of their friends at the club, "but I couldn't get him in. I doubt
+if he'll ever be here again."
+
+It was past six o'clock in the evening when he reached Matching
+Priory. The Duchess had especially assured him that a brougham should
+be waiting for him at the nearest station, and on arriving there he
+found that he had the brougham to himself. He had thought a great
+deal about it, and had endeavoured to make his calculations. He knew
+that Madame Goesler would be at Matching, and it would be necessary
+that he should say something of his thankfulness at their first
+meeting. But how should he meet her,--and in what way should he
+greet her when they met? Would any arrangement be made, or would all
+be left to chance? Should he go at once to his own chamber,--so as
+to show himself first when dressed for dinner, or should he allow
+himself to be taken into any of the morning rooms in which the other
+guests would be congregated? He had certainly not sufficiently
+considered the character of the Duchess when he imagined that she
+would allow these things to arrange themselves. She was one of those
+women whose minds were always engaged on such matters, and who are
+able to see how things will go. It must not be asserted of her
+that her delicacy was untainted, or her taste perfect; but she was
+clever,--discreet in the midst of indiscretions,--thoughtful, and
+good-natured. She had considered it all, arranged it all, and given
+her orders with accuracy. When Phineas entered the hall,--the
+brougham with the luggage having been taken round to some back
+door,--he was at once ushered by a silent man in black into the
+little sitting-room on the ground floor in which the old Duke
+used to take delight. Here he found two ladies,--but only two
+ladies,--waiting to receive him. The Duchess came forward to welcome
+him, while Madame Goesler remained in the background, with composed
+face,--as though she by no means expected his arrival and he had
+chanced to come upon them as she was standing by the window. He was
+thinking of her much more than of her companion, though he knew
+also how much he owed to the kindness of the Duchess. But what she
+had done for him had come from caprice, whereas the other had been
+instigated and guided by affection. He understood all that, and must
+have shown his feeling on his countenance. "Yes, there she is," said
+the Duchess, laughing. She had already told him that he was welcome
+to Matching, and had spoken some short word of congratulation at his
+safe deliverance from his troubles. "If ever one friend was grateful
+to another, you should be grateful to her, Mr. Finn." He did not
+speak, but walking across the room to the window by which Marie
+Goesler stood, took her right hand in his, and passing his left arm
+round her waist, kissed her first on one cheek and then on the other.
+The blood flew to her face and suffused her forehead, but she did not
+speak, or resist him or make any effort to escape from his embrace.
+As for him, he had no thought of it at all. He had made no plan. No
+idea of kissing her when they should meet had occurred to him till
+the moment came. "Excellently well done," said the Duchess, still
+laughing with silent pleasant laughter. "And now tell us how you are,
+after all your troubles."
+
+
+[Illustration: "Yes, there she is."]
+
+
+He remained with them for half an hour, till the ladies went to
+dress, when he was handed over to some groom of the chambers to show
+him his room. "The Duke ought to be here to welcome you, of course,"
+said the Duchess; "but you know official matters too well to expect
+a President of the Board of Trade to do his domestic duties. We dine
+at eight; five minutes before that time he will begin adding up his
+last row of figures for the day. You never added up rows of figures,
+I think. You only managed colonies." So they parted till dinner, and
+Phineas remembered how very little had been spoken by Madame Goesler,
+and how few of the words which he had spoken had been addressed to
+her. She had sat silent, smiling, radiant, very beautiful as he had
+thought, but contented to listen to her friend the Duchess. She, the
+Duchess, had asked questions of all sorts, and made many statements;
+and he had found that with those two women he could speak without
+discomfort, almost with pleasure, on subjects which he could not bear
+to have touched by men. "Of course you knew all along who killed the
+poor man," the Duchess had said. "We did;--did we not, Marie?--just
+as well as if we had seen it. She was quite sure that he had got out
+of the house and back into it, and that he must have had a key. So
+she started off to Prague to find the key; and she found it. And we
+were quite sure too about the coat;--weren't we. That poor blundering
+Lord Fawn couldn't explain himself, but we knew that the coat he saw
+was quite different from any coat you would wear in such weather.
+We discussed it all over so often;--every point of it. Poor Lord
+Fawn! They say it has made quite an old man of him. And as for those
+policemen who didn't find the life-preserver; I only think that
+something ought to be done to them."
+
+"I hope that nothing will ever be done to anybody, Duchess."
+
+"Not to the Reverend Mr. Emilius;--poor dear Lady Eustace's Mr.
+Emilius? I do think that you ought to desire that an end should
+be put to his enterprising career! I'm sure I do." This was said
+while the attempt was still being made to trace the purchase of the
+bludgeon in Paris. "We've got Sir Gregory Grogram here on purpose to
+meet you, and you must fraternise with him immediately, to show that
+you bear no grudge."
+
+"He only did his duty."
+
+"Exactly;--though I think he was an addle-pated old ass not to see
+the thing more clearly. As you'll be coming into the Government
+before long, we thought that things had better be made straight
+between you and Sir Gregory. I wonder how it was that nobody but
+women did see it clearly? Look at that delightful woman, Mrs. Bunce.
+You must bring Mrs. Bunce to me some day,--or take me to her."
+
+"Lord Chiltern saw it clearly enough," said Phineas.
+
+"My dear Mr. Finn, Lord Chiltern is the best fellow in the world, but
+he has only one idea. He was quite sure of your innocence because
+you ride to hounds. If it had been found possible to accuse poor
+Mr. Fothergill, he would have been as certain that Mr. Fothergill
+committed the murder, because Mr. Fothergill thinks more of his
+shooting. However, Lord Chiltern is to be here in a day or two, and
+I mean to go absolutely down on my knees to him,--and all for your
+sake. If foxes can be had, he shall have foxes. We must go and dress
+now, Mr. Finn, and I'll ring for somebody to show you your room."
+
+Phineas, as soon as he was alone, thought, not of what the Duchess
+had said, but of the manner in which he had greeted his friend,
+Madame Goesler. As he remembered what he had done, he also blushed.
+Had she been angry with him, and intended to show her anger by her
+silence? And why had he done it? What had he meant? He was quite sure
+that he would not have given those kisses had he and Madame Goesler
+been alone in the room together. The Duchess had applauded him,--but
+yet he thought that he regretted it. There had been matters between
+him and Marie Goesler of which he was quite sure that the Duchess
+knew nothing.
+
+When he went downstairs he found a crowd in the drawing-room, from
+among whom the Duke came forward to welcome him. "I am particularly
+happy to see you at Matching," said the Duke. "I wish we had shooting
+to offer you, but we are too far south for the grouse. That was
+a bitter passage of arms the other day, wasn't it? I am fond of
+bitterness in debate myself, but I do regret the roughness of the
+House of Commons. I must confess that I do." The Duke did not say a
+word about the trial, and the Duke's guests followed their host's
+example.
+
+The house was full of people, most of whom had before been known
+to Phineas, and many of whom had been asked specially to meet him.
+Lord and Lady Cantrip were there, and Mr. Monk, and Sir Gregory his
+accuser, and the Home Secretary, Sir Harry Coldfoot, with his wife.
+Sir Harry had at one time been very keen about hanging our hero,
+and was now of course hot with reactionary zeal. To all those who
+had been in any way concerned in the prosecution, the accidents by
+which Phineas had been enabled to escape had been almost as fortunate
+as to Phineas himself. Sir Gregory himself quite felt that had he
+prosecuted an innocent and very popular young Member of Parliament to
+the death, he could never afterwards have hoped to wear his ermine in
+comfort. Barrington Erle was there, of course, intending, however,
+to return to the duties of his office on the following day,--and our
+old friend Laurence Fitzgibbon with a newly-married wife, a lady
+possessing a reputed fifty thousand pounds, by which it was hoped
+that the member for Mayo might be placed steadily upon his legs
+for ever. And Adelaide Palliser was there also,--the Duke's first
+cousin,--on whose behalf the Duchess was anxious to be more than
+ordinarily good-natured. Mr. Maule, Adelaide's rejected lover, had
+dined on one occasion with the Duke and Duchess in London. There
+had been nothing remarkable at the dinner, and he had not at all
+understood why he had been asked. But when he took his leave the
+Duchess had told him that she would hope to see him at Matching. "We
+expect a friend of yours to be with us," the Duchess had said. He had
+afterwards received a written invitation and had accepted it; but he
+was not to reach Matching till the day after that on which Phineas
+arrived. Adelaide had been told of his coming only on this morning,
+and had been much flurried by the news.
+
+"But we have quarrelled," she said. "Then the best thing you can do
+is to make it up again, my dear," said the Duchess. Miss Palliser was
+undoubtedly of that opinion herself, but she hardly believed that so
+terrible an evil as a quarrel with her lover could be composed by so
+rough a remedy as this. The Duchess, who had become used to all the
+disturbing excitements of life, and who didn't pay so much respect as
+some do to the niceties of a young lady's feelings, thought that it
+would be only necessary to bring the young people together again. If
+she could do that, and provide them with an income, of course they
+would marry. On the present occasion Phineas was told off to take
+Miss Palliser down to dinner. "You saw the Chilterns before they left
+town, I know," she said.
+
+"Oh, yes. I am constantly in Portman Square."
+
+"Of course. Lady Laura has gone down to Scotland;--has she not;--and
+all alone?"
+
+"She is alone now, I believe."
+
+"How dreadful! I do not know any one that I pity so much as I do her.
+I was in the house with her some time, and she gave me the idea of
+being the most unhappy woman I had ever met with. Don't you think
+that she is very unhappy?"
+
+"She has had very much to make her so," said Phineas. "She was
+obliged to leave her husband because of the gloom of his
+insanity;--and now she is a widow."
+
+"I don't suppose she ever really--cared for him; did she?" The
+question was no sooner asked than the poor girl remembered the
+whole story which she had heard some time back,--the rumour of the
+husband's jealousy and of the wife's love, and she became as red as
+fire, and unable to help herself. She could think of no word to say,
+and confessed her confusion by her sudden silence.
+
+Phineas saw it all, and did his best for her. "I am sure she cared
+for him," he said, "though I do not think it was a well-assorted
+marriage. They had different ideas about religion, I fancy. So you
+saw the hunting in the Brake country to the end? How is our old
+friend, Mr. Spooner?"
+
+"Don't talk of him, Mr. Finn."
+
+"I rather like Mr. Spooner;--and as for hunting the country, I don't
+think Chiltern could get on without him. What a capital fellow your
+cousin the Duke is."
+
+"I hardly know him."
+
+"He is such a gentleman;--and, at the same time, the most abstract
+and the most concrete man that I know."
+
+"Abstract and concrete!"
+
+"You are bound to use adjectives of that sort now, Miss Palliser, if
+you mean to be anybody in conversation."
+
+"But how is my cousin concrete? He is always abstracted when I speak
+to him, I know."
+
+"No Englishman whom I have met is so broadly and intuitively and
+unceremoniously imbued with the simplicity of the character of a
+gentleman. He could no more lie than he could eat grass."
+
+"Is that abstract or concrete?"
+
+"That's abstract. And I know no one who is so capable of throwing
+himself into one matter for the sake of accomplishing that one thing
+at a time. That's concrete." And so the red colour faded away from
+poor Adelaide's face, and the unpleasantness was removed.
+
+"What do you think of Laurence's wife?" Erle said to him late in the
+evening.
+
+"I have only just seen her. The money is there, I suppose."
+
+"The money is there, I believe; but then it will have to remain
+there. He can't touch it. There's about L2,000 a-year, which will
+have to go back to her family unless they have children."
+
+"I suppose she's--forty?"
+
+"Well; yes, or perhaps forty-five. You were locked up at the time,
+poor fellow,--and had other things to think of; but all the interest
+we had for anything beyond you through May and June was devoted to
+Laurence and his prospects. It was off and on, and on and off, and he
+was in a most wretched condition. At last she wouldn't consent unless
+she was to be asked here."
+
+"And who managed it?"
+
+"Laurence came and told it all to the Duchess, and she gave him the
+invitation at once."
+
+"Who told you?"
+
+"Not the Duchess,--nor yet Laurence. So it may be untrue, you
+know;--but I believe it. He did ask me whether he'd have to stand
+another election at his marriage. He has been going in and out of
+office so often, and always going back to the Co. Mayo at the expense
+of half a year's salary, that his mind had got confused, and he
+didn't quite know what did and what did not vacate his seat. We
+must all come to it sooner or later, I suppose, but the question is
+whether we could do better than an annuity of L2,000 a year on the
+life of the lady. Office isn't very permanent, but one has not to
+attend the House above six months a year, while you can't get away
+from a wife much above a week at a time. It has crippled him in
+appearance very much, I think."
+
+"A man always looks changed when he's married."
+
+"I hope, Mr. Finn, that you owe me no grudge," said Sir Gregory, the
+Attorney-General.
+
+"Not in the least; why should I?"
+
+"It was a very painful duty that I had to perform,--the most painful
+that ever befel me. I had no alternative but to do it, of course, and
+to do it in the hope of reaching the truth. But a counsel for the
+prosecution must always appear to the accused and his friends like
+a hound running down his game, and anxious for blood. The habitual
+and almost necessary acrimony of the defence creates acrimony in the
+attack. If you were accustomed as I am to criminal courts you would
+observe this constantly. A gentleman gets up and declares in perfect
+faith that he is simply anxious to lay before the jury such evidence
+as has been placed in his hands. And he opens his case in that
+spirit. Then his witnesses are cross-examined with the affected
+incredulity and assumed indignation which the defending counsel is
+almost bound to use on behalf of his client, and he finds himself
+gradually imbued with pugnacity. He becomes strenuous, energetic, and
+perhaps eager for what must after all be regarded as success, and at
+last he fights for a verdict rather than for the truth."
+
+"The judge, I suppose, ought to put all that right?"
+
+"So he does;--and it comes right. Our criminal practice does not sin
+on the side of severity. But a barrister employed on the prosecution
+should keep himself free from that personal desire for a verdict
+which must animate those engaged on the defence."
+
+"Then I suppose you wanted to--hang me, Sir Gregory."
+
+"Certainly not. I wanted the truth. But you in your position must
+have regarded me as a bloodhound."
+
+"I did not. As far as I can analyse my own feelings, I entertained
+anger only against those who, though they knew me well, thought that
+I was guilty."
+
+"You will allow me, at any rate, to shake hands with you," said Sir
+Gregory, "and to assure you that I should have lived a broken-hearted
+man if the truth had been known too late. As it is I tremble and
+shake in my shoes as I walk about and think of what might have been
+done." Then Phineas gave his hand to Sir Gregory, and from that time
+forth was inclined to think well of Sir Gregory.
+
+Throughout the whole evening he was unable to speak to Madame
+Goesler, but to the other people around him he found himself talking
+quite at his ease, as though nothing peculiar had happened to him.
+Almost everybody, except the Duke, made some slight allusion to his
+adventure, and he, in spite of his resolution to the contrary, found
+himself driven to talk of it. It had seemed quite natural that Sir
+Gregory,--who had in truth been eager for his condemnation, thinking
+him to have been guilty,--should come to him and make peace with him
+by telling him of the nature of the work that had been imposed upon
+him;--and when Sir Harry Coldfoot assured him that never in his life
+had his mind been relieved of so heavy a weight as when he received
+the information about the key,--that also was natural. A few days ago
+he had thought that these allusions would kill him. The prospect of
+them had kept him a prisoner in his lodgings; but now he smiled and
+chatted, and was quiet and at ease.
+
+"Good-night, Mr. Finn," the Duchess said to him, "I know the people
+have been boring you."
+
+"Not in the least."
+
+"I saw Sir Gregory at it, and I can guess what Sir Gregory was
+talking about."
+
+"I like Sir Gregory, Duchess."
+
+"That shows a very Christian disposition on your part. And then there
+was Sir Harry. I understood it all, but I could not hinder it. But it
+had to be done, hadn't it?--And now there will be an end of it."
+
+"Everybody has treated me very well," said Phineas, almost in tears.
+"Some people have been so kind to me that I cannot understand why it
+should have been so."
+
+"Because some people are your very excellent good friends. We,--that
+is, Marie and I, you know,--thought it would be the best thing for
+you to come down and get through it all here. We could see that you
+weren't driven too hard. By the bye, you have hardly seen her,--have
+you?"
+
+"Hardly, since I was upstairs with your Grace."
+
+"My Grace will manage better for you to-morrow. I didn't like to tell
+you to take her out to dinner, because it would have looked a little
+particular after her very remarkable journey to Prague. If you ain't
+grateful you must be a wretch."
+
+"But I am grateful."
+
+"Well; we shall see. Good-night. You'll find a lot of men going to
+smoke somewhere, I don't doubt."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXV.
+
+THE TRUMPETON FEUD IS SETTLED.
+
+
+In these fine early autumn days spent at Matching, the great
+Trumpeton Wood question was at last settled. During the summer
+considerable acerbity had been added to the matter by certain
+articles which had appeared in certain sporting papers, in which the
+new Duke of Omnium was accused of neglecting his duty to the county
+in which a portion of his property lay. The question was argued at
+considerable length. Is a landed proprietor bound, or is he not,
+to keep foxes for the amusement of his neighbours? To ordinary
+thinkers, to unprejudiced outsiders,--to Americans, let us say, or
+Frenchmen,--there does not seem to be room even for an argument. By
+what law of God or man can a man be bound to maintain a parcel of
+injurious vermin on his property, in the pursuit of which he finds no
+sport himself, and which are highly detrimental to another sport in
+which he takes, perhaps, the keenest interest? Trumpeton Wood was the
+Duke's own,--to do just as he pleased with it. Why should foxes be
+demanded from him then any more than a bear to be baited, or a badger
+to be drawn, in, let us say, his London dining-room? But a good deal
+had been said which, though not perhaps capable of convincing the
+unprejudiced American or Frenchman, had been regarded as cogent
+arguments to country-bred Englishmen. The Brake Hunt had been
+established for a great many years, and was the central attraction of
+a district well known for its hunting propensities. The preservation
+of foxes might be an open question in such counties as Norfolk and
+Suffolk, but could not be so in the Brake country. Many things are,
+no doubt, permissible under the law, which, if done, would show the
+doer of them to be the enemy of his species,--and this destruction
+of foxes in a hunting country may be named as one of them. The Duke
+might have his foxes destroyed if he pleased, but he could hardly
+do so and remain a popular magnate in England. If he chose to put
+himself in opposition to the desires and very instincts of the people
+among whom his property was situated, he must live as a "man forbid."
+That was the general argument, and then there was the argument
+special to this particular case. As it happened, Trumpeton Wood
+was, and always had been, the great nursery of foxes for that side
+of the Brake country. Gorse coverts make, no doubt, the charm of
+hunting, but gorse coverts will not hold foxes unless the woodlands
+be preserved. The fox is a travelling animal. Knowing well that
+"home-staying youths have ever homely wits," he goes out and sees the
+world. He is either born in the woodlands, or wanders thither in his
+early youth. If all foxes so wandering be doomed to death, if poison,
+and wires, and traps, and hostile keepers await them there instead
+of the tender welcome of the loving fox-preserver, the gorse coverts
+will soon be empty, and the whole country will be afflicted with a
+wild dismay. All which Lord Chiltern understood well when he became
+so loud in his complaint against the Duke.
+
+But our dear old friend, only the other day a duke, Planty Pall as he
+was lately called, devoted to work and to Parliament, an unselfish,
+friendly, wise man, who by no means wanted other men to cut their
+coats according to his pattern, was the last man in England to put
+himself forward as the enemy of an established delight. He did not
+hunt himself,--but neither did he shoot, or fish, or play cards. He
+recreated himself with Blue Books, and speculations on Adam Smith had
+been his distraction;--but he knew that he was himself peculiar, and
+he respected the habits of others. It had fallen out in this wise. As
+the old Duke had become very old, the old Duke's agent had gradually
+acquired more than an agent's proper influence in the property; and
+as the Duke's heir would not shoot himself, or pay attention to the
+shooting, and as the Duke would not let the shooting of his wood, Mr.
+Fothergill, the steward, had gradually become omnipotent. Now Mr.
+Fothergill was not a hunting man,--but the mischief did not at all
+lie there. Lord Chiltern would not communicate with Mr. Fothergill.
+Lord Chiltern would write to the Duke, and Mr. Fothergill became an
+established enemy. Hinc illae irae. From this source sprung all those
+powerfully argued articles in _The Field_, _Bell's Life_, and _Land
+and Water_;--for on this matter all the sporting papers were of one
+mind.
+
+There is something doubtless absurd in the intensity of the worship
+paid to the fox by hunting communities. The animal becomes sacred,
+and his preservation is a religion. His irregular destruction is a
+profanity, and words spoken to his injury are blasphemous. Not long
+since a gentleman shot a fox running across a woodland ride in a
+hunting country. He had mistaken it for a hare, and had done the deed
+in the presence of keepers, owner, and friends. His feelings were so
+acute and his remorse so great that, in their pity, they had resolved
+to spare him; and then, on the spot, entered into a solemn compact
+that no one should be told. Encouraged by the forbearing tenderness,
+the unfortunate one ventured to return to the house of his friend,
+the owner of the wood, hoping that, in spite of the sacrilege
+committed, he might be able to face a world that would be ignorant
+of his crime. As the vulpicide, on the afternoon of the day of the
+deed, went along the corridor to his room, one maid-servant whispered
+to another, and the poor victim of an imperfect sight heard the
+words--"That's he as shot the fox!" The gentleman did not appear at
+dinner, nor was he ever again seen in those parts.
+
+Mr. Fothergill had become angry. Lord Chiltern, as we know, had been
+very angry. And even the Duke was angry. The Duke was angry because
+Lord Chiltern had been violent;--and Lord Chiltern had been violent
+because Mr. Fothergill's conduct had been, to his thinking, not only
+sacrilegious, but one continued course of wilful sacrilege. It may
+be said of Lord Chiltern that in his eagerness as a master of hounds
+he had almost abandoned his love of riding. To kill a certain number
+of foxes in the year, after the legitimate fashion, had become to
+him the one great study of life;--and he did it with an energy equal
+to that which the Duke devoted to decimal coinage. His huntsman was
+always well mounted, with two horses; but Lord Chiltern would give
+up his own to the man and take charge of a weary animal as a common
+groom when he found that he might thus further the object of the
+day's sport. He worked as men work only at pleasure. He never missed
+a day, even when cub-hunting required that he should leave his bed at
+3 A.M. He was constant at his kennel. He was always thinking about
+it. He devoted his life to the Brake Hounds. And it was too much for
+him that such a one as Mr. Fothergill should be allowed to wire foxes
+in Trumpeton Wood! The Duke's property, indeed! Surely all that was
+understood in England by this time. Now he had consented to come
+to Matching, bringing his wife with him, in order that the matter
+might be settled. There had been a threat that he would give up the
+country, in which case it was declared that it would be impossible
+to carry on the Brake Hunt in a manner satisfactory to masters,
+subscribers, owners of coverts, or farmers, unless a different order
+of things should be made to prevail in regard to Trumpeton Wood.
+
+The Duke, however, had declined to interfere personally. He had
+told his wife that he should be delighted to welcome Lord and Lady
+Chiltern,--as he would any other friends of hers. The guests, indeed,
+at the Duke's house were never his guests, but always hers. But he
+could not allow himself to be brought into an argument with Lord
+Chiltern as to the management of his own property. The Duchess was
+made to understand that she must prevent any such awkwardness. And
+she did prevent it. "And now, Lord Chiltern," she said, "how about
+the foxes?" She had taken care there should be a council of war
+around her. Lady Chiltern and Madame Goesler were present, and also
+Phineas Finn.
+
+"Well;--how about them?" said the lord, showing by the fiery
+eagerness of his eye, and the increased redness of his face, that
+though the matter had been introduced somewhat jocosely, there could
+not really be any joke about it.
+
+"Why couldn't you keep it all out of the newspapers?"
+
+"I don't write the newspapers, Duchess. I can't help the newspapers.
+When two hundred men ride through Trumpeton Wood, and see one fox
+found, and that fox with only three pads, of course the newspapers
+will say that the foxes are trapped."
+
+"We may have traps if we like it, Lord Chiltern."
+
+"Certainly;--only say so, and we shall know where we are." He looked
+very angry, and poor Lady Chiltern was covered with dismay. "The Duke
+can destroy the hunt if he pleases, no doubt," said the lord.
+
+"But we don't like traps, Lord Chiltern;--nor yet poison, nor
+anything that is wicked. I'd go and nurse the foxes myself if I knew
+how, wouldn't I, Marie?"
+
+"They have robbed the Duchess of her sleep for the last six months,"
+said Madame Goesler.
+
+"And if they go on being not properly brought up and educated,
+they'll make an old woman of me. As for the Duke, he can't be
+comfortable in his arithmetic for thinking of them. But what can one
+do?"
+
+"Change your keepers," said Lord Chiltern energetically.
+
+"It is easy to say,--change your keepers. How am I to set about it?
+To whom can I apply to appoint others? Don't you know what vested
+interests mean, Lord Chiltern?"
+
+"Then nobody can manage his own property as he pleases?"
+
+"Nobody can,--unless he does the work himself. If I were to go and
+live in Trumpeton Wood I could do it; but you see I have to live
+here. I vote that we have an officer of State, to go in and out with
+the Government,--with a seat in the Cabinet or not according as
+things go, and that we call him Foxmaster-General. It would be just
+the thing for Mr. Finn."
+
+"There would be a salary, of course," said Phineas.
+
+"Then I suppose that nothing can be done," said Lord Chiltern.
+
+"My dear Lord Chiltern, everything has been done. Vested interests
+have been attended to. Keepers shall prefer foxes to pheasants, wires
+shall be unheard of, and Trumpeton Wood shall once again be the glory
+of the Brake Hunt. It won't cost the Duke above a thousand or two a
+year."
+
+"I should be very sorry indeed to put the Duke to any unnecessary
+expense," said Lord Chiltern solemnly,--still fearing that the
+Duchess was only playing with him. It made him angry that he could
+not imbue other people with his idea of the seriousness of the
+amusement of a whole county.
+
+"Do not think of it. We have pensioned poor Mr. Fothergill, and he
+retires from the administration."
+
+"Then it'll be all right," said Lord Chiltern.
+
+"I am so glad," said his wife.
+
+"And so the great Mr. Fothergill falls from power, and goes down into
+obscurity," said Madame Goesler.
+
+"He was an impudent old man, and that's the truth," said the
+Duchess;--"and he has always been my thorough detestation. But if you
+only knew what I have gone through to get rid of him,--and all on
+account of Trumpeton Wood,--you'd send me every brush taken in the
+Brake country during the next season."
+
+"Your Grace shall at any rate have one of them," said Lord Chiltern.
+
+On the next day Lord and Lady Chiltern went back to Harrington Hall.
+When the end of August comes, a Master of Hounds,--who is really a
+master,--is wanted at home. Nothing short of an embassy on behalf of
+the great coverts of his country would have kept this master away at
+present; and now, his diplomacy having succeeded, he hurried back to
+make the most of its results. Lady Chiltern, before she went, made a
+little speech to Phineas Finn.
+
+"You'll come to us in the winter, Mr. Finn?"
+
+"I should like."
+
+"You must. No one was truer to you than we were, you know. Indeed,
+regarding you as we do, how should we not have been true? It was
+impossible to me that my old friend should have been--"
+
+"Oh, Lady Chiltern!"
+
+"Of course you'll come. You owe it to us to come. And may I say this?
+If there be anybody to come with you, that will make it only so much
+the better. If it should be so, of course there will be letters
+written?" To this question, however, Phineas Finn made no answer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXVI.
+
+MADAME GOESLER'S LEGACY.
+
+
+One morning, very shortly after her return to Harrington, Lady
+Chiltern was told that Mr. Spooner of Spoon Hall had called, and
+desired to see her. She suggested that the gentleman had probably
+asked for her husband,--who, at that moment, was enjoying his
+recovered supremacy in the centre of Trumpeton Wood; but she was
+assured that on this occasion Mr. Spooner's mission was to herself.
+She had no quarrel with Mr. Spooner, and she went to him at once.
+After the first greeting he rushed into the subject of the great
+triumph. "So we've got rid of Mr. Fothergill, Lady Chiltern."
+
+"Yes; Mr. Fothergill will not, I believe, trouble us any more. He
+is an old man, it seems, and has retired from the Duke's service."
+
+"I can't tell you how glad I am, Lady Chiltern. We were afraid that
+Chiltern would have thrown it up, and then I don't know where we
+should have been. England would not have been England any longer, to
+my thinking, if we hadn't won the day. It'd have been just like a
+French revolution. Nobody would have known what was coming or where
+he was going."
+
+That Mr. Spooner should be enthusiastic on any hunting question was a
+matter of course; but still it seemed to be odd that he should have
+driven himself over from Spoon Hall to pour his feelings into Lady
+Chiltern's ear. "We shall go on very nicely now, I don't doubt," said
+she; "and I'm sure that Lord Chiltern will be glad to find that you
+are pleased."
+
+"I am very much pleased, I can tell you." Then he paused, and the
+tone of his voice was changed altogether when he spoke again. "But
+I didn't come over only about that, Lady Chiltern. Miss Palliser has
+not come back with you, Lady Chiltern?"
+
+"We left Miss Palliser at Matching. You know she is the Duke's
+cousin."
+
+"I wish she wasn't, with all my heart."
+
+"Why should you want to rob her of her relations, Mr. Spooner?"
+
+"Because-- because--. I don't want to say a word against her, Lady
+Chiltern. To me she is perfect as a star;--beautiful as a rose."
+Mr. Spooner as he said this pointed first to the heavens and then
+to the earth. "But perhaps she wouldn't have been so proud of her
+grandfather hadn't he been a Duke."
+
+"I don't think she is proud of that."
+
+"People do think of it, Lady Chiltern; and I don't say that they
+ought not. Of course it makes a difference, and when a man lives
+altogether in the country, as I do, it seems to signify so much
+more. But if you go back to old county families, Lady Chiltern, the
+Spooners have been here pretty nearly as long as the Pallisers,--if
+not longer. The Desponders, from whom we come, came over with William
+the Conqueror."
+
+"I have always heard that there isn't a more respectable family in
+the county."
+
+"That there isn't. There was a grant of land, which took their name,
+and became the Manor of Despond; there's where Spoon Hall is now. Sir
+Thomas Desponder was one of those who demanded the Charter, though
+his name wasn't always given because he wasn't a baron. Perhaps Miss
+Palliser does not know all that."
+
+"I doubt whether she cares about those things."
+
+"Women do care about them,--very much. Perhaps she has heard of the
+two spoons crossed, and doesn't know that that was a stupid vulgar
+practical joke. Our crest is a knight's head bowed, with the motto,
+'Desperandum.' Soon after the Conquest one of the Desponders fell in
+love with the Queen, and never would give it up, though it wasn't
+any good. Her name was Matilda, and so he went as a Crusader and got
+killed. But wherever he went he had the knight's head bowed, and the
+motto on the shield."
+
+"What a romantic story, Mr. Spooner!"
+
+"Isn't it? And it's quite true. That's the way we became Spooners. I
+never told her of it, but, somehow I wish I had now. It always seemed
+that she didn't think that I was anybody."
+
+"The truth is, Mr. Spooner, that she was always thinking that
+somebody else was everything. When a gentleman is told that a lady's
+affections have been pre-engaged, however much he may regret the
+circumstances, he cannot, I think, feel any hurt to his pride. If I
+understand the matter, Miss Palliser explained to you that she was
+engaged when first you spoke to her."
+
+"You are speaking of young Gerard Maule."
+
+"Of course I am speaking of Mr. Maule."
+
+"But she has quarrelled with him, Lady Chiltern."
+
+"Don't you know what such quarrels come to?"
+
+"Well, no. That is to say, everybody tells me that it is really
+broken off, and that he has gone nobody knows where. At any rate he
+never shows himself. He doesn't mean it, Lady Chiltern."
+
+"I don't know what he means."
+
+"And he can't afford it, Lady Chiltern. I mean it, and I can afford
+it. Surely that might go for something."
+
+"I cannot say what Mr. Maule may mean to do, Mr. Spooner, but I think
+it only fair to tell you that he is at present staying at Matching,
+under the same roof with Miss Palliser."
+
+"Maule staying at the Duke's!" When Mr. Spooner heard this there
+came a sudden change over his face. His jaw fell, and his mouth was
+opened, and the redness of his cheeks flew up to his forehead.
+
+"He was expected there yesterday, and I need hardly suggest to you
+what will be the end of the quarrel."
+
+"Going to the Duke's won't give him an income."
+
+"I know nothing about that, Mr. Spooner. But it really seems to me
+that you misinterpret the nature of the affections of such a girl as
+Miss Palliser. Do you think it likely that she should cease to love a
+man because he is not so rich as another?"
+
+"People, when they are married, want a house to live in, Lady
+Chiltern. Now at Spoon Hall--"
+
+"Believe me, that is in vain, Mr. Spooner."
+
+"You are quite sure of it?"
+
+"Quite sure."
+
+"I'd have done anything for her,--anything! She might have had what
+settlements she pleased. I told Ned that he must go, if she made a
+point of it. I'd have gone abroad, or lived just anywhere. I'd come
+to that, that I didn't mind the hunting a bit."
+
+"I'm sorry for you,--I am indeed."
+
+"It cuts a fellow all to pieces so! And yet what is it all about? A
+slip of a girl that isn't anything so very much out of the way after
+all. Lady Chiltern, I shouldn't care if the horse kicked the trap all
+to pieces going back to Spoon Hall, and me with it."
+
+"You'll get over it, Mr. Spooner."
+
+"Get over it! I suppose I shall; but I shall never be as I was. I've
+been always thinking of the day when there must be a lady at Spoon
+Hall, and putting it off, you know. There'll never be a lady there
+now;--never. You don't think there's any chance at all?"
+
+"I'm sure there is none."
+
+"I'd give half I've got in all the world," said the wretched man,
+"just to get it out of my head. I know what it will come to." Though
+he paused, Lady Chiltern could ask no question respecting Mr.
+Spooner's future prospects. "It'll be two bottles of champagne at
+dinner, and two bottles of claret afterwards, every day. I only hope
+she'll know that she did it. Good-bye, Lady Chiltern. I thought that
+perhaps you'd have helped me."
+
+"I cannot help you."
+
+"Good-bye." So he went down to his trap, and drove himself violently
+home,--without, however, achieving the ruin which he desired. Let
+us hope that as time cures his wound that threat as to increased
+consumption of wine may fall to the ground unfulfilled.
+
+In the meantime Gerard Maule had arrived at Matching Priory.
+
+"We have quarrelled," Adelaide had said when the Duchess told her
+that her lover was to come. "Then you had better make it up again,"
+the Duchess had answered,--and there had been an end of it. Nothing
+more was done; no arrangement was made, and Adelaide was left to
+meet the man as best she might. The quarrel to her had been as the
+disruption of the heavens. She had declared to herself that she would
+bear it; but the misfortune to be borne was a broken world falling
+about her own ears. She had thought of a nunnery, of Ophelia among
+the water-lilies, and of an early death-bed. Then she had pictured
+to herself the somewhat ascetic and very laborious life of an old
+maiden lady whose only recreation fifty years hence should consist
+in looking at the portrait of him who had once been her lover. And
+now she was told that he was coming to Matching as though nothing
+had been the matter! She tried to think whether it was not her duty
+to have her things at once packed, and ask for a carriage to take
+her to the railway station. But she was in the house of her nearest
+relative,--of him and also of her who were bound to see that things
+were right; and then there might be a more pleasureable existence
+than that which would have to depend on a photograph for its keenest
+delight. But how should she meet him? In what way should she address
+him? Should she ignore the quarrel, or recognize it, or take some
+milder course? She was half afraid of the Duchess, and could not ask
+for assistance. And the Duchess, though good-natured, seemed to her
+to be rough. There was nobody at Matching to whom she could say a
+word;--so she lived on, and trembled, and doubted from hour to hour
+whether the world would not come to an end.
+
+The Duchess was rough, but she was very good-natured. She had
+contrived that the two lovers should be brought into the same house,
+and did not doubt at all but what they would be able to adjust their
+own little differences when they met. Her experiences of the world
+had certainly made her more alive to the material prospects than to
+the delicate aroma of a love adventure. She had been greatly knocked
+about herself, and the material prospects had come uppermost. But all
+that had happened to her had tended to open her hand to other people,
+and had enabled her to be good-natured with delight, even when
+she knew that her friends imposed upon her. She didn't care much
+for Laurence Fitzgibbon; but when she was told that the lady with
+money would not consent to marry the aristocratic pauper except on
+condition that she should be received at Matching, the Duchess at
+once gave the invitation. And now, though she couldn't go into the
+"fal-lallery,"--as she called it, to Madame Goesler,--of settling
+a meeting between two young people who had fallen out, she worked
+hard till she accomplished something perhaps more important to their
+future happiness. "Plantagenet," she said, "there can be no objection
+to your cousin having that money."
+
+"My dear!"
+
+"Oh come; you must remember about Adelaide, and that young man who is
+coming here to-day."
+
+"You told me that Adelaide is to be married. I don't know anything
+about the young man."
+
+"His name is Maule, and he is a gentleman, and all that. Some day
+when his father dies he'll have a small property somewhere."
+
+"I hope he has a profession."
+
+"No, he has not. I told you all that before."
+
+"If he has nothing at all, Glencora, why did he ask a young lady to
+marry him?"
+
+"Oh, dear; what's the good of going into all that? He has got
+something. They'll do immensely well, if you'll only listen. She is
+your first cousin."
+
+"Of course she is," said Plantagenet, lifting up his hand to his
+hair.
+
+"And you are bound to do something for her."
+
+"No; I am not bound. But I'm very willing,--if you wish it. Put the
+thing on a right footing."
+
+"I hate footings,--that is, right footings. We can manage this
+without taking money out of your pocket."
+
+"My dear Glencora, if I am to give my cousin money I shall do so by
+putting my hand into my own pocket in preference to that of any other
+person."
+
+"Madame Goesler says that she'll sign all the papers about the Duke's
+legacy,--the money, I mean,--if she may be allowed to make it over to
+the Duke's niece."
+
+"Of course Madame Goesler may do what she likes with her own. I
+cannot hinder her. But I would rather that you should not interfere.
+Twenty-five thousand pounds is a very serious sum of money."
+
+"You won't take it."
+
+"Certainly not."
+
+"Nor will Madame Goesler; and therefore there can be no reason why
+these young people should not have it. Of course Adelaide being the
+Duke's niece does make a difference. Why else should I care about it?
+She is nothing to me,--and as for him, I shouldn't know him again if
+I were to meet him in the street."
+
+And so the thing was settled. The Duke was powerless against the
+energy of his wife, and the lawyer was instructed that Madame Goesler
+would take the proper steps for putting herself into possession of
+the Duke's legacy,--as far as the money was concerned,--with the view
+of transferring it to the Duke's niece, Miss Adelaide Palliser. As
+for the diamonds, the difficulty could not be solved. Madame Goesler
+still refused to take them, and desired her lawyer to instruct her
+as to the form by which she could most thoroughly and conclusively
+renounce that legacy.
+
+Gerard Maule had his ideas about the meeting which would of course
+take place at Matching. He would not, he thought, have been asked
+there had it not been intended that he should marry Adelaide. He did
+not care much for the grandeur of the Duke and Duchess, but he was
+conscious of certain profitable advantages which might accrue from
+such an acknowledgement of his position from the great relatives of
+his intended bride. It would be something to be married from the
+house of the Duchess, and to receive his wife from the Duke's hand.
+His father would probably be driven to acquiesce, and people who were
+almost omnipotent in the world would at any rate give him a start.
+He expected no money; nor did he possess that character, whether it
+be good or bad, which is given to such expectation. But there would
+be encouragement, and the thing would probably be done. As for the
+meeting,--he would take her in his arms if he found her alone, and
+beg her pardon for that cross word about Boulogne. He would assure
+her that Boulogne itself would be a heaven to him if she were with
+him,--and he thought that she would believe him. When he reached the
+house he was asked into a room in which a lot of people were playing
+billiards or crowded round a billiard-table. The Chilterns were gone,
+and he was at first ill at ease, finding no friend. Madame Goesler,
+who had met him at Harrington, came up to him, and told him that
+the Duchess would be there directly, and then Phineas, who had been
+playing at the moment of his entrance, shook hands with him, and said
+a word or two about the Chilterns. "I was so delighted to hear of
+your acquittal," said Maule.
+
+"We never talk about that now," said Phineas, going back to his
+stroke. Adelaide Palliser was not present, and the difficulty of
+the meeting had not yet been encountered. They all remained in the
+billiard-room till it was time for the ladies to dress, and Adelaide
+had not yet ventured to show herself. Somebody offered to take him to
+his room, and he was conducted upstairs, and told that they dined at
+eight,--but nothing had been arranged. Nobody had as yet mentioned
+her name to him. Surely it could not be that she had gone away when
+she heard that he was coming, and that she was really determined to
+make the quarrel perpetual? He had three quarters of an hour in which
+to get ready for dinner, and he felt himself to be uncomfortable and
+out of his element. He had been sent to his chamber prematurely,
+because nobody had known what to do with him; and he wished
+himself back in London. The Duchess, no doubt, had intended to be
+good-natured, but she had made a mistake. So he sat by his open
+window, and looked out on the ruins of the old Priory, which were
+close to the house, and wondered why he mightn't have been allowed to
+wander about the garden instead of being shut up there in a bedroom.
+But he felt that it would be unwise to attempt any escape now. He
+would meet the Duke or the Duchess, or perhaps Adelaide herself, in
+some of the passages,--and there would be an embarrassment. So he
+dawdled away the time, looking out of the window as he dressed, and
+descended to the drawing room at eight o'clock. He shook hands with
+the Duke, and was welcomed by the Duchess, and then glanced round the
+room. There she was, seated on a sofa between two other ladies,--of
+whom one was his friend, Madame Goesler. It was essentially necessary
+that he should notice her in some way, and he walked up to her, and
+offered her his hand. It was impossible that he should allude to what
+was past, and he merely muttered something as he stood over her. She
+had blushed up to her eyes, and was absolutely dumb. "Mr. Maule,
+perhaps you'll take our cousin Adelaide out to dinner," said the
+Duchess, a moment afterwards, whispering in his ear.
+
+"Have you forgiven me?" he said to her, as they passed from one room
+to the other.
+
+"I will,--if you care to be forgiven." The Duchess had been quite
+right, and the quarrel was all over without any arrangement.
+
+On the following morning he was allowed to walk about the grounds
+without any impediment, and to visit the ruins which had looked so
+charming to him from the window. Nor was he alone. Miss Palliser was
+now by no means anxious as she had been yesterday to keep out of the
+way, and was willingly persuaded to show him all the beauties of the
+place.
+
+"I shouldn't have said what I did, I know," pleaded Maule.
+
+"Never mind it now, Gerard."
+
+"I mean about going to Boulogne."
+
+"It did sound so melancholy."
+
+"But I only meant that we should have to be very careful how we
+lived. I don't know quite whether I am so good at being careful about
+money as a fellow ought to be."
+
+"You must take a lesson from me, sir."
+
+"I have sent the horses to Tattersall's," he said in a tone that was
+almost funereal.
+
+"What!--already?"
+
+"I gave the order yesterday. They are to be sold,--I don't know when.
+They won't fetch anything. They never do. One always buys bad horses
+there for a lot of money, and sells good ones for nothing. Where the
+difference goes to I never could make out."
+
+"I suppose the man gets it who sells them."
+
+"No; he don't. The fellows get it who have their eyes open. My eyes
+never were open,--except as far as seeing you went."
+
+"Perhaps if you had opened them wider you wouldn't have to go to--"
+
+"Don't, Adelaide. But, as I was saying about the horses, when they're
+sold of course the bills won't go on. And I suppose things will come
+right. I don't owe so very much."
+
+"I've got something to tell you," she said.
+
+"What about?"
+
+"You're to see my cousin to-day at two o'clock."
+
+"The Duke?"
+
+"Yes,--the Duke; and he has got a proposition. I don't know that you
+need sell your horses, as it seems to make you so very unhappy. You
+remember Madame Goesler?"
+
+"Of course I do. She was at Harrington."
+
+"There's something about a legacy which I can't understand at all. It
+is ever so much money, and it did belong to the old Duke. They say
+it is to be mine,--or yours rather, if we should ever be married.
+And then you know, Gerard, perhaps, after all, you needn't go to
+Boulogne." So she took her revenge, and he had his as he pressed his
+arm round her waist and kissed her among the ruins of the old Priory.
+
+Precisely at two to the moment he had his interview with the Duke,
+and very disagreeable it was to both of them. The Duke was bound
+to explain that the magnificent present which was being made to
+his cousin was a gift, not from him, but from Madame Goesler; and,
+though he was intent on making this as plain as possible, he did
+not like the task. "The truth is, Mr. Maule, that Madame Goesler is
+unwilling, for reasons with which I need not trouble you, to take
+the legacy which was left to her by my uncle. I think her reasons to
+be insufficient, but it is a matter in which she must, of course,
+judge for herself. She has decided,--very much, I fear, at my wife's
+instigation, which I must own I regret,--to give the money to one
+of our family, and has been pleased to say that my cousin Adelaide
+shall be the recipient of her bounty. I have nothing to do with it.
+I cannot stop her generosity if I would, nor can I say that my cousin
+ought to refuse it. Adelaide will have the entire sum as her fortune,
+short of the legacy duty, which, as you are probably aware, will be
+ten per cent., as Madame Goesler was not related to my uncle. The
+money will, of course, be settled on my cousin and on her children.
+I believe that will be all I shall have to say, except that Lady
+Glencora,--the Duchess, I mean,--wishes that Adelaide should be
+married from our house. If this be so I shall, of course, hope to
+have the honour of giving my cousin away." The Duke was by no means
+a pompous man, and probably there was no man in England of so high
+rank who thought so little of his rank. But he was stiff and somewhat
+ungainly, and the task which he was called upon to execute had been
+very disagreeable to him. He bowed when he had finished his speech,
+and Gerard Maule felt himself bound to go, almost without expressing
+his thanks.
+
+"My dear Mr. Maule," said Madame Goesler, "you literally must not
+say a word to me about it. The money was not mine, and under no
+circumstances would or could be mine. I have given nothing, and could
+not have presumed to make such a present. The money, I take it, does
+undoubtedly belong to the present Duke, and, as he does not want it,
+it is very natural that it should go to his cousin. I trust that you
+may both live to enjoy it long, but I cannot allow any thanks to be
+given to me by either of you."
+
+After that he tried the Duchess, who was somewhat more gracious. "The
+truth is, Mr. Maule, you are a very lucky man to find twenty thousand
+pounds and more going begging about the country in that way."
+
+"Indeed I am, Duchess."
+
+"And Adelaide is lucky, too, for I doubt whether either of you are
+given to any very penetrating economies. I am told that you like
+hunting."
+
+"I have sent my horses to Tattersall's."
+
+"There is enough now for a little hunting, I suppose, unless you
+have a dozen children. And now you and Adelaide must settle when
+it's to be. I hate things to be delayed. People go on quarrelling
+and fancying this and that, and thinking that the world is full of
+romance and poetry. When they get married they know better."
+
+"I hope the romance and poetry do not all vanish."
+
+"Romance and poetry are for the most part lies, Mr. Maule, and are
+very apt to bring people into difficulty. I have seen something of
+them in my time, and I much prefer downright honest figures. Two and
+two make four; idleness is the root of all evil; love your neighbour
+like yourself, and the rest of it. Pray remember that Adelaide is to
+be married from here, and that we shall be very happy that you should
+make every use you like of our house until then."
+
+We may so far anticipate in our story as to say that Adelaide
+Palliser and Gerard Maule were married from Matching Priory at
+Matching Church early in that October, and that as far as the
+coming winter was concerned, there certainly was no hunting for
+the gentleman. They went to Naples instead of Boulogne, and there
+remained till the warm weather came in the following spring. Nor was
+that peremptory sale at Tattersall's countermanded as regarded any of
+the horses. What prices were realised the present writer has never
+been able to ascertain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXVII.
+
+PHINEAS FINN'S SUCCESS.
+
+
+When Phineas Finn had been about a week at Matching, he received a
+letter, or rather a very short note, from the Prime Minister, asking
+him to go up to London; and on the same day the Duke of Omnium
+spoke to him on the subject of the letter. "You are going up to
+see Mr. Gresham. Mr. Gresham has written to me, and I hope that we
+shall be able to congratulate ourselves in having your assistance
+next Session." Phineas declared that he had no idea whatever of
+Mr. Gresham's object in summoning him up to London. "I have his
+permission to inform you that he wishes you to accept office."
+Phineas felt that he was becoming very red in the face, but he did
+not attempt to make any reply on the spur of the moment. "Mr. Gresham
+thinks it well that so much should be said to you before you see him,
+in order that you may turn the matter over in your own mind. He would
+have written to you probably, making the offer at once, had it not
+been that there must be various changes, and that one man's place
+must depend on another. You will go, I suppose."
+
+"Yes; I shall go, certainly. I shall be in London this evening."
+
+"I will take care that a carriage is ready for you. I do not presume
+to advise, Mr. Finn, but I hope that there need be no doubt as to
+your joining us." Phineas was somewhat confounded, and did not know
+the Duke well enough to give expression to his thoughts at the
+moment. "Of course you will return to us, Mr. Finn." Phineas said
+that he would return and trespass on the Duke's hospitality for yet a
+few days. He was quite resolved that something must be said to Madame
+Goesler before he left the roof under which she was living. In the
+course of the autumn she purposed, as she had told him, to go to
+Vienna, and to remain there almost up to Christmas. Whatever there
+might be to be said should be said at any rate before that.
+
+He did speak a few words to her before his journey to London, but in
+those words there was no allusion made to the great subject which
+must be discussed between them. "I am going up to London," he said.
+
+"So the Duchess tells me."
+
+"Mr. Gresham has sent for me,--meaning, I suppose, to offer me the
+place which he would not give me while that poor man was alive."
+
+"And you will accept it of course, Mr. Finn?"
+
+"I am not at all so sure of that."
+
+"But you will. You must. You will hardly be so foolish as to let the
+peevish animosity of an ill-conditioned man prejudice your prospects
+even after his death."
+
+"It will not be any remembrance of Mr. Bonteen that will induce me to
+refuse."
+
+"It will be the same thing;--rancour against Mr. Gresham because he
+had allowed the other man's counsel to prevail with him. The action
+of no individual man should be to you of sufficient consequence to
+guide your conduct. If you accept office, you should not take it as a
+favour conferred by the Prime Minister; nor if you refuse it, should
+you do so from personal feelings in regard to him. If he selects you,
+he is presumed to do so because he finds that your services will be
+valuable to the country."
+
+"He does so because he thinks that I should be safe to vote for him."
+
+"That may be so, or not. You can't read his bosom quite
+distinctly;--but you may read your own. If you go into office you
+become the servant of the country,--not his servant, and should
+assume his motive in selecting you to be the same as your own in
+submitting to the selection. Your foot must be on the ladder before
+you can get to the top of it."
+
+"The ladder is so crooked."
+
+"Is it more crooked now than it was three years ago;--worse than it
+was six months ago, when you and all your friends looked upon it as
+certain that you would be employed? There is nothing, Mr. Finn, that
+a man should fear so much as some twist in his convictions arising
+from a personal accident to himself. When we heard that the Devil
+in his sickness wanted to be a monk, we never thought that he would
+become a saint in glory. When a man who has been rejected by a lady
+expresses a generally ill opinion of the sex, we are apt to ascribe
+his opinions to disappointment rather than to judgment. A man
+falls and breaks his leg at a fence, and cannot be induced to ride
+again,--not because he thinks the amusement to be dangerous, but
+because he cannot keep his mind from dwelling on the hardship that
+has befallen himself. In all such cases self-consciousness gets the
+better of the judgment."
+
+"You think it will be so with me?"
+
+"I shall think so if you now refuse--because of the misfortune which
+befell you--that which I know you were most desirous of possessing
+before that accident. To tell you the truth, Mr. Finn, I wish Mr.
+Gresham had delayed his offer till the winter."
+
+"And why?"
+
+"Because by that time you will have recovered your health. Your mind
+now is morbid, and out of tune."
+
+"There was something to make it so, Madame Goesler."
+
+"God knows there was; and the necessity which lay upon you of bearing
+a bold front during those long and terrible weeks of course consumed
+your strength. The wonder is that the fibres of your mind should
+have retained any of their elasticity after such an ordeal. But as
+you are so strong, it would be a pity that you should not be strong
+altogether. This thing that is now to be offered to you is what you
+have always desired."
+
+"A man may have always desired that which is worthless."
+
+"You tried it once, and did not find it worthless. You found yourself
+able to do good work when you were in office. If I remember right,
+you did not give it up then because it was irksome to you, or
+contemptible, or, as you say, worthless; but from difference of
+opinion on some political question. You can always do that again."
+
+"A man is not fit for office who is prone to do so."
+
+"Then do not you be prone. It means success or failure in the
+profession which you have chosen, and I shall greatly regret to see
+you damage your chance of success by yielding to scruples which have
+come upon you when you are hardly as yet yourself."
+
+She had spoken to him very plainly, and he had found it to be
+impossible to answer her, and yet she had hardly touched the motives
+by which he believed himself to be actuated. As he made his journey
+up to London he thought very much of her words. There had been
+nothing said between them about money. No allusion had been made to
+the salary of the office which would be offered to him, or to the
+terrible shortness of his own means of living. He knew well enough
+himself that he must take some final step in life, or very shortly
+return into absolute obscurity. This woman who had been so strongly
+advising him to take a certain course as to his future life, was very
+rich;--and he had fully decided that he would sooner or later ask
+her to be his wife. He knew well that all her friends regarded their
+marriage as certain. The Duchess had almost told him so in as many
+words. Lady Chiltern, who was much more to him than the Duchess,
+had assured him that if he should have a wife to bring with him to
+Harrington, the wife would be welcome. Of what other wife could Lady
+Chiltern have thought? Laurence Fitzgibbon, when congratulated on
+his own marriage, had returned counter congratulations. Mr. Low had
+said that it would of course come to pass. Even Mrs. Bunce had hinted
+at it, suggesting that she would lose her lodger and be a wretched
+woman. All the world had heard of the journey to Prague, and all the
+world expected the marriage. And he had come to love the woman with
+excessive affection, day by day, ever since the renewal of their
+intimacy at Broughton Spinnies. His mind was quite made up;--but
+he was by no means so sure of her mind as the rest of the world might
+be. He knew of her, what nobody else in all the world knew,--except
+himself. In that former period of his life, on which he now sometimes
+looked back as though it had been passed in another world, this woman
+had offered her hand and fortune to him. She had done so in the
+enthusiasm of her love, knowing his ambition and knowing his poverty,
+and believing that her wealth was necessary to the success of his
+career in life. He had refused the offer,--and they had parted
+without a word. Now they had come together again, and she was
+certainly among the dearest of his friends. Had she not taken that
+wondrous journey to Prague in his behalf, and been the first among
+those who had striven,--and had striven at last successfully,--to
+save his neck from the halter? Dear to her! He knew well as he sat
+with his eyes closed in the railway carriage that he must be dear to
+her! But might it not well be that she had resolved that friendship
+should take the place of love? And was it not compatible with her
+nature,--with all human nature,--that in spite of her regard for him
+she should choose to be revenged for the evil which had befallen her,
+when she offered her hand in vain? She must know by this time that he
+intended to throw himself at her feet; and would hardly have advised
+him as she had done as to the necessity of following up that success
+which had hitherto been so essential to him, had she intended to
+give him all that she had once offered him before. It might well be
+that Lady Chiltern, and even the Duchess, should be mistaken. Marie
+Goesler was not a woman, he thought, to reveal the deeper purposes of
+her life to any such friend as the Duchess of Omnium.
+
+Of his own feelings in regard to the offer which was about to be made
+to him he had hardly succeeded in making her understand anything.
+That a change had come upon himself was certain, but he did not
+at all believe that it had sprung from any weakness caused by his
+sufferings in regard to the murder. He rather believed that he
+had become stronger than weaker from all that he had endured. He
+had learned when he was younger,--some years back,--to regard
+the political service of his country as a profession in which a
+man possessed of certain gifts might earn his bread with more
+gratification to himself than in any other. The work would be hard,
+and the emolument only intermittent; but the service would in
+itself be pleasant; and the rewards of that service,--should he be
+so successful as to obtain reward,--would be dearer to him than
+anything which could accrue to him from other labours. To sit in
+the Cabinet for one Session would, he then thought, be more to him
+than to preside over the Court of Queen's Bench as long as did Lord
+Mansfield. But during the last few months a change had crept across
+his dream,--which he recognized but could hardly analyse. He had
+seen a man whom he despised promoted, and the place to which the man
+had been exalted had at once become contemptible in his eyes. And
+there had been quarrels and jangling, and the speaking of evil words
+between men who should have been quiet and dignified. No doubt Madame
+Goesler was right in attributing the revulsion in his hopes to Mr.
+Bonteen and Mr. Bonteen's enmity; but Phineas Finn himself did not
+know that it was so.
+
+He arrived in town in the evening, and his appointment with Mr.
+Gresham was for the following morning. He breakfasted at his club,
+and there he received the following letter from Lady Laura Kennedy:--
+
+
+   Saulsby, 28th August, 18--.
+
+   MY DEAR PHINEAS,
+
+   I have just received a letter from Barrington in which he
+   tells me that Mr. Gresham is going to offer you your old
+   place at the Colonies. He says that Lord Fawn has been so
+   upset by this affair of Lady Eustace's husband, that he
+   is obliged to resign and go abroad. [This was the first
+   intimation that Phineas had heard of the nature of the
+   office to be offered to him.--] But Barrington goes on to
+   say that he thinks you won't accept Mr. Gresham's offer,
+   and he asks me to write to you. Can this possibly be true?
+   Barrington writes most kindly,--with true friendship,--and
+   is most anxious for you to join. But he thinks that
+   you are angry with Mr. Gresham because he passed you
+   over before, and that you will not forgive him for
+   having yielded to Mr. Bonteen. I can hardly believe this
+   possible. Surely you will not allow the shade of that
+   unfortunate man to blight your prospects? And, after all,
+   of what matter to you is the friendship or enmity of Mr.
+   Gresham? You have to assert yourself, to make your own
+   way, to use your own opportunities, and to fight your own
+   battle without reference to the feelings of individuals.
+   Men act together in office constantly, and with constancy,
+   who are known to hate each other. When there are so many
+   to get what is going, and so little to be given, of course
+   there will be struggling and trampling. I have no doubt
+   that Lord Cantrip has made a point of this with Mr.
+   Gresham;--has in point of fact insisted upon it. If so,
+   you are lucky to have such an ally as Lord Cantrip. He and
+   Mr. Gresham are, as you know, sworn friends, and if you
+   get on well with the one you certainly may with the other
+   also. Pray do not refuse without asking for time to think
+   about it;--and if so, pray come here, that you may consult
+   my father.
+
+   I spent two weary weeks at Loughlinter, and then could
+   stand it no longer. I have come here, and here I shall
+   remain for the autumn and winter. If I can sell my
+   interest in the Loughlinter property I shall do so, as I
+   am sure that neither the place nor the occupation is fit
+   for me. Indeed I know not what place or what occupation
+   will suit me! The dreariness of the life before me is
+   hardly preferable to the disappointments I have already
+   endured. There seems to be nothing left for me but to
+   watch my father to the end. The world would say that such
+   a duty in life is fit for a widowed childless daughter;
+   but to you I cannot pretend to say that my bereavements or
+   misfortunes reconcile me to such a fate. I cannot cease
+   to remember my age, my ambition, and I will say, my love.
+   I suppose that everything is over for me,--as though
+   I were an old woman, going down into the grave, but at
+   my time of life I find it hard to believe that it must
+   be so. And then the time of waiting may be so long! I
+   suppose I could start a house in London, and get people
+   around me by feeding and flattering them, and by little
+   intrigues,--like that woman of whom you are so fond. It
+   is money that is chiefly needed for that work, and of
+   money I have enough now. And people would know at any rate
+   who I am. But I could not flatter them, and I should wish
+   the food to choke them if they did not please me. And you
+   would not come, and if you did,--I may as well say it
+   boldly,--others would not. An ill-natured sprite has been
+   busy with me, which seems to deny me everything which is
+   so freely granted to others.
+
+   As for you, the world is at your feet. I dread two things
+   for you,--that you should marry unworthily, and that
+   you should injure your prospects in public life by an
+   uncompromising stiffness. On the former subject I can say
+   nothing to you. As to the latter, let me implore you to
+   come down here before you decide upon anything. Of course
+   you can at once accept Mr. Gresham's offer; and that is
+   what you should do unless the office proposed to you be
+   unworthy of you. No friend of yours will think that your
+   old place at the Colonies should be rejected. But if your
+   mind is still turned towards refusing, ask Mr. Gresham to
+   give you three or four days for decision, and then come
+   here. He cannot refuse you,--nor after all that is passed
+   can you refuse me.
+
+   Yours affectionately,
+
+   L. K.
+
+
+When he had read this letter he at once acknowledged to himself
+that he could not refuse her request. He must go to Saulsby, and he
+must do so at once. He was about to see Mr. Gresham immediately,
+--within half an hour; and as he could not expect at the most above
+twenty-four hours to be allowed to him for consideration, he must
+go down to Saulsby on the same evening. As he walked to the Prime
+Minister's house he called at a telegraph office and sent down his
+message. "I will be at Saulsby by the train arriving at 7 P.M. Send
+to meet me." Then he went on, and in a few minutes found himself in
+the presence of the great man.
+
+The great man received him with an excellent courtesy. It is the
+special business of Prime Ministers to be civil in detail, though
+roughness, and perhaps almost rudeness in the gross, becomes not
+unfrequently a necessity of their position. To a proposed incoming
+subordinate a Prime Minister is, of course, very civil, and to a
+retreating subordinate he is generally more so,--unless the retreat
+be made under unfavourable circumstances. And to give good things
+is always pleasant, unless there be a suspicion that the good thing
+will be thought to be not good enough. No such suspicion as that now
+crossed the mind of Mr. Gresham. He had been pressed very much by
+various colleagues to admit this young man into the Paradise of his
+government, and had been pressed very much also to exclude him; and
+this had been continued till he had come to dislike the name of the
+young man. He did believe that the young man had behaved badly to Mr.
+Robert Kennedy, and he knew that the young man on one occasion had
+taken to kicking in harness, and running a course of his own. He had
+decided against the young man,--very much no doubt at the instance of
+Mr. Bonteen,--and he believed that in so doing he closed the Gates of
+Paradise against a Peri most anxious to enter it. He now stood with
+the key in his hand and the gate open,--and the seat to be allotted
+to the re-accepted one was that which he believed the Peri would
+most gratefully fill. He began by making a little speech about Mr.
+Bonteen. That was almost unavoidable. And he praised in glowing words
+the attitude which Phineas had maintained during the trial. He had
+been delighted with the re-election at Tankerville, and thought
+that the borough had done itself much honour. Then came forth his
+proposition. Lord Fawn had retired, absolutely broken down by
+repeated examinations respecting the man in the grey coat, and the
+office which Phineas had before held with so much advantage to the
+public, and comfort to his immediate chief, Lord Cantrip, was there
+for his acceptance. Mr. Gresham went on to express an ardent hope
+that he might have the benefit of Mr. Finn's services. It was quite
+manifest from his manner that he did not in the least doubt the
+nature of the reply which he would receive.
+
+Phineas had come primed with his answer,--so ready with it that it
+did not even seem to be the result of any hesitation at the moment.
+"I hope, Mr. Gresham, that you will be able to give me a few hours to
+think of this." Mr. Gresham's face fell, for, in truth, he wanted an
+immediate answer; and though he knew from experience that Secretaries
+of State, and First Lords, and Chancellors, do demand time, and will
+often drive very hard bargains before they will consent to get into
+harness, he considered that Under-Secretaries, Junior Lords, and the
+like, should skip about as they were bidden, and take the crumbs
+offered them without delay. If every underling wanted a few hours to
+think about it, how could any Government ever be got together? "I
+am sorry to put you to inconvenience," continued Phineas, seeing
+that the great man was but ill-satisfied, "but I am so placed that I
+cannot avail myself of your flattering kindness without some little
+time for consideration."
+
+"I had hoped that the office was one which you would like."
+
+"So it is, Mr. Gresham."
+
+"And I was told that you are now free from any scruples,--political
+scruples, I mean,--which might make it difficult for you to support
+the Government."
+
+"Since the Government came to our way of thinking,--a year or two
+ago,--about Tenant Right, I mean,--I do not know that there is any
+subject on which I am likely to oppose it. Perhaps I had better tell
+you the truth, Mr. Gresham."
+
+"Oh, certainly," said the Prime Minister, who knew very well that
+on such occasions nothing could be worse than the telling of
+disagreeable truths.
+
+"When you came into office, after beating Mr. Daubeny on the Church
+question, no man in Parliament was more desirous of place than
+I was,--and I am sure that none of the disappointed ones felt
+their disappointment so keenly. It was aggravated by various
+circumstances,--by calumnies in newspapers, and by personal
+bickerings. I need not go into that wretched story of Mr. Bonteen,
+and the absurd accusation which grew out of those calumnies. These
+things have changed me very much. I have a feeling that I have been
+ill-used,--not by you, Mr. Gresham, specially, but by the party; and
+I look upon the whole question of office with altered eyes."
+
+"In filling up the places at his disposal, a Prime Minister, Mr.
+Finn, has a most unenviable task."
+
+"I can well believe it."
+
+"When circumstances, rather than any selection of his own, indicate
+the future occupant of any office, this abrogation of his patronage
+is the greatest blessing in the world to him."
+
+"I can believe that also."
+
+"I wish it were so with every office under the Crown. A Minister is
+rarely thanked, and would as much look for the peace of heaven in his
+office as for gratitude."
+
+"I am sorry that I should have made no exception to such
+thanklessness."
+
+"We shall neither of us get on by complaining;--shall we, Mr. Finn?
+You can let me have an answer perhaps by this time to-morrow."
+
+"If an answer by telegraph will be sufficient."
+
+"Quite sufficient. Yes or No. Nothing more will be wanted. You
+understand your own reasons, no doubt, fully; but if they were stated
+at length they would perhaps hardly enlighten me. Good-morning." Then
+as Phineas was turning his back, the Prime Minister remembered that
+it behoved him as Prime Minister to repress his temper. "I shall
+still hope, Mr. Finn, for a favourable answer." Had it not been for
+that last word Phineas would have turned again, and at once rejected
+the proposition.
+
+From Mr. Gresham's house he went by appointment to Mr. Monk's, and
+told him of the interview. Mr. Monk's advice to him had been exactly
+the same as that given by Madame Goesler and Lady Laura. Phineas,
+indeed, understood perfectly that no friend could or would give him
+any other advice. "He has his troubles, too," said Mr. Monk, speaking
+of the Prime Minister.
+
+"A man can hardly expect to hold such an office without trouble."
+
+"Labour of course there must be,--though I doubt whether it is
+so great as that of some other persons;--and responsibility. The
+amount of trouble depends on the spirit and nature of the man.
+Do you remember old Lord Brock? He was never troubled. He had
+a triple shield,--a thick skin, an equable temper, and perfect
+self-confidence. Mr. Mildmay was of a softer temper, and would have
+suffered had he not been protected by the idolatry of a large class
+of his followers. Mr. Gresham has no such protection. With a finer
+intellect than either, and a sense of patriotism quite as keen, he
+has a self-consciousness which makes him sore at every point. He
+knows the frailty of his temper, and yet cannot control it. And he
+does not understand men as did these others. Every word from an enemy
+is a wound to him. Every slight from a friend is a dagger in his
+side. But I can fancy that self-accusations make the cross on which
+he is really crucified. He is a man to whom I would extend all my
+mercy, were it in my power to be merciful."
+
+"You will hardly tell me that I should accept office under him by way
+of obliging him."
+
+"Were I you I should do so,--not to oblige him, but because I know
+him to be an honest man."
+
+"I care but little for honesty," said Phineas, "which is at the
+disposal of those who are dishonest. What am I to think of a Minister
+who could allow himself to be led by Mr. Bonteen?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXVIII.
+
+THE LAST VISIT TO SAULSBY.
+
+
+Phineas, as he journeyed down to Saulsby, knew that he had in truth
+made up his mind. He was going thither nominally that he might
+listen to the advice of almost his oldest political friend before he
+resolved on a matter of vital importance to himself; but in truth he
+was making the visit because he felt that he could not excuse himself
+from it without unkindness and ingratitude. She had implored him to
+come, and he was bound to go, and there were tidings to be told which
+he must tell. It was not only that he might give her his reasons for
+not becoming an Under-Secretary of State that he went to Saulsby.
+He felt himself bound to inform her that he intended to ask Marie
+Goesler to be his wife. He might omit to do so till he had asked
+the question,--and then say nothing of what he had done should
+his petition be refused; but it seemed to him that there would be
+cowardice in this. He was bound to treat Lady Laura as his friend
+in a special degree, as something more than his sister,--and he was
+bound above all things to make her understand in some plainest manner
+that she could be nothing more to him than such a friend. In his
+dealings with her he had endeavoured always to be honest,--gentle as
+well as honest; but now it was specially his duty to be honest to
+her. When he was young he had loved her, and had told her so,--and
+she had refused him. As a friend he had been true to her ever since,
+but that offer could never be repeated. And the other offer,--to the
+woman whom she was now accustomed to abuse,--must be made. Should
+Lady Laura choose to quarrel with him it must be so; but the quarrel
+should not be of his seeking.
+
+He was quite sure that he would refuse Mr. Gresham's offer, although
+by doing so he would himself throw away the very thing which he had
+devoted his life to acquire. In a foolish, soft moment,--as he now
+confessed to himself,--he had endeavoured to obtain for his own
+position the sympathy of the Minister. He had spoken of the calumnies
+which had hurt him, and of his sufferings when he found himself
+excluded from place in consequence of the evil stories which had
+been told of him. Mr. Gresham had, in fact, declined to listen to
+him;--had said Yes or No was all that he required, and had gone on to
+explain that he would be unable to understand the reasons proposed to
+be given even were he to hear them. Phineas had felt himself to be
+repulsed, and would at once have shown his anger, had not the Prime
+Minister silenced him for the moment by a civilly-worded repetition
+of the offer made.
+
+But the offer should certainly be declined. As he told himself that
+it must be so, he endeavoured to analyse the causes of this decision,
+but was hardly successful. He had thought that he could explain the
+reasons to the Minister, but found himself incapable of explaining
+them to himself. In regard to means of subsistence he was no better
+off now than when he began the world. He was, indeed, without
+incumbrance, but was also without any means of procuring an income.
+For the last twelve months he had been living on his little capital,
+and two years more of such life would bring him to the end of all
+that he had. There was, no doubt, one view of his prospects which was
+bright enough. If Marie Goesler accepted him, he need not, at any
+rate, look about for the means of earning a living. But he assured
+himself with perfect confidence that no hope in that direction would
+have any influence upon the answer he would give to Mr. Gresham. Had
+not Marie Goesler herself been most urgent with him in begging him to
+accept the offer; and was he not therefore justified in concluding
+that she at least had thought it necessary that he should earn his
+bread? Would her heart be softened towards him,--would any further
+softening be necessary,--by his obstinate refusal to comply with her
+advice? The two things had no reference to each other,--and should be
+regarded by him as perfectly distinct. He would refuse Mr. Gresham's
+offer,--not because he hoped that he might live in idleness on the
+wealth of the woman he loved,--but because the chicaneries and
+intrigues of office had become distasteful to him. "I don't know
+which are the falser," he said to himself, "the mock courtesies or
+the mock indignations of statesmen."
+
+He found the Earl's carriage waiting for him at the station, and
+thought of many former days, as he was carried through the little
+town for which he had sat in Parliament, up to the house which he
+had once visited in the hope of wooing Violet Effingham. The women
+whom he had loved had all, at any rate, become his friends, and his
+thorough friendships were almost all with women. He and Lord Chiltern
+regarded each other with warm affection; but there was hardly
+ground for real sympathy between them. It was the same with Mr. Low
+and Barrington Erle. Were he to die there would be no gap in their
+lives;--were they to die there would be none in his. But with Violet
+Effingham,--as he still loved to call her to himself,--he thought it
+would be different. When the carriage stopped at the hall door he was
+thinking of her rather than of Lady Laura Kennedy.
+
+He was shown at once to his bedroom,--the very room in which he had
+written the letter to Lord Chiltern which had brought about the duel
+at Blankenberg. He was told that he would find Lady Laura in the
+drawing-room waiting for dinner for him. The Earl had already dined.
+
+"I am so glad you are come," said Lady Laura, welcoming him. "Papa is
+not very well and dined early, but I have waited for you, of course.
+Of course I have. You did not suppose I would let you sit down alone?
+I would not see you before you dressed because I knew that you must
+be tired and hungry, and that the sooner you got down the better. Has
+it not been hot?"
+
+"And so dusty! I only left Matching yesterday, and seem to have been
+on the railway ever since."
+
+"Government officials have to take frequent journeys, Mr. Finn. How
+long will it be before you have to go down to Scotland twice in one
+week, and back as often to form a Ministry? Your next journey must be
+into the dining-room;--in making which will you give me your arm?"
+
+She was, he thought, lighter in heart and pleasanter in manner than
+she had been since her return from Dresden. When she had made her
+little joke about his future ministerial duties the servant had been
+in the room, and he had not, therefore, stopped her by a serious
+answer. And now she was solicitous about his dinner,--anxious that
+he should enjoy the good things set before him, as is the manner of
+loving women, pressing him to take wine, and playing the good hostess
+in all things. He smiled, and ate, and drank, and was gracious
+under her petting; but he had a weight on his bosom, knowing, as
+he did, that he must say that before long which would turn all
+her playfulness either to anger or to grief. "And who had you at
+Matching?" she asked.
+
+"Just the usual set."
+
+"Minus the poor old Duke?"
+
+"Yes; minus the old Duke certainly. The greatest change is in the
+name. Lady Glencora was so specially Lady Glencora that she ought to
+have been Lady Glencora to the end. Everybody calls her Duchess, but
+it does not sound half so nice."
+
+"And is he altered?"
+
+"Not in the least. You can trace the lines of lingering regret upon
+his countenance when people be-Grace him; but that is all. There was
+always about him a simple dignity which made it impossible that any
+one should slap him on the back; and that of course remains. He is
+the same Planty Pall; but I doubt whether any man ever ventured to
+call him Planty Pall to his face since he left Eton."
+
+"The house was full, I suppose?"
+
+"There were a great many there; among others Sir Gregory Grogram, who
+apologised to me for having tried to--put an end to my career."
+
+"Oh, Phineas!"
+
+"And Sir Harry Coldfoot, who seemed to take some credit to himself
+for having allowed the jury to acquit me. And Chiltern and his wife
+were there for a day or two."
+
+"What could take Oswald there?"
+
+"An embassy of State about the foxes. The Duke's property runs into
+his country. She is one of the best women that ever lived."
+
+"Violet?"
+
+"And one of the best wives."
+
+"She ought to be, for she is one of the happiest. What can she wish
+for that she has not got? Was your great friend there?"
+
+He knew well what great friend she meant. "Madame Max Goesler was
+there."
+
+"I suppose so. I can never quite forgive Lady Glencora for her
+intimacy with that woman."
+
+"Do not abuse her, Lady Laura."
+
+"I do not intend,--not to you at any rate. But I can better
+understand that she should receive the admiration of a gentleman than
+the affectionate friendship of a lady. That the old Duke should have
+been infatuated was intelligible."
+
+"She was very good to the old Duke."
+
+"But it was a kind of goodness which was hardly likely to recommend
+itself to his nephew's wife. Never mind; we won't talk about her now.
+Barrington was there?"
+
+"For a day or two."
+
+"He seems to be wasting his life."
+
+"Subordinates in office generally do, I think."
+
+"Do not say that, Phineas."
+
+"Some few push through, and one can almost always foretell who
+the few will be. There are men who are destined always to occupy
+second-rate places, and who seem also to know their fate. I never
+heard Erle speak even of an ambition to sit in the Cabinet."
+
+"He likes to be useful."
+
+"All that part of the business which distresses me is pleasant
+to him. He is fond of arrangements, and delights in little party
+successes. Either to effect or to avoid a count-out is a job of
+work to his taste, and he loves to get the better of the Opposition
+by keeping it in the dark. A successful plot is as dear to him as
+to a writer of plays. And yet he is never bitter as is Ratler, or
+unscrupulous as was poor Mr. Bonteen, or full of wrath as is Lord
+Fawn. Nor is he idle like Fitzgibbon. Erle always earns his salary."
+
+"When I said he was wasting his life, I meant that he did not marry.
+But perhaps a man in his position had better remain unmarried."
+Phineas tried to laugh, but hardly succeeded well. "That, however, is
+a delicate subject, and we will not touch it now. If you won't drink
+any wine we might as well go into the other room."
+
+Nothing had as yet been said on either of the subjects which had
+brought him to Saulsby, but there had been words which made the
+introduction of them peculiarly unpleasant. His tidings, however,
+must be told. "I shall not see Lord Brentford to-night?" he asked,
+when they were together in the drawing-room.
+
+"If you wish it you can go up to him. He will not come down."
+
+"Oh, no. It is only because I must return to-morrow."
+
+"To-morrow, Phineas!"
+
+"I must do so. I have pledged myself to see Mr. Monk,--and others
+also."
+
+"It is a short visit to make to us on my first return home! I hardly
+expected you at Loughlinter, but I thought that you might have
+remained a few nights under my father's roof." He could only reassert
+his assurance that he was bound to be back in London, and explain as
+best he might that he had come to Saulsby for a single night, only
+because he would not refuse her request to him. "I will not trouble
+you, Phineas, by complaints," she said.
+
+"I would give you no cause for complaint if I could avoid it."
+
+"And now tell me what has passed between you and Mr. Gresham," she
+said as soon as the servant had given them coffee. They were sitting
+by a window which opened down to the ground, and led on to the
+terrace and to the lawns below. The night was soft, and the air was
+heavy with the scent of many flowers. It was now past nine, and the
+sun had set; but there was a bright harvest moon, and the light,
+though pale, was clear as that of day. "Will you come and take a turn
+round the garden? We shall be better there than sitting here. I will
+get my hat; can I find yours for you?" So they both strolled out,
+down the terrace steps, and went forth, beyond the gardens, into the
+park, as though they had both intended from the first that it should
+be so. "I know you have not accepted Mr. Gresham's offer, or you
+would have told me so."
+
+"I have not accepted."
+
+"Nor have you refused?"
+
+"No; it is still open. I must send my answer by telegram
+to-morrow--Yes or No,--Mr. Gresham's time is too precious to admit of
+more."
+
+"Phineas, for Heaven's sake do not allow little feelings to injure
+you at such a time as this. It is of your own career, not of Mr.
+Gresham's manners, that you should think."
+
+"I have nothing to object to in Mr. Gresham. Yes or No will be quite
+sufficient."
+
+"It must be Yes."
+
+"It cannot be Yes, Lady Laura. That which I desired so ardently six
+months ago has now become so distasteful to me that I cannot accept
+it. There is an amount of hustling on the Treasury Bench which makes
+a seat there almost ignominious."
+
+"Do they hustle more than they did three years ago?"
+
+"I think they do, or if not it is more conspicuous to my eyes. I
+do not say that it need be ignominious. To such a one as was Mr.
+Palliser it certainly is not so. But it becomes so when a man goes
+there to get his bread, and has to fight his way as though for bare
+life. When office first comes, unasked for, almost unexpected, full
+of the charms which distance lends, it is pleasant enough. The
+new-comer begins to feel that he too is entitled to rub his shoulders
+among those who rule the world of Great Britain. But when it has been
+expected, longed for as I longed for it, asked for by my friends
+and refused, when all the world comes to know that you are a suitor
+for that which should come without any suit,--then the pleasantness
+vanishes."
+
+"I thought it was to be your career."
+
+"And I hoped so."
+
+"What will you do, Phineas? You cannot live without an income."
+
+"I must try," he said, laughing.
+
+"You will not share with your friend, as a friend should?"
+
+"No, Lady Laura. That cannot be done."
+
+"I do not see why it cannot. Then you might be independent."
+
+"Then I should indeed be dependent."
+
+"You are too proud to owe me anything."
+
+He wanted to tell her that he was too proud to owe such obligation as
+she had suggested to any man or any woman; but he hardly knew how to
+do so, intending as he did to inform her before they returned to the
+house of his intention to ask Madame Goesler to be his wife. He could
+discern the difference between enjoying his wife's fortune and taking
+gifts of money from one who was bound to him by no tie;--but to her
+in her present mood he could explain no such distinction. On a sudden
+he rushed at the matter in his mind. It had to be done, and must be
+done before he brought her back to the house. He was conscious that
+he had in no degree ill-used her. He had in nothing deceived her. He
+had kept back from her nothing which the truest friendship had called
+upon him to reveal to her. And yet he knew that her indignation would
+rise hot within her at his first word. "Laura," he said, forgetting
+in his confusion to remember her rank, "I had better tell you at once
+that I have determined to ask Madame Goesler to be my wife."
+
+"Oh, then;--of course your income is certain."
+
+"If you choose to regard my conduct in that light I cannot help it. I
+do not think that I deserve such reproach."
+
+"Why not tell it all? You are engaged to her?"
+
+"Not so. I have not asked her yet."
+
+"And why do you come to me with the story of your intentions,--to me
+of all persons in the world? I sometimes think that of all the hearts
+that ever dwelt within a man's bosom yours is the hardest."
+
+"For God's sake do not say that of me."
+
+"Do you remember when you came to me about Violet,--to me,--to me? I
+could bear it then because she was good and earnest, and a woman that
+I could love even though she robbed me. And I strove for you even
+against my own heart,--against my own brother. I did; I did. But how
+am I to bear it now? What shall I do now? She is a woman I loathe."
+
+"Because you do not know her."
+
+"Not know her! And are your eyes so clear at seeing that you must
+know her better than others? She was the Duke's mistress."
+
+"That is untrue, Lady Laura."
+
+"But what difference does it make to me? I shall be sure that you
+will have bread to eat, and horses to ride, and a seat in Parliament
+without being forced to earn it by your labour. We shall meet no
+more, of course."
+
+"I do not think that you can mean that."
+
+"I will never receive that woman, nor will I cross the sill of her
+door. Why should I?"
+
+"Should she become my wife,--that I would have thought might have
+been the reason why."
+
+"Surely, Phineas, no man ever understood a woman so ill as you do."
+
+"Because I would fain hope that I need not quarrel with my oldest
+friend?"
+
+"Yes, sir; because you think you can do this without quarrelling. How
+should I speak to her of you; how listen to what she would tell me?
+Phineas, you have killed me at last." Why could he not tell her that
+it was she who had done the wrong when she gave her hand to Robert
+Kennedy? But he could not tell her, and he was dumb. "And so it's
+settled!"
+
+"No; not settled."
+
+"Psha! I hate your mock modesty! It is settled. You have become far
+too cautious to risk fortune in such an adventure. Practice has
+taught you to be perfect. It was to tell me this that you came down
+here."
+
+"Partly so."
+
+"It would have been more generous of you, sir, to have remained
+away."
+
+"I did not mean to be ungenerous."
+
+Then she suddenly turned upon him, throwing her arms round his neck,
+and burying her face upon his bosom. They were at the moment in the
+centre of the park, on the grass beneath the trees, and the moon was
+bright over their heads. He held her to his breast while she sobbed,
+and then relaxed his hold as she raised herself to look into his
+face. After a moment she took his hat from his head with one hand,
+and with the other swept the hair back from his brow. "Oh, Phineas,"
+she said, "Oh, my darling! My idol that I have worshipped when I
+should have worshipped my God!"
+
+
+[Illustration: Then she suddenly turned upon him, throwing
+her arms round his neck.]
+
+
+After that they roamed for nearly an hour backwards and forwards
+beneath the trees, till at last she became calm and almost
+reasonable. She acknowledged that she had long expected such a
+marriage, looking forward to it as a great sorrow. She repeated
+over and over again her assertion that she could not "know" Madame
+Goesler as the wife of Phineas, but abstained from further evil words
+respecting the lady. "It is better that we should be apart," she said
+at last. "I feel that it is better. When we are both old, if I should
+live, we may meet again. I knew that it was coming, and we had better
+part." And yet they remained out there, wandering about the park for
+a long portion of the summer night. She did not reproach him again,
+nor did she speak much of the future; but she alluded to all the
+incidents of their past life, showing him that nothing which he had
+done, no words which he had spoken, had been forgotten by her. "Of
+course it has been my fault," she said, as at last she parted with
+him in the drawing-room. "When I was younger I did not understand
+how strong the heart can be. I should have known it, and I pay
+for my ignorance with the penalty of my whole life." Then he left
+her, kissing her on both cheeks and on her brow, and went to his
+bedroom with the understanding that he would start for London on the
+following morning before she was up.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXIX.
+
+AT LAST--AT LAST.
+
+
+As he took his ticket Phineas sent his message to the Prime Minister,
+taking that personage literally at his word. The message was, No.
+When writing it in the office it seemed to him to be uncourteous, but
+he found it difficult to add any other words that should make it less
+so. He supplemented it with a letter on his arrival in London, in
+which he expressed his regret that certain circumstances of his life
+which had occurred during the last month or two made him unfit to
+undertake the duties of the very pleasant office to which Mr. Gresham
+had kindly offered to appoint him. That done, he remained in town
+but one night, and then set his face again towards Matching. When
+he reached that place it was already known that he had refused to
+accept Mr. Gresham's offer, and he was met at once with regrets and
+condolements. "I am sorry that it must be so," said the Duke,--who
+was sorry, for he liked the man, but who said not a word more
+upon the subject. "You are still young, and will have further
+opportunities," said Lord Cantrip, "but I wish that you could have
+consented to come back to your old chair." "I hope that at any
+rate we shall not have you against us," said Sir Harry Coldfoot.
+Among themselves they declared one to another that he had been so
+completely upset by his imprisonment and subsequent trial as to be
+unable to undertake the work proposed to him. "It is not a very nice
+thing, you know, to be accused of murder," said Sir Gregory, "and to
+pass a month or two under the full conviction that you are going to
+be hung. He'll come right again some day. I only hope it may not be
+too late."
+
+"So you have decided for freedom?" said Madame Goesler to him that
+evening,--the evening of the day on which he had returned.
+
+"Yes, indeed."
+
+"I have nothing to say against your decision now. No doubt your
+feelings have prompted you right."
+
+"Now that it is done, of course I am full of regrets," said Phineas.
+
+"That is simple human nature, I suppose."
+
+"Simple enough; and the worst of it is that I cannot quite explain
+even to myself why I have done it. Every friend I had in the world
+told me that I was wrong, and yet I could not help myself. The thing
+was offered to me, not because I was thought to be fit for it, but
+because I had become wonderful by being brought near to a violent
+death! I remember once, when I was a child, having a rocking-horse
+given to me because I had fallen from the top of the house to the
+bottom without breaking my neck. The rocking-horse was very well
+then, but I don't care now to have one bestowed upon me for any such
+reason."
+
+"Still, if the rocking-horse is in itself a good rocking-horse--"
+
+"But it isn't."
+
+"I don't mean to say a word against your decision."
+
+"It isn't good. It is one of those toys which look to be so very
+desirable in the shop-windows, but which give no satisfaction when
+they are brought home. I'll tell you what occurred the other day. The
+circumstances happen to be known to me, though I cannot tell you my
+authority. My dear old friend Laurence Fitzgibbon, in the performance
+of his official duties, had to give an opinion on a matter affecting
+an expenditure of some thirty or forty thousand pounds of public
+money. I don't think that Laurence has generally a very strong bias
+this way or that on such questions, but in the case in question he
+took upon himself to be very decided. He wrote, or got some one to
+write, a report proving that the service of the country imperatively
+demanded that the money should be spent, and in doing so was strictly
+within his duty."
+
+"I am glad to hear that he can be so energetic."
+
+"The Chancellor of the Exchequer got hold of the matter, and told
+Fitzgibbon that the thing couldn't be done."
+
+"That was all right and constitutional, I suppose."
+
+"Quite right and constitutional. But something had to be said about
+it in the House, and Laurence, with all his usual fluency and
+beautiful Irish brogue, got up and explained that the money would be
+absolutely thrown away if expended on a purpose so futile as that
+proposed. I am assured that the great capacity which he has thus
+shown for official work and official life will cover a multitude of
+sins."
+
+"You would hardly have taken Mr. Fitzgibbon as your model statesman."
+
+"Certainly not;--and if the story affected him only it would hardly
+be worth telling. But the point of it lies in this;--that he
+disgusted no one by what he did. The Chancellor of the Exchequer
+thinks him a very convenient man to have about him, and Mr. Gresham
+feels the comfort of possessing tools so pliable."
+
+"Do you think that public life then is altogether a mistake, Mr.
+Finn?"
+
+"For a poor man I think that it is, in this country. A man of fortune
+may be independent; and because he has the power of independence
+those who are higher than he will not expect him to be subservient.
+A man who takes to parliamentary office for a living may live by it,
+but he will have but a dog's life of it."
+
+"If I were you, Mr. Finn, I certainly would not choose a dog's life."
+
+He said not a word to her on that occasion about herself, having
+made up his mind that a certain period of the following day should
+be chosen for the purpose, and he had hardly yet arranged in his
+mind what words he would use on that occasion. It seemed to him that
+there would be so much to be said that he must settle beforehand some
+order of saying it. It was not as though he had merely to tell her of
+his love. There had been talk of love between them before, on which
+occasion he had been compelled to tell her that he could not accept
+that which she offered to him. It would be impossible, he knew, not
+to refer to that former conversation. And then he had to tell her
+that he, now coming to her as a suitor and knowing her to be a very
+rich woman, was himself all but penniless. He was sure, or almost
+sure, that she was as well aware of this fact as he was himself; but,
+nevertheless, it was necessary that he should tell her of it,--and if
+possible so tell her as to force her to believe him when he assured
+her that he asked her to be his wife, not because she was rich, but
+because he loved her. It was impossible that all this should be said
+as they sat side by side in the drawing-room with a crowd of people
+almost within hearing, and Madame Goesler had just been called upon
+to play, which she always did directly she was asked. He was invited
+to make up a rubber, but he could not bring himself to care for cards
+at the present moment. So he sat apart and listened to the music.
+
+If all things went right with him to-morrow that music,--or the
+musician who made it,--would be his own for the rest of his life. Was
+he justified in expecting that she would give him so much? Of her
+great regard for him as a friend he had no doubt. She had shown it in
+various ways, and after a fashion that had made it known to all the
+world. But so had Lady Laura regarded him when he first told her of
+his love at Loughlinter. She had been his dearest friend, but she had
+declined to become his wife; and it had been partly so with Violet
+Effingham, whose friendship to him had been so sweet as to make him
+for a while almost think that there was more than friendship. Marie
+Goesler had certainly once loved him;--but so had he once loved Laura
+Standish. He had been wretched for a while because Lady Laura had
+refused him. His feelings now were altogether changed, and why should
+not the feelings of Madame Goesler have undergone a similar change?
+There was no doubt of her friendship; but then neither was there any
+doubt of his for Lady Laura. And in spite of her friendship, would
+not revenge be dear to her,--revenge of that nature which a slighted
+woman must always desire? He had rejected her, and would it not be
+fair also that he should be rejected? "I suppose you'll be in your
+own room before lunch to-morrow," he said to her as they separated
+for the night. It had come to pass from the constancy of her visits
+to Matching in the old Duke's time, that a certain small morning-room
+had been devoted to her, and this was still supposed to be her
+property,--so that she was not driven to herd with the public or to
+remain in her bedroom during all the hours of the morning. "Yes," she
+said; "I shall go out immediately after breakfast, but I shall soon
+be driven in by the heat, and then I shall be there till lunch. The
+Duchess always comes about half-past twelve, to complain generally of
+the guests." She answered him quite at her ease, making arrangement
+for privacy if he should desire it, but doing so as though she
+thought that he wanted to talk to her about his trial, or about
+politics, or the place he had just refused. Surely she would hardly
+have answered him after such a fashion had she suspected that he
+intended to ask her to be his wife.
+
+At a little before noon the next morning he knocked at her door, and
+was told to enter. "I didn't go out after all," she said. "I hadn't
+courage to face the sun."
+
+"I saw that you were not in the garden."
+
+"If I could have found you I would have told you that I should be
+here all the morning. I might have sent you a message, only--only
+I didn't."
+
+"I have come--"
+
+"I know why you have come."
+
+"I doubt that. I have come to tell you that I love you."
+
+"Oh Phineas;--at last, at last!" And in a moment she was in his arms.
+
+It seemed to him that from that moment all the explanations, and all
+the statements, and most of the assurances were made by her and not
+by him. After this first embrace he found himself seated beside her,
+holding her hand. "I do not know that I am right," said he.
+
+"Why not right?"
+
+"Because you are rich and I have nothing."
+
+"If you ever remind me of that again I will strike you," she said,
+raising up her little fist and bringing it down with gentle pressure
+on his shoulder. "Between you and me there must be nothing more about
+that. It must be an even partnership. There must be ever so much
+about money, and you'll have to go into dreadful details, and make
+journeys to Vienna to see that the houses don't tumble down;--but
+there must be no question between you and me of whence it came."
+
+"You will not think that I have to come to you for that?"
+
+"Have you ever known me to have a low opinion of myself? Is it
+probable that I shall account myself to be personally so mean and of
+so little value as to imagine that you cannot love me? I know you
+love me. But Phineas, I have not been sure till very lately that you
+would ever tell me so. As for me--! Oh, heavens! when I think of it."
+
+"Tell me that you love me now."
+
+"I think I have said so plainly enough. I have never ceased to love
+you since I first knew you well enough for love. And I'll tell you
+more,--though perhaps I shall say what you will think condemns
+me;--you are the only man I ever loved. My husband was very good
+to me,--and I was, I think, good to him. But he was many years my
+senior, and I cannot say I loved him,--as I do you." Then she turned
+to him, and put her head on his shoulder. "And I loved the old Duke,
+too, after a fashion. But it was a different thing from this. I will
+tell you something about him some day that I have never yet told to a
+human being."
+
+"Tell me now."
+
+"No; not till I am your wife. You must trust me. But I will tell
+you," she said, "lest you should be miserable. He asked me to be his
+wife."
+
+"The old Duke?"
+
+"Yes, indeed, and I refused to be a--duchess. Lady Glencora knew it
+all, and, just at the time I was breaking my heart,--like a fool, for
+you! Yes, for you! But I got over it, and am not broken-hearted a
+bit. Oh, Phineas, I am so happy now."
+
+Exactly at the time she had mentioned on the previous evening, at
+half-past twelve, the door was opened, and the Duchess entered the
+room. "Oh dear," she exclaimed, "perhaps I am in the way; perhaps I
+am interrupting secrets."
+
+"No, Duchess."
+
+"Shall I retire? I will at once if there be anything confidential
+going on."
+
+"It has gone on already, and been completed," said Madame Goesler
+rising from her seat. "It is only a trifle. Mr. Finn has asked me to
+be his wife."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I couldn't refuse Mr. Finn a little thing like that."
+
+"I should think not, after going all the way to Prague to find a
+latch-key! I congratulate you, Mr. Finn, with all my heart."
+
+"Thanks, Duchess."
+
+"And when is it to be?"
+
+"We have not thought about that yet, Mr. Finn,--have we?" said Madame
+Goesler.
+
+"Adelaide Palliser is going to be married from here some time in the
+autumn," said the Duchess, "and you two had better take advantage of
+the occasion." This plan, however, was considered as being too rapid
+and rash. Marriage is a very serious affair, and many things would
+require arrangement. A lady with the wealth which belonged to Madame
+Goesler cannot bestow herself off-hand as may a curate's daughter,
+let her be ever so willing to give her money as well as herself. It
+was impossible that a day should be fixed quite at once; but the
+Duchess was allowed to understand that the affair might be mentioned.
+Before dinner on that day every one of the guests at Matching Priory
+knew that the man who had refused to be made Under-Secretary of State
+had been accepted by that possessor of fabulous wealth who was well
+known to the world as Madame Goesler of Park Lane. "I am very glad
+that you did not take office under Mr. Gresham," she said to him when
+they first met each other again in London. "Of course when I was
+advising you I could not be sure that this would happen. Now you can
+bide your time, and if the opportunity offers you can go to work
+under better auspices."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXX.
+
+CONCLUSION.
+
+
+There remains to us the very easy task of collecting together the
+ends of the thread of our narrative, and tying them into a simple
+knot, so that there may be no unravelling. Of Mr. Emilius it has been
+already said that his good fortune clung to him so far that it was
+found impossible to connect him with the tragedy of Bolton Row. But
+he was made to vanish for a certain number of years from the world,
+and dear little Lizzie Eustace was left a free woman. When last we
+heard of her she was at Naples, and there was then a rumour that
+she was about to join her fate to that of Lord George de Bruce
+Carruthers, with whom pecuniary matters had lately not been going
+comfortably. Let us hope that the match, should it be a match, may
+lead to the happiness and respectability of both of them.
+
+As all the world knows, Lord and Lady Chiltern still live at
+Harrington Hall, and he has been considered to do very well with
+the Brake country. He still grumbles about Trumpeton Wood, and says
+that it will take a lifetime to repair the injuries done by Mr.
+Fothergill;--but then who ever knew a Master of Hounds who wasn't
+ill-treated by the owners of coverts?
+
+Of Mr. Tom Spooner it can only be said that he is still a bachelor,
+living with his cousin Ned, and that none of the neighbours expect
+to see a lady at Spoon Hall. In one winter, after the period of his
+misfortune, he became slack about his hunting, and there were rumours
+that he was carrying out that terrible threat of his as to the
+crusade which he would go to find a cure for his love. But his cousin
+took him in hand somewhat sharply, made him travel abroad during the
+summer, and brought him out the next season, "as fresh as paint,"
+as the members of the Brake Hunt declared. It was known to every
+sportsman in the country that poor Mr. Spooner had been in love; but
+the affair was allowed to be a mystery, and no one ever spoke to
+Spooner himself upon the subject. It is probable that he now reaps no
+slight amount of gratification from his memory of the romance.
+
+The marriage between Gerard Maule and Adelaide Palliser was
+celebrated with great glory at Matching, and was mentioned in all the
+leading papers as an alliance in high life. When it became known to
+Mr. Maule, Senior, that this would be so, and that the lady would
+have a very considerable fortune from the old Duke, he reconciled
+himself to the marriage altogether, and at once gave way in that
+matter of Maule Abbey. Nothing he thought would be more suitable than
+that the young people should live at the old family place. So Maule
+Abbey was fitted up, and Mr. and Mrs. Maule have taken up their
+residence there. Under the influence of his wife he has promised to
+attend to his farming, and proposes to do no more than go out and see
+the hounds when they come into his neighbourhood. Let us hope that he
+may prosper. Should the farming come to a good end more will probably
+have been due to his wife's enterprise than to his own. The energetic
+father is, as all the world knows, now in pursuit of a widow with
+three thousand a year who has lately come out in Cavendish Square.
+
+Of poor Lord Fawn no good account can be given. To his thinking,
+official life had none of those drawbacks with which the fantastic
+feelings of Phineas Finn had invested it. He could have been happy
+for ever at the India Board or at the Colonial Office;--but his life
+was made a burden to him by the affair of the Bonteen murder. He was
+charged with having nearly led to the fatal catastrophe of Phineas
+Finn's condemnation by his erroneous evidence, and he could not bear
+the accusation. Then came the further affair of Mr. Emilius, and his
+mind gave way;--and he disappeared. Let us hope that he may return
+some day with renewed health, and again be of service to his country.
+
+Poetical justice reached Mr. Quintus Slide of The People's Banner.
+The acquittal and following glories of Phineas Finn were gall and
+wormwood to him; and he continued his attack upon the member for
+Tankerville even after it was known that he had refused office, and
+was about to be married to Madame Goesler. In these attacks he made
+allusions to Lady Laura which brought Lord Chiltern down upon him,
+and there was an action for libel. The paper had to pay damages and
+costs, and the proprietors resolved that Mr. Quintus Slide was too
+energetic for their purposes. He is now earning his bread in some
+humble capacity on the staff of The Ballot Box,--which is supposed
+to be the most democratic daily newspaper published in London. Mr.
+Slide has, however, expressed his intention of seeking his fortune in
+New York.
+
+Laurence Fitzgibbon certainly did himself a good turn by his obliging
+deference to the opinion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He has
+been in office ever since. It must be acknowledged of all our leading
+statesmen that gratitude for such services is their characteristic.
+It is said that he spends much of his eloquence in endeavouring to
+make his wife believe that the air of County Mayo is the sweetest in
+the world. Hitherto, since his marriage, this eloquence has been
+thrown away, for she has always been his companion through the
+Session in London.
+
+It is rumoured that Barrington Erle is to be made Secretary for
+Ireland, but his friends doubt whether the office will suit him.
+
+The marriage between Marie Goesler and our hero did not take place
+till October, and then they went abroad for the greater part of the
+winter, Phineas having received leave of absence officially from
+the Speaker and unofficially from his constituents. After all that
+he had gone through it was acknowledged that so much ease should
+be permitted to him. They went first to Vienna, and then back into
+Italy, and were unheard of by their English friends for nearly six
+months. In April they reappeared in London, and the house in Park
+Lane was opened with great _eclat_. Of Phineas every one says that
+of all living men he has been the most fortunate. The present writer
+will not think so unless he shall soon turn his hand to some useful
+task. Those who know him best say that he will of course go into
+office before long.
+
+Of poor Lady Laura hardly a word need be said. She lives at Saulsby
+the life of a recluse, and the old Earl her father is still alive.
+
+The Duke, as all the world knows, is on the very eve of success with
+the decimal coinage. But his hair is becoming grey, and his back is
+becoming bent; and men say that he will never live as long as his
+uncle. But then he will have done a great thing,--and his uncle did
+only little things. Of the Duchess no word need be said. Nothing will
+ever change the Duchess.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PHINEAS REDUX***
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